Transparency: Some hopes and fears, new words and ideas

I write as a tax payer and a citizen who wants a world which is more ambitious, creative and fair. I also write as someone who has been working in and around public service organisations for the last 30 years as a civil servant, an adviser, a challenger, a listener and facilitator. I would like to talk about my hopes for what transparency should lead towards. I also have a couple of fears too.

It is my earnest hope that these new transparency arrangements will mean that citizens and taxpayers become more confident that their money is being spent wisely on the projects and services that make a difference. In other words that there will be a greater sense of ownership and accountability about what councils, central government departments etc. do and achieve. To coin a phrase, that we will have ‘transpocracy’ – where transparency is adding to (and not subtracting from) democracy. 

I also hope that we get ‘transporency’ too, such that the information that is published under the transparency guidelines seeds ideas, actions and initiatives by all concerned (politicians, providers, service users and media observers) that helps all to build the Big Society that our government is committed to developing. I believe we already have a big (hearted) society where everyday millions of people do something for a friend, neighbour or family member. But we can have an even bigger society if transparency helps a thousand flowers bloom.

I am concerned though that all this transparency could feed a growing number of cynical armchair voyeurs. To coin another word – I fear we may be at risk of creating ‘transpruriency’ where a legion of self proclaimed ‘auditors’ and ‘researchers’ are only interested in the costs of public services and not in their value.

In my more cynical moments, I also fear that the sheer volume of the data which is being published and the ways it is being uploaded onto the internet will bamboozle & overload far more than it will enlighten and inform. In other words (and this is my final ‘new’ word) that we will get a great deal of ‘transapparency’ where a semblance of transparency is created but which is actually nothing of the kind. There will be a lot of ‘sound and fury signifying nothing’.

So, how can we ensure that we get plenty of transpocracy and transporency, whilst ensuring that we keep transpruriency and transapparency in check? For me there is a simple one word answer to this question: strategy.

In this context, I speak as an organisation development and change facilitator who has seen lots of public services lurch into policy implementation without considering what they want to achieve other than baseline compliance. So my challenge is this – what do you want to achieve with transparency and how will you evaluate whether you are getting closer to (or further from) your goals?

Transparency could achieve so much. I hope it will help reconnect people with their public services and make those services more accountable. It can and should help boost value for money and spread wise spending practices from one public agency to another. It must not become bureaucratic, opaque or inaccessible.

In my view, how each council (or other public agency) develops their transparency strategy will help it to be successful or not. If the strategy is developed by just a few accountants and IT people sitting in a darkened room, I think it won’t work very well.

It is not that I have anything against accountants and IT people, I hasten to add. It is simply that if transparency is for the public then I think the public need to be involved in shaping the strategy and designing how transparency is rolled out for them. I know that some councils have done this – but have they all? (I note that the website guidance: http://data.gov.uk/blog/local-spending-data-guidance Local Spending Data Guidance does cover items such as ‘file formats’ and ‘data content’ well but makes no mention of involving the public...)

How are you developing your transparency strategy?

Leadership: into the tunnel

This evening my mind is turning to the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Tomorrow, the Government will announce just where budgets will be cut and by how much. Frustratingly, the announcements probably won't include much detail as that will emerge over the coming months. But the broad sweep of which Departmental budgets have come off better or worse will be known. I wonder how the people affected by these budget reductions will react - be they front line staff, managers at all levels and, of course, the people & organisations who are current beneficiaries. This will be a bleak day for many as the rhetoric, leaks, promises (broken or otherwise) and hints of the past six months will be turned into reality.

And then I wonder how our public service leaders - beginning with the Prime Minister but ending with every single front line supervisor - will now lead as we enter this dark tunnel? 

• Will this courageous leadership akin to the Charge or the Light Brigade or the D-Day landings?
• Will this be steadfast leadership like Churchill's or King Canute's?
• Will this be the visionary leadership that Nelson Mandela or Ghengis Khan had?

When David Cameron announced the outcomes of the Bloody Sunday Report, he was widely acclaimed as having struck just the right tone.

Tomorrow will also be such an opportunity for him and the rest of the Government to evidence the kind of leadership that will be necessary to implement the budget reductions in ways that do no more harm (to people and the economy) than is absolutely necessary. 

Leadership is like water

The best are like water.

Water benefits all things and does not compete with them.

It flows to the lowest level that people disdain.

In this it comes near to the Way

In their dwellings, they love the earth.

In their hearts, they love what is profound.

In their friendship, they love humanity.

In their words, they love sincerity.

In government, they love peace.

In business, they love ability.

In their actions, they love timeliness.

It is because they do not compete

that there is no resentment

From the Dao de Jing which is attributed to Lao-zi (there is a copy here: )

In part, my interpretation of these two stanzas is that true leadership does not compete or even try. The endeavour of a true leader is to be simply present and through that presence help bring forth the achievement of dreams and ambitions for all concerned.

What do the stanzas mean to you?

I have quoted this part of the Dao de Jing today as my contribution to World Blog Action day - which is today. The aim of the day this year is to inspire people to take action on the fact that right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. That’s one in eight of us who are subject to preventable disease and even death because of something that many of us take for granted. Access to clean water is not just a human rights issue. It’s an environmental issue. An animal welfare issue. A sustainability issue. Water is a global issue, and it affects all of us. 

You can take action by signing the petition, top right on this blog. You can make a donation to Water Aid or indeed any other charity working in the developing world.

Or if you are lucky enough to live in a part of the world where you can just get yourself a glass of clean water easily - do so and drink it slowly. Please savour the knowledge that this is basic human need that all should be able to share. Also, I hope you enjoy this fresh gift from the sky!  

The bureaucrats guide to procurement

Just a note to say that Conservative Home have republished my article on procurement below on their website here. And they have been tweeting about it also:

I am looking forward now to more elegant and less bureaucratic procurement from all Conservative councils - if not all councils - if not (drawing on Sir Philip Green's recent report) all government procurement!

New generation leadership

One of the hardest jobs for any leader is going off in a different direction. This may only be a small change of direction, but it may be enough for existing followers to stop following. Those followers may somehow feel betrayed by this altered course. “After all that I have done, and now we are doing this?!”

Cutting a fresh path is both harder and easier for a new leader.

It is easier because there is no baggage to jettison, no inconsistency to defend and no loyalty to the past to retain for retention’s sake. And there can be plenty of quoting of George Santayana about ‘those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it’ and so forth. The new leader is at liberty to both praise the old warriors and then, almost in the same sentence, make a virtue of departing from their strategies.

But it is also far harder because there is no guarantee that a new leader will bring the followers of the old leader with them. The new direction may just be too novel and be seen as too much of a break with the past. Existing bonds of friendship and trust will have to be rebuilt by the new leader, as they are now the leader and the world has changed.

The critical judgement comes in how bold to make the new direction. Will it just be ‘new’ in name only? Or will the new leader ‘boldly go where no one has gone before’? How will the new leader judge how bold to be, not just at the start of the new leadership journey but as it continues?

The best leaders have people that they can rely upon and trust to give them independent, full and frank feedback about whether their ‘boldness quotient’ is on the money or not.

How is your ‘BQ’ right now?

(How do you know?)

How will you stay ‘bold’ and avoid the ‘new’ becoming the ‘new old’

(How will you know?)

Diversity: Embracing the Tension

Great post on the Harvard Business Review blog - well worth a read. Marshall Goldsmith highlights the value of 'diversity tension' and offers a checklist to assess your own workplace / leadership.

Do have a read!

The article is here.

Maybe do...?

Are you a 'glass half full' or a 'glass half empty' kind of person? How do you know?

Whichever you are, we all experience barriers to what we are seeking to achieve. Sometimes these barriers may be clearly real and concrete, and other times we know the barriers are broadly of our making: arising from a lack of confidence or understanding.

But what about the barriers in between? Sometimes concrete obstacles are imaginary, and sometimes our bouncy confidence may prevent us from seeing the reality of hurdle we have to overcome.

When you meet a barrier, how do you test it to know which kind of barrier it is? Are you better at doing this nowadays than previously?

How come?  

Ten ways to keep the peace

Major restructuring of the police appears inevitable and is creating a plenty of debate in political and media circles. Consultant Jon Harvey weighs in with his own points of order. There are many ways to respond to the looming 25% to 40% cuts in resources that are coming to a police station near you...

Full article in Guardian Public

Austere:IT

I am part of a small team which is planning a guerilla conference on a make do and mend approach to using IT in public services. The aim is to create an event that will enable people to exchange ideas and develop new ones on how to make the most of existing IT. Specifically, we hope the (free) event will be a celebration and dissemination of all that can be achieved without purchasing new kit / software / contractor time / bells / whistles etc. (This event will be an antidote to the burgeoning number of other events which are still promising huge cost reductions by paying for just that one more piece of ("waffer thin mint?") IT investment

Please watch this space - there is more to follow - including what we mean by a guerilla conference! (Well - you have heard of guerilla gardening... try thinking along similar lines...!) The date will be towards the end of the year - possibly early into the next.

But meanwhile... do you have examples of where you have spotted or even initiated a change or achieved a result with a deft (and zero or very low cost) use of an existing IT system?

Please post these examples below as a comment or email me if you wish. With your permission - I will also upload these to my small creative ideas news blog as well.

E-books: now more easily available

When this blog reached 10,000 uploads I turned into an e-book. You can now access and download if you wish, this off Google Docs by going here.

For your information my other blog (Small Creative Ideas) is also available in e-book form as well (produced when it hit 15,000 uploads) from here.

Austerity plans & budgets: who has the ideas?

In anticipation of the Comprehensive Spending Review outcomes, nearly all public service budget holders will now be taking a long hard look at where the money gets spent and what is achieved. I can almost hear the distant clicks of numerous hatches being battened down.

Less money, probably a lot less money is going to be spent on not only on the 'frippery' of change management, organisational development and public engagement (etc.), but also on the wages of people providing direct services to some very vulnerable citizens.

Whilst there may well be very limited room for manoeuvre with the amount by which budgets will have to be reduced in these austere times, I am wondering just how much scope there is in just how budgets are reshaped.

Who has the ideas? Who needs to be involved? How will those people be involved?

I am concerned that many managers will feel driven to retreat behind closed doors, perhaps with a tame accountant, to craft the changes to be made. This is not an unreasonable course of action, of course. If people's jobs & indeed livelihoods are being questioned, if services to people in severe need are being scrutinised or if some critical priorities are being examined then confidentiality is to be expected.

The stakes are so high and the interests so potentially in great conflict, as to prevent anyone else (staff member, other connected departments & agencies, the wider public & service users) being involved in a more open & transparent discussion... would be the argument from many people, I suspect.

I have argued previously on this blog for 'Austerity Charters' (see below) and I stand by this.

But, am I alone in thinking that there is much to be gained from having more inclusive approaches to deciding just where and how budgets should be cut? I take the view, that given the right context, the right leadership and the right information, many more people could contribute constructively to building these new austere budgets. Yes, there will be conflict and yes, people will seek to express and protect their interests. But also, I think, people could earnestly, collaboratively and creatively find many more ways to do more with less than a manager (with tame accountant) is able to achieve on their own.

Or am I living in some fairytale world a million miles away from the grinding & crushing reality of austerity budgets where the only 'involvement' of staff, colleagues and citizens must only be during the titular 'consultation' periods?  

Improving performance: who has all the ideas?

Some years ago, while being shown round a car manufacturing plant, I was told a story about the importance of workforce involvement. Part of the plant had to shut down for a refurbishment which meant that one car model had to use the paint shop normally used for another model. The manager in charge was prevailed upon by a company improvement facilitator to have a meeting with the staff involved to plan what needed to be done. The manager was unconvinced that he had anything more to discuss but dutifully went along with the idea.

The meeting was held.  The staff came forward with several ideas which the manager publicly noted but inwardly was ticking off all the ideas that he had already had. "What a waste of time", he thought. Right at the end, one person who had said nothing until then asked about what would happen with the estate models.

The manager paused and realised that was an issue he had not considered. The rest of the meeting was spent resolving what to do. From that day, that manager was convinced of the value of staff involvement.

How convinced are you?

How do you put your belief into action?

Or is this just a trite story with no relevance to the complex challenges you face as a manager..?

2012 WOSONOS London: Breaking News! ~ UPDATE

I attended the World Open Space on Open Space in Berlin earlier this year (the book of proceedings is here - warning this is a large pdf file) and it was decided there that London would host the 2012 annual WOSONOS. (Next year's event is in Santiago, Chile).

The Improbable Theatre Company, with support from Romy Shovelton and myself, are making the invitation. We are now at the point where we are inviting others to get involved in planning for the event. Here is the letter from Matilda at Improbable describing what is happening next:

>>>

Opening space in the UK for WOSONOS 2012 London

How will we make it happen? Do you want to be part of it?

Dear All,

In May of this year, at the close of the Berlin WOSONOS, we made an invitation, which was accepted for WOSONOS 2012 to take place in London, for the first time. It will be the 20th World Open Space on Open Space since they first started in the States back in 1982.

While it was Matilda that made the actual invite, it came on behalf of the whole of Improbable, and with the support of the other U.K. facilitators present – Romy Shovelton and Jon Harvey.

First a brief bit about Improbable, for those of you that don’t know:

Improbable create theatre, opera, site-specific work and since 2005, Open Space events for the arts community and others, both in the UK and throughout Europe and the States. The company’s research into and application of Open Space has broadened our reach and purpose, developing an approach to grappling with complex issues that has not only caught the imagination of the arts community but has also had a huge and very significant influence on Improbable’s working practices as a whole. We now use Open Space to run our company meetings and to create our theatre shows. You can look at other Improbable things at www.improbable.co.uk.

After the Berlin WOSONOS, Matilda and Phelim (from Improbable) met with Jon and Romy, and together we decided we wanted to use Open Space to help us facilitate the coming together of a UK WOSONOS 2012 host team. We want to ensure that anyone in the UK that wants to participate is able to do so. We see this is as a fantastic opportunity for UK OS facilitators, practitioners and participants to meet one another and connect.

There are many different areas to be considered in hosting a WOSONOS and so numerous different kinds of skills and roles are required: websites to be designed and run; venues and accommodation to be found; food to be planned; social events to be cooked up, and more…Please come and contribute your ideas, passions, thoughts, concerns, dreams, questions. All are welcome.

We will meet on the weekend of November 6th and 7th to open space for a day and a half on our question: WOSONOS 2012 London UK: How will we make it happen? Do you want to be part of it?

As yet we do not have a venue confirmed but please save the date and the full details of place, time and Saturday night social will follow ASAP. On Saturday the day will run from 11am till 6pm, and on Sunday from 10am to 1pm.

We very much look forward to seeing you there.

From all at Improbable together with Jon and Romy

<<<

So - would you like to come along and take part? For the moment, all you need to do is make the date in your diary. More information will be forthcoming soon. If you wish, you can email me and I will send you further information when it is available. See you there...?

UPDATE!

Full details with venue and evening entertainment have now been posted by the Improbable team here. Hope you can make it!!

Who are the 'ultra shrinking violets' in your organisation?

There is a great discussion on the IDeA website (do subscribe if you have not already done so: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/140560/forum/thread.do?id=5040218) about what are the characteristics of a 'systems thinker'. Robert Park of Edinburgh City Council introduced the idea of the 'shrinking violets' who often get marginalised, an idea which was picked up by various people deeper into the discussion. My last contribution to the thread included:

I prefer to think not in terms of training people to be systems thinkers but instead of helping people to reconnect and widen their systems thinking capabilities. The question for me is how come we have created organisations / society / politics where systems thinking is beaten out of people. I suspect that has far more to do with greed and power. On this basis, I think the systems thinkers that we see (as opposed to the people who have the unseen inner potential &/or quietly working in the background in a systems thinking "ultra shrinking violet" way (?)) tend to be people who are centred, grounded and inwardly powerful - to the degree that they have no need or desire to have power over others... The ultra shrinking violets are probably very centred too!

So my questions to you: are you an ultra shrinking violet working undercover, as it were, quietly trying to subvert the organisation you are in towards one that takes greater account of whole systems? Or indeed are you a leader who supports these people or do you overlook them? Or worse do you banish them?

Who are the ultra shrinking violets in your organisation?

Change alchemy: using pictures & photographs

Leaders create strategy. Or rather, perhaps, they create the conditions whereby good strategies are generated and followed through into actions and results.

A good strategy says not only what will be done but also what will be achieved. 

Pictures can help to motivate change and also create a vision of the future.

It is said that when Turner painted “Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying — Typhon coming on" he was assisting the abolitionist cause.

What pictures are helping you implement your strategies? What other pictures might help more?

A small milestone

Just to note that over 10,000 pages from this blog have been uploaded over the last 14 months. To celebrate this, I have created a PDF of all the pages from this blog. If you would like a copy, please email me and I would be happy to send one to you.

Please keep reading & browsing!

Thank you.

Big Society: report on the network meeting

OK – so I am reflecting on the Big Society network meeting (see below) at the Department of Communities and Local Government that happened last night (6/7/10). All in all, I am very glad I went. As always a great networking opportunity and I met some lovely people with whom I plan to keep in touch. It was also helpful to hear a little more about how the plans for the Big Society are shaping up – although everything is very much in an early stage of development as was stressed to us by Paul Twivy yesterday. The format used did allow some shaping of the agenda from the floor – which was a healthy innovation for a meeting in a government building.

I could be very picky about the process used (it was NOT open space technology in my view and it concerns me that some people will have left last night thinking that it was) but I recognise the constraints that the organisers were working under. The room size for the numbers present and air con were severe limiting factors for sure. There was some tweeting and talking about the (minimal) visible diversity present in the room and indeed amongst the people who got up to nominate discussion sessions. And so I am left feeling that several opportunities were missed to join people up and indeed allow those collected the chance to help shape the future agenda. Much more could have been achieved with a little more space, time, design and cool air.

Where next? I am hoping this is just a beginning and over the course of the next few months, there will be more scope to develop this idea of a Big Society. Some questions are buzzing in my head (and I am grateful to the meeting yesteday for helping to stimulate these thoughts):

• Can you get ‘owt for nowt?’ (Energising, coordinating, developing volunteering in the UK won’t happen without some considerable investment in a range of structures designed to do this. This was a point made several times last night)
• What local leadership will help the Big Society come to life? (There are already many volunteers in local government at all tiers already, including several thousand unpaid community / town councillors. Moreover there are many district, unitary and county councillors too. Beyond this there must be many thousands of treasurers, chairs, secretaries of thousands of local voluntary groups. All these people have a leadership role and will be helping, or not, draw more people in. What is now needed to support the leadership that will help do this?)
• Just what levers can be pulled to grow the legions of voluntary workers still more? (Some people seemed to believe it was an absence of information about opportunities that was a significant barrier to more people getting involved. Others wondered whether just be inviting people, that in itself would bring more on board. Others, including me, wondered if a key factor was confidence in that a person needs this to be prepared to volunteer. There were many more factors explored such as the use of technology. My hope is that evidence and research, as well as more ruminating, will help identify what interventions will achieve the most gain  and guide action from here.)
• How do you engage the unengaged or even the ‘don’t want to be engaged’? (If the Big Society is to really take off, many more people will need be involved. How will some people, particularly those who may feel they have nothing to offer, be attracted to join in?)
• What wheels need to be reinvented and which existing one, with a bit of oil perhaps, could work far better? (For example, Paul Twivy spoke yesterday about the idea of a new mutual financial institution that could provide low cost indemnity insurance to volunteers etc. I was left wondering don’t we already have a people’s financial institution called the Post Office? I am worried that in the rush to produce some shiny new ‘Big Society’ some existing structures, such as local libraries, may just be overlooked. Equally there may be some bodies that have served their purpose and something new is required. These decisions need to be made carefully, I think.)

So as always, more questions than answers – but let’s keep the dialogue going!

Why we need 'Austerity Charters'

A few weeks ago I was talking with some civil servants about the implications of the budgetary cuts to come. One matter that was concerning them was the impact on staff discipline. As one person put it succinctly "why should I seek to sack an underperforming member of my team, when I know that if I do, the then vacant post will be frozen. It is better to have 50% of one person than 100% of nobody".

Another possible result of the current circumstances will be that just when you need everyone to be thinking about how to innovate and do more with less, people will be more inclined to keep their heads down and play 'safe'. (I have blogged about this already here.)

There are probably many more examples of perverse & unfortunate consequences of the current resource regime in public service organisations. The question is: can anything be done about this? My proposal is that every public service organisation should develop and approve what I will label an 'Austerity Charter'

The purpose of these charters will be to make crystal clear the principles, policies and values that will underpin how decisions will be made about where and how the large reductions in expenditure being considered will be implemented. For example, one point might cover the issue above such that posts vacated as a result of disciplinary action will not necessarily remain frozen, might go some way towards alleviating the problems that might emerge otherwise. Another part of the charter might seek to clarify that decisions about job losses will not be influenced by what action a person takes to innovate better ways of providing a service.

I don't really know what would go in such an Austerity Charter. But I do know that it up to the organisations themselves to resolve and that this will be best done in as open and inclusive a way as possible. Trade unions and staff associations clearly have a role to play, as do other stakeholders. (You will not be surprised to know that I would favour a whole system approach to the development of such charters.)

Such charters probably already exist but in the various fragmented & suspicious minds of all those who are affected, be they people who are likely to be made redundant or those will have the task of making such decisions. Nobody will find this easy, and some will find the process over the coming months distressing and life changing.

With reference to transactional analysis, will the leaders of the organisations be 'adult' enough to agree, focus and make explicit how these austere measures will be implemented? Or are we moving into a time where not only will the decisions be made behind closed doors, but the way of making the decisions will also be kept secret and implicit? I believe the latter approach is likely to lead to more staff distress, more harm to citizen/customer service, more distraction, less innovation and, probably, more procrastination and sabotage.

What do you think?

Or has your organisation already produced an 'Austerity Charter'?

Big Society with a big Open Space

In anticipation of a meeting I am going to next week:

The Big Society Network is an organisation to exists to help people achieve change in their local area. Our aim is to create a new relationship between Citizens and Government in which both are genuine partners in getting things done: real democracy using all the human and technological tools we now have available. This partnership will also add a third and fourth leg to its sturdy chair by involving business and the voluntary sector.... On the afternoon of the 6 July we plan to bring a cross section of people from across civil society into a conversation with the Big Society team. (http://bigsocietyopennight.eventbrite.com/)

I thought I would post three excellent videos about Open Space in action and how the process helps to nurture engagement and responsibility - themes that will no doubt be picked up by those present next week. (The event is still open for anyone who wants to go...)

Recently posted 3.5 min clip about Open Space in the city of Harrisonburg, USA, sponsored by the local Mayor

Same sponsor, this time 4 min clip about sustainability issues

Jutta Weimar and the Berlin-based BOSCOP team present a short 6.5 min 'trailer' for Open Space

I am very excited by the fact that the meeting next week will be "facilitated using open space technology which will enable all participants to shape the agenda". It will be most pleasurable to be part of an Open Space that somebody else is facilitating! I will let you know how it went... watch this space.

And many thanks to Brendan McKeague of the Life School (Perth, Australia) for these youtube links. And thanks to Ingrid Koehler of the IDeA who alerted me to the event.

Cost reduction in a cold climate

Barry Toogood from Mentis - has just sent me a link to an excellent paper which will stimulate your thinking around the subject of how to move forwards in these austere times. It contains some useful mnemonics & frameworks for thinking. Do have a read and I am sure that Barry would be interested in your thoughts. (Copy me in too - thanks!)

Here is the link to the paper:

http://www.mentis.co.uk/COST-PAPER.pdf