Category Archives: Politics, Policies And Process
Managing Change And Programmes: Beginning A New Adventure
Social policy implementation ‘on the ground’ is challenging – though it may also be exciting and certainly well worthwhile. We can all learn from comparing our expectations with the reality which follows……
I start a new assignment today. It involves working with a public service multi-disciplinary team in a socio-economically ‘challenged’ environment, as they take forward a programme of services to meet local need. And, whilst they do this, the team have been told they must adapt and develop the nature of the programme itself so that, in accordance with new government policy, it becomes a more integrated and seamless provision.
That’s the way with nationally led programmes these days; and probably all for the better. But it does give rise to questions:
* How much development against how much change?
* How much adaptation of actual practice against just presentational adjustment to ensure that the service is used more effectively?
* How well equipped and resourced (professionally and materially) are those who must take forward the change?
* And…. will the intended recipients of the new, developed service find it helpful? How will we know if we’re providing the best we can?
I’m really looking forward to joining the team. They’re experienced and committed and will I know do everything they can to help me settle in and make progress. Agreeing what ‘making progress’ really means will I hope be an adventure in which we can all move forward together.
I shall in all probabality return on this website to specific policy issues at some point in the future, but for now I will make a few very cautious predictions about how I will learn from (and hopefully contribute to) the work in hand……
The first element of joining a team is the mapping – I’ll spend a while finding out in a bit more detail who’s who and what they do. Usually this begins to happen quite naturally in the course of actually finding out where things (the various venues? a desk? a phone?) are located. The practicals seem to take one also to the people.
Then there’s the analysis phase; are we all agreed that we have what we need? Who or what can plug the gaps – and to what extent? I know the team manager has already sorted the programme as it stands in considerable detail, but it will be interesting to swap notes with him and our colleagues about outstanding requirements for the anticipated changes ahead.
I’d guess the next stage after this will be consulting with others outside the immediate team; local authority decision-makers, other service providers, and of course with those who will be at the receiving end of the service. This is all so inter-related that it’s very difficult to predict how it will end up. But the main thing is to be clear about agreed objectives. Problems can usually be overcome if people know and are comfortable with what they’re aiming at.
And finally there’s implementation. At the moment details of what will be required of us all are still very outline; hopefully the government will give us rather more specific information and guidelines very shortly. It’s difficult for colleagues when they aren’t sure what’s expected, so that needs to be sorted a.s.a.p. (I’m never really certain those at the very top appreciate how difficult uncertainty can be for workers at the delivery face. Challenge is fine; destabilisation and all that follows from it may not be, from anyone’s persepctive.)
So there we go. A few predictions and comments for starters. I will of course steer quite clear of talking about details – that’s just for us as a team – but I’ll maybe return some time to say whether my expectations of process were on the ball….. Change is the order of the day, but it’s a relatively uncharted course in the practical sense for many who have to adapt to, and indeed deliver, it.
One of the best ways to learn is to test reality and the art of the possible against the expectational theory.
But whatever the shape of what we eventually come up with, I know that everyone on the project I’m joining for a while wants the best; and that’s a very good start.
Is Art Good For Your Health?
Why is commissioned art in hospitals such a problem for some? The evidence suggests that, just as much as in other public and work places, art can help people to be comfortable and positive.
There they are, the arbiters of ‘value’, getting very upset about money which has been spent in one or two hospitals on ‘art’. It’s a waste, they declare. We could be buying more drugs or equipment, but we’re squandering the readies on something that you just…. look at!
Well, perhaps these joyless folk haven’t grasped the concept of added value. Perhaps the evidence, from a variety of sources, that being happy (or at least, happier than before) helps you to get better has passed them by. If you can see green vistas, or pleasant pictures and images, you will relax more easily, and you may even be able to leave hospital a day or so earlier than if you’re stuck in a grey and souless place.
There are not that many ways in which service providers can actually save on overall budget and, at the same time, increase effectiveness and make people happier – but this is indeed one of them!
No-one seems to be saying that art is going to replace medical treatments. Proper consideration of clinical diagnosis and treatment must always be absolutely paramount. Medicine will however always be an art as well as a science.
If people in hospital have pleasant things to see and think about, if they can look at artefacts which help them to feel they are still connected with their wider comminuties and interests, if there are nice things to talk about with fellow patients, that makes a difference.
But ‘nice things to look at’ don’t just appear; they have to be created. I remember Adrian Henri, who painted murals for the operating theatre suite at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, recounting how much research he was obliged to do before he so much as lifted a brush. He had to ensure his images gave no unwitting offence or alarm to patients from many different faiths and cultures as they entered a place none of volunters to visit.
Perhaps those who choose to take such a high-handed and cold view of what’s appropriate for people in hospitals should remember that the evidence also points compellingly to the idea that pleasant workplaces are good… and that applies whether you work in a commercial office or a medical context. We all benefit from environments which make us comfortable and positive. And the evidence is there to show this benefit can be measured in outcomes even accountants would acknowledge.
Within sensible reason, let’s agree that there’s always a place, when were thinking about real people, for soul as well as science. Who knows when any of us might be in hospital and glad of a little visual cheer?
The 5+ Cs of Chairing
Control and Command, or Communicate, Consult and Collaborate? There are other ‘Cs of Chairing’ too, but what do all these terms tell us about how modern organisations and people see the world?
It used to be quite easy. If you were Chair(man – most of them were male) of a meeting or organisation, you sat there and issued directions and edicts as prescribed.
That role of course still exists, especially in legal some other formal contexts. But these days there tends to be a lot more to it than that.
People in general are not so willing to go along with being told what to do. They question things. As a Chair you have to establish your authority in more ways than simply being appointed or elected: you have to show others that you know what you’re doing, and why.
This applies particularly in political and community contexts. Chairs may well need to use a Command and Control style in the military or a legal situation, but they will need to show leadership of another kind if they want to take things forward successfully in situations where those involved are not obliged to be there.
Communicate, Consult and Collaborate may well be a more effective method than Command and Control to make progress, when individuals in a group can opt out at least as easily as they opt in.
There are of course snags in this newer approach: how can you be sure to get things done? But on the whole Command and Control probably in reality also produced only a fraction of the effect that ideally orders might have – if people want to be difficult, they will always find ways to be so.
I suspect nonetheless that the issue of what people actually expect from a Chair has become more critical in relatively recent times, having particular impact for, say, voluntary organisations or political parties. ‘The troops’ still need, from the organisation’s perspective, to be put in place at strategic points in time, and they need to be marshalled in sufficient numbers to have impact. In order to achieve this, should the Contemporary Chair issue Orders, or would it be better to Coax and Cajole?
Resolution of this dilemma can present a challenge, unless sufficient preparatory work has been done. A Chair (whether of a small voluntary group or of a massive national organisation) who understands that individual members need consistently to be valued and informed, is more likely when the crunch comes to be effective than one who has forgotten these fundamentals.
There’s a whole lot of difference between Telling someone and Engaging them; but folk will generally accept the the former if the latter happened first. (Of course there are also exceptional issues around every individual’s responsibility for their own actions, regardless of if and when they receive encouragement – voting, for instance, ‘should’ be a civic duty, not an action predicated on being ‘asked’ to vote.)
A rule of thumb for Contemporary Chairs could be: Lead from the front, but Listen at the back. Communicate before you Command.
I don’t think people have abandoned the idea of organisational leadership. Sometimes, especially when the stakes are high, they positively demand it. But they also expect those who direct them to acknowledge, very actively, that the prerogative of Command has to be given, accorded by Collective Consent, and not imposed.
Facilitation & Leadership
Leaders offer direction; Facilitors generally should not. But how fluid is this distinction, and to what effect?
Do Leaders emerge or are they made? Are some Facilitators also Leaders? Or is the role of a Faciltator to bring about change through the agency of others – perhaps those who already have the mantle of Leadership, or perhaps others who will come to the fore via the process being facilitated?
The answer is probably that both these models apply in different circumstances.
A professional Facilitator (whether paid or not) is someone whose task is to bring forward responses from a group which has already asked for this to happen, maybe via an already established Leader.
On the other hand an informal Facilitator (usually a volunteer) may be someone who wants to get a group or interest established as an entity in itself. Such a person may well emerge from that group as a Leader.
And why are these distinctions important?
Again, the answers vary. Sometimes for instance informal facilitation is a route to significant developments which can be harnessed by, say, regeneration or other ‘official’ bodies to bring forward spokespeople for given interests. Conversely, on occasion it has been known for formal Facilitators to take upon themselves a leadership role acceptable by those who engaged them, but perhaps not by those whom they are facilitating.
The more the variables are considered, the more likely it is that the role claimed, Facilitator or Leader?, is that which is in fact being enacted.
Why Change Management can’t be perfect (as if you didn’t know)
Different communities and groups frequently have different understandings of why ‘change’ occurs and how ‘progress’ is achieved. Leadership and initiatives in such circumstances can be very challenging. Nobody’s interested in Policy Pilots. They want Results.
It’s always puzzled me, and the more I think about it, the more so…..
We all know that
(a) we live in times of rapid change,
(b) the variables in the changes are uncountable, and
(c) to whatever extent, change has to be eternally managed.
In other words, we are solidly aware that the whole process is unpredictable and subject to serendipity at every stage of the game. Plus, there’s never an end. Change is a dialectic as compelling as Time itself.
Why is ‘change’ a worry?
So why do so many people spend so much time criticising ‘Change’, and apparently so little time in general public discourse considering ‘Since Something Is Going To Happen Anyway, What Shall We All Do To Make It A Bit Better?’
Clearly, the myriad of forces which impel change as such also apply to the motivators and causal factors behind any individual’s reaction to that change. There are psychological ones, socio-political ones, geo-economic ones… The list could go on.
There is also however a general cultural factor which probably applies diffierently at different times and in different places, whether we are thinking about huge historical eras or micro-contexts like single workplaces.
Here are some possible scenarios to which one might be able to apply specific examples.. just fill in with your own!
The cultural backdrop
In some cultural understandings – and again these may be micro as well as macro – there is a sense simply that Things Happen. This probably includes amongst other ‘Things’ people who are outside the group, who are perceived with whatever degree of acceptance or resistance to be the agents of the change…. No good communicating with them, because ‘We’ won’t make any impact, so just wait and see, and then judge the outcome.
Then there are other cultural understandings which may suggest that, whilst ‘We’ are aware of what’s going on, the option of complaint later is preferable to taking early responsibility for what arises. The Comfort Zone is visible, but is safer than expending the time and energy which a pro-active response would require.
And finally there are cultural understandings which just fail to appreciate the fluid nature of the process of developing ideas. In this case, people do know how to interrogate proposals and they may well have strong views, but they see every decision and outcome as cast in stone.
This last is a particularly difficult position to address, but one familiar to many of us who attempt to initiate Managed Change.
Vague ideas which leave things hanging…
You perhaps go into a situation with a remit to support constructive developments, and you ask those concerned what they think. Their response is, ‘Well, what do you want?’……
But you know that, come the time when plans crystallise into actions, there will be plenty of advice on What You Should Have Done.
The dialectic of such development is challenging. Not everyone sees any difference between Change and ‘Consensual Progress’; nor does everyone want to. If you as an initiator emphasise the plasticity of outcomes, you are accused of not knowing your stuff; but if you offer directional leadership (is there any other sort?) you are of course autocratic.
It’s all a matter of perspective, as any politician or organisational head attempting to pilot his or her favourite policy will tell you.
Empowerment
Empowering people and communities to believe that things can usually change consensually for the better – that only very rarely is there no space for adjustment – is one of the most difficult aspects of community leadership, whatever the ‘community’.
Perhaps one of the first steps in this direction is the acknowledgement that we all, You, Me, Them, make mistakes; and that it IS possible to learn from and act on these, positively.
2012 London Olympics: An Opportunity For Liverpool?
Already, some people in Liverpool believe the 2012 Olympics will be ‘bad’ for Merseyside. Having already won the accolade of 2008 European Capital of Culture, – and bearing in mind also the City’s 800th Anniversary in 2007 – surely we in Liverpool are actually very well placed to benefit greatly from the 2012 Olympics, if we start to plan now? The glass is decidedly half full, not half empty. The next challenge for Liverpool is to recognise this and act on it.
The news on Merseyside today is that a survey shows more local business people think the 2012 Olympics will be bad for the Liverpool area than good for it.
They argue that benefit will probably be directly in relation to proximity to London; and indeed that finance for the Olympics will take any available monies, leaving not much for the rest of us.
This is a particularly puzzling view in Merseyside, where we are about to benefit from our 800th Anniversary in 2007, and then the 2008 European Capital of Culture – events brim-full of business opportunities and visitors, alongside the city’s current enthusiasm for regeneration.
Call me naive, but I see here a chance to build on whatever success we in Liverpool can make of our 2007 / 2008 events. The city’s leaders have consistently said they want the celebrations and developments kicked-started by the 2008 Culture Year (and the city’s 2007 800th Anniversary celebrations) to continue longer term, with a programme which has horizons well beyond those dates.
These forthcoming events are surely the way to make sure we’re on the ball for the Olympics, a position which is unique to Liverpool in the UK . By 2012 we will have put in place all the infrastructure and tourism facilities you could possibly wish for, and we will have learned a lot during our 2007/8 years in the limelight.
It’s up to all of us outside the capital to make sure that our Olympics ‘offer’ for 2012 is up to scratch. I don’t want to ask people now if they are worried about 2012. I’d prefer to ask how, already, they are engaging their imaginations to make 2012 a year when the whole country makes the most of chances to work together to show what we can do.
This is definitely one scenario where the glass is not half empty, but already half full – especially for Liverpool, 2008 European Capital of Culture. Let’s make sure the 2012 opportunity is relished, not rejected.
Planning For Energy Futures With The CBI
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is warning us that posssible energy shortages mean a winter of discontent awaits. This is a matter of concern for everyone. When energy is taken by the banks and business as seriously in terms of analysis as finance, the notion of ‘Futures’ may help us to understand ‘Options’ in a whole new way.
My grasp of ‘Futures’, in the financial sense of the word, is slight; but I gather it’s all to do with large-scale ‘Options’ on investing by banks to produce decent returns later on. So far, so simple.
But isn’t this what we need to think about with energy futures, as well as financial ones? The CBI – an organisation which I would imagine knows a bit about futures and banks – has just said they have serious concerns about energy provision this winter. A long hard snap and we’ll be in for a winter of discontent the likes of which only those of us long in the tooth can recall.
Strangely, the forward thinking which is routinely made for financial futures doesn’t seem to feature when businesses consider energy futures. Some of us would argue, however, that energy is where it’s really all at.
What’s the ‘gold’ of the future?
Hasn’t it been said that the gold of the future is oil? Or maybe these days renewables?
Recent days have seen high-level hints that more nuclear power is on the cards for the UK. Conservationists and eco-people will be horrified by this. Industrial contractors and perhaps some regeneration specialists may see it as a promising way forward.
The real question must surely be, how much thought have we all put into ways of providing energy for the future? And how much have we also thought about the levels of energy we really need, as opposed to the levels we all currently expend?
Conflicting demands
Leaders in different parts of these fields seem to be looking several ways at once.
Businesses want cheap energy in abundant supply (though some of them do of course make efforts to conserve it as well).
The politicians are trying to do two things: encourage us on the one hand to save energy, and on the other to consider forms of energy production which may or may not be sustainable and long-term safe.
And the scientists are telling us that the technologies for energy conservation and production have not all been explored to the same level. We aren’t as yet in a position to evaluate fully the relative effectiveness and risk of all the possible ways forward; but we do know how to produce shorter-term big science solutions.
‘Options’ in energy
Back then to the ‘futures’ idea. We have graduate physicists and others who, it is reported, have too little to do. (An irony, in my experience, is that many good physicists end up working as analysts in banks, not laboratories.) And we have businessess which are worried about energy. Why not put things together and start to take the ‘options’ on energy as seriously as those on finance?
This isn’t just an issue for people who have lots of money to spend, it’s an issue for us all. Without energy, at suitable levels of availability and sustainability, there could be no banks or businesses anyway.
Where Do You Live When You’re Older?
Increasing life expectancy offers many new opportunities to us all, but it brings problems too. Amongst these is how working families can also care for elderly parent/s, who often live many miles away. One possible solution which could also help others living alone might be to re-think the mix of housing required when building homes, whether in rural areas, in terraced streets or in the suburbs.
It’s an issue we almost all have to face at some point: what do you do when old age or dependency catches up, and entirely independent living begins to be a worry?
For some of us, this occurs when our elderly parent/s or other ralatives begin to need support; for others it may perhaps only arise when we ourselves find that getting around is not as easy as it was. Sadly for a smaller number the issue arises because they have dependent adult children who will always require care. But there are few people for whom it’s never at any stage a worry.
It’s even more difficult of course if the increasingly fragile person lives at a significant distance from anyone who could ‘keep an eye’ and offer support. Many of us find ourselves at some point dashing off at any available opportunity to visit elderly parent/s or other lonely or dependent relatives. The problem is, there’s no room, or it wouldn’t work, for them to live with you; but on the other hand they live too far away for easy access.
And this issue isn’t going to go away. We should all be delighted to acknowledge that people live longer now. For probably the first time in history most of us can now expect to get into our eighties in relative good health.
In other words, the ‘dependency ratio’ – the ratio of people in work to those not working – is shifting towards fewer working people and more elderly, retired folk. So here is a matter requiring social adjustment and new policies for a whole range of services and facilities.
Would it be sensible to suggest that a policy of accommodating older people within reach of their nearest and dearest is essential wherever possible? The classic response is the personal arrangement of building or altering accommodation as a ‘Granex’, somewhere in or by the family home where a single older person can live independently but alongside their adult offspring.
But perhaps now is the time also to recognise there is a new commercial construction opportunity here, a development which would facilitate family contact but at the same time help older people to maintain their personal autonomy within the wider community.
We already have groups of small housing units which, although all separate and private, have shared wardens and services. These tend however to be in short supply; as indeed do privately owned bungalows suitable for less mobile seniors.
When housing estates (either private or for rent) are built, or when streets are renovated in the inner city or wherever, perhaps there could be a requirement that a given percentage of the development is very small clusters of accommodation suitable for elderly single people?
There could, for instance, be a recommendation that every fifteenth – or other appropriate number – plot be not, say, two conjoined semis, but rather five smaller flats, each with easy ‘disabled access’ and with a common lift, garden space etc. These small unit blocks, scattered around local communities, would provide homes to be sold or rented in exactly the same way as any other accommodation. The only difference would be that they might offer special ease of access and, through some shared amentity, an opportunity for the residents if they wish to maintain or develop a community of personal contacts and to keep an eye on each other.
If there were enough of these small unit blocks scattered around our communities, a real need could be met. Many adult children who wish to have their elderly and dependent members nearby but not for whatever reason actually in the family home could do so, using the normal mechanisms of the market. And this could also offer mutual support for others who are alone but don’t choose to live in larger blocks of flats.
Not everyone who lives alone can afford, say, suburban accommodation intended for two or more people, but there is no logical reason why smaller single living units can’t be developed in areas usually associated with the semi, as well as in the city centre. Similar arrangements could also apply, to use the other extreme, in rural villages, where affordable housing is becoming a major headache for people on lower incomes.
The evidence seems to be that mixed housing is a step in the right direction for stable and comfortable communities. General incorporation of single / small units of accommodation into ‘semi-land’ and terraced streets could increase choice for single people and help families to keep in touch with elderly members in a more routine and relaxed way.
Given the acknowledged inevitability in the UK of increased single living and also of elderly dependency, there really is a need to think about housing in new ways.
Is Enterprise Funding effective, and how should it be evaluated?
The returns on Merseyside Special Investment Fund investments are under scrutiny in a particularly challenging local economy. But do we know whether MSIF, or any other public investment bodies, are actually doing a good job? The answer is probably, ‘Pass….’. Unless there is directly comparable information about enterprise programmes where funding was unasked or declined, there is actually nothing meaningful against which to make evaluations of the adequacy of the funding decision-making process for programmes which do receive public investment.
The debate about whether MSIF (Merseyside Special Investment Fund) is effective continues. Their performance in the past year is for some unconvincing – today’s Daily Post Business Week reports an MSIF £10m venture fund, of which £9.6m has been written off. There is discussion about whether such funding is given in the right sort of way – it’s ‘given’ as loans at strictly commercial rates – and whether it’s an appropriate form of investment at all in a challenging economy such as Merseyside’s, which is indeed a fair question.
Similar discussion of course is frequently heard about other funding and loans. Is the type right for the need? Why is there so much apparent failure?
There is however a question which is rarely if ever asked, but which could tell us a lot: How do the enterrpises (of whatever sort, commercial or social) which are refused support actually fare, compared to those that receive it?
This would be a basic question in any respectable ‘proper reseach’ programme, whatever the subject under scrutiny. There has to be information against which to evaluate the outcomes of intervention.
For instance, if we were conducting clinical research we might expect a ‘double-blind trial’; in other disciplines the ‘null hypothesis’ might be involved – essentially the assumption that there is no difference or effect until one is clearly demonstrated. But no equivalent comparator information seems to be forthcoming when the subject is the use of the public purse for enterprise investment.
Probably this is because business investors tend only to look at their own and similar portfolios; and most senior people involved in funding enterprise have in their previous lives been business investors. Not many social science or economic researchers are directly engaged at operational level in decisions about the distribution of large investment cheques from the public purse.
Perhaps investment specialists are better at business advice than they are likely to be at research? Probably so; but we don’t actually know, because we don’t have the comparative data by which to tell if their advice and guidance, or indeed their cheques, are effective: Few (if any) public funding bodies provide comparator information about investment proposals which were developed without public funding, or were turned down when they asked.
It may seem a strange idea; but there could be a case for obligatory induction courses in research methods for investment bankers who see a future for themselves in expending public monies on enterprise on our behalf. Perhaps it’s time to re-write the job spec?
Or maybe the real issue is, do those who scrutinise public investments of this sort understand the difference between Outcomes (what happens at the end of the process) and Evaluation (whether specific outcomes have actually been changed – and, if so how? – by the intervention/s)?
If the difference between outcome and evaluation is understood, it’s only a short step to seeing that what public investment programmes really need is benchmarking by external research, to show whether funding intervention really does in general improve outcome. Then we’ll know whether they’re value for money – which by common agreement must in the end be what it’s all about.
When in a Hole… Dig Faster! (Liverpool’s ‘Big Dig’)
Liverpool’s Big Dig is supposed to be the way forward for investment in the city centre. In theory this is great. In practice the abject failure to insist on ’24 hour’ operation is a serious threat even to those businesses (and workers) already here. Edict No.1 in the ‘Regeneration Rulebook’ must surely be: when effecting to make progress, don’t put at unnecessary risk what you’ve already got.
‘How else is Liverpool going to resume its rightful place as a city meaning business?’, asks Matt Johnson in today’s Business Post of the city centre’s Big Dig.
Well, the Big Dig is supposed to be a route to increased business in the city centre; and at the moment it’s exactly the opposite.
Clearly, the intended outcome is that there should be more commercial and other enterprise activity within the city, but they’re going about it a very strange way. If we’re not very careful, there will in fact be less such economic activity in the immediate follow-on from the Big Dig, not more. Footfall is already dropping alarmingly, and not all the cries of ‘Wolf!’ from traders are sham – as of course Matt Johnson readily confirms.
Yesterday I was in the city centre mid-morning and later in the afternoon. On both occasions diversion signs and cones out-numbered visible Big Dig workers by a huge ratio. Not much sign of urgent activity to be seen even in the middle of the working day – and of course none at all that I have observed in the evening or during the night.
The City Council may be saving money for itself (and thus it would argue for its rate payers) by not engaging people to work at night – or even it appears particulary energetically during the day – but this will cost us all dear.
Reduced trading will mean fewer jobs; so some people will go out of work as a result of this – hardly a cost saving for them as individuals.
The whole Big Dig strategy, from what I can see, has developed without appreciating the most fundamental – and most unobserved – regeneration rule of all…… Don’t damage (more than absolutely essentially) what you already have in the attempt to ‘improve’ things for the future.
If the city powers-that-be can require commercial deliveries to be made in the centre outside business hours, why can’t they apply the same logic, only more so, to the diligence with which they deliver the Big Dig? Come on chaps, this is supposed to be a 24 hour city!
Yet again, we must ask: Who’s in charge? and who is answerable to the citizens and businesses of Liverpool and their by now doubtless deeply puzzled potential future investors?
Dreaming Realist 