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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
23 January 2017
Updated: 15 October 2020
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Last Autumn I left my job at one of England’s biggest think tanks. As I moved out of the think tank world, I began mulling over what difference, if any, I had made over the last seven years. Funders were increasingly asking us to demonstrate our impact, and so as part of my Clore Social Leadership fellowship I have conducted a short piece of research on this topic titled, Impact: an enquiry into how think tanks create change, interviewing some of the key people working with think tanks to explore exactly how they create change in the world.
My research has shown that the main way think tanks create change is by influencing policy and politics, bringing in new ideas to solve complex problems. To do this well, certain conditions need to be in place. Firstly, they need a unique and politically appealing proposal. To have the greatest traction this should be based on evidence, and reinforced by a coalition of partners asking for the same thing. Strong relationships with politicians, their special advisers and civil servants will all help to get new ideas taken up when windows of opportunity arise.
But what happens when the political climate isn’t ripe for an idea? Then, think tanks have a role in making the unthinkable possible, and provide a safe space for politicians to debate and test ideas before going public with them. Some think tanks also have an impact by holding the government to account, putting a spotlight on topics through doing consistent research and analysis that raises its profile.
Three big challenges came out of this research. These are issues think tanks need to address if they are serious about their work having the biggest possible impact.
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The first is for think tanks to develop stronger relationships with civil society, activists and campaigners, so that policy work can better reflect the everyday experiences and challenges of citizens.
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The second is to think about how they communicate beyond the political elite, free of the jargon that many of us become quickly used to.
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The third challenge for think tanks is to consider partnerships as a central part of their strategy for change. Time, funding streams and short term projects often act against collaboration, but the best examples of impact in this research came from long term, strategic work that engaged a range of organisations, from policy, academia, and front line practice.
Think tanks also face difficult questions about how they can maintain consistent political influence under new charity regulation, and how to engage a political landscape that is increasingly fragmented and devolved. Newly elected mayors, devolution and an exit from the EU all change where think tanks seek traction with their work.
At their best, think tanks connect the dots between the challenges of our everyday lives and radical new visions for the future. At their worst, they offer bland solutions to yesterday’s problems. I hope this research goes some way to illuminating the different tactics think tanks might use to increase their impact.
Please click here to read Julia’s full Research piece developed as part of her 2015 Clore Social Fellowship.
Share your views by commenting below or contacting Julia on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
13 December 2016
Updated: 15 October 2020
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As 2016 winds down, I find myself considering the fervent sector debates that have taken place over the year in the media and beyond. One thing is clear: strong leadership is more important than ever before, and the demands on leaders are increasingly complex.
In partnership with The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, The Barrow Cadbury Trust, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and ACEVO, we commissioned a survey to get to grips with the leadership development issues that matter most in our sector. Richard Harries took a hard look at the results and produced his third report for us, Leadership Development in the Third Sector: Bridging Supply and Demand, which serves as a plea for more support for the sector’s tireless and hard pressed leaders.
Almost 500 medium and large charities and social enterprises responded to the survey, and what emerged from the data is a picture of a sector which has a push-pull relationship with leadership development. Although the majority of respondents stated they saw the benefits and criticality of leadership development, a lack of time and money significantly impacted their ability to invest in it. What this boils down to is that of the organisations surveyed, only 0.5% of their annual income was spent on leadership development. Furthermore when compared with the wider economy, our sector is three times less likely to invest in leadership development.
Undoubtedly there is a demand for leadership development, but time and the financial capacity to invest in it is stymied. Also, questions arise as to whether the current market offering fully serves the leadership needs of the sector. Taken together this begs the question: How do we bridge the gap in supply and demand?
Having digested leadership development lessons from the past (report 1), and how to face future sector opportunities and challenges (report 2), we have devised a 12-part strategy to transform social leadership. Coupled with this is our recently launched Social Leaders’ Capabilities Framework which sets out the capabilities we believe emerging leaders need to be truly transformational.
By sharing these assets - our three reports, the 12-part strategy, and our Framework - we are inviting the sector to make full use of them to develop leaders, and we are also petitioning leaders of all levels to continue the debate. By now we all know that leadership really matters, and we can’t afford not to act. As we head into the New Year, it is incumbent upon all of us to focus on a sure-fire way of ensuring that the organisations we love continue to serve the people they were built for.
Our Starter for 12 - How to Transform the Social Leadership of our sector (for full descriptions, please read report 3, pages 12-14):
- Use the current challenging climate to promote the value of leadership
- Achieve scale and critical mass quickly
- Understand and segment the market
- Make training affordable
- Focus on the elements of ‘making a market’: (a) stimulate demand (b) organise supply and (c) advice and brokerage
- Innovate - especially around digital technology
- Invest in good infrastructure
- Create a supportive leadership community
- Create an appetite for leadership education
- Adopt a policy-led and evidence-based approach to leadership
- Know what good leadership looks like
- Deliver a short period of sustained and substantial investment
Please share your views and comments below, on Twitter, or even contribute an opinion piece to our Leaders Now blog.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
31 October 2016
Updated: 15 October 2020
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Steve McGuirk is the former County Fire Officer of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service, and Chairman of Warrington and Halton Hospitals Foundation Trust.
This blog is written in response to Clore Social Leadership’s reports about third sector leadership development. Read report 1 here, and report 2 here.
It has always been tough leading change in a challenging world, but there are an increasing number of factors that support the idea, ‘it’s never been like this before’.
This presents a huge number of paradoxes for people in any leadership position trying to figure their way through this complexity – but I think there are added layers for those leading social change.
For despite the millions of words written and advice offered by gurus and consultants, there are no tailor made solutions. Each person (leader) and each organisation is unique; there is no unilinear solution to change.
Nevertheless, I think it is helpful to play around with some of the paradoxes of modern leadership – I talk about three here - if nothing else to provide a sanity check.
First, and I think most significant, is the paradox of the ordinary versus the extraordinary.
What I mean by this is that the last twenty or so years has seen the evolution of a much more technocratic, engineered approach to people management and organisational development. Whilst, in many respects this is vital and positive, the approach has also resulted a complex and vast set of expectations of leaders, wrapped up in the language of competences, values, emotional intelligence and so on. Each dimension is inarguable its own right, but collectively they represent a huge personal challenge with an anticipation that those who eventually make it ‘to the top’ will be some kind of upgraded version of our species – Human Beings 2.0 if you like. In the charity and social enterprise sector there is the added aspect of judgement around the ethical and moral compass of the leaders concerned.
The paradox, though, is that the majority of those leaders don’t ‘feel’ extraordinary – they just see themselves as ‘normal’ with all the insecurities and anxieties everyone else has to deal with.
But this first paradox is further heightened by the second, which is the paradox of the speed in making decisions versus the need for thoughtfulness and reflection.
There was a time - not that many years ago – when the decisions of leaders took time firstly even to be noticed, then to filter through an organisation and have an impact. That is clearly no longer the case as the immediacy of communication pervades every dimension of life (closely linked, of course, to social media).
The paradox here, though, is that figuring out solutions to the wicked problems we face requires time and more considered analysis than the 140 characters available on Twitter. Yet that thinking space and time is more compressed now than ever before. In fact, it’s virtually disappeared.
And, as if that wasn’t enough to contend with, the third paradox kicks in.
So, this is the paradox of the clamour for rapid and transparent decision making – only possible by using instinct and intuition (often built upon experience), but against the backdrop of a society or constituency seeking to apportion blame for anything that goes wrong.
By definition, real innovation (the disruptive kind we need to generate social change) is unlikely to have a strong evidence base of its potential success. If it did, it would be improvement not innovation. The point here is that innovation is more about courage and a leap of faith – the difference being now that every aspect of that leap will be visible and open to the analysis of everyone and ‘there’ on the Internet forever more.
So, where does this leave leaders going forward?
As I have indicated, there are no answers to these paradoxes and there are many other paradoxes that could be considered.
The best leaders, therefore, don’t agonise about trying to be superhuman or find elusive answers.
Instead, they use their ‘ordinariness’ as an asset to engage people at all levels and they are savvy enough to join or create their own leadership networks and safe spaces to experiment. But, most of all, they understand the need to invest in their own learning and personal development because if one thing is certain, it is that the world will continue on its change trajectory which will result in more, rather than less, ambiguity and complexity.
We are keen to hear your views about this blog and our reports either by submitting blog ideas for Leaders Now, commenting below or joining the conversation on Twitter @CloreSocial. You can contact Steve on Twitter @gmccfo.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
26 August 2016
Updated: 14 October 2020
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Lígia Teixeira is Head of Research and Evaluation at Crisis, and our 2016 specialist housing and homelessness Fellow, supported by the Oak Foundation.
Last week’s long awaited report from the Communities and Local Government Committee makes a number pertinent observations, including a call for a new Government strategy. Against a background of rising homelessness in most parts of England, the time is right to consider where we go from here and to look elsewhere for inspiration. There is much to learn from the United States.
Proportionately homelessness is a much bigger problem in the US and the phenomenon began in the 1980s with growth in homelessness that had not been seen since the Great Depression. On a single night in January 2015, 564,708 people were experiencing homelessness. Evictions are a huge social issue and the criminalisation of homeless people is a widespread problem.
In 2000 the National Alliance to End Homelessness (the Alliance) published A Plan, Not a Dream: How to End Homelessness in Ten Years (NAEH, 2000) . It boldly argued that homelessness, which at the time was seen as an intractable social problem, could be ended. It laid out a path forward that employed data, prioritised prevention and permanent housing solutions, and encouraged the engagement of mainstream systems.
The release of the plan instigated a shift in the debate, the movement gained momentum and the issue quickly rose up the political agenda, even becoming a bi-partisan issue. Over time a movement to end homelessness emerged, with sense of shared commitment and of collaboration.
For over a decade now the number of people experiencing homelessness across the United States has been declining, and this was the case even throughout the recession (between 2007 and 2012 the number of chronically homeless people dropped by 19%). The job is far from complete, but for the first time since the 1970s the eradication of homelessness is a real possibility.
So what’s missing here in the UK? What can we learn from what is currently happening in the United States?
Five clear lessons have emerged from the US:
- A grand vision, and a willingness to ask difficult questions. The Alliance’s Ten Year Plan challenged perceived wisdom and triggered a cultural shift in the sector. The Bush and Obama Administrations built on the success of the revolutionary campaign, creating a Federal Strategy for Ending Homelessness, thus embracing the movement and accelerating progress.
- Collective commitment. A shared sense of commitment and collaboration is key and often wanting in the UK. At the Alliance’s annual conference in Washington DC a couple of weeks ago, Shaun Donovan - who until recently was Obama's Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - compared the fight to end homelessness to the moon landing:
‘Together we launched out on moonshot on homelessness. And look how far we’ve come - nearly 30 cities and states have ended veteran homelessness. … Now many of you may say we still have a long way to go. And you’re right. But let’s not forget that we didn’t get to the moon overnight. That journey took three presidents and 21 space flights. Back then the New York Times described the moon landing as ‘the realisation of centuries of dreams, the fulfilment of a decade of striving, a triumph of modern technology and personal courage, the most dramatic demonstration of what we can do if we apply our minds and resources with single-minded determination. And that’s why everyone in this room is so vital to our effort: your dreams, your striving, your courage, your determination’.
- Measurable outcomes. From the start the Obama Administration in particular has focused on unlocking data and evidence to identify and implement effective strategies, so they could do more of what works and less of what does not. The problem at stake also needs to be well defined and the role of the homelessness sector within it. So for instance a more comprehensive view of homelessness prevention should place the onus of keeping people housed on mainstream services tasked with taking care of vulnerable groups. This requires better engagement with the education, social care, criminal justice, and health and mental health systems to prevent people being supported by them becoming homeless. Crucially, the homelessness sector to try to fill in the gaps as it could do more harm than good.
- Invest in solutions that have been proven to work. The George W. Bush Administration revolutionised how homelessness was dealt with the US - whatever the cause of homelessness, the solution is… a home. The idea was pioneered by New York University psychiatrist Sam Tsemberis: ‘Housing First’ turned conventional wisdom on its head. Despite the sceptics evidence prevailed - Housing First worked from the start and it worked fast. Ever since the early 2000s efforts have increasingly shifted to a focus on permanent housing solutions, such as permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing. Since 2007 permanent supportive housing capacity has grown 69 percent.
- Broadening leadership. A plan or data is only good as the people that drive it forward. The turn towards a Housing First approach during the Bush Administration might not have happened had it not been for the then homelessness czar, Philip Mangano, who doggedly pursued the idea despite initial resistance and sector interests (the new approach threatened jobs and budgets across the country). In 2003, the US Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution in response to a call from Mangano - then at the helm of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness - who challenged 100 cities to initiate ten year plans to end chronic homelessness. By 2004, about 100 had initiated planning efforts and, by 2006, ninety ten-year plans to end homelessness were complete. Strong leadership is however needed at all levels, from front line work, managers and chief executive and trustees level.
The CLG report is right to call for a new Government strategy, and to call for a change in legislation to prevent homelessness, but the lessons from the US point us towards much higher ambitions. It is time for UK politicians to step up to their example.
This blog was originally posted on the Crisis website. You can apply for the 2017 Fellowship here - deadline 5 September 2016.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
02 August 2016
Updated: 14 October 2020
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Leadership matters. This is the first line taken from our new report Leadership Development in the Third Sector: Learning Lessons.
We all know that leadership in the sector is important, but what really matters is leadership that can navigate through choppy waters while simultaneously capitalising on new opportunities. Sounds relatively straightforward, but it isn’t. This is because social sector leadership has to achieve the above while catering to a wide network of stakeholders, such as the government, private sector, volunteers and beneficiaries to name but a few, and do so in adherence with good governance. Today’s sector leaders are required to have a complex toolkit of skills at their fingertips to respond quickly to the demands being asked of them. But in these fast paced times leaders are often spinning too many plates to engage thoughtfully in how both they, and their staff, can become better leaders.
I have now been at Clore Social Leadership for exactly one year. During this time I have immersed myself in the world of leadership development, meeting with a wide range of CEOs, trustees and managers to understand their organisation’s leadership needs. Digesting all I’ve learned one clear message resounds: leadership development does indeed matter, but overall the sector doesn’t want to pay for it.
In these times of political uncertainty and austerity I can, to an extent, understand such reticence. Yet no one can deny that the sector is in the midst of some huge challenges, so good leadership is more important now than ever before. We know that leadership - and by this I mean leaders on all levels, not just CEOs - is imperative to ensure organisations are well run to effectively serve beneficiaries and the wider community. Leadership development improves productivity by 23%, but this requires an investment of time, finance and resources. It is therefore incumbent on the entire sector to come together to help find new ways of identifying and developing the next generation of leaders to make their organisations even more effective and create lasting social change.
To get under the skin of this, we are examining 21st century social leadership in a series of reports that analyse leadership development in the sector. We hope these reports will provoke further debates while also generating new ideas and solutions. What’s clear from our first report is that lessons can be learned from the past; wholly discounting previous attempts to systemise third sector leadership development is unwise, akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We can also learn from other sectors’ attempts to build leadership development practices, like the NHS Leadership Academy the National College for Teaching and Leadership, in addition to examining practices from our overseas counterparts. It’s interesting to note that they all share similar challenges as our sector, including the need for further investment alongside structured leadership development offerings.
Casting a critical eye on the past and wider sectors invites further questions which our subsequent reports will seek to answer such as: what is the right ‘ecosystem’ for leadership development in our sector? How can we sustain this in the future? What new solutions might Clore Social Leadership create and deliver, and might partnerships be the way forward?
Please read the full report here.
We encourage your feedback about this, and our upcoming reports. You can share your views and comments below, on Twitter or even contribute an opinion piece to our Leaders Now blog.
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