Note from Changing Organisations Cell 2
Second meeting of the Better Way ‘Changing Organisations’ cell, 8th September 2020
1. SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS
We heard how different organisations are attempting to practise radical listening, from small community organisations to large national charities and local authorities. Their experience suggests that the following are essential elements:
Small scale conversations, often one-to-one, where those in a leadership or management role hold themselves back from problem-solving , and instead create a social space for people as service users and citizens to talk about what really matters to them, and using this to inform what the organisation does.
Moving away from centrally-conceived organisational plans and targets towards a shared set of guiding principles, which allow for maximum adaptability and responsiveness at the front-line.
Making time for everyone to practice radical listening, as a core activity.
At our next meeting we will consider how to make more of this happen, and in particular the role of Boards, and of local authorities.
2. IN MORE DETAIL
Caroline Slocock, co-convenor of a Better Way, explained that this was a second meeting to explore further the Better Way Call to Action theme of ‘changing organisations to focus on communities and solutions’, and in particular putting those we serve first, listening to and reflecting them in everything we do.
In our first meeting Karin Woodley had described her experience of radical listening at Cambridge House, creating informal spaces with an open agenda for people to talk about the things that matter to them and develop the work of the organisation accordingly, as well as changing the composition of staff and volunteers to become more like the community served.
Caroline noted that radical listening is difficult, but seems to be central to many elements of Better Way thinking, including sharing power, and changing the narrative, as other Better Way cells have been exploring. So in this our second meeting we want to explore further the ‘essence’ of radical listening. Caroline introduced our two speakers:
MARGARET ADJAYE, CEO OF THE UPPER NORWOOD LIBRARY HUB
Margaret described how she spends time with service users who come to the Library Hub, having informal conversations, asking how they are feeling, what is going on in their lives, what is not right, what could be improved.
The Library Hub provides various well-being as well as library and learning services, and support for enterprise start-up. Many of the Hub activities have emerged from ‘nuggets’ of informal conversation, not from formal consultation exercises. For example a chat over an hour or two with an elderly lady, who was isolated and lonely, led to a very popular ‘tea and tech’ service, where around 30 people at a time take refreshments and socialise with others, while also learning how to use computers.
Margaret is also the convenor of the national Community-Managed Libraries Peer Network. During COVID-19 many of the 480 people in that network have been calling Margaret, looking for help, and sharing ideas about how to maintain or adapt their service and support their local community.
In Margaret’s experience it is the incidental and one-to one discussions that matter most, whether in the library space, on the phone or on Zoom, hearing stories, sharing sorrows, and celebrating together.
Radical listening, she said, depends a lot on the listener, as a person, being humble enough, and having the time to sit down and talk to people, to hear what they say and respond accordingly. If it is not possible to deliver what people are looking for, then it is important to say so, but when it is in the listener’s gift or power, then it becomes possible to work with people to make something worthwhile happen.
FRANCES DUNCAN, CEO OF THE CLOCK TOWER SANCTUARY (CTS) IN BRIGHTON
The CTS works with young people in crisis, to avoid them becoming part of the long term homeless population. The following diagram describes the opportunities the CTS is developing for young people to have a voice, with the timeline showing the time it may take to reach that point.
As the diagram shows, the work begins with individual self-expression, to help young people understand what the CTS does, understand more about themselves, and express themselves (in positive or less positive ways) about what they want and what they need. Sometimes what young people say is uncomfortable to listen to. The interactions depend on trust and an enabling environment, and at the CTS, young people do not need to ‘jump through hoops’ to receive services.
The blue oval in the diagram includes the stage when young people are encouraged to influence what the organisation does internally and includes a ‘wall of words’ where the things that they say are placed, to bring about internal change. They’ve found that one to one consultation and residential awaydays work better than a ‘client council’.
The green oval shows how they hope young people work will with the CTS in presenting to external audiences, at forums and conferences, or by acting as mentors, running their own workshops, creating a film, telling their own stories (not CTS stories), meeting with funders and corporate partners.
Finally, the orange section indicates how, as a small team with limited expertise and capacity, the CTS works with others, pulling in expertise from elsewhere.
Frances mentioned that Karin Woodley’s essay on radical listening in the Better Way Insights collection became a blueprint for revolutionising the way her organisation engages with young people. This included enabling staff to have more time for listening, and over half of the staff and Board now have experience of issues the young people face. Frances believes that placing young people on the CTS Board would be tokenistic at best, but Board members are all expected to spend some time as frontline volunteers in the organisation as part of their induction. The CTS tries to build an atmosphere where staff and volunteers and the Board feel able to challenge the organisational status quo, and, for example, young people are invited to suggest the training needs of staff. This had taken time, as it involved a change of culture.
Because CTS are not paid by results linked to specific outcomes, CTS are able instead to use guiding values developed in discussion with those the young people they worked with, the first of which is that the people we serve come first, and they used these as a checklist against which they continuously judge what they do.
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Breakout sessions were then held to consider further the essence of radical listening. In the following discussion participants made the following points:
SOCIAL SPACES CAN GENERATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR LISTENING
It is important to provide a ‘social space’, a version of ‘home’ which feels safe where unplanned and unexpected conversations can happen. The Upper Norwood Library Hub, for example, has a community bar, and a theatre, and these provide a space for people to come together and to socialise, and from this many other things can emerge.
PEOPLE ARE NOT ‘HARD TO REACH’, IN A ONE-TO-ONE DISCUSSION
There are many people who appear ‘hard to reach’ because they don’t want to engage in formal consultation exercises but they can be engaged in one-to-one discussions in an informal setting. And that can lead to services that are truly accessible, and valued, and used by all parts of a community to a much greater degree.
LEADERS MUST BEHAVE DIFFERENTLY
People in leadership roles need to move away from problem-solving and instead model radical listening, by simply sitting and listening, not summing up, not providing leading questions, not fitting what people say into some preconceived notion of what they want to do. Leaders need to shut up, listen from beginning to end, and let people finish what they are saying.
Action which shows people have been heard and what is changing has to follow. Sometimes this means listening to and acting on things which appear less important to managers, at least to start with, and remembering ‘it’s not about me’ – what feels important to service users is important. Two examples were given of people being consulted asking for better quality toilet paper, or wanting more teaspoons in the kitchen area. There’s also a deeper message there: people want the place to feel more like their home, and less like an institution.
Leaders also need to be willing to have a more honest conversation with funders and commissioners. Otherwise, the decisions about what should be done are set by funders and cascaded down through organisations, and what the users actually want is disregarded.
ORGANISATIONS NEED TO ALLOW TIME FOR RADICAL LISTENING
It can sometimes feel as if radical listening can only happen in ‘stolen moments’, a guilty diversion from real work. But radical listening, for managers and for frontline staff, is the real work. Without it, everything else will fail to produce true value. It does take time, but this is time that is well spent.
RADICAL LISTENING REQUIRES A SHIFT AWAY FROM PLANS AND TARGETS TOWARDS PRINCIPLES
Some organisations are attempting to change the way they operate, with a different theory of change. This includes moving away from centralised planning and control and targets towards a set of core principles (which act as ‘strategic anchors’ or ‘guiding lights’) that encourage greater local autonomy, including self-managed teams, with the intention that the people they support should be at the centre of decision making.
EVERYONE HAS A CONTRIBUTION TO MAKE
In order to develop good strategy the conversation needs to involve everyone, service users, staff and Board, where possible drawing out shared experience.
STATUTORY ORGANISATIONS NEED TO MOVE TO HUMAN SCALE LISTENING
For those working in a statutory setting it can be especially difficult to move beyond formalised ways of operating, and practice radical listening. In Northern Ireland community infrastructure is well developed and community planning is enshrined in legislation but, in a society that remains divided in many ways, it is not easy to reach common agreement, and some voices remain unheard. Community Foundation Northern Ireland has introduced a deliberative democracy programme, and it was suggested that informal contact with citizens on a smaller scale (whether in person or online) allows a greater level of interaction and understanding, and can be more productive than larger scale exercises which can become de-personalised and can reinforce division.