Optimum Interventions with The Open Channel

Get in the zone with Flow

2012-01-31T23:52:00.001Z

One of the leading positive psychology proponents and founding thinker of Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is one of the greatest living psychologists of our age. This short video introduces us to the man and his idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjliwSJGDiU

Wikipedia tells us that "according to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channelled, but positive, energised, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task although flow is also described as a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or ones emotions."

For many, this idea will have sporting analogies. For others, particularly those interested in strengths-focused approaches to individual and team performance and development, the notion and feeling of flow happens when we are using our talents on activities that turn those talents into true strengths. Strengths that are visible to others, felt by us through the ease with which we carry out a function, role or activity time and again with high quality, positive outcomes.

We are told that we cannot force ourselves to enter a flow state. It is something that just seems to happen. The state can be entered performing any activity and most likely to occur when we are wholeheartedly performing a task or activity for intrinsic purposes. Again, from a strengths perspective, we are more likely to find activities of this nature, i.e. where we wholeheartedly engage, with some understanding of our talents and strengths and how to seek opportunities to optimise the deployment of those talents.

There are several conditions necessary to achieve the flow state:

There must be clear goals for the activity, thus adding direction and structure to the task
We must perceive there to be a good balance between the challenge of the task and our own perceived skills (or in Strengths terms, the task and our talents rather than learned skills)
We need to have confidence that we are capable of doing the task

It also helps if there is clear and immediate feedback relating to the task. This helps us to negotiate any changing demands and allows us to adjust our performance to maintain the flow state. From an appreciative perspective, the feedback sought and provided is better when it concentrates on what works well, what is progressive and what we can learn to promote doing more of something - essential in a sporting context and arguably not less important in an organisational context - rather than too often seeking evidence of where we are weak or failing.

Good-finding not problem solving for the coming week

2012-01-29T13:24:00.000Z

It's tempting with the problem/weakness paradigm being so pervasive, for us to frequently fall into the ease of concentrating on these twin imposters of learning and progress. Resist! I ask you to start this coming week by finding something in your life, in your organisation, in your team, that is working well. Find something that portrays your service as capable, caring, progressive and coping with the challenges and risks of our current economic situation, however small it is. In fact, try and find the smallest positive action that has the greatest impact. Identify the action, outcome, impact, kind word and so on that has a disproportionately positive impact on your client, customer or colleague and then celebrate it, share it, promote it.

Here's a couple of links to get you thinking about how to start a movement, from the smallest beginnings to a large crowd in just a few minutes, and also how an appreciative inquiry into cooperation made such an impact on a large French business. Enjoy!

This link is to a video of how to start a movement. It's fun with some serious learning:

http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_how_to_start_a_movement.html

Here's the link to Bernard Tollec's great little video about Phillips in France using AI:

http://vimeo.com/35208749

And to top it off, this link will provide access to a helpful blog that offers some highly practical thinking around shifting your view from problem-solving to appreciation.

http://www.organizationalinnovationideas.com/problem-solving-really/

Government suffers sixth defeat...and the Social Fund disappears

2012-01-25T22:32:00.002Z

Overwhelming backing for Tory peer's amendment wrecking charging proposals for Child Support Agency

The Government's troubled Welfare Reform Bill, which has been severely mauled in the Lords, received a sixth set-back this evening over charges for people using the Child Support Agency. The scale of the revolt on this issue dwarfed any other reversal the coalition has suffered in this Parliament. To read the full story, follow the link to the Guardian's excellent Society blog, where up-to-the-minute analysis can be found.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/blog/2012/jan/25/welfare-poverty

By the way, did you know also that the Social Fund it to be abolished as well, with the rump of the funds being transferred to local authorities without a ring-fence? Having been cut by 39% by the Coalition, it has now seen fit to pass off the funds of last resort for the poorest families in the country. Where will they go for emergency loans? Just check-out day-time TV and you'll see the plethora of disgusting companies offering loans with APR's of thousands of per cent - that's where...or just maybe the burgeoning 'Big Society' of soup kitchens, food banks and 'dumpster divers' will have to help pick up the outcomes of this particular piece of socio-economic engineering.

I can't help thinking that as the still empty rhetoric about tackling executive and bankers' pay drones on in the foreground with the added diversion of stripping knighthoods from errant bankers, looks ever more like a kind of smokescreen to cover the dismantling of the welfare state. This at a time when unemployment is at a 17-year high, the recession is now official, economic growth prospects are at a level that most accountants would call a 'soft rounding' in numbers terms, the vaunted private sector fails to provide anywhere near the number of jobs required to address the loss of 710,000 public sector jobs and so on. The diversion of attention away from these important aspects just leaves such a nasty taste in the mouth.

Change is hard...except when it's not!

2012-01-17T23:01:00.000Z

The Positive Psychology website has an interesting and potentially practically helpful piece about ways to achieve personal change by identifying the resistors to change, in ourselves and in groups, and melting them away. The model quoted draws implicitly on positive psychology constructs, which in my view gives it an added benefit.

The article quotes Kegan and Lahey's four-column model of analysis and action to reduce and overcome resistance to change (from their book Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization). The four elements are:

1	Commitment, i.e. unable to follow through on commitments to new and beneficial behaviours
2	Doing/not doing — mindful observation rather than instant challenge and change, using curiosity and mindfulness to uncover big assumptions at work
3	Hidden competing commitments - begin identifying the hidden competing commitments that are inhibiting achievement of the commitment, using emotions as an information system
4	Big Assumptions - see how those big assumptions support who we are today, and to imagine a different set of assumptions that would allow for a bigger, more complex self that could function in accordance with our new commitment and still be safe.

The article has more about each column of the model to help us use it to achieve reduced resistance. It ends by reminding us that "change is hard when you feel it puts you at risk. Change is exhilarating when it moves you in relative safety toward a more complex and capable self. Detecting your big assumptions and making new ones make the difference."
For more on the model check out this link:

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/dave-shearon/2010041710682

Courage and authenticity in times of change

2012-01-16T22:10:00.000Z

Peter Drucker once remarked that “my greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.” It was a self-deprecating quip. But it also contained a grain of truth. He also said, "“I can only ask questions. The answers have to be yours.” So it is now, whether as a facilitator, consultant, or adviser, it's the power of the questions we ask that can illuminate complex change and transformation efforts.

Once we think about questions, we also need to consider what sort of questions, e.g. are they deficit-based, i.e. what's the problem here, or are they appreciative questions, i.e. what's the best of what we do here that we need to carry forward into the future? Whatever the focus, what we inquire into is fateful, i.e. we will find evidence and examples to answer our questions and illustrate the topic. This doesn't mean we shouldn't inquire into what makes our organisations or individual performance weak, it's more that too often we find our attention drawn all to readily to the worst of what is and not the best, e.g. what isn't working in a change effort rather than what is, what we can influence, shape and co-create.

Balance, or re-balancing towards the appreciative and strengths-focused, provides leaders and followers with great opportunities to catch people doing things right, capture stories of positive experiences and allow for different conversations, particularly at times of uncertainty.

It's not easy - no one says it is or has even been - but as managers and leaders we must demand of ourselves higher standards of contribution and involvement, no matter how difficult the circumstances. Not to the exclusion of all reason, but certainly necessitating courage, authenticity and energy. If it isn't us in formal leadership positions who do this, then those who follow will shift their attention to those who do and, in their absence, to those who role-model other, often inappropriate behaviours yet who nonetheless provide some form of rallying point. That way only lies deeper anxiety and uncertainty of success for our change efforts.

To read more about Peter Drucker, the Drucker Institute has just released the January/February 2012 issue of The Window, which features:

· Great minds asking: How can management regain its legitimacy in society?

· Peter Drucker prodding executives at a big investment bank to answer the question: “What should our business be?”

· Thousands of university students in China learning about effectiveness, Drucker style

http://www.druckerinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Jan-Feb-12.pdf

Integrating Health and Social Care - The Kings Fund and Nuffield Trust report

2012-01-05T23:49:00.000Z

The Kings Fund and Nuffield Trust have just published their report, "A report to the Department of Health and the NHS Future Forum - Integrated care for patients and populations: Improving outcomes by working together"

http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/publications/future_forum_report.html

The introductory piece on the Kings Fund website says "integrated care for patients is essential to meet the needs of the ageing population, transform the way that care is provided for people with long-term conditions and enable people with complex needs to live healthy, fulfilling, independent lives.

In a June 2011 summary report, the NHS Future Forum stated: ‘we need to move beyond arguing for integration to making it happen’.

The NHS Future Forum’s report built on the ideas that The King’s Fund and the Nuffield Trust presented as part of the government’s listening exercise on the Health and Social Care Bill.

In response, the Department of Health approached The King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust for help in supporting the development of its national strategy on integrated care and to feed ideas directly into the ongoing work of the NHS Future Forum."

The latest report report examines:

The case for integrated care
What current barriers to integrated care need to be overcome and how
What the Department of Health can do to provide a supporting framework to enable integrated care to flourish
Options for practical and technical support to those implementing integrated care, including approaches to evaluating its impact.

A central assertion of the report is that "developing integrated care should assume the same priority over the next decade as reducing waiting times had during the last."

The core recommendations are:

government policy should be founded on a clear, ambitious and measurable goal to improve the experience of patients and service users and to be delivered by a defined date
patients with complex needs should be guaranteed an entitlement to an agreed care plan, a named case manager responsible for co-ordinating care, and access to telehealth and telecare and a personal health budget where appropriate
change must be implemented at scale and pace;
this will require work across large populations, significant reform and flexibility to take forward different approaches.

The Kings Fund says that "the report makes a constructive contribution to the debate about integrated care and will be of interest to policy-makers, health and social care commissioners, and researchers with an interest in integrated care, as well as to health and social care organisations."

Refreshed, re-invigorated and renewed

2012-01-02T20:04:00.001Z

Happy New Year. Refreshed, re-invigorated and renewed (a little bit of Neil Kinnock-like alliteration there), I am ready for the fray. Up for the challenges of 2012: keen to create fresh opportunities from adversity in our fractured public sector market; enthused by a new piece of work for The Open Channel with a district Council keen to develop its leadership potential and capacity; and available to work with clients old and new who feel the need for some appreciative visions and strengths-focused support.

I had a fine piece of news about the power of strengths work only a day or so ago. A client of mine had got so much of value from a Strengthscope profile and feedback session that she had bought the same service for two of her relatives. One of them had been trying repeatedly to gain a foothold in her chosen career without immediate success. Just a few days after receiving her Strengthscope profile and feedback session she was coincidentally called to interview for her highly preferred and much competed-for role. During that interview she was able to speak authoritatively about her strengths and talents (as well as her skills, knowledge and experience) and was offered the role. Feedback from the interview specifically highlighted the part played by knowing and recounting her talents and strengths. A wonderful result and another example of the importance of distinguishing between what we learn, know and practise and those activities that give absorb us, provide energy and allow us to show our true potential and talents.

We are passionate about the power of strengths work with individuals and teams and the long-term sustainable benefit of developing appreciative visions and actions. Why not make 2012 the year you leave behind problem-focused, deficit-centred approaches and make the move to the leading-edge world-view and associated methods of appreciative inquiry and strengths-focused change?

To finish, here's a poem to sustain us through the short-daylight hours of January :

The Guest House
By Rumi
Translated by Coleman Barks

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honourably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

A pre-Christmas thought or two...

2011-12-20T23:49:00.000Z

It's getting closer to Christmas. Thank goodness. I feel a tad worn out by this year's continual assault on the senses from the forces of economic darkness, e.g. the responsibility-evading bankers all of whom remained steadfastly silent, their political acolytes, the ratings agencies, corporates evading, oops sorry, avoiding taxes, the relentless attack on the public sector as if anyone in it pays no tax or creates nothing good (ever heard of 'social goods' anyone in the Cabinet?), corrupt MP's and press and so on. It's been an unremitting year if you believe in socia, ethical justice, or any kind of justice really! Some did get their 'collars felt,' others have that yet to come - and roll-on when it does happen. Many will continue to evade their just desserts.

Time to rest just a little, as I decide whether to pursue a career as a mobile cycle repair technician or re-energise myself for another tilt at executive coaching, public service advice and interim executive work.After all, why get qualified as an executive coach and leadership mentor if I'm not going to use the fantastic learning from the programme I particpated in. There is though quite a difference between the intent and desire to use learning and the opportunity to use that learning.

Hope though springs eternal though and I guess I will return in 2012 with great colleagues and associates at Optimum Interventions and The Open Channel to try and do good works in those organisations and communities keen to learn, develop and grow appreciatively.

So, I see Edge online has a light-hearted piece on strategy, particularly marketing strategies. Here's a short sample:

"When Coca-Cola first launched in China, its name was ‘Ke-kou-ke-la’, which meant ‘bite the wax tadpole’ or ‘female horse stuffed with wax’, depending on the dialect. Luckily, Coke quickly came up with ‘Ko-kou-ko-le’, which translated into ‘happiness in the mouth’. Pepsi wasn’t immune, either; its ‘Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation’ slogan translated into Chinese as ‘Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave’."

The article makes some simple points, perhaps most trenchantly about what the author of the piece charges when positioning himself as a 'marketing consultant' versus a 'strategic marketing consultant.' Quite a good deal of financial difference, actually!

Check it out here:

http://www.i-l-m.com/edge/humour_strategic_headache.aspx?utm_campaign=Edge+20+December+1+Trial&utm_source=ILM

For better or for worse?

2011-11-29T23:44:00.001Z

During the past year we have spoken with clients in the public sector about their effective and courageous responses to the original emergency budget, the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review and everything that followed from then on. The highly cogent commentary from economic experts then, that highlighted the unfeasibly high economic growth expectations that underpinned the government's economic strategy and its demands on the public sector, have now been proven beyond doubt.

We have been suggesting to clients across this period that those growth targets would not be met and that the government would be back to raid public spending again sooner rather than later. The "sooner" arrived today unfortunately in the form of further public sector pay restraint, phrased in such a way that to suggest public sector workers do not pay income tax to boot! The pension changes are also from the same school of blunt-instrument trauma to prove the Government is up for the fight.

The infrastructure announcements seem to be little more than bringing forward plans already in the pipeline from previously constrained and reduced programmes in any event. The jobs that flow from those plans take far longer to get to 'shovel-ready' than politicians allow for or hope.

The obvious and publicly supported option to tax financial transactions was dismissed as being 'anti-pension' (you'll really have to explain that one further please) and banks again were let off the hook, again, with a tiny increase in the annual levy.

The previous week's announcement about assistance to get 16-24 years olds into temporary work was almost laughable in its blunt-ended simplicity and a too-late acknowledgement that the Future Jobs Fund was better supported and if necessary amended, rather than peremptorily binned as part of its "bonfire of the quangos" and all things Labour. This bonfire is more one of government's critical faculties and it betrays many in a race to the bottom of the employment and education prospects of that age group.

So it goes across society, the rhetoric of Big Society becoming ever more sharply defined by closure after closure of successful local projects, schemes and initiatives that cost relatively little yet bind together challenged communities and interest groups. Only multi-millionaires with little if any direct experience of the context and application of these schemes would dare to continue to exhort the poorest and least able to keep taking the medicine, whilst the richest 1% remain insulated.

Latest figures now show corporate UK, i.e. UK PLC, avoids corporation tax to the tune of £70b per annum - seventy billion pounds per annum. Yep, we'll keep taking the medicine but it becomes ever more bitter.

Government business opened up to SME's - or is it?

2011-11-23T23:35:00.000Z

The Business to Business website reported today the apparent good news that government intends to accelerate the opening-up of it's business opportunities to small and medium enterprises.

Now, we've highlighted before that there is a fairly sizeable gap between the espoused theory of openness to competition and the actual theory in use, i.e.the much harsher reality, of Messrs Maude and Whatmore (Maude's senior civil servant). One example must be that so many so-called open opportunities to tender are in fact provided to aggregating websites who charge hundreds and thousands of pounds for SME's to access even the most rudimentary of tender information. If a company wishes to have access to these public sector opportunities across all of the regions and across the professions, the annual bill for signing-up with these aggregator sites can run into four figures quite easily.

The issue is not one of affordability but the ethical position of a government professing to be opening up its business to small business when at the same time creating barriers to the most basic of information to access those opportunities. Oh, and one more thing - I understand that it is not apocryphal that the big four consultancies have all in the recent past bid £1 for a piece of government work that was worth several millions, i.e. they 'bought' it. Just how can SME's compete with that degree of...'rigging', or is that too strong a word?

Here's what BtB said "Cabinet Office Secretary Francis Maude is to announce plans to put over £50bn worth of public works and services tenders online. This will be a major shake up of central government procurement. The idea is to make it easier and faster to bid for government work, especially for smaller companies who often lose out when pitching for public projects. Government departments will be instructed to break contracts into bite-sized chunks to make it easier for small and medium-sized enterprises to get involved. The initial work going online will relate to IT and facilities management, with building and infrastructure projects going online from April 2012. These changes will simplify the process for SMEs and make it 40% faster to do business with the Government."

Security of tenure for housing to be tied to work or training

2011-11-14T23:20:00.000Z

The Municipal Journal has just reported that Wandsworth LBC is considering introducing a 'Housing into Work' scheme for new housing applicants. They would be subject to fixed-term tenancies tied to periodic reviews of their employment status.

Tenants who fail to take steps to find work or improve their employment prospects during the fixed term face the prospect of losing their homes.

The Council's Housing spokesperson Councillor Paul Ellis said: "We are effectively creating a contract with selected new tenants to support and help them find a job or gain new skills. In return we expect them to take up these opportunities."

Some questions that spring to mind include: who will be the "selected" new tenants and how selected; what is the degree of support and re-skilling they will have to contract to undertake; who will manage this contract; how narrow or permissive will the "expectation" to take up the opportunities; and how will its outcomes be measured when a family's human right to a roof over its head is at stake?

He went on to say even more portentously that 'People who refuse to meaningfully to look for work without good reason will forfeit their right to a council home." The definition of "meaningful" will be absolutely critical here.

Further, he suggested that 'This isn't about punishing people who are made redundant or cannot find a job. It is about having a way to penalise those who can't be bothered to make the effort.' So, it's not just a test of meaningfulness, they will also have to prove the degree to which a tenant has been "bothered" to find work and it is de-facto about the housing landlord now taking on the role of "penalising" its tenants not for their behaviour as tenants bit for their capacity to participate in an economy which is in recession - that's a big stretch.

This really does begin to look like soundbite territory for the Daily Mail.It also begs the question that if this about jobs and skilling, why not concentrate on those aspects and not complicate it by tieing those outcomes to social housing availability? It is also potentially discriminatory, selecting one group in society to have their housing put at risk.

The MJ tells us that the council are also looking into giving working families higher priority in the allocating homes. Which would suggest a consistency of approach at least, whatever one might think of the higher profile elements of the policy. What happens when/if they lose their jobs - might this policy be expanded later on to deal with existing tenants in work?

Cllr Ellis added: "It is important that our housing estates have a good mix of people from all walks of life and with different socio-economic backgrounds. We believe that increasing the number of families on our estates who are in work will act as a beacon for those around them." Which of course we would all welcome from a social balance viewpoint, but rather than create balanced communities by wider societal means, the balance will be narrowly socially engineered.

We have already blogged earlier this year that Wandsworth LBC caused controversy after threatening convicted rioters with eviction from their council homes. Despite the 'big brother' rather than 'big society' aspects of this policy Marlene Price, vice-chair of the Borough Residents' Forum - the organisation representing the council's 33,000 tenants and leaseholders - welcomed the proposals.

She said: '"I support the council's efforts to encourage people to do all they can to improve their lives and improve the life chances of themselves and their families."

The MJ finishes it piece by revealing the policy draws on new powers contained in the Localism Bil l - "giving local authorities greater freedoms and flexibility when it comes to determining who is given a taxpayer-subsidised home." We'd be interested to understand just exactly what the nature is of the "tax-payer subsidised home". Council housing finance has been complex for years, being a mix of capital and revenue funding, public borrowing and housing benefit - but this phrase is just too general and potentially emotive to be trusted.

The policy could be effective later this month. Comment now.

CIPD Annual Conference and appreciative approaches to change

2011-11-10T00:49:00.000Z

I've spent the past two days at the CIPD Annual Conference in Manchester helping on the exhibition stand of a friend and colleague in the UK and European AI Networks and Associate in The Open Channel, Sarah Lewis. Her company Appreciating Change has had a stand at both the CIPD HRD conference earlier this year at Olympia and now this one.

Across the two days we have spoken to dozens of visitors to the conference and exhibition. These are HR professionals across all sectors who are principally charged with recruitment, selection, advancement, reward and so on. Amongst this group we found a significant number of HR managers who are also responsible for change; change in culture, structures, processes, and in introducing various approaches to those changes.

That in particular is where we came in, introducing appreciative and strengths-focused change approaches, positive psychology and solution-focused models into the conversations. For some, but not most, Appreciative Inquiry was well known and in use, particularly we found this in the NHS and local authorities and also in other sectors. The reports of the contribution AI and strengths-focused approaches make were highly positive, especially when taken across a longer term, e.g. a year or more. The professionals reported improved levels of employee engagement (and productivity), improved working relationships across organisational tiers with more effective performance management and appraisals.

In other cases, AI and associated approaches were yet to be discovered - which is exciting! It means there is new territory to be explored; situations offering significant potential for positive and sustainable change and employees who will find the interest, power and innovation that comes from constructing new visions, missions, strategies and actions from an appreciative standpoint. To some extent all that is required is for those organisations yet to discover the best of what is and build on that to create the best of what might be, is to have some appreciative conversations. These can be crafted by practitioners, such as we had at the exhibition, alongside champions in organisations as a result of a series of planned appreciative activities or they might crafted within the organisations with some limited support from practitioners; whatever suits the circumstances best. All of our companies offer the full range of solutions, from one-to-one support all the way through to large-scale group events involving hundreds of people and several innovative models of engagement including World Cafe, Open Space and Simureal.

Whatever clients choose, we have the experience, the passion, knowledge and skills to unlock their stories and their expertise. We can support them to discover, dream, design and create their new destinies. Critically, the focus is on the potential within the client's organisation - our role is to find ways to help them uncap the potential in whatever form it's held, e.g. people's talents and strengths, creating fruitful new working relationships, encouraging innovation and prompting imagination. It's the untapped potential that offers so many organisations the opportunity to achieve more, or better, in the challenging public service, third sector and commercial environments we face.

Truth deniers on public sector pensions at it again - this time it's Dominic Lawson

2011-11-08T22:22:00.000Z

Dominic Lawson makes some good points in today's i newspaper about the current pensions debate.

For instance he points out that "barely a third of all private sector workers

have an employer-sponsored scheme at all." Yet, instead of castigating the

private sector employers for atrociously failing their employees, and by the way

possibly flouting the law, he eulogises this scandal and uses it as a stick to beat public

sector employers with.

He then goes on to recycle the tired old untruth about the relative scale of

public sector pensions, completely failing to distinguish between those funded

from general taxation and those funded by their fund participants and local

employers, i.e. with not a single penny of general taxation used in those funds.

It is to his discredit and that of the i, that this partial description, even in

a piece headed "My View", is allowed to see the light of day. Until critics like

Lawson present the whole picture their arguments will always fall short of

making a persuasive case for change. While he's it, i.e. telling only half a

story, why not report on the Footsie 100 Directors' average annual pensions at

£279,000. Now there is a scandal - these 'masters of the universe' have ruined

the value of many of our industries (apparently without paying pensions to their employees

according to Lawson) and banks yet walk away with fortunes.

How about reporting on that Dominic?

European Appreciative Inquiry Network

2011-11-06T21:44:00.000Z

Last week, I spent almost four days in Manchester participating in the AI Network. This self-organising network of appreciative and strengths-focused advisers, facilitators and practitioners of all descriptions, has met 12 times across Europe over the last five years. The event is structured around Open Space and World Cafe technology, which provides highly engaging ways for groups to connect, combine and co-create.

Across a series of short yet intensive sessions we covered a wide range of themes and subjects, including imagining a new Europe through the use of AI, case studies of successful change across all sectors using appreciative and strengths-focused methods, on-site visits to community projects using AI in live action for the benefit for the community, sharing ideas to create commercial markets for these approaches and to improve our practice plus so many more.

The power of the network event lies in the knowledge and wisdom colleagues' bring to the sessions and of course in the time we spend together between the sessions. The experiences we share are based in the practical, hard-edged, real-time world, helping individuals,teams, groups, organisations and whole communities to develop, grow and change. This change has to be sustainable, repeatable and maintainable, yet unique to every situation. That's why the approaches we use in the appreciative world are not the simplistic, formulaic, 'four-box' models as promoted by some consultants. These are ethical, principle and science-based approaches, concentrating on facilitating the knowledge and skills of the client-community, not on the 'expert' knowledge of the consultant that often create a dependency culture in the client.

Our goal is to help our clients create insights, build knowledge and develop capacity as rapidly as practicable. Our work frees the client to identify their talents, build on their strengths, dream their futures and create their own destinies. The examples we have from practice span all sectors, countries, cultures and interests; they are both energising and real.

Check out the networkplace.eu for the latest in the news of AI in Europe and beyond. There are regional AI networks gradually starting to emerge in the UKand the UK AI network has been flourishing for several years. All can be accessed by this link: http://www.networkplace.eu/web/page.aspx?sid=736

Attack on pensions challenged this week

2011-10-23T21:32:00.000+01:00

I've previously written about how many employees across all sectors deserve better from their pension schemes, whether final salary or defined contribution, public or private sector. What's clear from so many studies is how little most of us will be getting when we come to retire and how so many public sector pensions are not 'gold plated' at all, despite the rhetoric spouted in numerous debates.

So much of that debate about pensions has been skewed by government and its policy proponents as a public v private, cuts v fairness debate, when the actual position has most of us, across all sectors, looking forward to relatively little in retirement and after a decision made by Osborne in 2010, even less.

The attack on all pensions via the government's 2010 budget announcement that in future pension and benefits up-rates will be based on the Consumer Prices Index rather than the Retail Prices Index will be challenged in the courts by public sector unions this week. It's not only public sector pensions that will be affected by this 2010 decision, it's also estimated that hundreds of thousands of private sector workers will be affected as well.

Why the change? The CPI is less generous and the RPI a more accurate indicator of inflation, which of course is why Osborne claimed the former was the more appropriate index - it suited his agenda then and still does now. It's mean spirited, an attack on millions who had a 'contract' with their employers stretching back years. In numbers terms the estimated savings of this change equate closely to the vast sums shovelled into the banks to save our banking system (and keep those 'masters of the universe' in their inflated salaries, pensions and bonuses).

As we find too often, profit and benefit is privatised for the few, loss and cuts transferred as a burden to the public and those who serve the public. It appears the vested interests of the few continue to set the terms of policy, rather than the needs of the many. That's sad, iniquitous and will yet again find a voice in the wider society and economy over the longer term as people's quality of life and their sense of justice affected. Good luck to the challenge in the courts.

More on Nokia, Santander and service quality

2011-10-04T22:54:00.000+01:00

After yesterday's blog highlighting the groundbreaking work of public and third sector services in supporting families with multiple problems and challenges, I couldn't help but return to another service related theme.

In August I wrote about the appalling quality of a mobile 'phone product of Nokia that had blighted part of my life and business. Not opinion - fact, based on a personal experience. I also reported a while before that on Nokia's collapsing market value, i.e. from £200bn to £15bn in ten years. I made connections between the quality of their product and this collapse.

Now, some of that value collapse will also no doubt have been due to the panicking 'markets' - another bete noir of mine, i.e. the 'red braces' of the City who are incapable of managing their portfolios and our pensions on time horizons of more than 24 hours. Their inability to regulate their own emotions and make the rest of us pay, is simply the flip side of the venality of the bankers whose packaging of toxic debt has left us with a £60bn+ debt burden now being taken out of the hide of the public and third sectors (and tangentially from the private sector as well).

Where is this leading? Well, my eye was taken by a small side-bar in the press on 30.9.11 which simply read:

"Nokia is axing a further 3500 jobs on top of the £871m cost-cutting plan announced in April. Nokia will cut 1300 jobs from its location and commerce division, which makes maps for Nokia 'phones, and close its Cluj factory in Romania, resulting in 2200 job losses (which must be catastrophic for that city in one of Europe's poorest states - SL). The redundancies, which will not affect the UK (phew - dodged a bullet there then, didn't we - SL), follow a year of upheaval at Nokia. In April Nokia said it would cut 4000 jobs and transfer 3000 employees to Acccenture, as Stephen Elop, the new CEO, restructured the company to focus on smartphones."

All I would say to Stephen is this - if your company concentrated more on improving the quality and reliability of its products than a particular market segmentation, and spent a fraction of its almost £1bn restructuring costs on reliability, it might not have the reputational cache of a city trader (whether wearing red braces or not) and the future prospects of the Greek Government.

I was also tickled to read in an article side by side with the Nokia piece, that Santander's UK banking arm was suffering a profit hit due to slow economic growth, low interest rates and regulatory costs. As a result, a floatation of the UK arm was being delayed until 2013. Whilst I have not shared this before, my company had a long and fruitless dispute with Santander as a result of it peremptorily freezing an account of ours. Despite several rounds of appeal we were never able to extract a simple and courteous reply to two questions:

Why we were not informed the account was about to be frozen?
Why we were we not informed immediately it had been frozen?

Simple enough questions one would think and if posed of many public sector bodies would receive a reply and in good time. Not from Santander though. Britain's second (?) most complained-about bank simply quoted, or should I say parroted, its regulations in each response. In effect we were told "we did this because we could and we don't have to tell anyone we're going to do it or when we have done it'.

And this is the so called 'commercial' approach to service delivery that the public sector is exhorted to replicate? Well obviously not, but you get the point. I hope the two new CEO's of these organisations will finally attend to not only the strategic direction of their organisations, but also the experience of individual customers s upon whom their future economic and reputation prospects rest to a greater or lesser extent.

Open Public Services - Worcestershire Family Intervention Project

2011-10-03T22:57:00.000+01:00

Here's an interesting piece from the Open Public Services website describing a family intervention model in Worcestershire. Below the short article you will find a link to a much longer piece on a larger scheme in the City of Westminster.

"What was the situation?

Worcestershire has pockets of deprivation and families with multiple problems and complex needs who are not coping. For some families, the patchwork of support and service silos was exacerbated by rural isolation and two tier local government and there was little prospect of breaking the cycle of multiple interventions.

Inspired by the Dundee Families Project, Mel Bailey from Vestia Community Trust set about building a partnership between Children’s Services, the Police and Worcestershire Housing Associations to establish a Worcestershire Family Intervention Project (WFIP).

How does it work?

The WFIP has a pooled budget with contributions from Housing Associations, Supporting People and Worcestershire County Council. Project workers work intensively with a small caseload of families, over a prolonged period to help them transform their lives. Workers tasks are determined by the needs of each family and not their ‘service silo’ and they are recruited on their ability to do whatever it takes to help families turn their lives around

Staff work flexibly and are with the families when they need help the most; early mornings getting the household up and ready for school or evenings helping establish bed time routines. It is not the staff’s job to get the children up or put children to bed but to help the parents acquire the necessary skills

What were the results?

115 families across Worcestershire have been supported since 2009, and the scheme has generated estimated savings of £8 million (according to the DfE Negative Outcomes Costing Tool). Anti Social Behaviour has been reduced by 40% and those under threat of eviction have been reduced by 27%. 41% of cases have reported improved parenting as a result of the scheme and 36% have reported improved behaviour in school."

Also worth a read is a much longer report of a larger project in the City of Westminster, the Family Recovery programme that began in 2008 which, has some quite startling numbers concerning the savings and avoided costs from their programme. You can read it here:

http://www.localleadership.gov.uk/docs/Repairing%20broken%20families%20Sept%202010.pdf

Open Public Services White Paper

2011-10-02T20:54:00.000+01:00

The Open Public Services White Paper is in the consultation stage and SOLACE have produced their response on behalf of 1700 Chief Executives and senior managers. Acknowledging that a peace, of sorts, has recently broken out between the profession and Eric Pickles, this still seems to satisfy itself to move along the surface of the White Paper, tending to make thoughtful, conciliatory comments. Admittedly, it identifies some important points about the centrality of local government to the probable success of the eventual legislation and what local government is already doing in regard to aspects like competition and procurement, neighbourhood working and community engagement. But it avoids mounting a more ‘in-terms’ critique of the underlying assumption, and massive risk, in the government programme, i.e. the fragmentation of local government services as the sine qua non of its plans for localisation. Nevertheless, there are recognisable strategic and tactical considerations in something as important as this first stage consultation and having the response point out, a touch trenchantly, it’s local government that leads the public sector in delivering so many of the changes required of the wider public sector, was welcome. Read SOLACE's response via the link.

CIPD reports on job losses - deeper consequences being felt

2011-09-15T14:22:00.001+01:00

The CIPD website has reported this today, 15th:

Dr John Philpott, Chief Economic Adviser at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) comments as follows on official labour market statistics for the period April-June 2011 published earlier today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS):

It's clear from the large quarterly fall in employment and very sharp rise in headline unemployment that the UK jobs market is weakening significantly and that we can expect unemployment to continue to rise well into next year. What's most worrying is that the private sector jobs recovery has slowed markedly while the public sector jobs cull is accelerating rapidly. Indeed, the loss of public sector jobs in the second quarter of 2011 dwarfs what might have been expected from the current Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast and is more in line with CIPD forecasts. This suggests that the OBR may have to substantially revise its forecast for the employment and unemployment outlook to 2015 - which will be bad news for the Government as we enter a very uncertain period for the UK economy.

This is just one of several pieces of particularly bad news, not just for those in the public sector in terms of job losses (110,000 jobs lost between March-June 2011), but for public service managers in managing the practical consequences of the government's policies.

For instance, a colleague told me yesterday that youth homelessness figures are spiking alarmingly and family homelessness will go the same way once the government's housing benefit cuts and caps become effective in January 2012. This has largely been hidden from wider public view but for families who will be forced to move home, disrupt their children's education and lose important family and social networks, the impact of the benefit savings measures could be catastrophic. After a decade and more of housing directors in the big cities and elsewhere working tirelessly to eradicate the use of bed and breakfast, are we going to see a return to its use?

At the level of communities, my experience in the East Midlands in the late 1990's was that community sustainability is built in inches and lost in yards, and as rental-tenant 'churn' gathers pace, many socially damaging and divisive activities rush in to the fill the void left as community continuity gives way discontinuity.

The downward spiral for a community can be rapid and extremely difficult to reverse without significant public and voluntary intervention. Neither of these sectors are now in the shape to provide the depth and continuity of support that they were 3 years ago. The private sector, despite rhetoric to the contrary, neither cares nor, unless it sees a profit, is particularly interested in these aspects of the society it is part of. It is of course interested when the incentives provided by the public purse are sufficient, but the level of those is a fraction of the level of the first decade of this century and will probably never return to those levels.

This is a complex scenario that requires people of huge commitment, energy and passion, and the public, voluntary and community sectors have those in abundance - even now. The risk is that so many of our finest public servants are now doing roles of exceptional breadth and greater complexity, with little or no recourse to external support, of even the most rudimentary kind. Just at the moment when those with something to offer are ready, willing and able to do so, the new orthodoxy of 'external support is bad' is at its strongest. And, even if a senior manager has some resources to use external support, there is political opprobrium and organisational reputational risk in accessing that support. That simply can't be right.

Finally, let us not forget that the smoke screen so often put up by those in power that this is all the fault of a previous government and/or what the public sector had coming to it, bears no simple mathematic test - £65b was provided to two banks and more generally, to save the casino bankers from decimating our financial systems. Not a single banker in the UK has paid any price for that deceit and ineptitude, and certainly not the same price as the 110,000 public sector workers are now paying as they lose their jobs during the past 3 months.

Well Being and a critique of the consultation on the measures

2011-08-30T20:23:00.000+01:00

The Positive Psychology website has been tracking the government's plans to measure well being. The Office for National Statistics has been carrying out a £12m national consultation as part of the work to identify the most appropriate measures for the well being metrics. The PP article is a cogent and reasoned critique of the risks of creating the measures in the way Government suggests and what may flow from those in policy terms. The article is worth a read.

http://mail.aol.com/34062-111/aol-6/en-gb/Suite.aspx

Broken Britain? Broken Nokia. Useless Vodafone.

2011-08-26T17:37:00.000+01:00

News from the front-line of customer service. Regular readers will know I have little time for rubbish customer service from the much vaunted and over-hyped private sector. Typically, this manifests itself via mobile 'phone providers. Todays' story is high quality.

I have a Nokia E72.Nokia? You know, the company that was worth £200bn in 2001 and is now worth south of £15bn and falling. Read this and you won't be surprised why the fall in value.

Last Friday, 19/8, my handset, the 2nd of the last 6 months, failed again. Cue contact with Vodafone. Excellent response, new E72 handset arrives next day. They had though refused to provide another, different make, at least until I "upgrade", i.e. pay more and commit to a longer contract. Never mind, reload all data onto the handset and away we go.

Wednesday of this week, the white-screen of death returns to the new handset and the phone fails. Cue call to Vodafone, who replace within 24 hours, but refuse to supply another make. Frustrated but in dire need to keep connected, I accept a second new handset and re-provision the handset again, re-load all data and off we go.

Today, only 24 hours later, that handset, i.e. the third of the week, fails. Cue call to Vodafone who this time blame Nokia outright, refuse to provide anything other than another E72. I say, no thanks, and then the 'dance of the blind' takes place. The operative calls the "upgrades" department - but I don't want an upgrade say I - but they refuse to provide a different make. He suggests a "downgrade", yes, there is such a thing, but, the "upgrades" department refuses me a "downgrade". They will though credit me with £20 to spend in their shop to get a pay-as-you-go, but not email capability and that would deny me a replacement3G handset. All one-way. No notion of fairness, proper service, a decent response. Nothing. Just a dumb offer, an insult and a classic flip-off.

Getting the picture? I can't upgrade, even though I don't want to. I can't downgrade, even though I don't want to. I can't get similar, only identical. Is this starting to sound a bit like Kafka's The Trial? I think so. The operative tries the other department one last time, but in absolutely classic style "the computer say no". Yes, he really did say those words, the computer does not allow him to provide anything other than an identical replacement. And this time it will take 5 days to get it to me because, of course, it's the Bank Holiday!

He wouldn't even provide me with my PUK numbers so I could remove my business and go elsewhere. I have to "put that in writing" via their website, which when I tried was experiencing technical problems. Classic obfuscation - "put it in writing" - the old 1970's answer to everything.

What do I draw from this?

The decline and fall of customer service from Vodafone. A once quite efficient and helpful company.
The almost complete collapse of any 'empowerment' of a front-line employee, who must get sick and tired of fronting a faceless, bureaucratic and unhelpful back-office.
The shadowy 'upgrade department', who actually call the shots but you never to get to speak with them (I did ask several times to speak direct but the operative isn't allowed to do that)
The moronic parroting of 'customer service' language that is actually the complete antithesis of customer service.
The realisation, time and again, that call-centres simply do not work because they reduce all individuals, i.e. you and me, to a default stance; that of a fit-the-company template, or you don't fit at all.
The powerlessness that this induces. There is no-one to complain to, no resolution, no simple way to take your business elsewhere.
The comfort that the public sector will invariably out perform the hopeless service that companies like Vodafone and Nokia now provide.
The sense that those twin imposters, profit and growth, have so infected companies that they have almost completely lost touch with the reality customers have of using their defective products and trying to navigate their labrynthine and unhelpful so-called customer services.

I know within these organisations there will be people who go to work to try and do a good job, to help others, but they are being massively let down by 'managers,' whose main interests are short-term targets and bonuses. Exactly the focus that led to the banking crisis and financial meltdown of 2007-09.

When will they learn?

Scorching critique of the uber-class

2011-08-21T13:39:00.000+01:00

An interesting piece on the squeezed middles, unwittingly squeezed between the under-class and the uber-class, where-in the latter reside those who wrecked the economy and continue to escape absolutely free of punishment, with those in the former who decided to (very wrongly) take something from their neighbours and community are punished at sentences with 30-50% severity premiums.

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/blog_story.asp?id=309

We should see balance, responsibility and accountability for all in society, no just those who have their collars felt most easily. Will we finally see the hierarchy at News International bought to book with the latest disclosures and senior police officers who acted in concert with them properly held to account, just as the 'rioters' are?

Until then, whenever we have the choice or opportunity let's focus on what's working well in our communities, strengthening our voluntary and community sectors to work ever more deeply with young people to engage with them, then uncover and nurture their talents, whilst trying to resist siren calls for deeper public sector cuts. And these will come, if the recession slips into a depression and relatively small-scale business regeneration palliatives coupled with 'the markets' fail to deliver the transformation of the economy.

Pause, reflect, understand and move on - not take revenge

2011-08-15T23:34:00.001+01:00

Eight days since I last blogged and when I did the riots had taken place only in north London. What a difference those ensuing few days made, both to the 'landscape' of the ensuing violence in a variety of cities and just as importantly to issues such as the reactions to the events, to community cohesion, to government/police relations and so on. Have a look at the link for an interesting piece on causes of the unrest.
http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/blog-posts/2011/08/the-single-biggest-cause-of-rioting.htm

The propensity for mass hysteria, evidenced by the various reactions to the News International saga, was re-affirmed massively by the sorts of reactions we've seen in the (predominantly) right-wing press and media.

The suggestion of conjoining of offences committed in city centres to someone's tenure, and not even the perpetrator's tenancy, but their mother's, is worthy of the 'knee-jerk' epithet more than any other. Local authorities and other social housing landlords have over the years strengthened tenancy agreements to allow for action against activities in relation to the proper conduct of the tenancy and actions more widely in the vicinity. This development though seems to take the sense of those agreements to a different level. If LB Wandsworth succeeds in its quest to gain possession of a social housing tenancy, one presumes the civil court judge will apply some pretty stern tests to a case based on a criminal act that has no connection to the tenant or the property in question other than a familial one, once removed at that. I would have thought the European Courts might also be asked to get involved at some point.

The more important issue however is why should those in one tenure only, face double jeopardy? There is no legal or moral basis for punishing people solely because of their tenure-and that's what this is. Will we see private sector tenants and home owners with family members who are convicted then be evicted? You answer the question. And that's called discrimination.

The government's desire to exact revenge rather than let the police and courts do their job, is a weakness, not strength. Neither of those bodies are perfect, both are under huge pressure to respond, from the press, public and also worryingly by a government demanding the harshest of penalties, some would say disproportionately harsh looking at the sentences. Also, the courts have the powers they require to deal with these matters in the criminal courts, and not to expand the scope into peoples' tenure.

It's as if the government has its Falklands War, only a year and a bit into their tenure. The manna from this particular poisoned heaven averts attention from the £60 billion (sixty billion pounds) as yet unrepaid to the taxpayer by the banks and bankers; the £6.5 (six and a half million pounds) annual bonus one banker paid himself this year; the £1b (one billion pounds) and more government owned banks set aside for last year's bankers bonuses; the massive cuts to public funding of services and so on.

I'll finish with 2 thoughts. First, that at this time what we have also seen is the wonderful, positive core of many of these communities as they respond, clean-up, band together to self-protect (and I don't include EDL-inspired vigilante groups in this) and call for peace and reconciliation. This positive core is helped by government and other parties setting the scene for repair and rehabilitation, providing effective, clear-thinking leadership and not bidding-up the revenge, all allied to some attempt to understand and explain what happened (which is NOT the same as condoning it).

And finally, an apparently prescient, forward thinking politician said this in 2010; "Imagine the Conservatives go home and get an absolute majority, on 25% of the eligible votes (they got 23%)...they turn around in the next week or two and chuck up VAT to 20%, we're going to start cutting teachers, cutting the police, and the wage bill in the public sector. I think if you're not careful in that situation...you'd get Greek-style unrest". That politician...Nicholas William Peter Clegg.

Haringey and the Tottenham riots

2011-08-07T09:16:00.000+01:00

A quite momentous week, often for the most puzzling or troubling of reasons, e.g. USA’s downgrade to AA+ reliability (which panics 'the markets' - ever wondered just exactly what or who these 'markets' are and why they panic so easily?) juxtaposed with the highly local 2011 Tottenham ‘riots’, which if nothing else seems to show the relative fragility of community cohesion. The continued reduction in third sector sustainability, the lack of sustained growth in the economy and waves of redundancies in both the commercial and public sectors suggests a winter of discontent, whether of an employment relations nature or of community resilience.

Here's one recent perspective. Given the Tottenham events, a compelling video from Haringey about the effect of cuts on youth services, seems worryingly prescient.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2011/jul/31/haringey-youth-club-closures-video?CMP=twt_fd

Councils must reveal what they own

2011-08-05T23:40:00.000+01:00

A report today on the Public Service website tells how the Coalition would like all local authorities to publish details of their assets. They report:

"Rather than cutting frontline services and funding to voluntary organisations, local authorities will have to publish full details of all their assets so the public can see which ones could be sold to generate revenue, the Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has said.

To help them along, the coalition has produced a map of buildings and facilities that 87 English councils own, including hotels, restaurants, pubs, golf courses, sports stadiums, a sailing club, an airport and around 20 cinemas. Roughly 66 per cent of the country's £385bn worth of public sector assets are reckoned to be owned by councils.

"We need to know, now more than ever, exactly what assets are publicly owned," Pickles said. "The general public probably have no idea of the sheer scale and scope of property and land on the public sector's books. In many cases it goes way beyond traditional frontline services.

"I want the public sector to take a good hard look at what they own. By cataloguing each and every asset councils can help government find innovative new ways to utilise them, improve local services, keep council running costs down and save taxpayers' money."

We hope this does not presage a spate of misreporting about local government that tends to follow such 'hold the news' type stories. It's obviously no surprise that Council's own assets. Perhaps the eclectic mix might surprise, but surely in this new localised, big-society world, diversity of assets is a strength not a problem. Or is it that it's local authority ownership per se that is the problem here? The LGA says:

"Peter Fleming, chairman of the Local Government Association's improvement board, insisted that local authorities were already saving millions of pounds through smarter use of their assets. This included gathering different council services together under the one roof to reduce building management costs and sharing space with other councils, public bodies and the voluntary sector.

"The key issue remains that if the public sector is to find really big savings then Whitehall has to look at its own assets," he said. "Government agencies and the NHS must stop working in isolation and start sharing office space with each other and local authorities."

The SOAR model for strategic planning

2011-07-30T22:48:00.000+01:00

A quick thank you to our readers. We know you are out there - the stats from blogger.com tell us that. It's good to know our readership is international. It would be great if some comments were made to really develop the strands and themes we pursue. Nevertheless, knowing we are not shouting down a deep pit to hear only our own voices come back is gratifying.

Ok, on to business. Thursday was an important day. I facilitated an event for a group of trustees who are the board of a large charity focused on a specific public service. The theme, broadly speaking, was thinking about and planning for the future of the charity and those who benefit from its services.

Across many years the SWOT model (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) has been an almost ever-present feature of sessions such as these that I have participated in, as a corporate team and board member. What struck me often in those sessions was that despite being a 50/50 model of the positive and negative, i.e. strengths/opportunities and threats/weaknesses, the conversations seemed to over-concentrate on the latter. Strengths/opportunities were almost taken for granted, of little importance when set against the need to really get under the skin of our threats and minimise our weaknesses. The best of our knowledge and experience were brought to bear on the twin 'evils' that threatened our future success and weakened our current position. The proportion of attention paid to the T/W was nearer 75%, leaving a meagre 25% for the S/O.

Shift forward many years and the writings of David Cooperrider, Jackie Stavros and others gradually opened doors on an alternative model. Yes, another four box model, but whilst the number of boxes and two of their titles, Strengths and Opportunities, were familiar, the overall impression and impact of the model was very different. At first sight it was also a little counter-intuitive, i.e. having four boxes that offered no apparent space and time for the deficits. The other two boxes were and are Aspirations and Results. How could his be? Where do our weaknesses go? How do we recognise the threats all around us? What do I do with my sharpened awareness of all that is difficult and draining?

Well, of course there will always be a need to recognise these deficits, and act upon those requiring attention, but the underpinning of appreciative and strengths-focused thinking places them in a more positive and embracing framework. By shifting the atmosphere and attention from the deficit to the appreciative, the conversations using this model changed. The energy in the room seems to remain at high levels for the whole of the day. There are no longer the familiar dead spots to planning and future search events. The wholeness of an organisation is held in the room for longer, as is the view that competition and risk can be set in a framework of opportunity identification and long term aspiration and ambition for the organisation.

So it was with the trustees of the charity on Thursday. As we worked across the day, first on the strategic inquiry elements of strengths/assets and opportunities, and then into the appreciative intent elements of aspiration/ambition and results, the temptation to drop into the deficit simply receded into the distance. Of course, the trustees at first almost stifled themselves from mentioning weaknesses and threats, but once they appreciated that it was fine to highlight these, 'though in this much more positive context and framework, the (re)balance of good and less good was easily achieved.

This is not the first time I have been able to use SOAR. In fact, across the past three to four years it has become a strong feature of the tools I use to work with leadership teams, boards, functional management teams and others. All, without exception, find it a little unsettling at first, the deficit paradigm being so strong even now, but as each event unfolds the potential of the model becomes more apparent to participants and a more natural response begins to develop. One that provides good breadth and depth of opportunities, strong ambition and hard-edged outcomes - all built on the strongest of bases, i.e. our strengths and assets; the best of what is.

Our group of trustees enjoyed the experience, identifying a host of possible opportunities; created some ambitious futures; and ended with specific, SMART goals and challenging future outcomes for their organisation. All of this alongside exploring and sharing a strong sense of where their charity is, what its assets are and how these influence the present and future.

SOAR - what do you have to lose?

Mark Cavendish makes the point about talents and strengths

2011-07-24T19:50:00.001+01:00

I've facilitated dozens of workshops around the twin themes of appreciative inquiry and strengths-focused change. Particularly in the strengths-based workshops I have concentrated on positing the notion, which is counter-intuitive for many, that time spent on improving weaknesses is never as well spent as time on optimising your talents and turning them into true strengths.

Part of the joy of the work with groups is seeing how they deal with and challenge the counter I put to the predominant paradigm of failure and deficit search they are so used to working within, i.e. the model that demands we search out failure and weakness, (over) concentrate on it to achieve some personal or organisational improvement and then create programmes to eradicate those weaknesses. Nothing against sorting out obvious problems, but the balance in many places is all wrong - an over-concentration on deficit and little or no attention to what works well, what individuals are great at doing and how we can do more of these things.

I frequently use the HTC cycling team as an example of strengths-based management, sharing quotes from their team managers that show clearly they engage riders for their strengths and ask them to make the most use of their talents to create true strengths, as in the case of Mark Cavendish and his sprinting ability.

In one event I was challenged by a participant who almost triumphantly announced that of course Mark was a great sprinter but "he would never win the Tour De France", and of course in a moment the full impact of his own insight created his deeper learning. Indeed, Cavendish never will win the Tour, and he neither wants to nor will ever attempt to - he can't climb the highest mountains fast enough. He will though become the greatest ever sprinter to have graced the world's finest single-sport event; he will win more stages than any other sprinter and might well win the highest number of stages by the time he ends his career. His is already only the second British rider to have won of the Tour's three leading jerseys and has 20 stage wins to his name in 5 years.

And there it was - the realisation that optimising strengths is about recognising what you are good at, i.e. those things that really energise, motivate and give you that sense of achievement, and working to make the best of those. Sometimes too it's not only about what's within ourselves, what we also see with Cavendish is that he has a team around him who work tirelessly to place him in the best position to launch his sprint. (He has shown though he can win without his lead-out train as well). Teamwork is a feature of optimising the talents of each other.

Our public and commercial organisations really must get the message. Ignoring talents and strengths can cost you output, productivity, energy and commitment. Those organisations who build the engagement of their employees through recognising their talents and turning them into strengths can achieve productivity levels up to 2-3 times greater than those that don't.

The research is there; the evidence before our eyes, the test is to believe in our talents and of those around us in our teams to release the energy and passion and go on to be the best we can.

Cuts deepening silos, not breaking down barriers

2011-07-21T22:17:00.000+01:00

Guardian Weekly reports that “if it is now looking unlikely that the cuts will "transform" the way public services are delivered, it is certain that spending reductions are doing nothing to change the way Whitehall operates. If anything, spending cuts are reinforcing the autonomy of departments and the strength of the silo walls.

That much is clear from the Commons public administration committee's end of term report on Whitehall departments' plans, which comes on top of all the other evidence that departments are baronies and central coordination mechanisms are weaker than they were under the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, which were not noted as exemplars of a joined-up approach.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2011/jul/20/mps-criticise-whitehall-silos?&

And just for fun, I do like checking in occasionally with John Cridland of the CBI who has this wonderful way of basically saying, "give it to the private sector and we'll sort your public services". In his repsonse to the local services White Paper, bearing in mind he'd just recently rubbished the Government's reform agenda as being slow and not deep enough, he returned to the private sector theme with gusto, just stopping short of saying, "never mind those pesky little mutuals and social enterprises - give it to the big boys and they'll do a job for you". He's about as one-eyed on the matter as it can be, naturally enough perhaps given who he speaks for. At least he provides a clear boundary for us to see how far right-wing thinking goes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2011/jul/11/reactions-public-service-reform-white-paper#start-of-comments

A week is a long time...for politicians, journos and top cops

2011-07-18T21:55:00.000+01:00

My last blog was but a short week ago, when I bemoaned the deficit behaviours of those in the media spotlight. A list of miscreants which later included those who report on the news as well as those who make it - unwittingly or otherwise. Andy 'it's (not) a fair cop' Hayman turned out to be a mere entre to the firestorm that rapidly engulfed serving senior police officers who were lunched, dinnered, or strategically advised by serving and former NI staffers.

I also wrote some time ago that the fox hunt that was developing around the NI story was faintly absurd, and so it has proved, as MPs fell over themselves to put the boot into the dying NoW and what could be a mortally injured NI. I was once told that auditors were accountants who found the front-end too hot to handle and preferred instead to roam the battlefields, bayoneting the dead and dying. I feel this about the MPs putting the boot in now. If they'd got some principles and bottle earlier, as with Chris Bryant MP, they would look less like auditors doing the bayoneting etc.

Let's see how the Select Committee goes tomorrow. Will it be tally ho! or more like being "savaged by a dead sheep", either way I hear the chattering classes are having friends around for drinks to watch it - the first time in Select Committee history surely that anyone other than policy wonks and resting actors take in its day-time proceedings. I exaggerate for effect.

What does this have to do with things like organisational culture, leading change, learning and appreciative inquiry. Well, at first sight, not a lot, then on the other hand, what are we actually witnessing here? It reads a lot more like an array of (organisational) cultural insights, e.g. what is the culture at the top of the Metropolitan Police that made these dreadful conflicts of interest (at best) and shoddy investigating so much the norm? What is/was the cultural vacuum at NI/NoW that made endemic the illegal hacking of 'phones and payments to police officers? A recent book was entitled "Where were coaches when the banks went down". Where were the regulators when the papers went wrong?

There will be so much more detail to come, that's for sure. The resignations have not ended. The reach of the scandal has a few yards yet to go. As with MPs expenses, it feels like a 'gift' that just keeps on giving. I say that however not in a sarcastic way, but seeing it as a 'gift' in the way it might encourage deep self-analysis, culture change and a paradigm shift in behaviours that we were told MPs experienced after their expenses debacle (although they were soon squealing about the new system that demanded receipts and time spent filling in forms - if you work in, say, local government, you'll think what IS the fuss about having to fill in an expenses form).

Maybe we are seeing the end of the 'grey areas' that dubious senior managers and politicians like to inhabit as if they are some special breed that can navigate these shadow areas - the public service equivalent of the 'masters of the universe' who navigated the mystical world of debt instruments, until they unhinged the whole western banking system. Maybe. These are not games to be played to 'big boys' rules, but games that should simply not be played.

These shifts of cultural norm, calls to greater transparency and improved standards of behaviour are meat and drink to many of you who have worked your management and leadership careers in many other parts of the public service. For instance, never putting yourselves at risk by accepting hospitality, at any level, (it was so much easier to simply say 'no thanks' and insulate yourself from any claims of influence, justified or otherwise, at a later date). Always seeking to be as open and transparent as practicable; pushing the boundaries of behaviour, not the dubious kind, but the kind that encompassed acceptance of responsibility, high ethical standards and appropriate loyalty to profession and community. Of course there were and are dilemmas in public service, but the need to properly investigate wrong-doing, not accept hospitality and avoid putting yourself and your team in the way of harm or conflict of interest do not qualify as dilemmas - they qualify as good professional judgement.

And the Appreciative Inquiry aspect of all this? Well, AI posits that every, (every) organisation has a positive core. How hard must we look at each of the organisations in the spotlight over the past few months to discover its positive core? I believe not as hard as we first might think. What's critical is that those charged with leading the change, altering the culture and improving behaviours, will want to work with those who remain and discover the positive core, the things that work well and must be carried forward into the future, and the 'best of what is' before they dream afresh about how great these institutions might yet become. If, however, they believe that more top-down exhortation holds the key, they will see short-term gain but long-term pain.

Trust the process and seek to capture the causes of success, not failure -we've had quite sufficient of those thank you.

How can we rescue a week of behavioural deficits?

2011-07-12T23:02:00.001+01:00

What do I notice about this week? Well, sadly too much that is about failure - of systems, processes, behaviours, trust and so on. Two of several notable examples were juxtaposed today.

First, Southern Cross, who having pledged in mid-May that their 'get-well' plan was well thought out and would succeed, even if it meant the loss of several thousand service jobs, simply come back two months later and says it's closing. I do suspect that the developing and almost bottom-less cesspit that is the News International story has somehow taken attention away from the largest single failure of a care housing landlord in recent history (if not the largest failure in living memory). Do also go back to my blog of mid-May on Southern Cross that highlighted the part Blackstone's played in this - but they are free, clear, back in the USA, having created the basis for the failure in the first place - according to some trusted commentators at least.

Second, the 'shellacking' today by the Parliamentary Select Committee of the top cops involved in the News International 'investigation' reflected very badly on at least two of the most senior police officers in the largest city police service in the country, if not Europe. Whilst in one of their cases I heard at least some contrition and acceptance of having done a less than thorough job (to put it mildly), in the other there was little contrition or even apology - more a faux horror at being asked if he's ever taken a payment for information. Whilst being a tad cheeky question, it was fully understandable given the context of the Committee's deliberations. With the propensity of the press to call for the heads of public servants in other cases of poor performance, are we going to have the same in this case? Or, have the 200 job losses at the NoW sated the lust for 'heads must roll'? For now, anyway.

Amidst all of this concentration on the behavioural deficits, systemic failures of trust and rampant venality, are there any rays of light? Well, check out this link, where changing behaviours is the subject, and Alcoholics Anonymous the model of learning regarding behavioural change.

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/scott-asalone/2011071118492

What is expected of leaders-to-be?

2011-07-08T22:29:00.000+01:00

A recent report from the Institute of Leadership and Management has highlighted the way large organisations carry out their leadership succession planning.

The massive pressures on so many organisations to make the best of their talent, to avoid discontinuity from gaps in leadership consistency, expensive (and sometimes less than successful) recruitment and selection processes and the current significant financial strictures particularly on the public sector, mean that succession planning becomes ever more important to organisational sustainability.

The ILM conducted in-depth interviews with senior HR professionals in predominantly large corporate organisations and consulting firms. This is what they found about the key attributes expected of leaders-to-be:

Leadership traits

Senior HR professionals emphasised a distinct set of personal characteristics that future leaders need to possess. These were principally in the relationship and inter-personal domain - visionary, motivational and inspirational people, emotionally intelligent, trustworthy, natural leaders and communicators, and who are also driven and ambitious.

The ability to motivate, displaying emotional intelligence and being a 'natural' leader were the most important characteristics when recruiting senior leaders.What’s more, future leaders needed to demonstrate a broad mix of all these characteristics if they were to be able to progress to the top. Strengths in one area did not compensate for weaknesses elsewhere.

Skills and knowledge

Future leaders also need a range of skills and knowledge to support their personal characteristics;

1. Appropriate technical and professional skills in relevant areas like law, accounting or engineering.

2. Commercial and financial skills and high levels of business acumen

3. Skills in people management and development, communication, coaching and feedback and team management skills

Depth of experience

The right mix of personal characteristics supported by the appropriate skills and knowledge are necessary but not sufficient – potential leaders need to have a broad range of experience encompassing different roles and, where appropriate, different sectors and industries.

Future leaders also need to be able to cope with pressure and failure with nearly a quarter of respondents stressing the importance of being able to deal with difficulties and challenges.

Education and training

The right personal qualities generally outweighed any gaps in an educational record according to the survey respondents and most businesses develop leadership and management abilities through
in-house, modular programmes that are closely tied to the business’s own operations, culture and goals, using their own developers or external training providers who know them and understand their industry.

What’s more, they want training that will transfer into improved performance, and will employ coaching and secondments to enable this learning transfer. Knowing about leadership and management isn’t enough – future leaders have to be able to put what they know into practice.

Business schools

Respondents were equivocal about business schools. Half of respondents were neutral about the effectiveness of business schools, while a third thought they were effective. While they recognise that business schools had some strengths, their major weakness was that they do not have that deep understanding of the business and its particular characteristics that they looked for in training providers.

With regards to MBAs, respondents acknowledged that they demonstrate that the holder has acquired appropriate knowledge but were critical of the disconnect between what is learnt in business schools and the workplace. The reality of the industry and workplace and an individual's ability to lead in practice for most trumped the theory and intellectual capacity of the MBA.

So, the HR professionals said they were looking for a blend of experience, knowledge and skills, many of which can be learnt and developed both on the job and in a formal training context, but ultimately it is a rich mix of skills and experience which will differentiate future leaders.

NOT about News Corp.

2011-07-06T22:40:00.000+01:00

I'll probably leave the furore around News Corp alone - mainly because for as long as I can recall I have refused to have anything to do with that corporation or its media products such as Sky, The Times, Sun, NoW and so on. The developing bandwagon of commercial and consumer deserters of the NoW is to my mind faintly absurd, although richly deserved by a corporation that has for a long time through its outlets displayed questionable and venal behaviours, if one cared to look. It is after all only a couple of months since Sky sacked two (although maybe not the only) sexist presenters, Keys and Gray. It's just a bad lot one might assume from these latest and far more serious and disgusting revelations.

How long will these desertions last? Probably until those companies/politicians need those organs to advertise their wares/lever them back into the limelight. A week is a long time in politics, today's news is tomorrow's fish and chip wrapper and so on. But if you have some decent principles then not getting into bed with them in the first place means you don't have to join any bandwagon when it starts. News Corp shows itself again to have significant disreputable elements that, taken across a long view, might lead the man on the Clapham omnibus to assume it is a dysfunctional and not fit-for-purpose corporation. Anyway, I said I'd probably leave this alone.

Now for some important stats to amaze your friends, improve your reports and impress your clients:

In England, local authorities' total expenditure was £168 billion in 2009-10.

In 2009-10 local authorities employed 1.8 million full-time employees staff and nearly 50 per cent of service expenditure (gross of income) was spent on these employees.

About 64 per cent of local authorities' gross income in 2009-10 came from central government (through grants or re-distributed non-domestic rates). Other income from local sources included council tax, sales, fees and charges, council rents and capital receipts.

The largest share of net current expenditure in 2009-10 was on education services with 37 per cent of the total. Social services accounted for a further 17 per cent, housing (excluding Housing Revenue Account) 16 per cent and police 10 per cent.

Average Band D council tax, for a two adult household, in 2009-10 was £1,414 an increase of 3 per cent on 2007-08.

In the North East, 56 per cent of dwellings are in the lowest council tax band (Band A) compared to just 4 per cent in London.

Average in year council tax collection rates in 2009-10 stood at 97 per cent compared with 92.6 per cent in 1993-94.

The average in year council tax collection rate in Inner London Boroughs has risen from 76.0 per cent in 1993-94 to 94.6 per cent in 2009-10.

Revenue expenditure has increased by 149 per cent cash terms between 1993-94 and 2009-10. The corresponding increase in real terms was 68 per cent.

About 25 per cent of revenue expenditure is funded through council tax.

Revenue spending per head in 2009-10 was highest in parts of the North and London.

All shire counties spend £500m or more a year, while most shire districts spend less than £40m a year.

Local authority capital expenditure has risen from £14.3 billion in 2004-05, to £21.4 billion in 2009-10.

Capital spending per head in 2009-10 was highest in London and the North East.

In 2009-10 capital expenditure of £5.0 billion was financed by unsupported borrowing, under the new prudential system in place since April 2004 (23 per cent of the total).

Local authorities' gross outstanding debt at 31 March 2010 was £54.4 billion, the largest proportion of which is owed to the Public Works Loan Board (75 per cent).

Local authorities' investments at 31 March 2010 were £21.5 billion following a fall of approximately £4.5 billion during 2009-10; nearly 70 per cent of these investments were deposits with banks or building societies.

Early Intervention Bonds - Big Risk. Low Opacity?

2011-07-05T20:57:00.001+01:00

Here's a piece from the Prevention Action website, of May 2010:

"Among new mechanisms for funding early intervention that do not depend on Government money, Allen (Graham Allen, MP, Labour) and Duncan Smith suggest an early intervention bond or some similar financial instrument that will allow private and public investors to invest in proven programs.

"Funds could be raised on the market and dividends paid as children's health and development improves (and calls on expensive treatments subside)."

They end on a pragmatic but optimistic note. "As politicians we must avoid the temptation of claiming to have found the magic bullet, whether it is Family Intervention Projects or Family Nurse Partnerships, in isolation from all the vital supporting components. In Nottingham's case, several proven programs working alongside excellent mainstream services compound and complement each other.

"As in other aspects of politics the stakes with respect to early intervention are very high. It matters for the millions of individuals and future generations who will benefit, and it moves us closer to giving early intervention the same depth and permanence as the National Health Service."

Scroll forward to June 2011. The ideas have developed and firmed-up enough to be launched formally. Here's what Polly Toynbee writes in today's Guardian:

"... the plan put forward yesterday by Iain Duncan Smith, Oliver Letwin and Labour MP Graham Allen to issue "early intervention bonds" to solve the infinitely complex problems of families in trouble flaps away into delusion.

Here is the fantasy. Poverty and social dysfunction, addictions, depression, crime, teen pregnancy and illiteracy cause expensive crises. One person can cost scores of thousands a year in prison, courts, rehab and A&E overdose visits. But what if the very clever people in the City could roll all that sub-prime behaviour into an investment product? It's as clever as a credit default obligation. With a wave of a wand, the risk from all that bad stuff can be placed with investors instead. Social investment bonds could evaporate poverty and its consequences at no cost to you or me. These people can be monetised to turn a profit for all. Amazing.

Nick Clegg, speaking in the City recently, explained that if investors paid for preventative work up front, the state would repay them later out of money saved. He called for "creative ways to bridge the gap between initial investment and the long-term returns", praising the City as "one of the most innovative financial services centres in the world". Duncan Smith, writing in the Guardian last week, quoted private equity investor Sir Ronnie Cohen as predicting that social impact bonds are "the wave of the future" and "the new venture capital".

Do these bonds sound suspiciously like a relative of the sort of bonds based on packages of toxic debt, traded until their mortgagees defaulted on their loans? That then unraveled so rapidly in 2008/09 taking several international money houses with them, Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns included? And almost sank RBS and LLoyds, consuming over £60bn in public funds to keep the service tills working? Surely not.

Or maybe it's a type of back-end loaded PFI. The sort of pay-later model that leads to this recent report:

"HM Treasury’s ‘inadequate’ monitoring of trading in Public Finance Initiative (PFI) debt has allowed banks and builders to ratchet up £2.2bn in undetected profits, an industry analyst has claimed.

There are about 920 PFI projects in the UK with a capital value of £72.3bn, of which 720 are operational. A report by Dexter Whitfield from think tank the European Services Strategy Unit alleges few PFI projects would have received approval if average subsequent profits of 50.6% had been taken into account at the evaluation stage.

Entitled The £10bn Sale of Shares in PPP companies, the report reveals the Barnet hospital PFI project was subject to five later transactions and the Calderdale hospital scheme was sold nine times between 2002 - 2010.

Research shows PFI firms have subsequently sold the equity of 622 schemes on the secondary investment market and the scale of such deals is significantly higher than the sales identified in the HM Treasury PFI equity database and estimated by the National Audit Office (NAO).

Report author Dexter Whitfield said:'The level of profiteering from PPP equity transactions makes a nonsense of the original value for money assessment.PPP projects are little more than money-making mechanisms for builders and banks.'

Among its recommendations the report calls for standard contracts to be re-written, imposing a ceiling on profits taken from PFI equity, together with a requirement that the public sector should have a 50% share in any profit above a specified level.

It also calls for the scope of HM Treasury's PFI equity database to be extended to cover all historic and future equity sales, made publicly available and regularly updated.Additionally,spending watchdog the NAO should research the longer-term effects of the growing secondary market.

Margaret Hodge, chair of the influential Public Accounts Committee agreed with Mr Whitfield’s call for greater oversight of the system,'so that if there is some profit over time in the funding of these PFI contracts, that profit can be shared between the taxpayer and the private investor.'

Now, early intervention clearly works, and Sure Start centres were one of the manifestations of that understanding. So, if the Coalition believes so much in early intervention why is it calling for the creation of what we must consider to be risky, bond-based initiatives to fund the interventions? Might it be to do with cuts elsewhere that are damaging projects like Sure Start with 20% cuts and removing ring-fencing and/or getting expenditure like this off the public books?

Short termism amongst traders has variously caused the collapse of the pound, the collapse of banks and rupture of sovereign economies. Why would we possibly want to introduce this risky model into the funding of (early) interventions, with the attendant difficulties of measuring improvement statistically tight enough to trigger payments to the investors?

Finally, what's the safety net for the bonds if their market fails? Will it be the taxpayer again, as it was with the banks recently, even though risk purportedly rested with the banks - which in the final analysis could not be allowed to fail, in the UK at least?

These bonds really require a long, hard look.

Executive Coaching

2011-07-01T23:55:00.000+01:00

The Positive Psychology website is always a mine of fascinating articles and research write-ups. Take this link, which is to an article featuring a 2008 coaching conference bringing together theorists and practitioners to explore the intellectual and evidenced-based foundation for the emerging field of coaching psychology. The GROW model makes an appearance, as do various short pieces exploring the development of coaching psychology, models of practice and noted authors. Despite being a 2008 article it opens the door into a range of more current articles which those of us keen to explore positive psychology and its organisational benefits find a helpful resource.

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/louis-alloro/200809291053

In addition, at The Open Channel, coaching is an essential feature of our practice. The GROW framework is one of several we use with clients. Frameworks provide structure to individual coaching sessions and also help clients to locate themselves in the piece of work, being able to see the development of the themes and threads in each contact session. We'll say more about the impact of coaching in later posts, as we reflect on and explore the implications of our real-world work with clients.

Quick updates on news of the moment

2011-06-29T23:39:00.000+01:00

Hear the new Chair of the LGA, Sir Merrick Cockell share some earlier ideas on sharing services from his perspective as the Leader of RB Kensington & Chelsea in London.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/193538-cpc10-sir-merrick-cockell-explains-how-councils-can-save-money-via-combining-services

Here's his inaugural speech to the LGA conference in Birmingham this week.

http://www.lgcplus.com/topics/politics/sir-merrick-cockells-speech-to-the-lga-in-full/5031851.article

His election is not universally well received (actually worse than that) on the ConservativeHome website, mainly because the bloggers there demand the LGA's abolition - which is pretty much the answer one hears from that worldview for anything that isn't directly 'wealth-creating' (who is that 'wealth' for, by the way?).

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/localgovernment/2011/06/cllr-sir-merrick-cockell-to-be-new-lga-chairman.html

News of a more edifying nature - peace breaks out with Eric 'Neutron' Pickles saying:

"many councils had experienced a challenging year, but added: ‘I’m immensely grateful to local government for delivering – it has delivered in a way which has confounded many critics of its ability to manage. (Pickles of course being its greatest critic!!)

‘I think it is [now] in a stronger position.’

‘Of course, at the same time, we were devolving powers and hopefully, we’re about to go on to devolve financial controls to local authorities. It’s time to move on to a period where we can now genuinely, from a position of partnership, work to improve the quality of services.’"

Oh still my beating heart.

More on pensions and a bit from the CBI

2011-06-27T23:02:00.001+01:00

Here is a recent press release relating to a speech made last week by the CBI's DG. The trenchant criticism of the government's reform agenda is interesting in its own right. What needs a little exploration are the unsubstantiated assertions and claims about the beneficial nature of private sector involvement in public service delivery. There's even a swipe at public sector pensions (please see my last blog on that issue) in the usual, broad and undifferentiated terms.

Now, reform of some pension schemes in the public sector would be helpful, for instance why not start with some of the unfunded schemes, like the one for MP's for instance. On the other hand, I heard this morning on another of the BBC's public pension have-a-swipe fests that Francis Maude was criticising public sector pensions from the standpoint that private sector pensions weren't as good, i.e. the 'envy' critique, so must we all descend to the lowest common denominator.

The CBI's DG takes the opposite view, i.e. as he says, the private sector has tackled their pension shortfalls, and reduced benefits accordingly, so it's a matter of positive choice and better value rather than simply being a poorer comparator. Either way, less is better, regardless of equity, it seems.

We should all feel genuine concern for those in the private sector who have suffered poor employer schemes, low take-up and critical mass, equity-based investments that have tanked at inopportune times and funds raided by Directors or lost as companies went bust. But none of those unfortunate circumstances justify the unprecedented attacks on a host of (undifferentiated) public sector schemes, put in place to provide not unseemly reward (read the numbers) but recognition of long public service and some small support in the later years, many based on participant contributions.

Now is the time for employees in all sectors to demand good pension schemes, not for employees in all sectors to be divided and set against each other by those who will receive virtual kings' ransoms of pensions, some from the state and others through largely unchallenged, broadly unpublicised large-scale contributions from their companies.

ONE YEAR ON GOVERNMENT IS NO FURTHER FORWARD ON PUBLIC SERVICE REFORM

Forces of inertia holding back reform, warns CBI Deputy Director-General

The Government has allowed urgently-needed public service reform to be derailed by “forces of inertia,” and gives the impression of “having lost its way, uneasy about reforms and unsure about how to present them.” That is according to the CBI’s Deputy Director-General Dr Neil Bentley.

Speaking at the CBI’s South East annual dinner in Epsom last week, Dr Bentley questioned the coalition’s commitment to reform and warned that failure to embrace competition could lead to deficit-reduction plans faltering.

He said: “In most areas, we’re seeing public services cling on to existing ways of doing things, with vested interests fighting modernisation at every turn and campaigning against change.

“Just this week, we’ve seen the forces of inertia in the NHS unions triumph on health reform. This is a missed opportunity for the Government, and with profound consequences. Patient services will only be improved if the NHS is opened up to far greater competition and dependence on hospital care is reduced. Without reform, the £20bn savings needed to help balance the NHS books will surely hit services.

“Health’s not alone. In local government, policing, probation and elsewhere, reforms are losing momentum.

And Dr Bentley added:

“Today, the coalition gives the impression of having lost its way, uneasy about reforms and unsure how to present them.”

Launching a new report, One Year On – Progress towards transformed public services,Dr Bentley highlighted some positive steps the Government has taken. For example, in making efficiency savings, centralising procurement and moving towards sharing back office functions. Progress has also been made on bringing in specialist providers to tackle worklessness and expanding the academies programme.

But Dr Bentley questioned the Government’s commitment to reform and argued that it must promote competition to ensure we get better public services at the right price.

“Before last year’s general election, we heard plenty from both opposition parties about the need for change. That’s why it’s so disappointing that we’re one year on with a coalition government but no further forward, with reforms stalling and the path ahead unclear.”

Pointing to a catalogue of delays, he said:

“In January, the Prime Minister said: “We cannot put this off any longer.” In early February, he promised a White paper. Now we’re in mid-June, we’re told we might get something next month. After all this time, this ongoing uncertainty - combined with the debacle over NHS reform - clearly calls into question the coalition’s commitment to reform.”

He highlighted evidence of the benefits of competition in service delivery, with competitive tendering leading to cost savings between 10 and 30 per cent and how other countries make much greater use of the private sector. For example, in Sweden where private operators run free schools; in France where they run one in three hospital beds; and in Denmark where one company, Falck, provides the majority of fire-fighting and ambulance services.

Dr Bentley blamed fear of a union and electoral backlash for the Government’s hesitation, and urged ministers to hold their nerve on public sector pensions.

“If the fear is that the unions will derail reforms, then the best answer is to be open, and to discuss with staff any plans for meeting the shared challenges we face.

“Though on pensions this isn’t working – even after all the consultation by the Government. Slap-bang in the middle of talks we’re seeing some unions sabre rattling and calling everybody out.

“The Government has to hold its nerve and push through Lord Hutton’s pensions reforms. Otherwise the public sector pensions deficit - which is already more than £1 trillion - will get even more unaffordable. The private sector has bitten the bullet on this. Now the Government as an employer needs to do the same.”

It should also press ahead with modernising the law around industrial action – and before strikes occur:

“We’ve heard Business Secretary Vince Cable say legislation will be considered if strikes happen. But by then it’ll be too late, and no barn-door-closure strategy will make amends for the horse having long-since bolted. I say: do it now, before the damage is done.”

Businesses are also ready to play their part in helping transform public services:

“First, we’re already working with the Cabinet Office and other departments to show how new approaches can result in better outcomes at a lower cost.

“Second, we’ll help to create new public-private partnership models so major projects and services get the financing they need, including new PFI. Where we’ve done well, we’ll do more of the same. Where we haven’t performed as strongly, we’ll up our game.

“And third, we’ll show how private sector involvement makes a positive difference to individuals and communities, and how our dynamism brings benefits for everyone,” Dr Bentley said.

http://publicservices.cbi.org.uk/reports/00430/

Public sector pensions - time for a more informed debate

2011-06-21T21:56:00.000+01:00

I think something needs to be said about the paucity of the radio debates I've been listening to about 'public sector' pensions.

Most commentators lump all public sector employees, and therefore their pensions, together. I am no expert (there, I've said it), but many public sector schemes are contributary and some are not. Does anybody out there know which pension is on which list? I could guess, but not a single commentator on the radio has made this distinction in terms. All schemes in the public sector are not equal and neither are the inputs/outcomes/exposure.

Whilst there are a few hundred employees in local government who earn over £100,000 per annum, and most richly deserve a proper remuneration for the breadth and complexity of their leadership and management portfolios, there are thousands on such salaries in the NHS. Their pensions are commensurately different. As reported in a national newspaper this week, local government officers' average pension in 2009/10 was £4,052; a civil servant's £6,199 and a teacher's, £9,806. Surgeons and doctors get around £37,000 p/a on average, but they only make up about 1% of NHS pension recipients. A progressive local government career in anything but the largest of authorities will yield a pension broadly similar to that of a police constable. I make no judgement on these numbers, simply point out that even this basic level of comparative information has not made it onto the airwaves I have been listening to.

This needs to be a much better informed and balanced debate - at the moment the lack of quality information and a positive presentation simply allows a vacuum to develop into which disinformation (some of it from Government), opinion, prejudice and envy flood in. Just as public services have borne the financial brunt of the failures of extravagantly remunerated bankers, so seem pubic servants' pensions demonised to justify further cuts.

Whilst many private sector employees find themselves with similarly low pensions, but assume many of their public sector counterparts are much more highly rewarded than they actually are, the 'average' former FTSE 100 director's pension in 2009 was £248,000 per annum.

Nokia worth £15bn

2011-06-20T20:55:00.001+01:00

Sometimes you just have to get it off your chest!

I read recently that Nokia's company value is £15bn, whereas in 2002 it's value was £285bn. Having been blighted with the Nokia E72 for almost 18 months now, I am not remotely surprised in this loss of value, given one person's experience of their technology.

Yet, it all started so differently for me. I moved to Nokia after 8 years of suffering Blackberry; frustrated by their plastic construction, multiple hardware and software keyboard failures, total failure of a handset during a routine software update (yes, nudge the darn thing during a software download and a Blackberry is rendered useless forever - bet you didn't know that!), less-than-stellar Internet functionality (despite all the claims to the contrary) and the overall impression I was paying a lot of money for tools that weren't physically up to the demands I was making of them.

Well, it would appear I hitched my desire for alternative mobile computing power to an imposter and I have enjoyed not a little guilty pleasure in reading that Nokia's stock has fallen so low. The serendipitous nature of stock markets might explain some of this fall in value, e.g. the 'masters of the universe' who decide these things in their trades and market analyses have opined on the talent and ability in the company, but I'd like to think it is also to do with my feeling that in 2011 I'm using a handset that responds to my needs like a 2002 model.

Perhaps handset functionality and company value are finally coming into alignment?

Anyone else have tech. experiences that support this admittedly personal and idiosyncratic view? Tom Peters did once say though that suppliers of goods and services ignore the experiences and feedback of customers at their peril. As he put it, it might be one-eyed, anecdotal and personal - "but, it's my money!"

Planning in a Pickle

2011-06-19T19:18:00.000+01:00

On the ResPublica blog (not a place I visit often) there is an interesting and accessible blog concerning the planning system. Written at the back end of last year, and therefore before the Localism Bill was published, it remains nonetheless a helpful contribution to understanding the dilemmas of 'localising' the planning system yet somehow avoiding the worst aspects of nimbyism, as well as how to encourage developers to engage in meeting local need more successfully than the claimed simplistic housing quotas. For instance, one comment about the blog suggested that Eric Pickles, by abolishing targets for new house building had simply stopped house building.

One paragraph of the blog in particular caught my attention from an appreciative inquiry point of view:

"Yet when local people, politicians, planners and developers do engage successfully, before proposals are formulated and presented as a fait accompli, the process can be incredibly energising, reducing risk and increasing certainty for developers and communities alike. To empower local people and to fulfil the political ambitions Eric Pickles is shepherding, national and local government needs to invest in devising a new regime and new methods for engaging local people and economic interests in a process which is open, accessible, enticing and a prominent and valued part of how we live. There are models in Europe and some in the UK for an improved process. The problem is it takes increased resources which are unavailable to local authorities at present. There is also a case for independent means to be used to facilitate this engagement, which could be funded by interested parties in major development proposals. There also needs to be a clearer separation between the “ideas” and “visioning” stages and the consideration of actual proposals – the latter occupy most of local politicians and planners’ time when they are largely matters that could be dealt with by regulation, not political consideration. Public meetings need to be more successful and frequent, and the availability and communicative quality of information needs to be much improved."

This call to new "methods for engaging local people," "independent means to facilitate this engagement" and separation between ideas and vision just screams Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to me. The desire to have a high engagement, low cost, integrated means of shaping local development could be massively influenced for the good by using appreciative conversations to create strong topics, e.g. improving process, developing the local capacity to shape proposals or build consensus. These topics and the material from the conversations could then form the centre-piece of an appreciative conference, where the classic four stages of Discover, Dream, Design and Destiny, would frame a series of activities to achieve the twin goals of better process and strong planning proposals.

Elsewhere in the ResPublica blog's comments there are the familiar suggestions that engagement is not a good use of time and developers avoid it - perhaps with those twin deficit perspectives so strong, they become self-fulfilling prophecies in the current system. AI challenges this deficit paradigm and offers practical, well structured, proven methods to shift the conversations from problems to opportunities, from dividing lines to collaboration and strongly links dream to design and eventual destiny, i.e. delivery of change for an area or organisation(s).

None of this need be either expensive, time consuming in real terms nor an impediment to progress. In fact, the eventual outcomes are likely to be stronger, more sustainable and 'bought-into' by participants than other more formal and static types of consultation, which don't really 'engage' - I speak from experience here. Probity of course must be guaranteed

The independence required can be created by using an external facilitator, not of the key players, yet strongly allied to their goals for the process.The eventual formal decision-making will still, one presumes, be carried out by an elected body (?), though with a body of 'evidence' of a much more collaborative and appreciative nature as well as the usual technical matters.

The original blog post can be found here: http://www.respublica.org.uk/blog/2010/09/planning-pickle

Impact of Inflation on low income households

2011-06-16T21:52:00.000+01:00

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has just published an interesting and accessible piece of research into the impact of inflation on different age groups and income levels. The research looked at differences in spending patterns and household-level inflation rates between different income groups. It found marked differences in spend between higher and lower income households. Lower-income households spent more on food, water and fuel and less on leisure goods and services than higher-income households.

The report concluded that these differences in spend patterns lead to high and low income households experiencing different inflation rates in any given year. The IFFS found that lower income households had experienced higher inflation rates than higher-income households across the previous ten years. There were also differences in the impact of inflation within income groups based on age and household size.

The report's ten-year spend patterns and other data will be of both general interest and for referencing in policy formulation.

http://www.ifs.org.uk/comms/comm119.pdf

Listening

2011-06-16T00:16:00.000+01:00

"This is a very noisy era.I believe the volume is directly related to our need to be listened to. In public places, in the media, we reward the loudest and most outrageous. People are literally clamouring for attention, and they'll do whatever it takes to get noticed. Things will only get louder until we figure out how to sit down and listen. Most of us would welcome things quietening down. We can do our part to begin lowering the volume by our own willingness to listen."

Meg Wheatley, Turning to one another

Theory or Practice? Which is best...

2011-06-14T22:55:00.000+01:00

Sorry, I was penning this post when I was sidetracked by the sight of the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minster and Secretary of State for Health being thrown off a hospital ward by a senior clinician. The words were, "I'm not having it, get out!". Classic bushwhack television and deeply embarrassing as the trio had just been speaking with patients about their changes to their proposed changes in the health service. Reminiscent of several other off-message meet-the-people "opportunities," for senior politicians e.g. Brown in Rochdale and Blair in Birmingham. Not good but riveting viewing. But back to business...

I often work with clients considering how we can best make practical improvements to the way our organisations work, how to lead more effectively and how to create stronger communities using appreciative, strengths-focused and positive psychology interventions and methods.

Every client is different, each situation unique and the test is to apply these powerful and productive methods to best effect in each scenario. Of course, it's not always easy or straightforward, change never is. On occasion, the difference between the persuasiveness of the science behind these approaches and the practical impacts become the centre of debate. For instance, some clients want to really understand the theory and philosophy of appreciative inquiry; what theory is the practice based on, how does it differ from other models, and is there a strong validity for its claims. Others have little time for the deeper background and prefer to 'take it as read' and move on to the practical measures, e.g. what do we have to do to get the benefits of these approaches, what changes can we make, do you have 'proof' of application elsewhere?

Both stances rightly make demands of our knowledge and experience and create a healthy debate in the practitioner community - where is the best place to begin for the client, what do we choose to emphasise, how do we best create trust and understanding for the client?

Below is a link to a short and helpful piece on the Positive Psychology website that pithily addresses some of these points. The comments on the piece also enlighten.

http://positivepsychologynews.com/news/alan-foster/2011051317596#comments

If you enjoy the piece, you might also enjoy a conversation about how these approaches can make a real and sustainable difference to you and your complex issues. If you do, please contact us via the website.

Developing the Attributes of Effective Leaders

2011-06-13T22:53:00.000+01:00

The pressure is on many organisations across all sectors. Leadership is under the spotlight, needing to step-up, turn from external authority to internal authority; from command and control to empowerment and self-direction.

Effective leaders recognise that power and influence depends in part upon the breadth and quality of the relationships they forge, not on policies, procedures and job titles. Collaboration rather than competition, win/win rather than win/lose and sustainable progress over short-term profits and bonuses are all features of a new leadership paradigm.

The mechanistic model of organisations and individuals has taken almost 50 years to wither, though in some corners of the organisational world it hangs on, and we really must see the end of it if we are to properly motivate, guide and lead our organisations through the challenges in place now and for the foreseeable future.

Are the best leadership attributes learned or within us? Research suggests some, in fact numerous of the key leadership attributes can be learned, developed and deepened with conscious effort and support. Aspects such as understanding the big picture, articulating a clear vision, communicating extensively and with clarity, inspiring and mentoring others, encouraging innovation and creativity, trusting and delegating, introducing change and managing the process, and creating strong teams, are vital to good leaders. All of these aspects and more can be explored and potentially enhanced through executive coaching and leadership mentoring.

Coaching can help leaders raise their awareness of their talents and strengths in the key leadership competencies, to get more from those talents and provide an early warning if the behaviours that underpinned the leader's progress dip towards becoming what's known as derailment characteristics. Derailment often comes through over-confidence, a drop in emotional intelligence and reduced self-awareness.

Coaching helps leaders to develop adaptive behaviours, get back on line and reverse the derailment characteristics. It can be delivered face-to-face or by other media, when the leader needs it and with expertise, commitment, understanding and patience. An effective coaching style is one that makes a practical difference to the coachee, and at the moment, non-directive coaching is a style recommended widely as offering the client deep insights into their leadership practice and meaningful learning.

That's where The Open Channel can help you and those you lead. Distributed leadership requires support to be available to all of those leading, wherever they are in the organisation. In our large, complex service bodies, the space and time to support your leaders at all levels is severely restricted, and a little outside assistance can make all of the difference. Visit us and see for yourself how 'bite-sized,' low-cost support can be provided to your and your team leaders.

www.theopenchannel.co.uk

Private equity and residential care

2011-06-13T00:05:00.000+01:00

The Southern Cross/Care Home saga looks like it could become a tragedy - for residents, employees, families and others. The story though is much wider than one provider. The Municipal Journal has quoted some research by UNISON that makes worrying and startling reading. Southern Cross is not the only provider under real pressure.

I've also attached a link to the Blackstone website, if only because many readers might not yet have looked into Blackstone's part more deeply. It's worth a look.

http://www.blackstone.com/cps/rde/xchg/bxcom/hs/newsandviews_2011-6-2-1.htm

The MJ article on UNISON's report says in relation to venture capital's involvement:

Causes at the heart of the care crisis:

Some companies borrowed too heavily, despite their financial performance being too weak to repay debts on agreed terms.

As people live longer, the demand for care in their own homes has gone up, in preference to residential care.

Local authorities lost much of heir grant funding form central government and have cut spending on social care services.

The fall in the value of elderly people's own homes means that many don't have enough funds to pay for residential care.

The collapse of the property sector means that, in many cases, care home owners borrowed more than the reduced value of their properties, breaching banking covenants.

The collapse of the banking sector meant it became impossible for some providers to renew borrowing facilities on affordable terms.

The care sector and the private equity 'merry-go-round' :

Southern Cross was floated on the stock market by Blackstone, which obtained a 400% return in two years on its acquisition. Southern Cross is now at risk of collapse.
Allianz Capital Partners made a return of 100% by acquiring Four Seasons in 2004 for £775 million, selling it four years later for £1.4bn - the business then collapsed in value.
3i private equity fund brought a 38% stake in Care Principles for £1.5m in 1997, the remaining amount in 2005 and sold to to Three Delta in 2007 for £270m - a return of 390%.
Tunstall was acquired by Bridgepoint Capital in 2005 for £225m, merged with Birdgepoint Investment and sold on after three years for £514m.
Sovereign Capital achieved a growth in value of around 100% after buying Tracscare for £26m in 2004 and then another four care businesses for £20m and selling the enlarged group for £200m. It owns City & County Healthcare who are currently undertaking a programme of acquisitions of other businesses in the domiciliary care sector.

Localism Bill criticisms rebutted

2011-06-11T23:22:00.002+01:00

The DCLG has published a paper rebutting some of the major criticisms that have buzzed around the Localism Bill, particularly as it has come to prominence again via its Second Reading in the Lords. It bears reproducing in full with some brief comments in italics.

Localism is a cover for cuts

Both coalition parties have been talking about localism for many years – the concept of the Big Society pre-dates the financial crisis. However, we do believe Central Government has become too big, too interfering, too controlling and too bureaucratic.This has undermined local democracy and individual responsibility, and stifled innovation and enterprise within public services. We will look to redress the balance of power and responsibility through our decentralisation programme, of which the Localism Bill is a key part.

The Localism Bill will produce a massive postcode lottery Allowing different parts of the country to do things differently is not the same as a postcode lottery. A lottery is random and people on the receiving end are powerless. Our decentralisation programme and the measures in this bill are actually the opposite – it is giving people more power than ever before over decisions that affect them and their communities. No doubt people will choose to do things differently, but through choice, not a “lottery.”

Although doesn't evidence show that the "post code lottery" does exist in the provision of some health services for instance, with patients feeling exactly that, i.e. powerless at the apparently random nature of how cuts are impacting upon some locales and not others. Fire Service budgets also show the damaging effect of a rush to cut with quite startling variables in impact across the country.

Localism and Growth are not compatible Decentralisation is about liberating the natural desire of local communities to become more prosperous. The notion that communities choose decline and reject prosperity is perverse, wrong-headed and not based on evidence. Evidence from the UK and overseas shows that local communities need the right mixture of powers, incentives and accountability to maximise their prosperity. Decentralisation is new to this country and long over-due. The previous administration devolved with one hand and with the other hand bound regional and local authorities ever tighter in the red-tape of national targets, requirements and guidelines.

This might be semantics, but decentralisation is not "new to this country." Perhaps in terms of the Bill there might be an argument for newness, but as a model of participation, empowerment, engagement and involvement it is well known, widely practiced and properly understood by many local authorities and other public bodies.

The Bill bypasses local government Through this Bill we are freeing local government from central and regional control, scrapping national targets and removing pointless and prescriptive duties which have held local government back. In addition, we are giving local authorities the long awaited general power of competence which will transform the relationship between central and local government by allowing local authorities power to do anything apart from that which is specifically prohibited.

However, the Government is committed to the radical decentralisation of power and control from government to individuals and local communities. This is not simply about replacing the big central state with the big local state – it’s about putting people back in control of decision making or, where this is not possible, devolving power to the lowest appropriate level. We’ve got to hand power directly to people. We will seek to incentivise people rather than punishing them. We trust people to make things better by taking charge of their lives.

Interesting how the notion of "incentivise", which at first sight seems quite a positive notion, but is felt in another dimension of people's lives, as damaging cuts to individual benefits, reduced access to resources and now the threat of cutting housing benefit if you are unlucky enough to have a 'spare' bedroom. The incentive all to quickly seems to be of the cattle-prod variety.

The Bill is centralist not decentralist The large majority of the SoS powers either provide technical detail or simply replicate powers contained in previous legislation. In addition there are a number of key ‘barrier busting’ powers that enable the Secretary of State to remove burdens or further delegate powers to local authorities or local communities at a later date. For example in the General Power of Competence the barrier buster in clause 5(1) gives Secretary of State the power to remove unnecessary restrictions and limitations that are restricting the use of the general power where there is a good case to do so, subject to safeguards designed to protect vital services.
Finally, there are the usual powers such as to make transitional, consequential and savings provision. Taken together, these powers and the Bill itself will shift power from the centre to local authorities, communities and individuals.

The Localism Bill is a NIMBYs’ charter Giving people greater control over the planning system will transform community attitudes to development, particularly if neighbourhoods benefit directly from growth through the New Homes Bonus and the reformed Community Infrastructure Levy.

Locally grounded planning will not stifle development but will provide the certainty and confidence businesses need to take forward their plans for growth and expansion. They will act as a catalyst for development and will attract and encourage the investment, economic growth and housing that Britain needs.

There are a myriad of reasons why Britain requires a "catalyst for development, investment, economic growth and housing" and and many, inter-connected ways to achieve it. Maybe the devolution suggested will deliver this "development," but will the price be random differentiation, lack of consistency, reduced equality and a mish-mash of decisions with no apparent coherence, although meeting the localist mantra?

The abolition of housing targets will mean the shortage in housing will only get worse

A key weakness of the Regional Strategy approach was the assumption that imposed housing targets would be incorporated into plans by local authorities and communities, and that the market would deliver them. But only 22% of local planning authorities have translated the RS targets into an adopted Core Strategy. Regional Strategies did not build homes and we now have the lowest level of house building since 1924.

It's a bit disingenuous to blame Regional Strategies alone for "the lowest level of house building since 1924"! Does a banking-precipitated financial tragedy which sucked in over half of the previous government's deficit spending not have a role to play in this developing (affordable) housing new build crisis?

Incentives are just bribes We need to get the country building again – but this time with the support of local communities rather than in the teeth of their opposition. That’s why we are introducing powerful new incentives that give communities a reason to say yes to new development. Local finance considerations, such as the New Homes Bonus and the Community Infrastructure Levy, may be taken into account in relation to planning applications – but only where they are material to the particular application being considered. As before - unacceptable developments should not be given consent just to unlock incentive payments, and a matter can only be considered material to a planning application if it relates to the development and use of land, and to the merits of the application under consideration.
The point is that local authorities are best placed to judge the need for housing development and we trust them to continue to plan for it. And we are introducing incentives to help them achieve that vision. The New Homes Bonus introduces a powerful framework of incentives and new homes delivered now will be rewarded under the scheme. This will encourage local authorities and communities to increase their aspirations for housing and economic growth and to deliver sustainable development.
In the meantime there are planning permissions in the pipeline that will support supply whilst the new incentive scheme beds in.

Neighbourhood planning will end protection of the green belt The idea that local people will want to damage green belt in their neighbourhood is daft. Residents are always keen to protect the environmental quality of their local area. Neighbourhood development plans will be written by communities who are likely to be strong advocates for safeguarding their landscape and natural environment. Residents are also best qualified to understand what needs protecting in their local areas.

We are working with DEFRA to introduce a new designation that will allow communities to protect green spaces of local importance. National policy on the environment will be a basis upon which plans can be rejected as inappropriate. And we expect environment and climate change to be a strong feature of the National Planning Policy Framework.

"Local people", "communities" and "residents" are not homogeneous groups and can be and are composed of many factions and interests, including powerful landowners, large-scale property landlords, significant developer businesses and speculators - none of whom are necessarily the most staunch advocates for either "safeguarding their landscape," or alternatively keen to promote, say, new affordable housing. These will be some of the tests for the freeing of the planning system.

The Bill signals the end of social housing as we know it Rather than ending or abolishing social housing we are determined to make it work for those families that are in genuine need. It is difficult to argue for the case against reform when there are more empty bedrooms in social housing than are needed to tackle overcrowding; and only 49% of working age social tenants are in work (compared to 71% in 1981). We need to make better use of the homes we have, and to give councils flexibility to take decisions that will lead to better long term outcomes. To do this the Bill will

Keep tenure for life for existing tenants, but give social landlords the additional option of granting shorter tenancies to new tenants subject to a minimum of two years. Social landlords should not have to give tenure for life to those facing a short term crisis.

Keep the duty on councils to house those facing a housing crisis, but change the rules that mean people owed the duty can insist that their needs are met by giving them a social home for life.

Provide that all new secure and flexible tenancies include a right to one succession for spouses and partners, but give landlords the flexibility to grant whatever additional succession rights they choose

Give councils the power to decide who goes on their waiting lists to better reflect local priorities and realities

Make it easier for social tenants to move within the social sector

Support social tenants to achieve sustainable home ownership

End the discredited Housing Revenue Account subsidy system, in favour of a more localist approach, allowing council landlords to plan long term and enabling their tenants to hold them to account over how their rent is spent.

It's interesting how a massively reduced and still declining resource, the health and vibrancy of which was probably fatally compromised by a previous Tory government, e.g. RTB, the prohibition on public sector house building and so on, remains the site of so much governmental intervention. Yes, there are matters that require, and have required, action for years but some of the poorest residents seem set to have even more intervention applied to their sector without the hope of the overall quantum of the stock increasing anywhere near significantly enough to provide choice, price and the variety we should expect in 2011.

Want to join a developing learning community of public sector professionals and access high quality support? Then please visit www.theopenchannel.co.uk

Family Pressures

2011-06-09T21:17:00.002+01:00

Check out a fascinating report by the Relationships Foundation, with some really important insights into the relative position Britain's families are in when compared to their European neighbours in the context of a host of dimensions, such as work, finance, caring and the environment.
A very brief introduction from the Relationships Foundation says:

Our index, built entirely on official data from Eurostat, Eurofound, and the OECD, shows that the UK is almost the least family friendly country in Europe. Families in the UK are the third most pressured of 27 European countries. Only families in Bulgaria and Romania have a worse time of it. Financial and work pressures, combine with poor maternity and paternity provision, and poor living environments put our families among the most pressured in Europe.

http://www.relationshipsfoundation.org/Web/OnlineStore/Product.aspx?ID=142

The Foundation juxtaposes the position of families in Britain with the oft avowed commitment of the Coalition to "make Britain the most family friendly country in Europe" and sets a challenge to make the apparent rhetoric a policy reality.

Localism Bill or centralism Bill?

2011-06-08T20:16:00.001+01:00

The LGA has put up a brief and helpful note on the 2nd Reading in the Lords of the (in my opinion, underwhelming) Localism Bill, exposing to a degree the espoused theory behind the Bill of shifting power to local communities and the theory-in-use of providing Ministers with new powers to direct, instruct and impose. Perhaps 'twas ever thus in relation to the central/local nexus, but this evermore looks like an opportunity that might be lost amidst some muddled thinking which seeks to do one thing, i.e. localise/devolve, and might conceivably achieve quite another, i.e. centralise/direct. A lack of trust between the centre and the local characterised too much of the previous Government's behaviour towards local government, and this trait seems to have been inherited by the Coalition.
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/18775810

Leadership that overcomes barriers to progress

2011-06-07T17:20:00.002+01:00

A really interesting piece on the new leadership styles required prosper in the most challenging of times, and ‘heroic’, forcing leadership styles do not feature. If I have a criticism of what is generally a helpful piece for the debate about public leadership, it is that the article perhaps understandably, uses examples that focus on the ‘usual’ star names and does not seem to offer a longer term historical perspective. These leadership styles have been extant in some local authorities for over 25 years and not only in large city authorities. There are many others in local government, less well known, who achieve significant progress, against the odds, using the fierceness of their quiet resolve to work through boundaries, around constraints and over barriers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/public-leaders-network/2011/jun/07/local-authorities-leaders-red-tape#start-of-comments

Well Being and Flourishing, Talent and Perseverance

2011-06-06T21:45:00.011+01:00

Some interesting 'side-bars' over the weekend:

Martin Seligman, of Positive Psychology fame sees well-being as a combination of feeling good as well as actually having meaning, good relationships and accomplishment. His own positive psychology movement, which I find a particularly persuasive world-view to challenge the deficit paradigms of our time, has inspired many efforts to survey people's state of mind. One example being David Cameron's moves to measure GWB as well as GDP.

Seligman is now concerned however that surveys exploring well being use questions which tend to concentrate on "life satisfaction", which might include the above elements of well-being, but he says that the answers to these questions are largely, i.e. 70%+, determined by how respondents are feeling at the point of the survey and not how they evaluate their lives overall. For this he believes better questions search out notions of "flourishing", ask people about their moods, i.e. the present, then go on to explore their relationships with others and how far they have a sense of accomplishing something worthwhile or meaningful. This offers a more comprehensive assessment than joy and happiness of previous survey methods.

For the record, a recent study in 23 countries found that the citizens of Denmark and Switzerland topped the table for having flourishing lives with more than 25%, and citizens of France, Hungary, Portugal and Russia reporting fewer than 10% of citizens as flourishing.

Motivation. Many will have enjoyed listening to motivational speakers from business, sport and leadership. Interesting, inspirational even, yet beyond the intrinsic value of the speech the longer term value back in the office can sometimes be difficult to realise. In a Guardian article over the weekend, there was an interesting exploration of how innate talent is seen as having a strong influence on excellent performance, but it's not the only determinant. In fact, research shows that high-flyers learn no faster than those who reach lower levels of attainment, but the critical feature of their success is that "high achievers practice for more hours." Strengths theory speaks often about talents being part of us and not learned, and that talents only become true strengths when combined with activities that bring the talents into full and frequent use, i.e. 'practice make perfect.'

In addition, it appears that mindset, in this case fixed or growth focused shaped very different responses to challenges and apparent 'failure.' For instance, fixed mindset groups, i.e. those who see talent as fixed and incapable of development, rapidly shift into a blame mode when things go badly, whereas 'growth' mindset groups seek new approaches, are flexible in their thinking, don't recognise 'failure' as such and teach themselves new strategies for addressing apparently intractable problems. Perseverance it seems opens the door to the potential for personal transformation and access to higher performance. Or, as the great golfer Gary Player once said, "it's funny, when winning major tournaments, I'm often called lucky, yet the more I practice, the luckier I seem to get!"

And finally, one sentence I couldn't resist replaying from today's press:

"A Conservative Council,with a history of cleansing the poor from its housing, is currently attempting to criminalise the good souls who distribute soup to the destitute." LB Westminster draft bye-law refers. What price the Big Society, in Westminster at least?

Now is the time to be properly supported

2011-06-02T21:58:00.011+01:00

Times are tough for the public services. We know this. Over 45,000 jobs have gone from the public sector in the past few months. The narrative around the public sector emanating from government concentrated in part on the alleged bloated scale and terms and conditions, the easy-to-say "budget cuts won't equate to front-line service cuts" and on back-office transformation, i.e. cuts or outsourcing or both - all possible with minimal impact on service quality, or indeed the economy more broadly. For some public bodies the worst is yet to come as the back-loaded cuts of 2013-15 will come into sharper relief.

Yet, it would appear a succession of economic statistics have given the lie to this narrative. The recession stumbles on, mortgage approvals hit an 18 year low, new housing starts are in a similar slump; unemployment is not falling and the attempts to make large inroads into various benefits and their claimants are having some really unfortunate consequences for individuals. The 'feel' is also that the private sector is neither ready nor willing and able to take up the 'slack' of public and charitable sector job losses.

So, where does The Open Channel come in to this difficult complex and worrying scenario? Well, we believe strongly, and more so every day as we speak with colleagues delivering services, that now is the moment when hard-pressed middle and senior managers, in all sectors, could really do with some cost-effective, flexible and knowledgeable support. Support that comes over the 'phone', on-line via Skype, through email and by using other web technologies.

This support needn't and will not cost a great deal to our subscribers, and that's a deliberate positioning to ensure no-one need miss out on what we offer. In fact, we offer much that is easily accessible at no cost, and as we develop our networks further this content will increase alongside the depth of our password protected resources for subscribers only. We fully intend that a learning community develops around our subscribers, ensuring that when they want to, there is a platform to share ideas, experiences, knowledge and intelligence.

We define ourselves by who we are, e.g. leaders, managers and practitioners, able to share and pass on what we have learnt and achieved - whilst still remaining avid learners ourselves. That's The Open Channel. When times are at their hardest you want your providers to intrinsically understand your challenges and yet also to have sufficient detachment and objectivity to be of real value to you.

So, our new venture comes to the end of its second week. The Open Channel offers us the opportunity to help our subscribers make the most of their talents, to deliver the best of what they can. Take a visit to our new website -http://www.theopenchannel.co.uk/ If you think this is not for you just now, do you know a colleague who might need this kind of support - please alert them if you do. Thanks and we look forward to welcoming you.

Full circle in housing allocations

2011-05-31T18:52:00.004+01:00

The Housing and Property Law Daily web site reports that Stoke City Council has replaced its choice-based housing allocation system with a more needs-based system following a review by an external consultancy. It reports that the Council has implemented a new process from today (31/5) that allocates properties on a needs basis.

The HPLD site quoted from an article in This is Staffordshire, where the council’s cabinet member for housing, Gwen Hassall, stated:

"The move will mean that those people in greatest housing need will be helped more quickly and effectively as the new system will be more streamlined.

"It will save the authority money while putting those customers in greatest need at the heart of the processes.

"Customers who do not qualify for local authority housing will be given advice and assistance to suit their own particular circumstances."

HPLD also quoted from the council’s website:

“The Choice Based Lettings system will be taken away. A more personal property matching system will take its place. The customer will still choose where they want to live, but instead of placing bids on properties, people will be invited to discuss their housing needs with a Housing Needs Officer. The Housing Needs Officer will then work to meet the customer’s needs in the best way possible.”

Time will tell whether the changes work for the citizens of Stoke, and we hope they do. For those of us around when choice-based letting was piloted in the mid-late 1990's and then gradually introduced across the country, it's interesting to see the allocation process go almost full circle, back to a stated "needs" based approach, albeit with a retained choice element.

The quotes about customers being "invited to discuss their housing needs" and officers trying to meet them "in the best way possible" mirror almost exactly reports written throughout the 1970's and 80's as we moved on from time-served waiting lists in (sometimes doomed) attempts to better reflect changes in demand, social structure and national political direction.

What goes around comes around, the saying goes. What doesn't seem to come around though is an increase in the overall quantum of good quality, affordable housing that keeps pace with household creation, continued reductions in existing stock and that also addresses the continuing impacts of the restrictions on market access to first time buyers (and second time buyers in a new trend we read) in the private housing market.

It seems that both portfolio holders and housing needs officers in Stoke and many other places are still left rationing a scarce and increasingly valuable resource through a variety of allocation systems that aren't intended to and will never address basic supply-side problems. Neither will further diversification of tenure models properly address the deficit either.

We remain a country where renting is more often about a meeting a need rather than a desire and purchase a desire that is failing to meet all needs.

The Single Data List

2011-05-30T21:42:00.006+01:00

In case you missed it in April, go to the list of data sets required for 2011/12 from councils by Whitehall, i.e. the Single Data List.

http://admin.localgov.co.uk/his_localgov/view/images/uploaded/Image/

Thesingledatalistforcentralgovernmentdepartments.pdf

There is a commitment from the SoS for these demands to be significantly reduced so that councils can "focus on protecting frontline services, focus resources on local priorities and meeting the needs of their communities without the spectre of new top-down data demands"

Encouraging insight

2011-05-29T20:52:00.004+01:00

A challenge for us in our practice as leaders, managers, advisers and coaches:

"Make visible, what without you, might never have been seen."

Robert Bresson, Filmaker.

A simple truth...

2011-05-29T20:28:00.004+01:00

A thought both to challenge and sustain us:

"If someone comes to you and asks for help, and you can help them, you're supposed to help them. Why wouldn't you? You have been put in the position somehow to be able to help this person."

Gil Scott-Heron

NB If you buy any music this week, buy something by the late, great, Gil Scott-Heron.

A thought for colleagues in complex situations

2011-05-28T22:58:00.006+01:00

"We do not see the swim we are in, we do not understand its meaning, nor do we see how our experiences are shaped by the form and function of that swim. Without that “seeing” we are at the mercy of the swim.

To see systems or be blind to them? The costs of blindness are clear. Who knows what possibilities “seeing” holds for us?"

Barry Oshry; Seeing Systems

Not-for-Profits face a "perfect storm"

2011-05-26T21:08:00.006+01:00

Some interesting findings from a recent IPSOS MORI poll on behalf of the Charity Commission:

"Despite high levels of trust (in charities), and 7% saying their trust and confidence in charities has increased over the past two years, one in ten (11%) say that their trust and confidence in charities has decreased.

The most common reason for this decrease is media coverage about how charities spend their donations (response given by 28% of those whose trust has declined).

Indeed, ‘ensuring that a reasonable proportion of donations make it to the end cause’ is the most important factor affecting trust and confidence in charities (42%).

People are more likely to trust charities generally if they, or close friends or family members, have benefited from them. However, people are not always aware of being beneficiaries of a charity - fewer than one in three (30%) say they personally or have close friends or family who have used the services of a charity. However, when prompted with activities that charities might provide, around nine in ten (93%) say they or close friends or family have used these services."

The report is quoted in an article by Zoe Williams in today's (26th May) Guardian which describes how, at the point where not-for-profit organisations seem to be central to the delivery of a plank of government policy, there is a "perfect storm" affecting their sustainability: fast dwindling reserves (which were not huge in the first place), a growing need for their services (as public services contract), local authorities and government paying less for services delivered by not-for-profits, and a limited capacity to withstand the financial challenges of discontinuous change.

There is a range of developing negative impacts on the employees in this sector, including pay freezes and cuts, job cuts, and a growing number of organisational closures as the 'storm' develops. The article also suggests that large commercial companies are beginning to hoover up contracts and employees, undercutting rates and rendering TUPE of limited protection. As one of the 'masters of the universe' who work for outsourcing behemoths said to me many years ago, "TUPE protection only lasts 24 hours if you know what to do". The Guardian article mentions the 25% job-change threshold that presages pay-cuts for transferring employees.

Not a hopeful picture, and one that provides really deep challenges to not-for-profits to find new and effective ways to continue to respond to change and engage their employees, clients, service users and other stakeholders in meaningful work to identify and sustain their positive core, i.e. their core values and beliefs, best ways of working and their most effective relationships, during these challenging times. Using strengths-based development approaches for individuals and teams and seeing the world through appreciative eyes might be a way into this. Not the only way, but a way that experience and science shows is yielding sustainable outcomes in a range of environments.

The Open Channel cuts the cost of supporting managers

2011-05-23T19:49:00.004+01:00

I am delighted to be writing about The Open Channel which is launched today. This new venture, in which I am collaborating with Janet Dean, hits the internet just three months after we conceived it in the Millennium Galleries Cafe in Sheffield.

Over the past six months many of us with long experience across the public sector and in public, private and voluntary partnerships, have been challenged to think afresh about what we need to do to make sure we retain the best and change the rest across all our public services.

However you view the politics, change is inevitable and resources are in short supply. Janet and I believe we need to think about a more responsive and cost effective way to build skills and capacity across the public sector and amongst those partners in the private, voluntary and community sectors who share the challenge.

We are motivated by our deep beliefs in the strengths of people and our interest and skills in networking and social media. The Open Channel aims to create and support a community of people who work with communities and across organisations to provide excellent public services in whatever form is best.

The concept of The Open Channel is to provide easy access to knowledge, support and networks which will help individuals, organisations and communities tackle really difficult problems today. By making use of web links, social media, email, Skype, teleconferencing and webinars we are offering a choice of face to face or 'virtual' online support. This enables users of The Open Channel to tailor the services they need to meet their budget without compromising on quality.

Our focus is on organisational change and our core products are Action Learning, Developmental Coaching and Appreciative Inquiry- all three building on the strengths that people have already. Our knowledge and skill base is wide, capturing the issues across the widest definition of public service. We assure the quality of our Services by working only with associates whom we trust and value - they are the best in the field in our opinion.

If you are interested in what The Open Channel has to offer, please look at the website and contact us personally to find out more. If you don't need us now, remember us for the future, and today, just tell a friend.

Prime Minister talks of "health not sickness"

2011-05-16T13:22:00.004+01:00

Listening today to the PM's speech on NHS reform, he spoke of a health service being more focused on "health and not sickness." I presume he meant the health of individuals, of communities and of the nation as a whole perhaps.

Whilst millions of words have and will be written about NHS reform, this short phrase is an interesting take on how we can view not only something as gargantuan in scale as the NHS, but much smaller entities, such as our teams, services and organisations.

Setting this apparently positive frame on the proposed NHS reforms suggests that when thinking about our organisations and their 'health', there is great merit and good science to support inquiring into its good 'health', e.g. what is life giving and what works well. This is what Appreciative Inquiry (AI) calls the "positive core" of our organisations. It can be a counter-intuitive position to take when starting out on organisational change, particularly in hard times, yet for many organisations and their constituent teams, this positive framing provides a release from the top-down, deficit and problem-centred nature of so much change, i.e. the study of failure and problems.

A wide and growing variety of public, voluntary, community-based and commercial organisations have experienced the power and liberation of positive energy when using AI. AI never ignores what isn't working, rather it asks us to concentrate our efforts differently, to start our inquiries in an appreciative mind and capture what works well, and then build on that to create new directions and eradicate weaknesses and problems along the way.

What we inquire into is fateful and we will always find more of what we choose to inquire into - so, would we rather inquire into and find examples of great service and resilience, or failure and unsustained change. I posit this as a stark choice, 'though in reality it will be more a matter of emphasis and balance.

Peter Drucker wrote that the role of leaders is to align the strengths of their organisations, rendering weakness irrelevant. Not necessarily easy, but a statement of intent, of hope and potential for liberation from yet more 'solutions' to problems - problems that nevertheless seem to return with depressing regularity.

This appreciative stance might not work every time, but surely to take the appreciative route at least offers a credible alternative to methods that seem to provide only short and medium term palliatives to the wicked issues of public policy formation and public systems management.

The NHS has great stories of success, particularly during its renaissance of recent years, providing deep evidence of a positive core. Concentrating reform on health and not sickness could deliver yet more great stories and also protect that positive core, without which reform will founder in the longer term.

Is 85% achievement failure or success?

2011-04-17T18:13:00.005+01:00

On the Government Opportunities website the following quote interested us from a deficit/appreciative analysis point of view.

"Several public authorities have failed to meet the requirement to reduce the time they take to respond to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, the Information Commissioner’s Office has announced.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) monitored the performance of 33 public authorities for a period of three months, following concerns about delays in their responses to FOI requests. The Commissioner has particular concerns about delays at the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defence and Birmingham City Council.

Four other authorities – the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, the London Borough of Islington, Wolverhampton City Council and Westminster City Council – have been asked to sign undertakings to improve their performance in this area.

The ICO has sent letters to the Home Office, the Metropolitan Police Service, NHS North West, the London Borough of Croydon, the Scotland Office and the London Borough of Newham to put on record that, while all of them are now meeting the required standard, the monitoring has revealed some areas of concern.

Eighteen public authorities have hit one or more of the following performance markers: the ICO has received six or more complaints concerning delay within a six month period; it appears that an authority has exceeded the time for compliance by a significant margin on one occasion or more; for authorities that publish data on timeliness, it appears that less than 85% of requests are responded to within the appropriate timescales."

There are various ways of looking at the data quoted and one aspect is to ask the question whether "less than 85%" represents a problem, as suggested in the performance marker. If it is, how far "less" than 85% is the actual number and perhaps more crucially, for those authorities that don't publish data, is there better practice or poorer practice in those?

We're also interested in the learning to be had from those organisations who achieve 85% response within timescales, and also from those with less 85% success, yet who therefore still make the vast majority of their responses within appropriate timescales.

Taken from an appreciative perspective, whilst we would always encourage the highest levels of performance, what the quote fails to mention or explore is the obvious effective practice being achieved, even in authorities where the level of achievement is less than 85%. What can we learn from what's working? What more can be done to encourage achievement at that level and better.
Finally, what of those organisations that don't publish any figures? Are they achieving lower than 85% or better? And, could the ICO highlight the learning to be had from those oganisations doing well in this area of operation.

Balanced learning; learning from success as well as highlighting relative 'failure'.

Goodhart's Law

2011-02-25T00:21:00.003Z

Spotted in the Observer, 20.02.11:

"any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes". Or, as another academic summarised it: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Take a deep breath...and then change, appreciatively

2010-11-16T23:08:00.007Z

The coalition government's programme develops apace. Whilst it looks to be largely about cuts, reductions, downsizing and closures, with significant reshaping, renewing or refocusing of what remains, in responding (we're not yet at the proactive 'predicting what's next stage' are we?) the challenge continues to be one of finding ways that protect what works well. To not do so risks losing so much of the excellent practice, innovation and new thinking that characterised some sections of our public services, despite the previous government's apparent mania for top-down targets, with the attendant unintended consequences that they sometimes created.

It's exactly at this point that we need to introduce, or re-acquaint ourselves, with appreciative and strengths-based approaches to large-scale organisational and partnership change and individual and organisational development. These approaches are proving to be enduring and sustainable across sectors and indeed cultures, with a growing body of quite inspirational case studies and stories from the field.

The argument is not to dismiss the highly problematic and potentially cataclysmic funding cuts as some trite 'opportunity' to be taken, although several of our clients are indeed using the challenges as productively as they can to generate new models of delivery and partnership, rather it's to start the work of change with an appreciative investigation, capturing the best of what is, and considering what might be, as the transformational journey gets underway. This way nothing is missed, good work of public value is recognised and considered properly, and innovation encouraged, rather than the more limited and self-limiting apparent 'equity' of across-the-board cuts, i.e. 'salami slicing' and other problem-centred solutions.

It's not easy. That we recognise and understand, and the trick, if there is one, is to engage as many people as practicable in our organisations and communities in as many of these tough decision-making processes; to encourage them to identify what works well and needs to be retained (in some form), as well as what has to or can go. As we know, what one inquires into is fateful to what one finds out, and only asking people to identify the 'losing' services is a path that will eventually and quite rapidly destroy fragile morale, hope and aspiration. Balance in all things - we must make those tough decisions, but let's make them with the best information and knowledge to hand.

We've recently spent an intensive month with a large public service that has inquired into its organisation in a coherent, concerted and consistent manner, asking every manager to review their service, consider alternative structures and funding levels and demonstrate where they are truly effective and innovative. This offered the opportunity for quite tough and challenging conversations as services were 'exposed' at several levels, yet in an environment where hope remained strong; where thoughts were not just about cuts, but also possible re-investment, realignment and new forms. Of course, the outcome has to equate to a reduction of 25% costs over four years, yet the impact is different - a new model can take shape and really effective services find ways to transform in a culture of openness and support. Tough calls made with good quality data and information, not ignorance, presumption or prejudice.

It's at times like this that we must support individuals and teams with coaching, learning opportunities and mutual support mechanisms. Now is not the time to be cleansing organisations of all development work. Quite the opposite, now is the time when some of the finest learning about change and transformation has to be captured, shared and acted upon. Many methods to do so cost little, need only small amounts of concentrated time and effort to yield quite remarkable learning opportunities and growth potential. Strengths-based and appreciative methods deliver in these scenarios - try them!

The Coalition marches on...

2010-08-20T22:10:00.003+01:00

From the letters page of the Guardian, 20.8.10, Robin Wendt wrote;

"One basic strand runs through the Con-Dems policy. It is the swift repudiation of the post-war social settlement and an unrelenting march back to the 1930s,...
The promised cuts in public services are on a scale of which Stanley Baldwin would have been proud. They will reduce the public sector to much of what it was in his time - crude basic provision for the worst off. The changes to health services means the wholesale dismantling of Bevan's 1948 comprehensive, equitable and publicly accountable NHS. In the 1940s the Conservatives tried to oppose the creation of the NHS; now they have succeeded. It will be replaced by an atomised system of private commissioning, though the GPs and private firms brought in to support them; and delivery through hospitals that are no longer publicly owned. NHS privatisation is not just a prospect. It is here now.
Likewise the introduction of free schools and academies, entailing as they do the effective abolition of LEAs and any semblance of fair admission policies, are a huge rebuttal of Butler's 1945 Education Act and its even distribution of power between government and localities. It will be replaced by a centralised system. The proposed cuts in social security benefits will undermine the "cradle to the grave" philosophy so eloquently expounded in the 1940s by Beveridge and built into postwar legislation."

Prime Minister's Speech - 7th June 2010

2010-06-07T14:13:00.002+01:00

The PM's speech sets the scene for the measures required to cut the country's "massive deficit and growing debt." A deficit that equates to £22,000 for each of us...in 5 years time. In other words, if it, i.e. the deficit, is to double in 5 years as claimed, our personal load is therefore currently at £10,000. Clearly, a worrying figure, but less headline grabbing than one double that size.

Anyway, that's a diversion from the real issues the speech raises.

We all know of the still recent madness perpetrated by the banks, and the PM calls this, "the success of financial services was partly an illusion, conjured from years of low interest rates (sounding critical, though surely low rates are better than the Lawson/Lamont era's 15% APR?) cheap money and a bubble in the price of assets like houses."

The analysis then switches to attack the "boom in government spending", which is seen as being of a longer term and deeper nature than the episodic credit crunch (not mentioned by name), i.e. public spending is the problem, not the hundreds of billions used and borrowed to stabilise (i.e. and buy) the banks. For example, in one afternoon in 2008 the government gave a single bank, RBS, more than had been saved by all of local government in the three years of the previous CSR. And, in the following weeks gave to that and other banks, everything that the whole of the public sector had saved in the previous CSR three-year period, i.e. £60billion. So, whilst spending in the public sector had increased in the previous decade, there had been real savings also. It also worth reminding ourselves that in the Government's emergency announcement at the end of May, £6b in savings were demanded from the public sector, i.e. a tenth of that previously saved in the aforementioned CSR period. So, the public sector can do it, has done it before, and is clearly going have to do it all over again!

Even that though is not the key issue. The speech goes onto say, "boom did turn to bust" and "the problem we face today is not just the size of the debts but the nature of them" and "how recklessly they spent the money", "shining a spotlight on waste", and this is where we see the polemic alter from poor financial industry practices and government mismanagement to the developing narrative that is now firmly bonding 'public sector' with 'waste'.

So, we now have the family that gets "£93,000 in Housing Benefit every year." How many of those are there? An "almost doubled number of managers in the NHS", which per se might not be a bad thing for all I know, but certainly is seen as such, regardless of their input/output/outcomes. Ministry of Defence overruns; can't argue with the apparent ineptitude there, and "£4.5b over budget" sounds serious to me, but on a budget of what, say several tens/hundreds of billions, is that a hanging offence? Perhaps so. And so on, a "public sector whose productivity is falling", a previous government "hostile to a private sector" and "public sector continuing its inexorable expansion." It's best summarised in these paragraphs:

"While everyday life was incredibly tough for people who didn't work in the public sector with job losses, pay cuts, reduced working and falling profits for those in the public sector, life went on much as before."..."So while the people employed by the taxpayer were insulated from the harsh realities of the recession everyone else in the economy was paying the price."... "And now we're all paying the price because the public sector has got way out of step with the size of the private sector."... " We're going to have to get it back in line - and that will be more painful than if we had kept things properly in balance all along."

The analysis might indeed be correct, if skewed towards blame and scapegoating of a single sector, one in which I wonder if the PM includes the oft eulogised nurses, police and armed forces in this polemic, or just the public 'administrators'?

The PM concludes his analysis by saying the "unavoidable" cutbacks "could have been avoided if the previous government had spent wisely instead of showering the public sector with cash at a time when everyone else in the country was tightening their belts."

So, there it is, one line on the debt burden created by banking madness and the majority of the speech on the waste of the public sector. The PM promises "immediate and decisive action", "unavoidably tough", though "in a way that strengthens and unites the country" - unless you're in the public sector? Well, no, because we also read that "this government will not cut this deficit in a way that hurts those we most need to help that divides the country or that undermines the spirit and ethos of our public services".

The task of avoiding hurting "those we most need to help" must be applauded, and then held to the highest level of account and scrutiny - assuming of course we are all talking about the same people who we most need to help!

This blog has moved

2010-04-30T14:09:00.001+01:00

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What's wrong with overlap?

2010-02-10T01:09:00.002Z

Almost everyday I read material that posits 'overlap' as similar if not identical to 'duplication'. Both must be eradicated, particularly if notions of 'total place' are to be achieved, we are told. But, I pose this question; what's wrong with 'overlap'? Think a little more deeply about this casual use of the terms. Without some overlap between services and agencies we get hard edges, boundaries, cracks, nay chasms - and what can fall between those cracks and hard edges? The client/consumer/citizen/customer's needs. So, duplication does need to be eradicated. It is wasteful of scarce resources. Reasonable overlap on the other hand is fine. The next time you are near a bicycle have a look at its chain - every single link overlaps. I've ridden racing bikes for over 40 years and never had a chain break...

Sustaining Energy During Transitions

2010-01-30T01:34:00.007Z

"Assume what motivates you, motivates others."

Change, the transition from one state to another, for an individual or an organisation, brings with it uncertainty and is invariably more complex and troubling than we might first expect.

As leaders and managers we can't presume we have people's trust at the start of the change. We have to earn trust and then we can mobilise people to the cause. Once moving, people will look to us for steadiness and competence - perhaps even a surefootedness in the turbulence of a changing situation.

Having character and the capacity to engage fully with the complexity of the transition helps to earn people's trust in us as the promoters of change in pursuit of improvement. But, much more is required of us in these evermore demanding roles.

To really move people we must give a voice to their own desires, to inspire them to deliver better. To do this requires the creation of a shared vision, which is a vital element in uniting people to navigate through the sometimes choppy waters of major transitions. We can really shift organisations if we give voice to people's own hopes about what their team or organisation is all about and capable of delivering. The vision pronounced from on high will never do the same job as the one co-created by and through engaged employees.

As leaders we need an authentic core; an inner steel of honesty and integrity that is evidenced by our consistent behaviour, particularly under pressure. The 'rules' apply to us just as much as they do to 'front-line' colleagues. Humility, i.e. not being arrogant or condescending, is closely allied to honesty in inspiring people to follow the lead we offer. We are not perfect, who is, and these qualities are not about perfection, they speak to a different imperative, that of excellence, doing the right thing, exhibiting sound judgement and being collaborative.

So, if we are seeking to inspire people to do the extraordinary, the different and the difficult, what are some of the ways to motivate others?

Start with the truth. Confront reality. Set high expectations and aspirations and march pragmatically from reality towards that aspiration. Along the way, remind people how far they have come and how much closer they are to achieving their goals.

Get excited about doing something really grand. People can work with an intensity and passion with the knowledge that they are achieving something rare and marvellous.

Respect people and find ways for them to make a contribution.

Adhere to simple values; honesty, fairness, generosity - and don't compromise your standards or ask others to.

Talking to people once a quarter isn't enough. You have to repeat messages of direction, inspiration and comfort daily in a variety of forms. Constant and consistent communication helps people to feel part of the team and respected.

Helping people to try things that are personally 'risky' is a tough motivational challenge.We can't and shouldn't want to eliminate all risks but we do want people to go into the uncomfortable space where they and their organisations can achieve extraordinary results. We do this through open and frank discussion about the likelihood of success; clear roles and accountabilities; by spreading risk across the team and organisation and by providing visible and confident support regardless of the end result.
And finally, we need to move quickly towards a goal, particularly if it involves pain. Time is frequently not a friend. Consensus building might not work. So give people permission to move fast and make some mistakes, as long as the actions are in keeping with the organisation's values. Speed damps down resentment, turf issues and paralysis by analysis.

Good luck.

Strengths-based development

2010-01-27T01:01:00.002Z

People make organisations work well. Not the procedures, processes, structures or governance mechanisms. These elements can all assist, as well as frustrate, the effective working of an organisation, but they rarely if ever play the pivotal role that people do in delivering what an organisation is about.

Our coaching and thought-support work with clients invariably tells us that the deficit or weakness-centred approach to individual and organisational development is strong and worryingly prevalent. It is easy to get stuck in our old ways of thinking. It is also easy to get stuck in our relationships and act in the same way as we always have done. As the saying goes, "if you keep on doing what you have always done, you will keep on getting what you've always got!" In too many cases that means focusing on what's wrong with the organisation, the weaknesses of the individual and the measures required to make things better.

Now, sometimes there really is something worrying in the performance of a team, service or individual and an intervention needs to take place. We recognise that. Often that can take the form of a rapid change of personnel or the creation of a new procedure. Yet, often that proves to be the short-term palliative, not the long-term salvation. Why is this? Well, one reason might be that the positive core of that person or team has simply not been explored and captured because of the concentration on problems. Another reason is that individuals are so inured to the problem-fixing mode of operation that their strengths and talents, the activities that make best use of their talents, and their positive core are not recognised or valued.

Now, many times everything works just fine, but sometimes the person or service could benefit from a small 'nudge,' e.g. some new perspectives, a sharper focus, increased creativity or refreshed energy levels. When these moments occur one way is to invite an external advisor for a time to support the person or team to move forward. We believe that the “experts” are the people in the organization, and we can support them by creating different contexts that encourage people to understand their talents and strengths, to use their skills in new ways, and help people to co operate and become proud of what they are doing. These contexts help people to gather new perspectives and to refresh energy levels, make new commitments and engage with colleagues differently.

Working with strengths-based methods and exploring what works well in the organization instead of focusing at the “problem” pays dividends in our experience. It requires a degree of 're-programming' for the people involved but methods like Gallup's Strengthsfinder, solutions-oriented appraisals and the SOAR strategic planning model (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results) offer new and exciting ways to optimise organisational and people talents.
Our work creates safe and creative environments for personal and service development; environments where people feel they are valued, important and where everyone has something to add to the whole.

This shift of perspective from the problem-centred to the positive and strength focused gives people an opportunity to be proud of what they are doing and feel that they are important contributors to the organisation's goals. When people feel valued and have the potential to use and increase their personal strengths they also become more engaged, accept greater responsibility and increase their ability to see new perspectives and others views.

We create learning opportunities where people can learn about and appreciate their talents, feel that they are important and skillful and learn how to combine their talents with colleagues'. We find when this happens weaknesses frequently become irrelevant.

Contact us to discuss how strength based personal and team development could improve customer and employee satisfaction and results in your organization.

Visit our website at http://www.optimuminterventions.co.uk/

Embracing External Accountability

2009-09-14T21:13:00.003+01:00

Reflecting on change as our clients continue to develop their approaches to transforming their organisations - structures, processes and service quality - for some, the power of external overview and scrutiny can be highly influential in driving improvement in service quality and reshaping external relationships.

In discussing aspects of organisational change, such as 're-engineering' and business process improvement, by embracing external political accountability to build support for change, Mark Moore says in 'Creating Public Value (1995), once their (i.e. organisational leaders) purposes are linked to the expectations and demands of powerful overseers standing behind them, their strategic visions cease being the idiosyncratic views of transient figureheads: they become, instead, a 'reality' to which the organisation has to respond."

Moore also argues that, "once armed with a powerful external constituency demanding the changes they want to make, the task of changing their organisation becomes much easier." He suggests that managers who reject accountability risk subsequent disaster by losing touch with the important values that politicians want expressed through their organisations' operations. "They get too far away from an important kind of 'customer'. Similarly, by resisting accountability, managers lose some of their ability to challenge the organisations they lead...they become vulnerable to their own subordinates' desires to be protected from demands for change...the net effect is to reduce the organisation's responsiveness and value to citizens and (the) overseers."

Moore concludes his section on embracing the external accountability by saying, "if managers seek strategic changes in organisations, embracing accountability seems to be an important tool. Without such an embrace, managers confront their organisations alone. With it, managers can focus the massed force of public expectations for change on the organisation - a far more advantageous position."

All of us working in and around the public sector, and our associated partners and stakeholders, now prepare for the inevitable public sector expenditure reductions, as the Prime Minister will announce tomorrow in a speech and the main opposition party have been gradually testing public responses to. As we do prepare, we might usefully think how best to garner the power of external accountability as one of the drivers of change in our organisations that those cuts (assuming they cannot be resisted) will foster, without somehow damaging irreparably the improvements in performance many have achieved in recent years.

A Map of Appreciative Work in the UK

2009-03-09T20:36:00.000Z

Last Friday, 6th March, along with colleagues of the UK's AI Network, I began to construct a 'map' of our work across the UK, and into Europe. Whilst 'map' might be too grand a term, i.e. I filled a wall with flip chart paper and loosely allocated pieces of our work to a rough geographic outline, the potential of this piece nonetheless struck us as quite significant for a number of reasons.

What prompted me to offer this as one of our activities for the Network's programme that day, was a conversation with a colleague at the December Network session, (Lena Holmberg) where we talked about how those carrying out AI work in the UK (and other places) could make a disproportionate contribution to the transformation of the country's institutions and communities if we could connect to those who we need to influence most. Then, recommend and use AI as the vehicle for deep, lasting and sustainable change, rather than some of the more mechanistic or manufacturing-based models of change that seem to bring with them the promise of programmatic, plan-do-review type ease yet tend to reduce the complex to the merely complicated, (although none of us would take the complicated and make it complex of course!). The premise is that with so much appearing to be 'broken', it is the call to the positive core, the search for good and what works, and the power of the appreciative questions that will provide more hope for the near future and have a profound impact.

Our map therefore was the start of what we think could be an initiative that will grow to encompass many more areas than the UK, capturing the good work going on, frequently by one or two individuals who are oftentimes not connected to other colleagues as we are fortunate to be in the UK via our Network, and making a difference through appreciative and strength-based techniques. As Lena said in an article in this month's AI Practitioner, "picture what we could do if we were to work as one sparkling and tight network." Indeed.

Mapping what is already happening and has been happening for some time in the UK and beyond, might also provide us as practitioners with a picture of the wider scope of appreciative work that we can share with clients and prospective clients when they ask about examples of AI in practice. We have a growing number of case studies now that add to the richness of the US and global library of working examples. The development of the networkplace.eu web site also provides a forum for the burgeoning European AI scene.

There is obviously more work to do here, not least is the need to convert this basic work from flip chart to an electronic mode and to make it interactive, allowing colleagues to annotate and develop the map as they go. There is too the exciting potential of not just recording what is happening but to infer something more and perhaps use the information to plan, and achieve that "profound impact" our colleague Lena talks of.

If you are interested in sharing your appreciative and strength-based thinking and work, the next AI Network meeting is in June, probably in central London. The networkplace.eu site now has over 325 registrations of AI practitioners and the Europan Network meets in Barcelona in April. Do make contact.

Inauguration Speech and Appreciative Inquiry

2009-01-21T19:51:00.000Z

Spurred on by a good friend who visits this blog and tells me that she enjoys the posts on it,(thanks Anna), and by my obvious lack of recent activity, I have been motivated to pay it attention again.

For those who occasionally find their way here - for which many thanks, and do, please, leave a comment now and then - I am happy to share with you my strong belief that in Barack Obama we have a leader of massive potential (no startling insight from me there) with deep ethics, and with an approach to the role that offers leadership of an appreciative nature.

His inauguration speech talked of "reaffirming our enduring spirit...choose our better history...carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness". These phrases all speak to the Positive Core that Appreciative Inquiry (AI)asks us to inquire into and find as part of transforming our communities and organisations and indeed nations.

His talk of reaffirming the greatness of his nation through earning it, and his noting that those who earned it for the USA were frequently "men and women obscure in their labour who carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom" really talks to the Discovery of those people and attributes that make our communities and organisations as strong as they are, and hold the key to making them even stronger and more successful in the future.

The affirmation from him that ambitions (or Dreams perhaps?) are realised "...when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage" suggested to me that for all of us, change requires clear ambition to be present, and people freed to exercise those attributes in pursuit of that ambition. The very strong 'Destiny' that AI drives us to deliver on the Dreams we have.

Later on he spoke of how "the question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works...". Throughout he posited appreciative choices and also rejected false choices, such as those "between our safety and our ideals" citing those ideals as lighting the world and "not being given up for expedience's sake."

And so it went, realistic, not doom laden as some would have it, calling often to the Positive Core; rediscovering aspects of his country's greatness; relating more to fairness and justice than "greed and irresponsibility" and calling people to a "new era of responsibility". There was no 1933 Rooseveltian phrase of "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" kind, nor Kennedy's "ask not..." phrase, so perhaps we are to read that the time for soaring rhetoric has come and gone, for now, to be replaced by calls to appreciatively rediscover what works well and grow towards those things. I hope so.

His inauguration speech, critiqued by one writer as "virtuosic in its sincere, magisterial gloom", struck me as much richer than that, and AI has assisted me to appreciate its richness all the more I think.

Keep on Returning to Your Strengths

2008-11-17T20:17:00.000Z

We just keep on returning strengths, because so much of what is good that we see in organisational life can be tracked back to people using their talents and strengths rather than slavishly developing or eradicating their so called 'weaknesses'.

Dr John Hunt is quoted in Buckingham and Clifton thus:

Concentrating on people's strengths...this and only this, will be the major differentiator for organisations in the future."

And Peter Drucker had it this way:

"Most people do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer."

Our executive coaching is based firmly on talents and strengths for the individual and team. It can take quite some time for clients, and their managers, to really let go of deficit models and tune in to their strengths. One client of ours worked assiduously on understanding their talents and turning them into true strengths via practical activities that improved their performance and that of their team. Yet, even after a year of work, the deficit model is so strong in that organisation that our client still feels driven to find and excise his weaknesses because that's what his manager demands of him, to prove he his getting value from coaching.

Our response? Understand the pressure he is under and acknowledge the paradigm the organisation works to, and help him to keep finding those real-world activities that let his talents shine and become long-term, sustainable strengths for him and the organisation. Not because it makes him happy, although it more often does, or because we deny his manager's view, which we appreciate the genesis of, but because those talent and strength-based activities deliver more effective performance, more often and to a higher standard than 'weakness fixing' ever does.

To financial hell in a hand-cart

2008-10-08T00:04:00.000+01:00

Like many, I have been viewing the virtual meltdown of much of the world's banking system with a strange sense, almost of awe, at the complete mess, the 'perfect storm' of apparent ineptitude and venality, that so many have displayed at all levels of the governmental, regulatory and operational elements of the international banking system.

As I watch in horror as the almost unmanaged, or at least unmitigated, risks occur with frightening pace and certainty, I ask myself did any of these institutions have even the most rudimentary of risk registers?

Now, I am agnostic at best when having to deal with the burgeoning risk universe that so many of our change efforts collide with at times. Yet, I do have a very strong sense that the pro-active identification and management of risk in so many of our previously trusted financial institutions was almost completely lacking or, even worse, ignored in the headlong pursuit of 'easy' profit. What other explanation can there be for part of what we are experiencing? And indeed we are experiencing this - not observing it, and will do for years to come.

Setting aside the admittedly at times arcane issue of risk, and whilst people's pensions and investments dissolve by the minute (mine included), I find I am drawn to the writings of those who see the world through different eyes. Those with appreciative insights to offer in these worrying and uncertain times, as new financial paradigms have to be fashioned in days rather than months or years.

Dan Saint and Jackie Stavros wrote several years ago in their short paper, Strategic Planning and Sustainability: Socially Constructing a New Corporate Purpose, the following:

"Imagine a sustainable world where humanity meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Business provides the goods and services needed by consumers in a way beneficial to all stakeholders. The world's vast wealth is equitably distributed to all people. We on Earth are working towards that future today."

Indeed we are, or some of us at least. For change to happen, David Cooperrider talks of "change at the scale of the whole". Well, perhaps as the 'experts' refashion our financial systems they might consider getting the 'whole system in the room' and engage in some powerful, face-to-face conversations with those who have been let down and who would share a very different guiding image of a future. For the future we need people who, as Peter Drucker put it, "transform not perform."

Seeing Systems - Barry Oshry

2008-06-10T22:20:00.001+01:00

Meeting with a client last week for an executive coaching session, it was rewarding to have my client use a quote from a publication I mentioned to him several years ago, i.e. Seeing Sytems, by Barry Oshry. I think this book is an excellent 'primer' for anyone navigating the turbulent waters of change. Here's the quote:

There is no "We,"
There is no "Them,"
There is only You
and Me
and all of Us
And then the Dance begins

I'm involved in quite a few 'Dances' at the present. How do we 'see' the dances when we are in them?

"We can monitor our own behaviour. We can coach one another. We can take a stand for partnership. We can pay attention to our feelings.

Effective conversations

2008-06-06T00:29:00.000+01:00

In seeking some inspiration to assist in the conversations I'm having, particularly about change, in and around client organisations, I turned, as I have in the past, to Meg Wheatley's excellent book, 'Turning to One Another - simple conversations to restore hope to the future'. Her advice to us in trying to host meaningful conversations it to practice several new behaviours through a number of principles. These are:

We acknowledge one another as equals

We try to stay curious about each other

We recognise that we need each other's help to become better listeners

We slow down so we have time to think and reflect

We remember that conversation is the natural way humans think together

We expect it to be messy at times

As Wheatley says, "the practice of conversation takes courage, faith and time. We don't get it right first time, and we don't have to... as we risk talking to each other about something we care about, as we become curious about each other, as we slow things down, gradually we remember this timeless way of being together. Our rushed and thoughtless behaviours fade away, and we sit quietly in the gift of being together, just as we have always done."

How frequently do we make the time and have the courage to slow down, reflect, recognise those behaviours that keep us apart, ostensibly in the name of being a hard-headed 'leader' or change 'manager?' We've actually been rewarded in the past for behaviours that keep us apart, e.g. speaking too fast, interrupting others, giving speeches or pronouncements, and people reach positions of influence and power through their use too. Yet these behaviours do not lead to quality thought or healthy relationships - they tend more to drive us apart and keep us apart.

Using the principles above and returning to more effective behaviours to host meaningful conversations must be a goal for all of us who have the responsibility to lead organisations through change.

Gordon Loraine - 60th Anniversary tribute

2008-01-28T17:29:00.000Z

Today, Tuesday 29th January, represents the 60th anniversary of the date my late father, (Thomas) Gordon Loraine, started his career in local government. He served the people of several communities in the north-east of England and in Hertfordshire for 40 years, before taking an early 'retirement' to begin another career in the commercial sector and finally run an antiques business with my mother.

It's easy when times are as fast-paced as they are now, and our lives seemingly lacking in sufficient time and space for reflection, to forget what it takes to build and sustain a long and successful career in any field, let alone local government service. A service, which despite the cheap shots that many commentators and 'phone-in' 'pundits' take at it, remains as relevant, valuable and necessary now as it was in 1948; a time when the country was rebuilding after the war and its people suffering quite severe deprivations.

I became aware of and started to understand this thing called 'local government' quite early on in my teens. I came to learn about it variously as something that my father did, spoke of, and as a place where he went daily (and in the evenings for committee meetings) that I didn't see yet I gradually appreciated its purpose. I was able to join him at times in my school holidays, helping out in the post room of Bushey Urban District Council. That was followed by longer pieces of more official holiday work and then a permanent post when I joined Hertsmere District Council, as it had become after local government reorganisation in 1974, from my first authority, the London Borough of Brent.

I was very fortunate to have my father as a mentor in those early years in local government, and more latterly as a keen supporter and enourager of my intentions take a risk and set up a company when I was reaching my most productive years as a senior officer. That shift of career has worked out so far, and to his passing day my father retained an avid interest in how the local governance field was changing and developing. He did often though comment that whilst he recognised the general structure of local government, its various and many recent changes had rendered it quite a mysterious place to him at times - a notion many of my current clients might subscribe to!

There are a number of enduring values and attributes that I learnt from my father and try to practice in the way he did; values such as fairness, the need for balance and to seek to exercise sound judgement, and attributes like self-reliance and personal resilience. He taught me those things early on and as my career developed, in some ways mirroring his, they have stood me in good stead. A career that for me has now passed the 30 years mark, both in permanent roles and now in leading a company that provides services for local government.

So, 60 years has passed since Gordon Loraine first walked into the then Seaham UDC Council Offices, and as I walk through the door of the County Hall where I have an assignment today, I shall offer a silent word of thanks to my father, for introducing me to local government, and on behalf of all of those he served and worked with, for the fantastic and unsung service he gave for those 40 years.

Emotions affect your thinking - more support for appreciative approaches

2008-01-10T22:44:00.000Z

Reading Fisher and Shapiro's new book, Beyond Reason, we found more support for the appreciative view of life delivering more and better, this time in negotiations. Consider this:"When you feel disappointment or anger, your head clogs with negative thoughts. You may criticise yourself or blame others. Negative thinking crowds out space in your brain for learning, thinking, and remembering. In fact, some negotiators become so wrapped up in their own emotions and thoughts that they fail to hear their conterpart make an important concession.When you feel positive emotions, in contrast, your thoughts often centre on what's right about you, others, or ideas. With little anxiety that you will be exploited, your thinking becomes more open, creative, and flexible. You become inclined not to reject ideas but to invent workable options."

Even the bad times...

2007-11-06T07:00:00.000Z

I'm reading an excellent collection of essays and articles by wilderness author and mountaineer Cameron Mc Neish. A short description of a particularly difficult moment on a climb struck me as insightful; describing a few moments of very hard and committing climbing in a wilderness area, knowing he could not reverse his moves to escape, not being certain of the terrain ahead and appreciating that he was many miles from any assistance if things went wrong, he got through the moves ok and the vista thus revealed to him was a fabulous one. His reflection on those very tense moments was that "...even the bad times can offer teachable moments in which we can grow and further equip ourselves from that great storehouse known as experience." Words that should resonate for many more than just mountaineers!

Understanding your Value

2007-11-01T21:50:00.000Z

Just a short piece today. Gary Younge, writing in the Guardian on 29.10.07 about politics in USA at the moment, made a statement that struck me as having a much wider relevance to those active in leadership roles. He wrote. "All politics is negotiation. It goes without saying that if you set your price too high, or walk away too soon, you could miss out on a great deal. It is equally self-evident that if you set your price too low, or your counterpart knows you will never walk away, you will sell out far too cheaply. But there are few as powerful in negotiation as those who understand their value and are prepared to walk away."

Strengths not Deficits

2007-10-29T21:21:00.000Z

I was working with one of our coaching clients today and a description of how his organisation at times tended to respond elaborately to presenting matters, paying attention to the problems and looking for the quickest fixes, reminded me of the developing debate around strengths and deficits.

Many of our actions as managers and leaders seem to be prompted by a failure or 'deficit' and too often we are encouraged to believe that action to reduce those deficits is the key purpose of or value from our role, i.e. the need 'to put things right.' Indeed, our own managers and leaders almost demand our value is exhibited by the number of 'fixes' and solutions we implement.

Our work with the strengths approach suggests there is another way; that by concentrating more on the organisation's talents and strengths, by recognising and nurturing those strengths and using them in an environment that appreciates what works well, and to do more of those things, you will cope better with most of the deficits. You will also cope in a more calm and organised manner when the inevitable 'crises' hit. Strengths-led organisations don't ignore problems, or 'wicked issues', it is important to recognise and record them. And then put your people's talents to work to develop strengths and thus reduce the deficits.

Its' not always an easy route to take; if it was, more organisations would consciously be acting in this way. It demands persistence of effort and consistent behaviours, sometimes under the pressure to act very differently, both in the context of having a clear and compelling vision. A vision that demands of leaders and senior managers that they concentrate as much attention as practicable on the important and significant over the immediate.

We would recommend looking at the work of the late Donald O. Clifton, and also Marcus Buckingham of the Gallup Organisation, for a clear exposition of the strengths approach to individual and organisational development.

Appreciative Inquiry Masterclass

2007-10-27T22:40:00.000+01:00

I had the honour and pleasure this week to attend a masterclass in Appreciative Inquiry facilitated by David Cooperrider, the co-founder of AI. It was a full and energising day, covering the science and application of an approach to change that our company is using more frequently. Indeed, for the past three years and more our commitment to and use of AI in corporate, team and individual settings has been a growing feature of our interventions.

The material used by David Cooperrider was up to the minute, and whilst not yet available for wider use, several of his presentations are available on the AI Commons website at Case Western Reserve University. This an excellent, free, resource for use by anyone interested in learning about and using AI.

Our recent applications of AI have been at the corporate level with Nottingham City Council's vision programme and with the West Midlands Fire Service's management board, who are implementing the classic AI 4-D approach to their visioning work. These are both ground-breaking pieces of work by the respective organisations.

For more information on this work and other exciting uses of AI, please contact us on 01827 331331

Steve Loraine

Welcome to the Oi blog

2007-10-25T10:58:00.000+01:00

Welcome to Optimum Interventions Ltd and our new blog. It's a pleasure to be able to share thoughts quickly and continue the healthy daily dialogue we have with our clients and colleagues. This blog will also help us to add news and thoughts to our website offering in a more accessible format than our enewsletter.

2007-10-22T15:53:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the new Optimum Interventions Blog!