Annual Gathering 2021
We held our annual Gathering this year on 29th November, bringing people together online for the second year running. This was an opportunity to share learning from the past year and help formulate our strategy for the next and beyond in an interactive way.
The theme of the Gathering was ‘Building the Bigger We’. This was the stand out phrase from our 2020 Gathering, and captured the need to build momentum around the principles and behaviours set out in a Better Way by growing the network and spreading the word. Ultimately, we had previously agreed, building a Bigger We would mean a very different kind of world in which:
Everyone is heard and believed in, given a fair opportunity to thrive, and the ability to influence the things that matter to them.
Every community comes together, looks out for each other, respects difference, and enables everyone to belong.
Society as a whole values and invests in everyone and in every community.
A Better Way in turbulent times?
We opened the Gathering by discussing ‘where we are now’, starting with what the network had been doing over the last year. Caroline Slocock, the national co-convenor of A Better Way, explained that the network had grown. We’ve become bigger and more diverse and members have shared ideas and inspiration in more than 50 meetings. We’ve expanded from 680 to 880 people, and our twitter followers have grown from 1,660 to 1,850. Our Time for a Change publication which set out our Better Way model, was warmly received and circulated widely, not least on twitter. More people from across the country, and from many different backgrounds and organisations, are joining us, and our understanding of how to improve services, build community and create a fairer society has deepened as a consequence.
In the wider world, we’ve heard inspiring stories from our members about how a Better Way approach can change how things are done, she said, especially at local level. As the pandemic has shown, mountains can be moved when there is a common purpose and when there are strong relationships within communities and across organisations.
She explained that we’ve also heard that divisions in society have deepened during the pandemic, and it’s becoming harder to challenge injustices. Services are struggling and sometimes failing. Too often, power, which is already in too few hands, is being consolidated, and the voices of those with least power are still not being heard. Faced with this, there is a deep and growing unease about what lies ahead, from global warming to a country and world becoming ever more unequal.
Despite all this, momentum toward a Better Way does seem to be building in many places and in fields of activity, with champions in both the public and voluntary sectors, but this still falls short of the system-wide change, for example in areas like health and social care, which will move us closer to our ultimate vision.
We then asked the Gathering whether they recognised this picture and what they were doing and feeling at this time. Breakout groups reported back that the picture painted above did resonate and they agreed that at the outset of the pandemic, despite the challenges, people had pulled together and there was an optimism about the potential to shift to a better way of working, as people took more risks and joined forces and achieved things at much greater speed. However, they also said:
There is now enormous pressure on those we serve and massive challenges in the community. Trust is also breaking down and social division is growing. We need to ‘lean in to trust building’.
There is an issue of resilience for people trying to bring about change, with an increase in demand while resources are getting even tighter, and some loss of optimism. Under pressure, some organisations are reverting to type, with ‘management by Gant chart.’ And it can be hard to keep in mind the bigger picture when faced with the short-term, sometimes fear-driven, focus of the media.
Relationships were identified as being very important, but are not always seen to be so, and competition for resources could also be undermining, we were told. Lots of people in the network are seeking to apply Better Way principles and behaviours but get stuck when talking to decision-makers who don’t see relationships as important.
We heard of some local authorities that are consciously trying to build on the relationships established through the pandemic. Newham was creating, for example, an anti-poverty alliance. It is clear that the statutory sector’s lead is very important. We also heard about the Time for Kids initiative in Surrey which had grown out of a small group of positive people from across the statutory and voluntary sectors who wanted to work together to achieve a better way.
New technology had helped connect some people, but were we listening to everybody?
Networks like a Better Way which allow for peer-to-peer conversations were seen as very important to building resilience among those seeking to drive change.
In an online poll taken during the Gathering, over 70% felt that momentum for a Better Way is rising (8% fast, 65% slowly), a quarter felt it is about the same and 3% said it is falling slowly.
The key messages that came out of the discussion were: ‘be intentional about making change happen’, go where the energy is’, ‘get out there and reduce the distance’, ‘build on positive relationships’, and seek to ‘create constellations out of single points of light.’
Behaviours for a Better Way
In the second session, which was introduced by our Convenor in the North, Laura Seebohm, we heard about what the network had learnt through its discussions over the course of the year about the four behaviours for a Better Way - putting relationships first, sharing and building power, listening to each other and joining forces.
David Robinson
Putting relationships first
David Robinson from the Relationships Project, the ‘thought leader’ for our Putting Relationships First cell, explained that we had held five sessions with lively discussions:
Some of the key points coming out of the discussion are featured in the draft document circulated for the Gathering, and are shown here.
We had heard of many really good things happening in this area, David said. Over 2021, we had also been taking stock regularly, up and down the country, about the impact of the pandemic. It was clear we are still on a very uncertain course, and that there is likely to be a long, long tail with ‘deep tissue damage’. The challenge we have faced is to turn a common sense idea into common practice, he said, and move from ‘one place wonders’ to good examples being everywhere. We are accustomed to campaigning against things we oppose, and are less good at campaigning ‘with the grain’, elevating the importance of relationships. When a social worker, for example, puts relationships first, we say that s/he ‘goes the extra mile’, but we need to change this so that behaviour is seen as the ‘first mile’. Barriers to this happening are multiple, from culture, leadership models and systems, and he agreed that the challenges are getting bigger. To move forward, it’s important to demonstrate human qualities ourselves and build trust and share power. We can move from ‘Me to We’ and increase social capital, he concluded. The window that had been opened in the early stages of Covid-19 as people supported each other is still open.
Some of the comments from the discussion that followed in breakout groups and plenary included:
Relationship-building is critical but tends to be ‘stamped out’ by command and control practices and targets. This can be changed by consciously changing the norms e.g. by including relationship building in job descriptions.
‘Relationships on their own aren’t enough of course, but making them a core operating principle, rather than the ‘fluffy extra’ is the point.’
‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’, so don’t start with strategies when trying to change things, address the culture. But ‘relationships eat them both for dinner!’ one person suggested.
Leaders have the power and responsibility to set a new culture. This quote from Prof Edgar Schein was provided by one participant: "The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening."
Change is a continuous process. It must involve informal as well as formal behaviours.
‘People are the air within the Better Way “beach-ball” [i.e. the behaviours model] – their whole lives – not just the bits we can deal with.’
Sharing and Building Power
Sue Tibballs from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, the ‘thought leader’ for our Sharing and Building Power cell, reflected on what we had learnt over the course of the year, with some key points set out in the draft document circulated for the Gathering shown below.
Sue Tibballs
Sue explained that the cell had discussed these topics:
Authentic voices, hearing from Jude Habib from Sound Delivery and Brenda Buringi and Amanda Hailles, both of whom talked about how Sound Delivery had helped them to take on leadership roles as people with lived experience and how important these voices are. It was right, Sue said, to start with these voices.
How power works and the tools we need, drawing on learning from SMK’s wider work which was to be launched in December 2021.
How to build inclusive and equitable communities around a common cause.
How to unlock the power of imagination, including the power of the arts, for example Forum Theatre which can help homeless people reimagine their lives.
How to challenge abuses of power, including by practising ‘servant leadership’ rather than making citizens a servant of powerful institutions.
It is really difficult to change the culture, she concluded. At the heart of all this, she said, it’s important to understand power and become more literate in how it works. Power is not binary, as we tend to think, happening on one side only. The key is not so much about giving power away as recognising that we all have power and must use that power conscientiously and well. Sharing and building power is fundamental to the three other behaviours in the Better Way model - putting relationships first, listening to each other and joining forces - and these behaviours are critical to sharing and building power, so much so you could almost think of the latter as an overarching, core principle.
Some of the comments from the discussion that followed in breakout groups and plenary included:
It’s important to be reflective about the power we have and use it wisely, but also allow ourselves to be challenged in a good way by community power.
‘Given we are saying that being power aware is in part recognising that we are all limited by our own experience and so we need to ensure there is real diversity of experience in the ‘room’ if we are to have a chance of really understanding.’
‘For sharing power to be real within an organisation it needs a culture within the organisation that supports that effort and that culture needs to be the same for all in the organisation and not just some.’ The right culture includes being able to share vulnerabilities - genuinely being allowed to share and express when things didn’t work as expected and to learn from this.
It helps when sharing power to also have clarity of purpose, clear objectives and focus. Large organisations inevitably become hierarchical, but this can be mitigated by the potential use of distributive leadership.
‘Reflecting on what I've heard, I think there is a need to try to articulate what 21st century leadership is/can be. Greta Thunberg is a fantastic example of this. Undoubtedly a leader, but starting with absolutely no positional power. Personal power can achieve so much in a positive way.’
The four behaviours are heavily inter-related.
Karin Woodley
Listening to each other
Karin Woodley from Cambridge House, the ‘thought leader’ for our Listening to Each Other cell, then reflected on what we had learnt in the five discussions during 2021 on these themes:
Recruiting the right people, those best placed to listen and act on what they hear.
Using citizens’ scientists and other techniques in research and policy-making.
Karin said that cells had explored how to create respectful relationships where it is possible to listen deeply and each had focused on different ways to address failures in the existing process in order to use experience to change policy.
Some of the key points from these discussions are included here.
She said that ‘radical listening’ meant stopping the normal ‘intellectual sorting’ process and ‘unlearning’ how we lead. In order to truly realise the transformative nature of relationship building and listening, we must radically change how we listen, recognising that ‘we are not the specialists’ and being quiet and resisting the temptation to speak and sum up. It is especially important to listen to people who have been pushed to one side and remain voiceles in the pandemic, amplifying their power.
Some of the comments from the discussion that followed in breakout groups and plenary included:
Proper listening requires time and space. ‘Post-Covid panic can mean there is even more pressure to find 'solutions' when in fact Covid had demonstrated that we need to spend time and allocate resources to empowering lived experience voices.
We must reach out to the crucial people who are too often overlooked. Generalised language, such as ‘young people’, can obscure groups who are being excluded from the conversation. ‘Listening is critical when diverse communities are concerned. Now we have many mechanisms to engage but we need varied methods for understanding what we are listening to.’
Listening can surface conflict and anger. We need to get conflict out in the open and not suppress it. And also listen to others with courtesy and respect, which can be hard in the currently toxic environment. ‘When we are unheard, we shout. When our unmet needs remain unacknowledged, we express them in the language of judgement and blame.’ ‘The trick is not to get emotionally hijacked by others' anger; that's what enables us to remain courteous and to listen.’
‘Not all communities shout when they are poorly served - many I work with retreat into greater silence and despair….Hard to reach groups tend to be very easily found in the criminal justice system.’ And another comment: ‘Hard to reach means easy to ignore’.
‘Trust in listening processes frequently requires all people in the conversation to share lived experience.’ People also have to trust that their voice will really be heard.
‘The language has been hijacked and that is a problem. Co-production and recovery are words with radical roots, and they need to retain their radical meanings to prevent disingenuous and disengaged consequences.’
‘There are forces that are dangerously and deliberately whipping up people's fears and spreading misinformation - we see it on vaccines, refugees, a backlash to Black Lives Matter etc. So while we need to reach out and engage communities we also have to be wise and savvy and seek to challenge and minimise negative voices.’
‘If listening is a process and not an event then it needs to be a continual relationship and dialogue that includes action and delivery. Often we listen at the “what is the problem” stage, conducted by those who aren't the arbiters of the resources, who filter and filter what they have heard, and then the dialogue stops as the powerful go away and design the solution. Which they then "consult" on in processes designed to affirm their assumptions, and by which time it is too late to change.’
Cate Newnes-Smith
Joining Forces
Cate Newnes-Smith from Surrey Youth Focus and Time for Kids, the thought leader for our Joining Forces cell, then shared her reflections on the discussion held over the year on these topics:
Dealing with imbalances and inequalities when joining forces.
Joining forces across sectors, particularly with the private sector.
Joining forces to inspire, rather than to control.
Some key messages from these discussions are shown here.
Cate said that the key lesson she had learnt during these discussions was the difference between true collaboration and partnership; and explained that in a Better Way we had chosen to speak of ‘joining forces’ because it seemed more active and definite than collaboration. Partnership was a bit like inviting other people to your own party or, when more participative, inviting others to help you throw a party you’ve organised, for example, by bringing food, or helping others to set up their parties. Joining forces, or collaboration, in contrast is much more like a street party, where everyone joins in and the event is organised together.
Some of the comments from the discussion that followed in breakout groups and plenary included:
‘Covid-19 has shown that not working together is not an option, so the question is how to join forces well, not whether.’
‘We are running a race together, but we don’t all cross the line together.’
Power dynamics in collaborations are very important and there needs to be honesty about power imbalances. Relationships and trust are critical and need to be built between the voluntary and statutory sectors.
‘We need to move from a focus on our own organisation to a focus on community i.e. putting the community above our organisation. The bigger the organisation, the harder this becomes. Strict personal KPIs often work against this e.g. spending funding by year end not being in best interest of people served. We need common principles, but not necessarily a common understanding, as that may not be possible when joining forces.’
One breakout group reported that there wasn't agreement around seeking allies in the business world - there was a feeling that people in the public sector have spent too long trying to win hearts and minds there and we should concentrate on powerful allies in civil society.
Three big cross-cutting issues
The next session looked at three big cross-cutting issues that had come out of the many many meetings we held in 2021, with each being introduced by reflections from a speaker.
The first question is:
1. What kind of leaders should we be?
During 2021, we’ve started to talk about a new kind of leadership where:
We become leaders not because we hold positions of power, but because we give power to others.
We deploy the four Better Way behaviours to build connection and community beyond our organisations.
We create the conditions for those at the sharp end to take more control.
But how can we counter the existing ‘command and control’ and managerial leadership model and make this new style of leadership more widespread? What kind of leaders should we be?
Nick Sinclair
Nick Sinclair who runs the Local Area Co-ordinators Network and Community Catalysts New Social Leaders programme, said he had found that many people had been provoked by the pandemic crisis to ask themselves, ‘What does it mean to be a leader?’
Looking at the example of Local Area Co-ordinators, he thought the key lesson was that when you stop trying to control people and outcomes you allow agency. He told the story of Hugh and Janet who were helped by an Area Co-ordinator, Richard. Hugh has dementia and they reached out for some support which would not involve them separating. Richard spent some time getting to know them, finding out what they wanted, and what they were like. Hugh, it turned out, was a talented carpenter so Richard put them in touch with a timber merchant who provided him with free wood with which Hugh made bird houses. Richard linked him up with community organisations who then auctioned them for charities. What this illustrates is that it is important not to see people as service users, but as citizens and leaders too, Nick said.
He said when he talked to people in his new Social Leaders programme, they often felt like imposters because of a deeply rooted feeling that leadership is about hierarchy and command and control. ‘We can all be leaders and all be followers’, he’d discovered. It all depends on the context and particular knowledge. We should work ‘in a spirit of curiosity to find each other’s potential’. Leading involves being a distributor and builder of power, using the four behaviours in the Better Way model, and becoming a deep listener and facilitator of change. If more of us can model this, the existing model of leadership would change and create the conditions for those at the sharp end to take more control, he concluded.
Here are some of the points made in the subsequent discussion:
As leaders, morals and principles are important, but we can all too easily be pulled into simply being managers - and sometimes it’s easier to retreat into management in a crisis because it is a kind of comfort zone.
Safe spaces for leaders to share thinking and challenges are important - ‘self-reflecting, self-knowledge networks. Too often people feel isolated , under par and overworked.
Faith in the team is required for this kind of Leadership-Followership model, which involves sharing power and shifting the culture. Trust is critical on both sides. A learning culture must be established, which allows people to make mistakes and push at the envelope rather than always getting things right. ‘Part of being a good leader is knowing when to follow, if someone else is already leading on something you want to happen, just follow and it may (or may not) be appropriate that over time you also offer your leadership skills to support.’
Curiosity is an important quality, listening before acting. Empathy is needed, but we must start with ourselves.
Leadership is not just something you do at work, you can be a leader in normal life. ‘I'm interested in the statement "when we become leaders." Isn't that old school thinking of leadership being about a position in an organisations? When did Greta become a 'leader'? The moment she sat down outside the parliament, on her own with a placard?’
Leaders have to develop facilitation and convening skills, and not avoid the difficult issues. ‘I think that leaders have to be able to hold all sides where trust has broken down or been damaged. This might mean we have to challenge our own "morals and values", and those of our organisations.’
‘With increasing diversity within the UK population, how do we harness what that brings to the table and change it brings to leadership debate.’ ‘I would add that diversity needs more than representation, it needs to be deliberately inclusive. Also that without acknowledging the inherent inequalities of the structure, we cannot truly shift the leadership role.’
‘EDI without Justice is like football without a goal. You can substitute as many players as you want to have different players on the field- but what is the goal? That's why we have a JEDI approach- we foreground the Justice as the goal. Justice is tackling the injustice and inequality and seeking systemic change....’
‘Inclusion inevitably means we're working to replace ourselves with more people who share lived experience of inequity and cultural and social stigma but sometimes it’s important to invest in those people, where that is needed to allow equitable engagement.’
‘Feminist leadership principles - self awareness, self care, dismantling bias, inclusion, sharing power, responsible and transparent use of power, accountable collaboration, respectful feedback, courage and zero tolerance - work for me.’
‘This might be controversial, but I think there's a lot of talk about leadership at the moment and maybe not enough about managing the highly complex environment we are in. I think management needs re-imagining even more than leadership does. But we can't avoid that because it has to be done.’
‘Good looks like leading in your mission and values, not just leading your business. Agree we need to work on building trust, we lack brilliant convening and, in some ways, more importantly facilitation skills for building justice focused collaboration, in braver spaces...’
How to counter the existing ‘command and control’ model? - here’s what one breakout group said:
Overall – call it out and don’t be complicit in it – don’t be sucked in to processes that are tokenistic or window dressing.
We must understand our own bias, experiences and values as that will be informing our beliefs and approach.
When we are in roles that have perceived power, we must recognise that and be mindful of it.
Our systems need a mix of generalists and specialists.
What does representative leadership look like and how do we build greater representation – that should be a core function of leadership.
We can’t forget that leaders are human too – it’s important we understand the fears and vulnerabilities of people in power.
Leadership is often about helping groups build a shared understanding.
Beware when people are taking concepts and “doing” them without any care or respect for the underpinning methodology or philosophy of the approach – if you take away or ignore too many pieces.
2. How can we unlock our humanity and imagination?
In our meetings over the last year, we’ve identified that:
Our humanity can build bridges and move us to change.
Collective imagination can make a different future possible.
There are ways to make a different kind of space to listen deeply to each other, share our stories, and tell new ones.
But some people may feel this is a distraction or are uncomfortable with opening up. How can we overcome that hesitancy and mainstream these approaches?
Phoebe Tickell
Phoebe Tickell from Moral Imaginations explained that through Moral Imaginations she was working with civil society organisations, local authorities and communities to embed imagination into place.
Imagination is an extremely powerful force for change, she said, and humanity can build bridges and power us to change. Imagining allows us not just to see a different future but to feel it. The problem is not that we lack imagination, but that we have often block it.
Children are naturally imaginative as we can see when they play, but ‘imagination gets colonised’ in the pursuit of ‘one right answer’ and we end up with ‘cookie-cutter’ brains. As a consequence, imagination is sidelined into entertainment and is often only reserved for some people in our society who work in the arts, for example. But we all need imagination, so ‘we need to de-colonise and re-wild our imaginations’.
To do this, we require:
Dedicated time and space as adults to imagine.
Permission (which is often withheld in a performance culture, where people may fear humiliation or being laughed at if they exercise imagination).
Help through portals and exercises, which unlocks not just the brain but also feeling.
In the subsequent discussion, these were some of the points made:
Story-telling is a powerful technique to unlock imagination and humanity. It can be much more effective than simply trying ‘to fight policy with policy’.
‘We share more in common than appears…we need to start dreaming again. Martin Luther King din’t have a plan, he had a dream.’
‘When I was working as a theatre director often the most important thoughts and breakthroughs came as we had a pint outside of the rehearsal room exactly because one's brains work differently when out of the very instrumental work environment and we were being more ruminative. As Pheobe says our brains really do have different ways of working and it is important to tap in all its ways.’
‘There was agreement about the importance of time and space, and also permission to get into that space.
We should get people to try, and win over hearts and minds that way. These shifts need day-in-day-out practice.
Good faith is important in helping people who disagree with each other to find common ground.
‘This is really hard for people who simply feel they cannot imagine a different life. Creativity is necessarily about being open to change – it takes time and tending to – sometimes also being held. It’s also about conflict… of the individual grappling with their own story, of organisations trying to change, of creating more empathy and tolerance. Collective imagination can help to centre equity into contexts through story-telling and deep understanding.’
One breakout group talked about the difference between different people and their ability to access imagination and creativity - and how that does differ naturally between people. We also talked about the journey of realising over 10 or 20 years that your imagination and creativity are important and to believe in them. We also touched on the importance of collective intelligence and imagination in teams.
3. How can we remove the roadblocks?
In the course of the last year, we’ve heard that many people at every level can play a part in driving change by:
Challenging and changing whatever stands in the way, including the deep-seated assumptions that can prevent us from being our best selves.
Calling out inequalities and abuses of power, and making sure everyone can participate on their own terms.
Assuming the best in others and seeing difference, conflict and division as an opportunity to pause, seek to understand, and find a fresh way.
But resistance to change is widespread, whether through culture, systems or practices. So how can we get better at overcoming the resistance and removing the roadblocks?
Kristian Tomblin
Kristian Tomblin from Devon County Council explained that he had worked for 15 years in a commissioning role for services for people with complex needs, including the victims of sexual violence. Five years ago he had started a listening exercise and concluded that he was complicit in a service architecture that causes harm. He and others were heavily invested in managerialism and target cultures, and found it hard to imagine beyond what we already practised and thought. The focus was on service optimisation.
Reflecting on how to break down this culture, he said change starts with us, echoing the final Better Way principle. ‘We change the system by changing ourselves’, he explained.
It is important to listen, and not just to make that an add on. This is the real work, not a distraction from it. You need to make time for it, go out and ‘make stories visible’ and don’t just talk to people who agree with you. The currency of achieving is learning, he said. The only rules should be ‘don’t break the law and do no harm’. He tells people he works with to experiment, test and learn, build community and show more empathy.
Change goes viral when empathy is deployed, he concluded, quoting Andy Brogan:
‘Trust is the outcome. Empathy is the practice.
Since behaviour is reciprocal . ..
If we want more change then we should show more empathy.
Change goes viral when empathy is the vector.’
Here are some of the points made in the following discussion:
Recognising we are part of the problem is a good starting point, and empathy must start with ourselves in order to find genuine authenticity.
It’s important to listen to people’s stories and develop an ‘empathetic ear’.
"Be the change" - Ghandi.
Time-wasting can be a major block to change - it is a well-known technique for those who resist change to string things out in order to dissipate energy.
You need to go where the energy is, rather than butting your head against a wall. Seek out the people who want to do things differently and work with them. But don’t avoid the difficult issues, or conflict.
Crises, like the pandemic, can help to unblock the road blocks.
‘One of the benefits of the pandemic for those of us privileged to be in roles that allow it, is the opportunity to think differently about our life balance (I don't like the juxtaposition of "work/life balance"). We can use our time to make ourselves as effective as possible as leaders. For me, exercise is essential to this: meditative cycling and climbing which is a complete distraction.’
Take time to tune in and understand the true dynamics and develop a map of the blocks and enablers, visible and invisible.
You need to give real permission to create a learning culture, as making mistakes can often end up being punished.
‘Positive dissenters are our friends..’
We need accountability frameworks to ensure change happens and that those with power cannot restrict the pace or extent of change.
Values matter but the practices we actually follow matter more in making change happen.
‘The importance of trust and reaching out, building bridges and being organisations comfortable with bringing together unusual suspects to make change happen and to bridge points of different for common benefit.’
‘The voluntary sector can be good at challenging others but less itself and when seeking common ground it can sometimes find a superficial place of agreement’.
Where next?
Steve Wyler, the national co-convenor of A Better Way, explained that we want to build on what we’ve learnt in 2021 and take our work to an even higher level, adapting and changing as we have all along, in order to build a Bigger We. We’ve heard how much our members value the opportunity in our network to share and inspire each other, he said.
The experience of Covid-19 has shown the potential to do things differently and challenges such as global warming and growing poverty demonstrate that we must, explained. We want to grasp the opportunity to widen the conversation, increase our impact and promote systems change. So, subject to the views of the Gathering, Steve said that we plan to:
Continue with our existing four cells based on the Better Way model, and support regional or local groups where there is appetite for this.
Set up discussions on the three big cross-cutting questions set out above and also where people tell us they want to work together to tackle common issues and, if there’s an appetite, run a series.
Building on our roundtable in October 2021 on social care, hold further roundtables on major services and systems and seek subsequent opportunities to influence wider change and bring new people into the network.
Continue with discussions without formal agendas including our twice monthly drop-in meetings for new members and existing ones who want to touch base, and also look for other opportunities to deepen relationships between members..
Experiment with different types of meetings – including collective imagination spaces.
In a poll, 85% of participants said this work programme was about right. Here are some comments left in the chat bar:
‘I really like the programme for next year. However, I would also like to have discussions within Better Way about how our principles and behaviours can be applied to some of the specific cultural and societal challenges that threaten to undermine the achievement of the Better Way. These are wider than the systems and structures we directly work in.’
‘Yes I agree. Some that I see include: healthy use of social media for young people, the belief that owning expensive stuff/brands (cars, trainers, etc) makes you happier, how do we help young people have healthier attitudes towards body image, etc.’
‘Whilst I appreciate that being online has helped Better Way widen and reach out, nonetheless it would be really good to have the face-to-face meetings back please.’
‘Is it time for "thought leadership' to become very practical and start running issue-processing sessions for members?’
We then talked about how to increase our influence, with Steve and Caroline outlining their initial thoughts. As our network grows, so do the opportunities for distributed leadership. We hope to discover even more ways for members to play a part in widening and diversifying the network, strengthening its influence and helping it become a catalyst for wider change, they said. For example, we hope to:
Publish a book of essays and articles by our members early next year.
Identify thought leaders for new cells.
Encourage members to spread the word and bring new people into the network, including across the UK.
Establish a new role of Better Way ‘connectors’ for this purpose, and some may even establish new cells in their areas.
Create twitter campaigns encouraging our members to take part.
Explore the idea of ‘buddying’ for members who want to more actively support each other.
We will also be investigating new ways to secure the future of the network, including options for longer term funding, putting the network on a more sustainable footing while also maintaining a light touch and responsive way of working.
Some points made by members in response included:
‘Strengthening each other to do better may be a sufficient role and is an important purpose.’
‘Over the longer term, be ambitious. This is not a quick fix.’
‘We are wondering about, how we connect with other similar networks, if we could produce some "so what" pieces, and if we should attempt to engage with those who disagree.’
‘I would be happy to help grow the influence of the network including joining Twitter conversations and coming to small meetings to explain the Better Way’s work to influential people.’
‘Today's society is dictated by media and politics. Tomorrow's society could be very different. Connected deeply to itself at every level and in open conversation with itself. Storytelling/networks/culture and independent media are part of this networked society, they help to enable it. Better Way could be part of a larger conversation around this society in transition.’
‘A campaign of letters to all our MPs about Better Way work and principles and inviting conversations with them and leading to roundtables hosted by them.’
‘A Better Way “training camp”.’
‘The mix of people who contribute to Better Way is really helpful. I still think the role of Better Way as a safe, yet challenging place for discussion is good - “re-wilding the conversation”.’
‘We do have to target the politicians … we also need to draw in more younger leaders so that they can draw strength and challenge as we do from the Network.”
‘It would be great to encourage links between Better Way members around practical challenges - that helps roots our discussions, which sometimes can get a little bit high level and esoteric in the real world challenges we are all facing. The essays can be a start to this.’
‘We should also perhaps acknowledge more that there are other networks and sources of insight and expertise that have overlap and with whom we could forge common cause around our principles and concerns.’
In an online poll, 70% said the network should continue beyond the end of 2022 , 30% said they didn’t know, and nobody said it should not continue.
Concluding remarks
Sufina Ahmad
Sufina Ahmad, the Director of the John Ellerman Foundation which supports a Better Way, made some concluding remarks. She said she had personally valued the space created by the network even before the Foundation became involved, and this was her third annual Gathering. Three points particularly struck her from this year:
Language really matters, it can make things worse, be taken out of context, and can lead to culture wars. She was heartened to take part in a deep and thoughtful conversation today about language, e.g. the language of beneficiaries and grantees, looking at the ancestry of language, what it really means, avoiding practices like greenwashing.
Resilience had emerged as a key issue - people had always been stretched paper thin, but now vulnerability was being pushed to new levels, particularly as a result of the pandemic. Sharing power and leadership can help sustain us and help us challenge notions of leadership and support new forms.
Earlier in her life, she had focused on her personal independence, but building a ‘Bigger We’ really resonated with her now. We need to build a better form of ‘interdependence’ and find the right relationships to pursue the good life. But are we doing enough to build this inter-dependence? The network has a wide membership, but it is still missing huge swathes - for example, campaigners. As we build a Bigger We, we need to bring them into the conversation.
What people value about a Better Way: quotes from the event
During one break in the Gathering we asked people what they valued about A Better Way, and here are some of the things they said:
‘Meeting new people from diverse sectors with similar values, hopes and fears.’
‘The opportunity to learn from others which means that my own ideas evolve and improve. I've learned a massive amount from Better Way meetings.’
‘I’m a new to the Better Way Network, and tripped over you. But it’s been brilliant to discover a whole swathe of people across the country who are chewing through and finding their way through this dichotomy between service-led solutions and community-empowerment.’
‘I value having my brain expanded by Better Way and discussing ideas and concepts above the day to day. I also value the wide variety of experiences from across the country (mostly England I think, we could benefit from some more pan-UK experiences) and the relentless optimism that people have!’
‘l always value from Better Way the embrace of thinking, passionate people, and the evolution of the ideas here that keep on being able to provoke as well as nurture my own.’
‘I enjoy encountering a variety of different people and diverse range of views. And it would be good to go beyond platitudes. I have in mind hearing from others about how they've overcome problems like listening to people they don't typically speak to, or clarifying what collaboration means in practice, or saying what a culture is and what it's not, or saying how trust was rebuilt, or describing how they reached innovative breakthroughs and so on. Powerful stories like these provide a rich source of learning me thinks.’
‘I have benefited from the wonderful relationships that I have built, that have helped me believe in myself. I am a very different person from who I was 4 years ago. My ideas and beliefs are ever changing - surfacing new issues/ideas, making sense of them, embedding them into my practice, then believing them. Better Way is a key contributor to my evolving thinking.’
‘Better Way is like jumping into a wild hot spring in winter with the fascination of new depths and a reassuring temperature of thinking that connects you to find purpose with others.’
‘Solidarity with challenge. Leadership without ego.’
‘I really value being in a safe space and place. Being able to listen to different perspectives. seeing ‘old familiar’ places but also new ad different ones. National perspectives. Thoughtful contributions. Brain food.’
‘I love Better Way Network spaces and events - always leave with great brain food.’
‘Always great energy and lots to reflect on.’
‘For me personally one of the benefits I have taken and continue today to take from A Better Way is that it is the one of the key (and few) places where I have been able to learn, have my skills upgraded and, found support and fellow feeling as a leader. I think that should be an acknowledged purpose of the Network.”
And a challenge:
‘This is my first time to the “Better Way” network event - Just want to understand if Better Way is one of the many power systems that may be contributing or maintaining current structural divisions or equip within it culture to embrace those voices to make shared and meaningful change. How many in this space want to give up some of that power that make your lifestyle comfortable!’
Before the Gathering, we also circulated a survey to members and reported back on the results at the Gathering. Everyone who responded said they like the Better Way principles, with 83% saying 'very much'. 94% of respondents also told us they like the model of change which sets out our four behaviours for helping to realise those principles. Comments include: ‘incredibly useful’, ‘I use this regularly in my work’, ‘meaningful no matter what sector you are from’, ‘very much about how as well as what.’ When asked whether the network should continue, 89% said that they believed it should and nobody said it should not.
Note from July 2018 national gathering
The Better Way Dinner 2rd July
Caroline Slocock, co-founder of the network, welcomed the guests and introduced four speakers:
Martyn Evans: CEO of the Carnegie UK Trust, which has supported the Better Way network since its inception.
Martyn, welcoming members to the dinner, reflected on the importance of ‘associational life’ as a key part of democracy. The state can do some things better than civil society and there are some things only it can do eg provide national armed forces, but part of its role is to enable others in society to do what they do best - an issue explored in the Carnegie UK Trust’s Enabling State project. In the 21st century, we need to reimagine the state and also the role of civil society. This issue lies at the heart of the Better Way network, whose origins began in an event he had attended with Steve Wyler, Caroline Slocock and others at Windsor Castle some years ago, which eventually led to setting up the network via an earlier initiative, A Call to Action for the Common Good. CUKT had helped fund this work. Like other projects it supports, such as on kindness, the Trust recognised it was exploratory, potentially ground-breaking but also highly risky: none of us at the outset could be sure about what we would achieve, if anything. He applauded our spirit and what the network together had achieved so far.
Sue Tibballs, CEO of the Sheila McKechnie Foundation and member of a London cell.
Sue spoke about SMK’s recent report, Social Power, and her related essay in Insights for A Better Way. She said that civil society was too passive at present, and tended to focus too much on influencing institutional power and delivering services. But it had enormous social power by virtue of its proximity to people and the relationships it forms. Government should value the voice of the sector but most importantly we should ‘get on with it’ ourselves in civil society, using this power. The key message: change starts with us.
Danny Kruger, a founding member of a Better Way, currently working in the Office of Civil Society on the civil society strategy.
Danny said that the civil society strategy – a draft of which is currently being consulted upon in Government - will not be a set of policies or include major policy changes. However it would, he hoped, represent a significant shift toward what he described as a ‘gentle revolution’ - ie moving away from seeing people as individual units and costed transactions to relationships and also in favour of ‘responsible business’. He said that we should expect to see a shift in language - eg from procurer to co-creator - and thought it should be seen as a starting point for dialogue between Government and civil society in future.
Steve Wyler: co-founder of A Better Way and Panel Member on Civil Society Futures, the inquiry into the future of civil society underway.
Steve gave us some insights into the emerging thinking of Civil Society Futures and the links across the thinking of the network. Civil society’s role had evolved over time, eg from the alleviation of poverty, to social justice and, more recently, to service delivery. Against a backdrop where people are now feeling a lack of agency and as a result of AI we may be facing a ‘us and them’ future, civil society could play a vital role in putting power into the hands of communities and connecting us in ways that humanise how we do things. But civil society is not yet fit for this purpose, he said. It is in fact part of the problem, perpetuating a command and control model, hoarding power, fighting its own corner and not allowing others to step forward. Looking ahead, the Inquiry was now focusing on four areas: place; belonging and identity; work and purpose; and organisations. The thinking was moving toward a new ‘a new PACT amongst us’, where PACT stood for P: power and participation; A: accountability and access; C: community and connecting; T: trust and transformation. And it was looking at the ‘architecture’ to push things in this direction including a ‘new social national grid’, connectivity over activity and rethinking the hierarchy of evidence in measurement. This was all rich territory for a Better Way.
2) Gathering event, 4th July
Session one: what we’ve learnt during the year:
Kathy Evans, a founding member, welcomed everyone to the event and then Caroline Slocock introduced Insights for A Better Way: improving services and building strong communities, which was launched that day. She said the collection of some 40 contributions had fleshed out the Better Way propositions and had helped us deliver on our priorities for this year (which had been identified at last year’s Gathering). These were:
Creating stories that move hearts as well as minds, bringing our propositions to life
Exploring what it means to be a Better Way leader, what we have started to call ‘shared leadership’
Demonstrating the rich potential of communities, people and organisations
Finding ways to put the Better Way propositions into action, avoiding lip service.
She added that we had also made some progress on our other priority, diversifying the network, which was reflected in this volume, though there is more to do, particularly in bringing people from other sectors in the network.
She said that the stories and essays shed light on the individual Better Way propositions and showed in many different ways why they were important and how they could be achieved. They were a stepping stone to our final Call to Action – our goal at the end of the third year of our network in July 2019.
Some themes were emerging that might be developed in that Call to Action, she suggested, which were as follows, inviting contributors who were present to speak for one minute about what they had written:
1) Shared leadership: (reflecting the Better Way propositions on ‘collaboration’ and ‘changing ourselves’):
Sue Tibballs invited us to become bolder leaders and recognise the legitimacy and potential of ‘social power’.
Cate Newnes- Smith had come to see herself as a ‘systems leader’ in Surrey and said that this started with no longer seeing the organisation as the end, actively seeking to collaborate across and within sectors, and creating shared ‘big hairy goals’.
Audrey Thompson drew on her experience of being a ‘local connector’ in Doncaster to show how it can unlock ‘social leadership’, which is especially important in disadvantaged areas.
2) Relationships (reflecting our propositions on ‘deep value relationships’ and ‘building on strengths’):
Richard Wilson pointed to the underlying factors that support ‘Good Help’ including helping individuals to find their own sense of purpose and the confidence to act, all of which requires strong relationships.
Colin Falconer described how he and the late Jane Slowey (to whom the collection is dedicated) invented ‘Advantaged Thinking’, which sees young people as assets rather than focusing on risks and deficits, in a direct challenge to the negative narrative of ‘disadvantage’ that pervades much of the voluntary sector.
3) Better way organisations –(‘organisations without walls’, as we have described them in our Better Way discussions, which bring in or are led by experts in lived experience, engage with the communities they serve and empower front line staff to build strong relationships with those with whom they work):
Karin Woodley spoke of how we need to keep our organisations personal, praticising ‘radical listening’ which treats communities more as partners than consumers, creating the diversity within our organisations that reflects those served, and shaking off contracts that take organisations off mission.
Simon Shaw talked about how the Food Power programme is involving experts by experience to say what they want, and how this is changing how they talk and think about food poverty.
4) Better Way places (reflecting our propositions on ‘local’ and ‘prevention’)
Nicola Butler talked about the positive examples of Hackney Council and the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in relation to play. Hackney Council is practising effective local partnership with play providers and the local community and actively values the particular contributions of local organisations in commissioning and reflects the priorities of local people. But national partnerships are also supporting this work in a complementary way. Both are needed.
Bethia McNeil, who is exploring in a Better Way cross-cutting group how to shift the bias in current measurement away from national to local organisations, explained that we need a shift away from high-stakes accountability and targets toward measures that show whether organisations are delivering on their mission - so that we ‘hit the point, not the target’.
Caroline Slocock explained that ‘social infrastructure’ – the buildings and built environment; the services and organisations; the social capital within communities and between organisations –builds readiness and resilience, but is being undervalued and cut back. We need to invest more and think holistically.
5) Mass participation. Providers are very focused on services, but ‘freeing people from services’ could be our aim, a point made during the Better Way visit to Ignite in Coventry in 2018:
Sona Mahtani called for ‘a Selby Centre in every area’, describing the extraordinary diversity and energy in Tottenham. The simple act of bringing people together unleashes creativity, opportunity and energy that people create themselves.
So Jung Rim, who had grown up in Seoul and witnessed first hand the social innovation revolution of the Mayor there, explained how she is now working in the Social Innovation Exchange to create different platforms for diverse voices.
Then there were two cross cutting strands in the Insights volume:
6) Better way systems that help make better way leadership, relationships, places, organisations and mass participation happen:
Toby Lowe spoke about the complexity of individuals, people and systems. The current flawed process model - of individual action by organisations leading to specific outcomes - is beginning to be replaced by collaboration and a growing movement toward funding and collaborative commissioning which genuinely reflects that complexity.
Graeme Duncan, speaking about schools, lamented the impact of high-stakes targets and the way in which they were leading to the exclusions of pupils and teachers abandoning the very principles that often drew them to teaching. He proposed new principles that could be adopted instead of targets.
Matt Kepple made a plea for the social sector and others to take up the immense opportunity created by new technology to share data on what works – our own wikepedia – and empower others to improve services.
7) Last but not least: arresting stories, which bring home why and how these things can be achieved:
Clare Wightman spoke of her experience of putting local people in touch with a vulnerable family in a difficult estate and the unique value of this support network, so much better than ‘services’.
Steve Wyler told the group of his experience of an elderly neighbour who had been able to make her own way and evade social services through the kindness of strangers but fell ill when finally forced to be under their care, when a ceiling fell in.
Kathy Evans recalled her own journey toward becoming a ‘thought leader’, battling with ‘imposter syndrome’ and recognising that you need to lead with your heart, not your head, in order to challenge the status quo.
In open discussion, some of the points made in response were:
We often focus on the ‘what’ we do, but it is the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ that is more important in delivering a Better Way.
We need to work on language, which is not connecting with the people we serve, recognising that different language works for different communities and there are different levels of engagement and discourse for practitioners, specialists and users.
We also need to find a different language other than that of ‘delivering services’, which does not embody the Better Way propositions.
It’s important to employ people from within communities and people with lived experience and to be more self-reflective about what we claim. For example, we are not giving people agency or empowering them, they have it already, we need to ‘give our organisations away’ and give others the space to take power.
There is a specific job to be done, which some are doing, to engage the voices of communities in articulating what they want.
Diversity is critical, not an add-on. We need to reflect the communities we work with.
The relationship between the state and the social sector has sometimes been mutually supportive but the state has now become a generator of harm eg through the ‘hostile environment’ and the punitive nature of some parts of the welfare state. This presents a different problem to simply trying to reform its processes or work alongside it.
Recognising and protecting human rights, rather than thinking of our core activities as being about the more effective delivery of services, is important.
We focus too much on institutional power and the provision of services and need to spend more time working with individuals and communities and influencing the public debate (which is often a key block or spur to change).
We need to engage with politics in the sense of policies and the wider narrative more – this is how systemic change happens.
Who are ‘we’? ‘We’ should not just be the social sector – we need to widen our network - and we should stop seeing ‘we’ as institutions and organisational interests.
Seeing ourselves as system leaders and social activists is important.
Hot topics: ideas others can adopt
The group then broke into the following syndicates to discuss four topics. Here are some points coming out of these that were brought back to the wider group that seemed to resonate:
Collaboration in action (led by Cate Newnes-Smith, Toby Lowe and Matt Kepple):
We need to develop measurement to enable learning rather than accountability – note that the airline industry learns from accidents, whereas the NHS holds people heavily accountable for them. Measures need to come from purpose and must include qualitative information. It’s too much about numbers now.
Understanding the complexity of issues, people and systems unlocks shared leadership. Cate Newnes-Smith and Toby Lowe committed to work in Surrey to help them better understand the systems and issues there and to use local councillors as allies.
Matt Kepple said that it would be useful to use technology to visualise the complex factors affecting individuals, for example on obesity. This would enable organisations to understand better and target their contribution. It might also allow a person to become more aware of what was available and help in guiding their transitions. An example of where such a map might exist, or could help, was support for older people in Lambeth, where different organisations coming into contact with individuals are signposting help by others.
Building on strengths/deep value relationships (led by Rich Wilson, Karin Woodley and Colin Falconer):
There was a strong message about the importance of relationships in the Better Way network itself, and the fact that these were under-estimated as a way of facilitating change.
Some suggestions were put forward for helping to make these relationships stronger – ‘liming’ (where people meet over a drink to chew over an issue, originating from the Caribbean), and ‘home groups’ (where people share personal issues with each other and provide mutual learning and support).
At the same time we can and should continue to learn from each other about ‘how’ to do things, but also recognise that stronger relationships would facilitate this and build trust.
One area we could work on the ‘how’ is Advantaged Thinking, which is a strong concept but where we could learn and communicate better how to do it.
Principles are better than targets/local is better than national (led by Bethia McNeil, Graham Duncan):
We need to work on language, paring it back so it feels more authentic.
We should focus more on the process (the ‘how’) and less on the outcome (the ‘what’).
And move away from high-stakes to low-stakes accountability, recognising uncertainty rather than pretending that there is certainty.
There is a failure to learn because we do not focus on the right things.
Changing ourselves/mass participation (led by Sona Mahtani and So Jung Rim):
We need to create physical spaces to bring people together – eg community land, ‘commons Treasury’.
The Mayor of Seoul had a ‘mobile office’ so that he was genuinely out listening to people.
Community GPs have proved a powerful concept. Rhys Davies gave the example of a retired nurse who acted in a ‘connector’ role, linking up 300 people who would not have done so otherwise.
Amongst the wider reflections on this feedback:
Time is a barrier and we need to be aware of this. We need time to reflect and invent and space to do something new.
The hospice movement is one example of where it is recognised that it is the process that matters – death is the outcome but this is not the objective of care.
Relationships are a key asset for the social sector but are undervalued. We need to build that asset and our network is part of this.
Our priorities for the year ahead:
Steve Wyler introduced this part of the discussion by raising the following questions:
What are we doing right and what needs to change?
Should our priorities stay the same as this year or shift?
How can we develop our overall story of change?
Where should we put our efforts in recruiting more people to join us?
How can we develop cross-cell working and spread knowledge across the network?
In response, the points made included:
An endorsement of the value of relationships in the network and a recognition of the different ways of developing them, including ‘liming’.
Dinners don’t work for everyone but there was also a strong feeling amongst some that they are still valuable – some members really like the discussions, and the ideas that come out of them are the biggest value for some.
There were therefore potentially ‘horses for courses’.
We could do more of bringing individual challenges into the group to ‘chew things through’, with individuals leading discussions. Specific topics of wide interest could be broadcast across the network asking for people to volunteer to take part.
Sharing email addresses (GDPR permitting) would be very useful.
There was some interest in buddying/mentoring but this might perhaps happen spontaneously if we did more signposting through a register of particular interests.
Was this a leadership development network, someone asked– no! We are all social activists, not just the nominal leaders of organisations, and we are all leaders.
The call to action we have promised for the end of our third year could be a manifesto. It is important for us to think about the political dimension of what we are calling for and there was a strong call from some to move in this direction to influence the wider political narrative. ‘I am dying for policies’, someone said.
We need to be clear about what we stand for and believe in (our values and propositions). One suggestion for this was: ‘people who care about people’.
The process matters – the ‘how’. Sharing on how to put the propositions into action might be useful eg to enable greater collaboration and experimentation in a place.
This could include ways of challenging power, not just about delivery of services. We tend to focus on being constructive but also should be disruptive.
We could be testing and developing ideas over the next year.
There was a call for more cells in different places and more travelling to other cells and cross-fertilisation.
And perhaps some bigger events, joining up with other movements (eg movement for health creation).
It was agreed Steve Wyler and Caroline Slocock would use this steer to work up future priorities and working methods.
Participants
Lynne Berry, Civil Exchange**
Julie Bishop, Law Centres Federation
Geraldine Blake, London Funders
Richard Bridge, Corndel
Paul Buddery, Volunteering Matters
Nicola Butler, Hackney Play Association**
Rhys Davies, Community Catalysts
Frances Duncan, Clock Tower Sanctuary
Graeme Duncan, Right to Succeed**
Kathy Evans, Children England
Martyn Evans, Carnegie UK Trust
Colin Falconer, Inspire Chilli
Andy Gregg, Race on the Agenda
Athol Halle, Trust for Developing Communities
Richard Harries, Power to Change
Sarah Hughes,Centre for Mental Health
So Jung Rim, Social Innovation Exchange**
Matt Kepple, Makerble
Kate Kewley, Social Finance**
Danny Kruger, West London Zone, Only Connect*
Toby Lowe, Newcastle University Business School
Sona Mahtani, Selby Centre
Bethia McNeil, Centre for Youth Impact**
Vincent Neate, Relationship Capital Strategies*
Cate Newnes-Smith, Surrey Youth Focus
Helen Rice, Advising Communities
Simon Shaw, Sustain**
Duncan Shrubsole, Lloyds Bank Foundation**
Merron Simpson, New NHS Alliance
Caroline Slocock, Civil Exchange
Jess Steele, Jericho Road*
Sujutha Thaladi, The Mentor Ring
Audrey Thompson, Bentley Area Community Library
Sue Tibballs, Sheila McKechnie Foundation
Clare Wightman, Coventry Grapevine
Richard Wilson, OSCA
Karin Woodley, Cambridge House
Steve Wyler, Independent
Sally Young, Newcastle CVS
*Dinner only
**Workshop only
Note from June 2017 national gathering
The first Better Way gathering 7-8 June 2017, London
This gathering was a chance for people from the different Better Way cells across the country to come together to strengthen our collective thinking and evidence base, build an agenda for action, and shape the future direction of the Better Way initiative.
Over dinner on 7 June, 30 people came together to share ideas about the future, informed by an opening speech by a guest speaker, Julia Unwin, formerly CEO of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Julia is currently Carnegie Fellow and Chair of the independent Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society established by the Baring Foundation and a consortia of other charitable foundations.
Speaking about the Inquiry, Julia said that the intention is to open a national conversation and stimulate fresh thinking and practice, not simply to produce recommendations to government. Julia invited members of A Better Way to take part in the debate and began herself by making the following points:
Our society is ever more divided – not least generationally; in terms of education; across different UK nations; and cities versus rural.
We should not waste too much time defining civil society.
We know that people and place mean a great deal. Everyone needs somewhere to live, something to belong to, someone to love. People also need a sense of control.
Difficult times lie ahead but civil society can help people create a stronger and positive sense of identity and community and help people take back control.
Civil society has never been better placed to step in. It has an impressive history but it must look forward and must be imaginative, not be content to do the things it has always done.
A lively discussion then took place over dinner, and this continued over the next day at a workshop where members shared what they had learnt so far, generated ideas and identified network activities for the future. In discussion, here are some of the points made:
Our task is to take the Better Way propositions and ‘convert common sense into common practice’. It is useful to remember that ‘the future is on the periphery’ - we must be future focused but must not forget about the inspiring examples in our past and in current practice and in particular the transformative power of community based action and mutual support.
We must look to ourselves, not others for change. In an uncertain political and economic environment, it is all the more important to unlock the energies of ourselves and of our people and communities rather than simply lobbying for change in government. Too often accountability in the voluntary sector has been seen as an upwards exercise to government, because of the money they have given, but the Better Way model must be mass participation and accountability to people and communities. There was an interesting discussion re the Dutch Buurtzorg model of neighbourhood care and why this is proving difficult to replicate in the UK context, where so much is controlled from the centre.
Putting the Better Way propositions into practice unlocks new energy and resources locally. We heard from activity in Hastings, Taunton and Coventry, where in places which have suffered many unsuccessful attempts to tackle inequality and deprivation, change communities of residents and front-line workers are taking action, in line with the Better Way propositions, pushing at the boundaries of conventional thinking about communities and services. The Heart of Hastings Community Land Trust is taking a mass participation approach to tackling dereliction and building community capability in the Ore Valley. A micro-provider network in Taunton has created opportunity for local self-employed care providers to provide services to local people in their community for a modest fee, with accreditation from Community Catalysts, keeping skills and wealth circulating within the community. A ‘mind the gap’ initiative in Coventry takes public sector leaders and decision makers out of the ‘dead spaces’ where decisions are usually made, into walk-and-talk sessions in parks and city centres with front line workers and residents.
The stories we tell – and how we tell them - really matter. Telling the story is a key way forward to make the Better Way real, to unlock belief, commitment and action. By drawing on the rich and positive experience around us we can ‘give ideas friends’. We also need to be willing to be braver and more outspoken in what we say. We can learn from the public narrative model of storytelling, starting with the self, then us, moving to why this is urgent now and ending with a call to action. This is more dynamic than case studies, which all too often remain "on the shelf".
Understanding the barriers to change is important and we need to do more of it. For example, the scaling up model is wrong and we should stop defining success by size but rather by the extent to which we are building the conditions for human relationships to flourish – ‘good rather than big’. Another example is that we need to unlearn almost everything we are conventionally taught about leadership - the role of social activists is to grow the capacity for change making in others, not simply to lead the change ourselves. And we should give much greater prominence to the role of the front-line, and encourage the blurring of lines between service users and paid workers.
The Better Way propositions are often given lip-service but not followed in practice - we are beginning to develop pointers for applying them well. For example, on co-production, we have started to evolve a litmus test (questions to ask: is people’s time valued; does everyone have the same information; who makes the decisions; does change happen as a result?). We can also develop distinctions that will help develop better practice eg between self-efficacy and co-production at a community level to create co-design.
Organisations as well as communities and services can be transformed by the Better Way propositions and become beacons. In discussion, we started to builda shared sense of what makes for a Better Way organisation- eg clarity of purpose; an ability to describe desired change; deep listening to service users/customers and other stakeholders; walking the talk in everything we have control over; generous and collaborative leadership where the common good is put before institutional interest; a practice of sustainable development; permeable models which allow users, staff and others, to play different roles at different times; honest story-telling which may include for example a collective-impact narrative which acknowledges that positive change is usually the result of several agencies working together; and radical transparency which provides insight into the benefits and disbenefits produced by an organisation.
A question to explore further is how best to encourage organisations to align their princples and behaviours along these lines while avoiding the kinds of standard-setting or quality assurance mechanisms which too often produce ‘gaming’ rather than real change - and which in any case others might do better. Another concern is that we become too focused on improving and preserving existing organisations when real change may be generated in other ways, and by very different groups. Indeed, we should be encouraging the breaking down of institutional walls and boundaries – permeable platforms may well represent a better future than many current organisational models. Possibly we can make progress by preparing ‘provocations’ designed to stimulate organisational reflection and change, but which are not prescriptive.
We must widen the network. This must include bringing young people with us, but not in a tokenistic/’bussing in’ way. We must go where the energy is but should try to stop the network becoming a civil society one alone and make it (naturally) more diverse. We should also welcome people into the network who can bring insight into ways in which emerging technology can help to advance the Better Way propositions
We want to build collaborations across the cells and the network will develop the IT support ("the scaffolding") to facilitate it. There is a real energy and interest within the network in working on certain areas, such as developing the stories that will be the foundation of a future call to action, new models of leadership and how to ‘bite the hand that feeds you’.
In conclusion, it was agreed that (subject to resources for the network continuing) the network will take action as follows:
We will set up a working group on the narrative, which will develop contagious stories that illustrate the propositions (and may potentially also point to what makes organisations embody A Better Way).
We will also set up inter-cell groups on leadership and on ‘biting the hand'.
We will put in place IT to allow for a better exchange of thinking across cells.
We will look for groups that are exemplars, including people we can invite into the network.
As we develop the network we will seek to broaden diversity in the broadest sense, including involving more young people.
Participants at the gathering (dinner or workshop or both)
Everyone attended in a personal capacity.
Geraldine Blake, London Funders
Richard Bridge, Independent, formerly Community Matters
Libby Cooper, Independent, formerly Charities Evaluation Services
Kathy Evans, Children England
Colin Falconer, Independent, formerly Foyer Federation
Jake Ferguson, Hackney CVS
Andy Gregg, Race on the Agenda
Athol Halle, Groundswell
Rick Henderson, Homeless Link
Peter Holbrook, Social Enterprise UK
DannyKruger, West London Zone
Rebekah Menzies, Carnegie UK Trust
John Mulligan, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
Andy Mycock, University of Huddersfield
Polly Neate, Womens Aid
Liz Richardson, University of Manchester
David Robinson, Community Links
Chris Setz, Independent, Hornsey town hall campaigner
Philip Sharratt, Kjelgaard, Taunton
Caroline Slocock, Civil Exchange
Jane Slowey, Independent, formerly Foyer Federation
Jess Steele, Jericho Road, Hastings
Sue Tibballs, Sheila McKechnie Foundation
Julia Unwin, Chair of Inquiry into the Future of Civil Society (guest speaker)
Jennifer Wallace, Carnegie UK Trust
Clare Wightman, Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire
Richard Wilson, OSCA, and formerly Involve
Karin Woodley, Cambridge House
Chris Wright, Catch 22
Steve Wyler, Independent, formerly Locality