Joining forces: unequal alliances
The topic was ‘Where there are big differences between organisations, in size, resources, status, for example, what are the best ways to join forces?’
The first speaker was Cate Newness Smith, CEO of Surrey Youth Focus, who drew on her experience of setting up Time for Kids, an alliance across sectors which aims to make Surrey a better place for children and young people.
The second speaker was Steve Wyler, co-convenor of the Better Way network, who reflected on his experience in the 1990s when running Homeless Network, a coalition of charities tackling rough sleeping in central London. The charities were very unequal in terms of size, profile, and influence, but nevertheless various strategies were used to encourage collaborative working, including for example a requirement that members would share their development plans at an early stage.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
Unequal alliances should be celebrated – good things can come from bringing large and small, included and excluded, into a common collaborative space. And it helps to be honest about the imbalances, to call them into the room.
Most can be achieved when starting with a blank sheet of paper, rather than addressing the detail of an agenda that has already been set. Therefore, it is important to seek out places where influence is possible, operating outside the formal established structures if necessary, and go where the energy is.
Those who work in small organisations may need to change their mental model, and build confidence in their own voice when engaging with those who have senior roles in large institutions - remembering that small organisations have real strengths, not least that they can be fleet of foot.
There is always a tussle between self-interest and mutual interest. People may be willing to set aside organisational rivalries and jealousies, in favour of pursing a common goal. But pressure and stress can close down creativity and reduce mental capacity to join forces with others. So, this often needs skilful management, and the presence of an independent and trusted convenor can be very helpful.
Joining Forces for Levelling Up
In this meeting we explored the following questions: ‘What types of local or regional collaboration are most likely to generate the shared purpose, determination and energy needed to drive the Levelling-Up agenda. What should a community covenant (as proposed by Government) look like?’
(The community covenant idea is described as follows in the Government’s 2021 Levelling Up White Paper: ‘A Covenant approach would see local authorities and communities work together to take a holistic look at the health of local civic and community life, set out a driving ambition for their area, and share power and resources to achieve this.’)
The first speaker was Cate Newnes-Smith, CEO of Surrey Youth Focus and ‘thought-leader’ for the Joining Forces strand of our work. She was followed by Sally Young, former CEO of the Newcastle Council for Voluntary Service.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
From on high, it can appear that Levelling-Up requires first and foremost a set of structural solutions (combined authorities, powerful Mayors, investment plans), with tangible outcomes (new rail links, for example). But Levelling-Up requires more focus on community development, and less on physical infrastructure, it was suggested.
This implies an appreciative inquiry approach by national and local government, not ‘This is what we are planning to do, what do you think of it’, but rather ‘What matters to you, what do you want to see happen?’
Where possible, there should an asset-based approach, building on existing and potential community strengths, along the lines of the Community Catalysts model for example.
Action should take place wherever possible in small places, because the wider the geographic scope, the more likely that significant local characteristics will be overlooked. The concept of 20-minute neighbourhoods is a good starting point (everything people need should be within 20 minutes travel time).
The conditions should be set so that many brave leaders can come forward (not a single person for a region) to drive the necessary changes.
Collaborative efforts can be encouraged in various ways, e.g. though Community Improvement Districts, or local tech platforms. Investment in community anchor organisations is one way to ensure long term coordinated community-led effort on the ground.
There is a need for better methods to help people operating at local level to make common cause with each other, and with those at regional and national levels. The principles of ‘sociocracy’ – decision making by consent rather than majority voting - may be useful.
We must not repeat the mistakes of previous regeneration programmes or the Big Society initiative. In England there may be positive things to learn from efforts elsewhere, including the Community Empowerment Act in Scotland.
A sustained effort will be needed over many years. Short term initiatives by themselves will not bring about Levelling-Up.
Joining Forces: learning from campaigns
The topic for this meeting was: ‘What can we learn from tenacious and well-supported campaigns about joining forces for the long term?’
The speaker was Ollie Hilbery, Director of the Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) coalition. This is a coalition of national charities, Clinks, Homeless Link, Mind and Collective Voice, representing over 1,300 frontline organisations across England. They are working together to bring about systems change in local services for people facing multiple disadvantage.
Here are some of the key points made by Ollie and by others in the discussion:
Resources. To manage and sustain a partnership requires resources. This includes money (ideally core funding) but also leadership commitment from all partners, and continuity of key individuals.
Strategic recommitment. It is a good idea to periodically ask the question ‘Are we still up for this?’ and to have an honest discussion about that.
Managing the ebb and flow. There can be risks when the partners drift too far apart, but also when they come too close. The partnership needs to be alert to these risks, and take action if necessary.
Unwritten rules. There may be a partnership agreement, but some things which may not be written down must be observed. For example: no bidding against each other, no surprises.
Size of the partnership. A small number is best suited for intense co-operation over a long period. When the campaign requires a much larger alliance to be successful, there might be a core group and a wider membership, with a clear purpose and a strong and respected brand to hold it all together.
Inequalities within the partnership. Larger organisations need to behave with humility, not claiming power they don’t deserve – the small organisation may be able to offer insights or specialisms which are larger partners don’t have. In a good partnership all have equal weight, regardless of size.
Disagreements. Relationship need to be strong enough to have a falling out and get back together again.
The inherent value of partnership. For some the partnership is a good in itself, for others it is a necessary means to an end - many sit on a spectrum somewhere between the two.
Further reading: See this blog by Cate Newnes-Smith.
Joining forces for Integrated Health and Care
The advent of the Integrated Care Systems should be an opportunity for organisations across sectors to join forces in a way that was not possible before. But it all seems a bit daunting. ‘So how should this best be approached?’ was the question we explored in this meeting.
Our first speaker was Samira ben Omar, previously Head of System Change at the North West London Collaboration of Clinical Commissioning Groups, and now working independently.
Our second speaker was John Mortimer, previously at Vanguard Consulting, now also working independently.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
The formal health system cannot bring about good health by itself. 80% or more of the drivers of health are elsewhere. The NHS needs to join forces with others.
There are serious problems of health discrimination and inequality, made more evident during the pandemic. So when joining forces, it is always necessary to consider who is included, who needs to be reached, and what discriminatory policies or practices need to be tackled.
It is important to unlearn, in order to shift towards a more creative and relational set of practices. In particular, we need to move away from the proliferation of committees, which have often become a ‘place of performance’, rather than drivers of improvement or change.
Instead, we need to establish new spaces for people to come together to share power, from neighbourhood level upwards. The ‘Us & Them’ culture is toxic in the health system. We will only address that if we create more opportunities for people to discover their shared humanity.
It is important not to make assumptions about what people want. Instead, we need to shift the whole system towards person-centred design. This includes asking open questions, listening together, bringing back answers. It also means giving front line teams the freedom to organise their work differently: to understand at first hand the experiences of individual people in the system, then experiment, prototype, and make normal.
Public sector organisations need to ‘let go’ more. Communities do most when they can decide for themselves, it was said.
We need to remember that in partnership working the quick fix is never successful. Worthwhile change will take time, and commitment must therefore be long term.
We need to resist pressure from NHS England or elsewhere to meet immediate targets, and we should be wary of putting too much faith in new structures. It’s the shared purpose held by committed people connecting across organisations and sectors and hierarchies that will get the best results.
New Public Management, with its fixation on target-setting, cannot co-exist with Integrated Working, which needs the freedom to practice relational methods. The former has failed to drive down costs and improve health outcomes - the latter now needs to be given a chance.
Joining Forces: imbalances and inequalities
Summary of key points
The theme of the discussion was ‘Imbalances and inequalities: How can we recognise the imbalances and inequalities that exist in collaborations and agree standards for behaviour that enable participation by all?’
The main points which emerged from the discussion were:
Organisations operate in a highly competitive funding environment and this can exacerbate imbalances and inequalities within partnerships.
Dominant partners can sometimes abuse their power, and in the worst cases this needs to be called out more, and mobilised against.
On the other hand it is possible to recognise and embrace disagreement and conflict, in ways that allow this to become a stimulant to innovation.
And things often work best when we start by assuming the best, rather than the worst, in others.
Furthermore, there are techniques and tactics which can be used to help everyone appreciate better what each partner brings, and skilled connectors can also play a useful role.
Above all, establishing a common purpose, and seeing the bigger picture, especially when this is done together with those who are beneficiaries, and those working at the front line, can encourage more generous and less self-interested behaviours.
In more detail
Steve Wyler, co-convenor introduced the model of change set out in the recent Better Way publication Time for a Change, which some have called the Better Way ‘beachball’:
In this cell we are exploring the ‘joining forces’ element of this model while noting that there are connections between all four elements, and indeed that applying them in combination makes each more effective.
Our focus this time was ‘How can we recognise the imbalances and inequalities that exist in collaborations and agree standards for behaviour that enable participation by all’.
As Cate Newnes Smith, thought-leader for this cell, pointed out, lives are complex, and public services generally try to compartmentalise needs, but this leaves may gaps, and that’s one of the main reasons we need to join forces. ‘Joining forces’ is a helpful concept she felt, because it implies combining the power of organisations, rather than them doing their own things.
Cate has found it difficult to find instances where inequalities in partnerships have truly been successfully addressed. She shared an example of a service ‘alliance’ between an NHS Trust and 12 charities where the NHS England commissioners of the service made deliberate attempts to address inherent inequalities in the partnership, e.g. by requiring that £4.5m of the £24m available needed to be distributed to the charities. But despite this, the standard top-down contract management model which NHS England has applied has not been helpful for alliance building and sharing of power.
We also had a presentation from Arvinda Gohil, CEO of Central YMCA. She pointed out that in partnerships between organisations there is often an inherent inequality, where one is dominant, adopts the leadership role and is the gateway to the money. This can be aggravated by funders and commissioners who want the reach that comes from partnerships but prefer to deal with just one organisation, because this keeps things simple for themselves.
Contractual relationships can be constructed to create an ‘upper hand’ for a larger, more powerful partner, over a smaller, less experienced organisation. Arvinda spoke of her experience when she ran a housing association in the North, newly set up to improve access to housing for the Black community, and partnered with another much larger asset-rich housing association, to be the developer of new housing. The contract stipulated that the developer would retain profits over an agreed pricing level and in the event the scheme was highly profitable. In this case Arvinda was eventually able, but only with the help of a third party, to negotiate a profit-share agreement.
More recently, Arvinda was leading a smaller organisation which merged with a larger one because it was not financially viable on its own, in order to safeguard services for a poor community in London. However, following the merger, the dominant partner asserted its authority and ability to overrule, repeatedly saying ‘we own you’. This led to a difficult relationship, one that Arvinda eventually felt she had no option but to leave.
More positively, Arvinda has now found herself in the role of running a larger organisation which has offered its sports and exercise facilities as well as staffing support to a small youth club working with young Black and Asian men, in exchange for a small affiliation fee. This is working well, said Arvinda, and she believes that it is indeed possible to live the positive values of collaboration, but this requires determination and commitment from those in leadership roles, especially where they are the stronger partner.
Steve shared a further example, where some years ago Groundswell, a small homelessness charity, which was struggling financially at the time, was transferred into the ownership of Thames Reach, a much larger charity, to ensure its survival. Groundswell subsequently thrived, and when it reached the point where it could once again operate independently, Thames Reach allowed this to happen, without requiring anything in return. This, Steve felt, was an outstanding example of selfless behaviour by a larger organisation, but one that is unfortunately uncommon.
Discussion
Breakout sessions were then held to consider the question: ’What standards of behaviour in collaborations would enable participation by all?’ In the feedback and further discussion participants made the following points:
What gets in the way
Many organisations operate in a highly competitive environment and leaders are programmed to protect their own organisation first and foremost. Unless we can change this, and encourage leaders to think less about their own organisation and more about the shared impact they can achieve with others, the harmful inequalities and imbalances will persist.
We cannot assume that positive and generous motivations will always be present, and some people and organisations are driven by a need to dominate.
Even when people are willing to work together for a common aim, their own behaviour can get in the way, for example, if someone asserts that their favoured solution is the only one that will work, and is unwilling to make space for other possibilities to emerge.
Where funding depends on the partnership, and one partner holds the purse strings, there is an inevitable inequality and imbalance.
In service delivery partnerships, the imposition of predetermined targets can become a means of control and this can reinforce power imbalances.
How to generate positive behaviours
A shared common aim, where shared investment leads to shared success, is more likely to drive positive behaviour than a set of standards.
A focus on what can be done that actually makes a difference to people’s lives, with co-production as a guiding principle, including involvement of recipients of a service and of people at the front line of delivery, developing priorities together, can generate a shift away from organisations positioning themselves for their own advantage.
In the best partnerships everyone is respected for whatever they bring, whether that is resources, or connections, or expertise, regardless of the size or strength of the organisation.
A state of mind that starts with assuming the best of everyone else in the partnership can help a great deal to bring out good behaviours in the group.
There are techniques and tactics which can be deployed where there are imbalances, for example different forms of meetings that enable greater participation and encouraged shared solutions.
Restorative practice can help to shift organisational culture in favour of better collaboration, for example being non-judgmental, person-centred, and empathic. Appreciative inquiry can help people understand what everyone wants to achieve and what everyone can bring to the shared task.
Leadership needs to be flexible, agile, and adaptive, using evaluation to learn and improve impacts, which can help to build a culture of collaboration, rather than seeking to prove impact, which can make collaboration more difficult.
Collaboration in a competitive environment
In the commercial world, companies which are engaging in fierce competition for customers can nevertheless sometimes find themselves able to collaborate, for example by sharing best practice, or by establishing buying clubs, to get better deals.
Organisations tackling complex and wicked social problems will need to collaborate, to achieve any worthwhile impact, even though they are at the same time in competition for funds. This is a tension that they need to understand and manage.
It is sometime possible to push back against commissioners in a concerted way, and encourage them to adopt commissioning models that will lead to more collaborative and less competitive practices.
The role of connectors
Connectors (trusted people who are skilled in identifying common interests, and can make introductions and encourage co-operation) can play a big part in establishing and maintaining productive and well-balanced partnerships, and investing in the connector role can be very worthwhile.
Embracing conflict
Positive collaborations need to be willing to recognise and embrace disagreement and conflict, not least where there are complex ‘wicked’ problems that don’t lend themselves to simple solutions.
If something is not working well it is better to address this openly and have the difficult conversation, rather than allowing things to fester. Conflict should, it was suggested, become normalised, making it a stimulant to innovation rather than a stimulant to divisiveness.
It can be helpful to make potential disagreements and conflicts explicit at the outset of any collaboration.
Shifting power
Sticking together in a partnership requires team work and discipline, but when that is achieved and sustained through thick and thin, it is possible to shift power imbalances.
The most powerful thing is the truth, it was said. Those who have small amounts of money or other resources, but have the truth (especially when connected to a social injustice) can find themselves able to influence others and win allies.
The need to call out abuses of power
Sharing power is really hard for many individuals and institutions, including local government and the civil service, who have a tendency to accumulate and hoard and sometimes abuse power.
There is a need sometimes to call this out, mobilise to challenge abuses of power, and stand by those who are treated unfairly.
And finally…
In partnerships there is a need to make a deliberate effort to stand back and appreciate the whole in order to ‘see the elephant’, otherwise people are likely to have very different and narrow perspectives, and fail to appreciate the wider task:
Future meetings
21st September, 3.00pm-4.30. Joining forces across sectors, including with the private sector: How can we build alliances not just between the voluntary and public sectors but also with the business sector?
19th October, 3.00pm-4.30. Joining forces to inspire, rather than to control: If, in our collaborations, we seek to control the actions of others we may be preventing the growth of something bigger, a wider social movement. So, can we ‘let go’ when we collaborate, without losing our way?
Joining Forces: building systems leadership into job roles at all levels
Summary of key points
The theme of the discussion was ‘Systems leadership: How can we build systems leadership into job roles at all levels, and help people to do this from a perceived position of no organisational power?’ The main points which emerged from the discussion were:
Systems leadership is capable of being exercised far more widely, and at many more levels, including at the frontline of services, than is often assumed.
But for this to happen, we need to build a different culture and set of expectations about what good leadership looks like.
And we need to create psychological safety, especially for those in front line roles. So that they feel they have a role to play, believe that their voice will be equally heard and thought about, and are confident that they can contribute their own ideas and perspectives.
We also need to pay attention to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion so that participation in systems leadership activities can be truly inclusive rather than simply the preserve of a relatively privileged minority.
The leadership models associated with New Public Management are a very real barrier to progress, and these are deeply embedded. So this is not an easy journey, and the changes are especially difficult for large national organisations, where claiming credit is fundamental to maintaining income and profile.
But, it was suggested, the conditions to make progress are perhaps more favourable now than they were before, because during the pandemic it became obvious that many things worked better when more responsibility was devolved to the front line, and that operating at a greater level of trust was more viable than many had expected.
Most progress will be made when there is a clear understanding that, first and foremost, everyone should be working for what the community needs rather than what the organisation needs.
In more detail
Steve Wyler, co-convenor introduced the model of change set out in the recent Better Way publication Time for a Change, which some have called the Better Way ‘beachball’:
In this cell we are exploring the ‘joining forces’ element of this model while noting that there are connections between all four elements, and indeed that applying them in combination makes each more effective.
Our focus this time was ‘How can we build systems leadership into job roles at all levels’. As Cate Newnes Smith, thought-leader for this cell, pointed out, we need everyone to be playing a part in bringing about systems change. It is not enough to have a group of senior leaders in a room somewhere trying to change a system. The richness often comes from the front line.
We started with two presentations:
Nadine Smith described the challenges that face systems leaders. It takes a long time to unlearn the models and behaviours of New Public Management. Nadine spoke of her experience in Whitehall, where everyone wants to be the best, to have the answers, to be the hero.
One reason why New Public Management hasn’t died is because we lack an alternative that is clear. But the conversations on how to build a different kind of leadership are nevertheless developing in a healthy experimental way in many parts of government, and are promoted by public sector reform networks such as One Team Gov.
Systems leadership training tells leaders that their role is not to control, but rather to create the right conditions for good things to happen. But this is very daunting in the civil service, where performance management reviews insist on answers to questions such as ‘What did you do, what was your role?’ and pay rises and promotions are awarded accordingly.
Systems leaders know that they need to take account of complexity, and the Human Learning Systems model pioneered by Toby Lowe provides helpful guidance on what leaders can do when faced with complexity. The Centre for Public Impact has a forthcoming report which will catalogue a wide variety of approaches, from across the world, which embody the spirit of systems leadership and Human Learning Systems.
One big challenge is how to measure and evaluate in a system that is complex and messy. This, suggested Nadine, requires new methods to capture different types of information, including stories, emotions, and relationships. And it is necessary to ask whose voice is missing, to consider how untested assumptions obscure the truth.
It is also useful to adopt methods that can evaluate programmes in real time, and which can provide a running commentary on them. Measuring for control can create perverse incentives in the system, and it is better to use measurement for learning, not control.
Systems leaders can easily become burnt out. In part this is because they are worried about the whole system, and about accountability and responsibility. Systems leaders need a really good team around them. If they don’t sleep well at night it might be because there aren’t people around them they can trust.
The Human Learning Systems Approach uses VEST as a guide for systems leaders:
· Variety – respond to the variety of human need and experience
· Empathy – use empathy to understand the lives of others
· Strength – view people from a strengths-based perspective
· Trust – trust people with decision-making
It is also important to remain open to that which is unexpected. Nadine quoted the words of a senior civil servant Clare Moriarty, who said: ‘I came across happy accidents. Things that changed my view of the world without me planning for it. It led to enlightenment and deep learning.’
Polly Neate
Everything on the Better Way ‘beachball’ is really difficult for a national organisation like Shelter, said Polly. But we cannot ignore the importance of large national organisations, where so much resource and capacity is concentrated.
At Shelter, work is in progress to do things differently, with a new approach to local services, working within communities to provide a base for systems change.
Shelter has appointed three community development workers, with the aim of bringing people who have lived experience of homelessness to the centre of local decision making. This is not about placing Shelter at the centre. If no-one recognised Shelter’s role, that really doesn’t matter, says Polly.
For example, in Bournemouth, over the last six months, the community development worker has established links with a variety of local partners to achieve more input of people with lived experience into a consultation about the local authority homelessness strategy, and their recommendations were included in the strategy. She hosted a consultation on a women-only centre in Dorset, to establish a housing case for this centre. She set up a partnership with a Gypsy and Traveller forum, to consider how the new trespass Bill could lead to homelessness and loss of property, and Shelter was able to take up these issues in its national lobbying. While carrying out this work, it became clear that there are widespread problems with mould in Gypsy and Traveller caravans, and the Shelter DIY skills adviser, funded through a B&Q partnership, was able to offer support to address this. The community development worker also formed relationships with the Dorset Race Equality Council and other organisations working with minoritised communities, and one result of this has been that Shelter has provided free training on housing rights, benefits, and debt advice to these small grass roots organisations, so that they themselves can provide advice to their community members in future.
These are examples of activities which, as a large national charity, Shelter would not traditionally have undertaken. But the locally based community development workers have already been able to expand the charity’s reach, and bring national resources to bear to support local efforts, without having to be worried about branding everything as a Shelter project.
The biggest challenge for Shelter, as it localises more and more, is how to align the local and national operations. At national level, Shelter has effective and well-resourced media, campaigns and policy and research teams, but has had to scale back some national campaign activities in order to redirect resources to local activities, and this hasn’t been easy for everyone to understand.
The whole exercise has raised big questions about how to make the most impact, and what is counted as impact. Working at a national level, and trying to persuade the current government to do things differently, is resource intensive and difficult. Sometimes the impact that can happen locally is just as important, and indeed sometimes achieves a greater level of change.
But a shift from national campaigning to local influencing is very hard for a national charity like Shelter. Particularly when Shelter’s own role in bringing about change needs to be prominent in order to attract the funding and recognition which is necessary to remain a strong national charity, and without which it would not have the resources to support local community-based systems leadership of the type Polly has described.
Discussion
Breakout sessions were then held to consider the question: how can we build systems leadership into job roles at all levels, not just at the apex of the organisation? In the feedback and further discussion participants made the following points:
A different culture of leadership
A shift from the Me to the We requires that that leaders have to be present at all levels of an organisation, not just at the top.
But this cannot happen without a different culture of leadership. Not expecting leaders to have all the answers, challenging them to think differently, allowing them to fail in the pursuit of change.
We all need to unlearn the engrained top-down assumptions about leadership. Education is a problem. From early childhood most people are kept in their box, they are not encouraged to develop their leadership qualities, or play their part in shared leadership, or as followers as well. Furthermore, schools don’t encourage systems thinking.
Those that are able to exercise a systems leadership role are in a relatively privileged position. There is a responsibility on them to model a shift in culture and behaviour in their own practices, to be credible and authentic.
Establishing inclusive psychological safety
Systems change requires the contribution of multiple top-down and bottom-up perspectives, with spaces that can accommodate conflict and collision, and a willingness to listen, and without this depth of inclusion, meaningful and lasting change will not happen.
People at every level therefore need to feel confident that they will be allowed to exercise systems leadership. For example to feel they have a role to play, to believe that their voice will be equally heard and thought about, and that they can contribute their own ideas and perspectives.
It is necessary to examine this through an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion lens, addressing race, gender, and disability, because without this it will not be possible to establish psychological safety in a truly inclusive way, and some groups of people will once again be left on the margins.
Recognising the opportunities and the barriers
Leadership is situational, it was suggested. Everyone has the potential opportunity to be a leader in their own situation, and we need to consciously and persistently push for ever more agency and accountability in every role, from trustees, to staff, to co-production partners, to volunteers, to partners.
Barriers to this can be systemic (the annual appraisal cycle, the operational plan, the strategic plan, all of which tend to be top down) and cultural (the unspoken and unwritten rules and behaviours).
The role of Boards and the senior leadership
For those at the operational level who want to work differently it can be difficult to manage upwards and it is hard to bring about change without people at senior levels who are believers and proponents. So change needs to happen from the outset at the level of Chairs of Boards, CEOs, and Directors.
Social sector structures are governed by voluntary Board members who often come from a commercial and senior professional background, and the behaviours they exhibit can set a pattern for the whole organisation. For example if they see their role as inspecting and directing the CEO, this will make it much harder to build agency and systems leadership throughout the team, including at lower levels.
The role of funders
Funders can sometimes make it harder for organisations to build agency among the people they work with, by imposing controls that have a waterfall effect right down to the service front line and to beneficiaries.
We heard about one organisation which wanted to provide small grants to individuals struggling with poverty, and to give them full agency and control over how they used the money, but had to turn down funding for this, because the funder insisted that all the grants had to be fully approved and tracked, with a paper trail of receipts.
Funders can however also help, for example by giving funding priority to partnerships which are seeking to encourage systems change and which are promoting leadership among those in operational roles.
Bringing about change is difficult, especially in large organisations
The change we are trying to bring about is a big one, and the journey to get there will be uncertain and iterative.
It is difficult to move to a new system while needing to operate an old one. As one person said, it is hard to jump off the New Public Management carousel.
In a larger organisation it can be just too difficult to tackle everything all at once. It is usually better to start small and build out, it was suggested.
The conditions for change may – perhaps – be shifting in our favour
During the pandemic many people realised that it was possible to trust others, including those in undervalued front-line roles, much more than they had expected.
The model of New Public Management came about, it was suggested, because of an assumption that mistrust is necessary in public life. Once it is widely accepted that this assumption is flawed, the momentum to find better ways to operate is more likely to gather pace.
Establishing purpose
Progress will perhaps best be driven by a clear understanding that everyone should be working for what the community needs rather than what the organisation needs.