Investing in the Big Society

The Big Society idea has been under scrutiny & challenge ever since it began. Most recently Liverpool City Council have withdrawn their involvement in being one of the four pilot areas for the idea. (BBC news link here). Just a day ago, the outgoing head of the Community Service Volunteers (Dame Elisabeth Hoodless) voiced her concerns about how cuts are destroying the Big Society idea (BBC news link here). 

As a consequence I have been following Lord Nat Wei's blog with interest - he is the Big Society 'Csar' who has been promoting the idea from its early beginning. This morning, I was prompted by his most recent post entitled: Local Authorities and Big Society in the Age of Austerity (link here) to respond. 

Below is what I have posted on his site - although as of now it is yet to appear: 

If the Big Society is about anything, it must be about inclusiveness and bringing people from outside the tent into the inside. In this respect, your partisan opening comment of ‘Labour’s huge deficit’ does you no favours. If anything calling it simply ‘the huge deficit’ would help to build some bridges which the Big Society idea badly needs right now. 

I do like and appreciate the Big Society concept, by the way. But I am in this debate as a critical friend as well as advocate. Politics and economics aside, if the Big Society can do anything to mitigate the public service cuts which are being made, then I support it wholeheartedly. 

Where I am very concerned is where the Big Society is being invoked, without trial, test or evaluation, as the way in which severe cuts will not really be felt. This is what is happening in Buckinghamshire at the moment where the County Council is slashing (disproportionately) the youth service budget. (See ‘Keep the spirit of Big Society alive’). As far as I can see, they are not investing in the kinds of capacity building you outline. The likelihood is that without enough structures in place, there will be less volunteering in the future, not more. 

Certainly the best public services have been engaging their citizens/customers/users/clients for some while – long before the ‘Big Society’ existed as a concept. It is certainly something I have been talking about for many years. (At this event, I talked about the evidence based citizenship: http://tinyurl.com/sureypaagm2005 and there more on my blogs at: http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2009/05/empowered-citizenship.html and here in the context of income generation: http://smallcreativeideas.blogspot.com/2009/04/thinking-about-income-generation.html) So getting the users of a service to do more while saving resources being spent is old – as old as when we began filling our own fuel tanks at filling stations, at least. 

Yes, there is a great need to get more users/citizens/customers involved in picking up the litter (to use your example – although better not to drop it in the first place!), and there are huge cultural impediments within local authorities towards doing this more (not least the risk averse culture fuelled by the ‘no win/no fee’ lawyers hanging around on street corners). But all of this will not happen by magic or by merely hoping that the invisible hand of the social market place will result in volunteers and philanthropists rushing into the vacuum left by the public service cutbacks. 

Certainly core costs can be reduced further and perhaps part time working could be a way ahead. I don’t know if any councils or other public service agencies are considering this. However, when commercial firms did this to survive the recession, as you cite, they did this as their order books were down. There was less demand on their services or products. The comparison to public services does not work in quite the same way unless you are suggesting that the police say to their public that they are going on short working so please could crimes now not be committed between the hours of 2 and 6 o’clock in the morning....? 

Partnerships are also not new. As you know most local authorities have been developing their compacts with their local third sector agencies and have been looking to extend partnership arrangements with them over many years. But to repeat... this requires investment and indeed time. The time is critical as without it trust cannot develop. As you well know, partnerships do not work without trust. Is there the time to develop further trusting partnerships now before the cutbacks begin to really bite? 

In sum, yes there is a need to be pragmatic and tenacious about making the Big Society work and I am not in the group of people who are urgently looking for it to fail (from both the right and left of the spectrum). My overriding concern is that the investments in Big Society development are not being bold or strategic enough. There is insufficient recognition that the transition to a Bigger Society and a Smaller Government is one that cannot simply happen. Shrewd investment and good local leadership will be critical

I am in the middle of designing a leadership development programme for senior people working within a large Government agency. I have the idea that during the summer recess (there is a two month break in the learning modules) that we might ask them to read and write a synopsis of a book on leadership. They would bring this back to the first Autumn module.

Naturally, the participants will be able to choose which book they wish to read. But what books would you put on the list as a prompt or starter for ten, for them to consider?

What book (or books) on leadership have read that you have found particularly inspiring, useful or even just a good read? (If you have the time - a one liner as to why this book made an impact - would be peachy!)

I will kick off with one that I am reading right now:

Engaging Emergence: Turning upheaval into opportunity by Peggy Holman (I saw Peggy give a presentation about this in Berlin earlier this year and she was inspirational - it is a book which sets out the source code for how to tackle wicked problems. A must read in these austere times in my opinion)

Thanks for your ideas!

UPDATE: Had some very interesting replies from some people on Twitter and indeed elsewhere - I will be compiling a list at some point. But - the main thing I wanted to say was:

• It doesn't have to be a book (it could be a movie, or a poem, or a picture, or a you-tube clip, or whateverhas inspired you...
• It doesn't have to be a book about leadership - it could be any book (or...) that has helped you be a leader- a novel, a biography, a science revision text book, whatever!

There are some of the replies on my other blog - including one from from Stephen Fry & another from Alastair Campbell!   

http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-book-on-leadership-would-you.html

Do you assume your leadership is useful?

I have just been re-reading a great article by Paul Whitby on Assumed Usefulness (The Psychologist July 1980 pp 308-310) which I had mislaid. I tracked Paul down on Linked-In and he graciously sent me a hard copy. 

It is a very neat and powerful piece. 

In the article, he ‘proposes a model to explain the widespread phenomenon of unwarranted self confidence’. In 1948, Skinner carried out an experiment with some hungry pigeons where he fed them a pellet of corn at regular intervals. As a result some odd behaviours were ‘reinforced’ (to use the behaviourist vernacular) such as head swaying or hopping from one foot to another. These behaviours persisted long after the corn stopped coming. So in this experiment a pigeon’s random behaviour was reinforced by an unconnected reward. 

Paul Whitby then goes on to propose that this is what happens with psychotherapy. Psychotherapy (as opposed to more rigorously tested cognitive behavioural therapy techniques) is very popular and many (both therapists and clients) swear by it. Many psychotherapists assert the value of their craft despite numerous objective studies suggesting otherwise. Paul’s view is that in some cases, psychotherapy clients will get better, as they would have done anyway. These naturally occurring remissions are the equivalent of the pellets of corn for the pigeons, and result in collusion between client and therapist over the value and importance of the therapy. This is very challenging stuff and I don’t intend to enter into the debate here about the value or otherwise of the various psychotherapies in use today. I will leave that to others. 

But I do want to pick up on Paul Whitby’s comment towards the end of his article where he says the “model is also applicable outside the healing arts. Probably the most fruitful field for Assumed Usefulness is business and management.” 

Since first reading this article more than 20 years ago, I have long wondered the same. 

How many of the everyday actions taken by leaders have been randomly reinforced in their pasts by performance improvements that happened through happen chance (or even despite what the leaders did)? How many strategies, plans, protocols and policies have merely seemed to work by the random occurrence of a few positive results? 

This debate is raging at the moment in police leadership circles. My colleague Peter Neyroud (erstwhile Chief Constable and Chief Executive of the National Policing Improvement Agency) and David Weisburd (Distinguished Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason

University) have written an article in support of “Police Science: Toward a New Paradigm”. http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/228922.pdf. Malcolm Sparrow puts forward an alternative view that instead of ‘scientific policing’ the focus should remain with ‘problem orientated policing’ (“Governing Science” http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/232179.pdf) Both articles are well worth putting the time aside to read in full and weigh up the arguments yourself. 

But that debate is not really about whether the actions taken by managers and leaders should be evaluated but more about who should carry out the evaluation and in what context. I suspect that all three authors would agree that there is no room for Assumed Competence in police (or indeed any other) leadership. 

So my questions to you are these: 

• How do you know you are a useful leader?
• What evidence or feedback are you drawing on to assert or even prove this?
• How can you demonstrate a causal link between the policies (or whatever) that you have devised / implemented and the results achieved?
• Indeed, do you agree that there should or ever can be a causal link?
• Or would you assert that leadership (and all the actions that arise from it) is an art and not a science: leadership is just too ineffable and complex to be evaluated by reductionist methodologies?

Interestingly and with powerful foresight, Paul goes onto cite an article by Eachus (“The psychology of the stock market”, The Psychologist; Bulletin of the BPS pp 100-103, 1988) where he illustrated how “persistent activity [is] maintained by the occasional and random reward of a large profit which is independent of effort or knowledge”. Paul Whitby wonders whether Assumed Usefulness underpins the behaviour of dealers in the stock market. He speculates that “yuppie merchant bankers are well known for their high self-regard” which leads them to an emotional state prone to Assumed Usefulness. 

I wonder... 

(You may also like to see my previous article about bankers’ bonuses and the questions that Boards and investors should still be asking)

 

Original blog post: http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2011/01/do-you-assume-your-leadership-is-useful.html

Police: who will be the leader?

There is now draft legislation to replace Police Authorities with elected Police Crime Commissioners. As we await the passage of the legislation into law, the debate is continuing about how these new PCCs will work - or indeed whether they should happen altogether. Today the Civil Service Live Network put up a debate between a past Home Secretary and a think tank Chief Exec about the pros and cons of this new policy. You can access it here. 

It is a debate that I felt moved to add my six pennyworth - here is what I wrote: 

Not being able to name the chair of local Police Authority is not a powerful argument. Not even knowing that such a body exists is perhaps more convincing. Certainly, despite their best efforts, the awareness of Police Authorities is still very low amongst the general public. But there again, how many citizens really understand how all public services join up and are governed? 

Quoting the research about public satisfaction with the police is not best placed since that has far more to do with how members of the public feel treated by police officers & staff (sadly) following a crime that it does about concerns about the setting of overall priorities. 

The gap between reality (crime has been going down significantly in recent years) and perception (fear of crime & antisocial behaviour is still high) is notable. I ran my own one person campaign to get fear of crime included in the responsibilities of the local Crime & Disorder partnership legislation (1998) but failed. I do wonder, had it been in there whether things would be different now? 

The gap is down to many factors not least the media coverage of crimes, the doubt over 'statistics' (lies, damned lies etc) and the ability of many in and involved with the police to really 'connect' with the public. PCSOs have been doing a remarkable job here and local PC led neighbourhood teams have been making real inroads. But, how many of these structures will survive austerity measures is yet to be seen. I do worry that expectations on these new PCC's will be so high whilst at the same time front line services will be cut back (there is only so much money to be saved by reducing the IT department to one person and an electronic dog) - that a perfect storm will be created. And in this storm, the perpetrators of antisocial behaviour and broad acquisitive crime will have a field day. Crime and fear of crime will rise together. I hope not, of course, but the omens are not good. 

But on the other hand, over the years I have been working with the police as an independent adviser / coach / facilitator - I have seen the police HQ car parks grow and grow... 

I don't think the last Government 'chickened out' - I think they ran out of legislative time. By the same token, one could argue that this Government has chickened out of a national restructuring and moving away from 43 independent police forces in E&W. Interestingly though - Scotland and possibly Wales are moving towards whole country forces in each case. 

It is vital "that local people had a real say over the policing in their area" but I am just not sure that PCCs alone will be the answer. They may be part of the answer - but on their own - almost certainly not. I speak as someone who has lived and worked in the Thames Valley Police for nearly all of my adult life. It is a very large patch which extends from Milton Keynes to Witney to Reading to Slough to Eton and so forth. The idea that all these geographically (and otherwise) diverse communities could all feel represented by a single person is a stretch of the imagination. What will be critical, assuming the draft legislation becomes law, will be to elect a person who has a very clear and convincing plan for how to 'stay in touch' with the broad sweep of the area. I can only hope that the preferential voting system that the Government is proposing to use for electing these PCCs will be able to ensure that the best possible people - politically and otherwise - become the new PCCs. I also hope that the rigour of scrutiny and challenge that must happen as part of the selection processes and subsequent campaigns of all the candidates will tease out the wheat from the chaff (ie the really committed, knowledgeable and citizen focused people from the 'place people' that the central political parties may try to parachute in).

Once these people are in place - yes there will be some very tricky issues around governance and relationship with the Chief Constables to resolve. On its own, I don't think that is an argument against having the new PCCs. However it is an argument for some very clear thinking about roles and boundaries before the PCCs are elected. Perhaps some simulations, thought experiments and the like would not go amiss. This is not wholly new terrain since PAs have had the lead responsibility for Best Value while the CC is operationally independent. It was never really tested when (say) the PA decided the 'Dogs Section' should be closed down on BV grounds while the CC said that it was an operational matter over which he/she had complete autonomy. This was never tested. 

So it is a big debate - which will only kick into gear when / if the legislation is passed into statute. When that happens, I hope that Civil Service World will host more debates like this (on and offline) to flesh out just how this new leadership role will operate in the context of 150+ years of policing. 

Debate: Elected police and crime commissioners

http://network.civilservicelive.com/pg/pages/view/535437/ 

I am left pondering on how the new PCCs (assuming it becomes law) will impact upon leadership in the police service - not just at the chief officer level but also throughout the organisation.

Original blog post

 

Process matters!

NetrootsUK was billed as a “one day event to help network and inspire progressive activists working on the web”. As someone with this blog, my small creative ideas blog and my Twitter account (...facilitating the conversations, ideas & questions to help build a more ambitious, creative and fair world), I decided to go along to the event in London yesterday, along with about 600 other people. It was busy, fascinating & diverse, and the day made me think a great deal. (And I thank the organisers, sponsors and contributors who made it happen.) 

But: did it help me network and was I inspired? In order: broadly no and very variably so. 

It was a long day, a good half of which was spent in a large plenary listening to speakers. Some were very good: Stella Creasy MP gave a passionate & inspiring speech and Clifford Singer entertained the audience with his use of comic sans (among other things)! However the broad view that emerged from the parallel tweeting and some conversations that I had, was that this was not what the delegates had come really come for. The agenda in the middle of the day was jam packed with a range of interesting seminars. I only managed to get to three of them: I would have liked to have to gone to more. Towards the end of the event, an ‘open mike’ session, which I only understood what that meant when it happened, had six speakers who hurriedly gave us information about their particular project. There was interaction and participation, but not nearly as much as there could have been. 

At the end of the day, I was left feeling tired and frustrated as I knew how much more could have been achieved. This was not because of the content of the day (the seminars were good) but the process. The process was mostly didactic, constraining and preset. In many respects it was a classic conference form which was (perhaps) doubly frustrating as the people attending were anything but. The principles of interactivity, emergence, self direction & exploration, randomness, transparency and creativity which are what make social media / Web 2.0 such an exciting medium were almost absent in how the conference was structured. There was just so much untapped potential in the room. 

If I had been in charge (as it were...) this is what I would have done: 

• made the whole event Open Space so that the people attending would have been able to shape the overall agenda and indeed their own conference. The event would have been far more fluid and allowed for people to network in open & deliberate ways that would have been so much more productive than the happen-chance discussions you might start (with the person standing next to you in the lift or over coffee). 
• explained the process of how the day was going to function at the beginning so that people would have understood how they could make the most of it. For example I would have at least announced or publicised that there was free wifi for everyone to use in the subterranean room (away from mobile phone signals). 
• have real and virtual walls for people to post their ideas, thoughts, concerns, links etc 
• told people in advance what they were coming to and how they would be able to sponsor discussions and workshops. (Whilst some lunchtime seminars were organised like this – so many more could have been put on.) 
• put all the chairs in a several concentric circles so that people could face each other rather than be put into passive audience style rows all facing the podium and speakers. (This was meant to be about networking – not a series of academic lectures!) 

I am well aware that I am probably in a minority in my focus on process & outcomes as opposed to content. What comes first for most people, it seems – conference organisers and delegates – is content: who is speaking about what. I start with the outcomes: how do you want the world or yourself to be different as a result of the event? The form (or process) of the event must follow this function (outcome). If the purpose of yesterday’s event had been to inform people of some of the work going on around political activism in the UK at the moment, it did reasonably well. But as the purpose of the event (as billed) was to inspire people (to take action) and help people network, then this event did not succeed as much as it could have done. An opportunity was lost. 

If there are any follow up events – nationally or locally – I sincerely hope that greater attention will be paid to the process of these events so that more, so much more, can be achieved.  

Moreover, progressive politics aside, what large or small event are you in the process of organising? 

Does the form of the event match the outcomes you wish to achieve? How do you know? How will you evaluate the event (or meeting, or briefing, or whatever...) for how well these outcomes are achieved? 

Political leadership: an example of effective support for economic regeneration...

... or not?

Sheffield Lib Dem Council leader Paul Scriven sings in hotel chain promo video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OoZbDBaiwc

Just stumbled across this via Twitter.

What do you think? 

(Happy New Year!)

Humour in a cold climate

In these austere times, despite moments of relief and joy for many, it is very hard to remain positive and act progressively. It is all too easy to retreat into a reactive bubble and just live from day to day, doing only that which is absolutely necessary to keep your head above water. Creativity flounders, working relationships are put under huge strain and leadership can descend into the emaciated hell of just following procedures. 

One thing that remains though, despite all this gloom, is humour. Our ability to take a wry slant on the world and grimly laugh at the situation can be majestic. Humour is the warmth that keeps our home fires burning - or at least the embers glowing, ready to spark into flame when more fuel is found. Humour can make even the coldest places seem warmer and more hopeful. 

Some years ago, I made a point of collecting a few examples of workplace humour which I share below. I do this for several reasons. Firstly I hope the statements below make you laugh and even if it is only through gritted teeth, I hope the small shot of endorphins helps. Secondly, if you come across any other examples that you would like to share please do so - you can add a comment below or email me. And thirdly, I hope this small smattering of humour helps you stay in touch with your ambitions and assists you in keeping on keeping on in these difficult times. 

In one senior police managers office, I came across this simple statement, pinned up on his notice board: 

The only difference between this place and the Titanic is that they, at least, had a band.

Pinned up on a general notice board of a financial services company I once worked with, I saw: 

The Management regrets that due to the current economic climate, it has been necessary to make certain economies. Therefore the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off until further notice.

In a well known consumer campaigning organisation that I once did some work with, the following posters sprang up overnight like a blanket of bluebells:

Meetings: the practical alternative to work

• Are you lonely...?
• Do you work on your own...?
• Do you hate having to make decisions...?

Then hold a meeting!

• You can get to see other people, sleep in peace, off-load decisions, feel important and impress your colleagues.

And then in another organisation, I saw this: 

The Curse of the Pyramid

I will never forget the time when we entered the final chamber of the biggest pyramid. The endless variety of furnishings, the sense of absolute stillness... of action long ago abandoned, the incomprehensible symbols written for no living person to read...

And I turned to my companion and said "it's just like head office really, isn't it?" But he disagreed as he couldn't see a coffee machine.

(For 'head office' insert your own suitable place, of course!)

And finally, I would offer you this to indicate that I can laugh at myself as well:

The Consultants Promise

• We may not succeed in answering all of your questions.
• Indeed you may feel that we have not answered any of them.
• Nonetheless, you can be assured that the answers we do give will only serve to raise a whole new set of questions
• And so, in some ways, you may feel as confused as ever.
• However, we promise, that you will be confused on a much higher level about far more important things.

Naturally, I would like to thank all the people who penned or posted these pieces of humour. I don't know their names, I am afraid, but I am most grateful to them.

And like I say, if you know of any more items that made you laugh, do please share them. Thanks.

Original blog post: http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2010/12/humour-in-cold-climate.html