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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
13 March 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Jo Youle is the CEO of Missing People, a charity that offers a lifeline to the 250,000 people who run away and go missing each year in the UK.
I don’t like making mistakes. I don’t think many of us do. I don’t like getting things wrong since I’m the sort of person who works hard to get things right. I’m pre-programmed to think round corners, to not let the wool be pulled over my eyes.
But it could be worse. What if I make a mistake and don’t even realise I’m making it until it’s too late? What if we take our thinking, our organisations and other people’s lives off down the wrong road, and realise too late we’re in a cul-de-sac with no fuel to get us back on the right road?
Not so long ago, I made this kind of mistake. I just got the wrong idea in my head and blithely followed myself, down the wrong road.
A close friend’s mum died. I moved heaven and earth to be there for the funeral. I did a ‘belt and braces’ check on the address and was reassured it was the only crematorium in town. I arrived well over an hour early; checked with the guy working in the graveyard that I was in the right place.
I started to feel uneasy about 1pm, when the service was due to start in 15 minutes and no one had turned up. That guy I’d first spoken to asked, 'anything I can help with?' I told him what I was waiting for and he said, 'Oh, you want the crematorium, ‘love’, 10 miles from here, this is the cemetery'.
I did a slow motion fall apart; 10 miles from where I needed to be it was game over. I cried. Gutted that I wouldn’t be there for my friend. I had sort of known way before, that something wasn’t right. I hadn’t listened to my instinct. I’d simply got the wrong ‘idea’ in my head and everything I did, googled, and saw from that moment forward merely confirmed to me I was in the right place. A bad case of confirmation bias.
It’s a pervasive thing, this confirmation bias. And all the more annoying since I’ve been ‘on the watch’ for it since being warned about this for newbie, and oldie CEO’s. We all know about huge companies slowly leading themselves to disaster by distorted realities, and this, even when all the data and information suggested a different picture and a different road to take. Take the now stereotypical examples: Xerox, Kodak, Blackberry.
Think on the sad demise of Kids Company. I’ll always remember visiting one of their vibrant, happily noisy centres in north London. A piano lesson underway on the Coldplay-donated piano in reception, counselling rooms, play areas, needlework. Creativity, friendship and care everywhere, providing the sort of environment many lucky children expect and have at home. This, a charity where income climbed from £2m to £23m over 10 years, before it came publically crashing down, in 2015.
The signs must have been there for a long time. The numbers must have painted a picture. There must have been warning signs. Perhaps they were obscured by hopefulness, optimism, and a divine sense of purposefulness. Perhaps a successful history was being used to predict a successful future. The post-collapse parliamentary investigation concluded that the charity had been run according to 'wishful thinking'.
Another (nameless) charity was saved from the brink only by a newcomer. From someone not invested in the ‘story’ or the people of the charity. For ten years the charity had not changed anything in finance. The team were well respected and friendly. They quietly got on with their work, undisturbed. The treasurer and the senior finance bod got on well. The reserves pot was healthy.
The newbie CEO saw a different picture. A financial strategy that would mean doom. A picture the treasurer couldn’t see even when it was painted in front of them; a human being simply not wanting to believe difficult truths about people and the organisation they cared about so much.
But new people aren’t always the answer either. A familiar story? Recruiting someone on a strong belief bolstered by a long recruitment process, that they are a good and competent egg. And from that point on, every piece of work, every behaviour, feeds this same belief. The ‘good egg peg’. And all this despite evidence to the contrary. Yes, you might hear or see some negatives. You might listen to (but not hear) some politely shared concerns from others. But surely your own instincts, your years of experience count for something.
There might be a slow dawning and then the consequences. A slowness to respond. A team disheartened, and worried. Time lost. Trust gone. There were some important lessons to learn. Not least, how quickly a team can disintegrate with a less than competent egg at the helm and the importance of not believing yourself too much.
We create worlds for ourselves that confirm our own thinking and beliefs. Our own, personalised echo chambers. We select newsfeeds, watch the ‘bits’ we like on catch up TV. We select ‘our sort of people’ to follow whilst Facebook selects stuff for us - algorithmed around our web browsing. And as for Twitter, we make it so bespoke I’m sure most people could be psychologically profiled purely on those people they choose to follow.
Setting off with the wrong hypotheses can have the most serious consequences. Avid followers of miscarriage of justice programmes: podcasts Serial and Undisclosed and Netflix hit Making A Murderer will have learned about injustice when a (wrong) hypothesis rules in evidence when it supports the theory, and out when it doesn’t. It can be devastatingly life changing.
Reflect on this observed phenomenon. Student sailors under pressure. Entering a harbour or approaching a coastline for the first time, in the dark. Trying to correctly identify the flashing patterns of different colours lights, all flashing a different number of times and lengths to guide them safely home. The small matter of avoiding rocks, running aground or sinking. Convinced they ‘know’ where they are, and then persuading themselves, that a light clearly flashing 5 times, was flashing in fact flashing 6. Even finding excuses about why the rest of the 'picture' and the many other lights weren’t right.
Why do we do it? In my case turning up at the wrong place for a funeral. A mixture of emotion on a sad occasion. Over confidence in myself. A tad smug as someone who travels. Being on my own. I’ll never mix up cemetery and crematorium again, that much I know. I’ll go back to trusting instinct a little more, and the sat nav a little less.
Maybe it is a gift to be less confident. To be more open to challenge. More open to changing your mind. Or your perspective. Think of the childhood experience of a little girl in the back of the car, hearing her mum crying, her dad silent. Her belief for years that she’d done something very bad, and only decades later jolted when your older brother says, ‘do you remember us in the back of the car the day JFK was shot?’
I’m going to do my best to avoid cul-de-sacs. I’m going to try to lose my more opinionated self. I’m going to be particularly alert when I want something to be true, particularly as someone who cares so much for the charity I lead and the people we help. Less of the ‘I believe’ and more 'scientific integrity’. A phrase coined by Richard Feynman denoting ‘the willingness to bend over backward to examine reasons your pet theories about the world might be wrong’ (Julia Galef, Slate).
Please share your comments and views about this blog below, or you can contact Jo on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
16 January 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Sophie Livingstone is Chief Executive of City Year UK, Co-Chair and Co-Founder of Generation Change, and a Trustee at Royal Voluntary Service.
Make no mistake, this country faces huge challenges. We have an epidemic of loneliness and isolation, a mental health crisis, girls growing up with extreme levels of anxiety about the pressure to conform, and a high rate of young male suicides. We are a world leader in educational inequality, social mobility is ever more entrenched, we have a social care crisis and a subsequent near NHS meltdown. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 13.5m do not earn enough to get by.
The people we rely on to manage the consequences of these challenges - doctors, nurses, care workers, teachers, social workers, prison officers - are generally underpaid, undervalued and facing severe staff shortages.
Additionally, those we need to lead us through to the other side - the politicians who have stepped up to contribute to our nation through their service - are increasingly trolled, threatened and abused as 'career politicians'. A sense of meaning and connection is missing from our public discourse amidst the value placed on sound bites and showbiz over experience and compassion.
My belief is that a lack of collective meaning and purpose is tearing us apart. We have gone too far in valuing the cognitive over the human and emotional. It’s certainly been my recent experience during interaction with a wide range of public services as a result of a family tragedy.
But there is an opportunity to do things differently. Whatever our personal views about Brexit, it does give us the opportunity to reconsider what defines our country in the 21st century, and what public service now means. Civil Society has a proud tradition of shaping public discourse and action, whether it be the settlement movements of the 19th century, or the creation of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service (WRVS - now the RVS) during the Second World War to involve women in tackling the challenge of war at home.
The 2005 Make Poverty History campaign changed the game for international development. Tackling domestic poverty is complex and ongoing, and the issue is entwined with our national culture. But if our great sector is not able to step up and represent humanity, compassion, values and leadership, then all really is lost.
It still feels like a huge and daunting challenge - and it is, bigger than any one of us. But unless we all feel a sense of responsibility to go beyond hand wringing towards trying to turn the tide, we are as much a part of the problem. Civil society has been at the forefront of national movements for change before and we need it to do so again, urgently.
A few non exhaustive thoughts about what should change, and some glimmers of hope include:
- Expand National Citizen Service, which has made a great start over the last six years, to more age groups and models, using the power of the brand to show young people their contribution is valued.
- Build on the success of Teach First, Frontline and Police Now by creating more ways for young people to gain experience and entry into public and voluntary service, going beyond just the top graduates to all young people.
- Change the way we treat and value older people and their wisdom, growing and supporting those organisations and networks that create more connections, such as the Royal Voluntary Service and North and South London Cares.
- Accelerate and value emerging leaders in our sector through schemes such as Clore Social.
- Support initiatives which give a voice to those who often feel they have no say, such as Undivided; a youth led campaign giving young people aged 13 to 30 a way to input to the Brexit negotiations.
- Supporting the ‘Solve UK Poverty’ plan set out by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in September.
The Founder of the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service, Lady Stella Reading believed that the strength of a nation 'lies not in her trading, nor in the multitude of her financial transactions. It’s not found in her banking operations nor in the acumen of her leaders. The ultimate strength of a nation lies in the character of the men and women who are that nation and voluntary service is an integral part of that character.'
We need to rediscover our national character and I believe that starts with each of us.
Please post your comments about Sophie’s blog below, or you can share your views with her on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
04 January 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Andreana Drencheva is a Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at the University of Sheffield where she helps social entrepreneurs to develop entrepreneurial and leadership capabilities.
In the 1980’s New York’s legendary mayor Ed Koch was known for his phrase ‘How am I doin’?’. This phrase was not just his public slogan, but also a genuine request for feedback and a meaningful and authentic way to connect with constituents and stakeholders. While we usually think of leaders as the individuals who provide feedback to those they motivate, inspire, organise, and manage; leaders, particularly social leaders, are also in a unique position to benefit from feedback. Feedback can come from diverse individuals to focus on a variety of individual, team, organisational, and system topics. Ultimately, feedback answers two fundamental questions: ‘How am I doing?’ and ‘How can I do better?’.
Feedback enables effective social leadership in three main ways. We can see the benefits of feedback for social leaders by applying the Clore Social Leadership Framework. The framework focuses on helping leaders develop their personal qualities, understand their context, and work with and through others. Feedback underpins each one of these three areas of social leadership.
1. Feedback helps social leaders to know and look after themselves. As evaluative type of information (i.e. ‘How am I doing?’), feedback increases self-awareness and tells social leaders whether their skills and actions match their intentions, goals, and values. As suggestive type of information (i.e. ‘How can I do better?’), feedback also provides social leaders with ideas and solutions on how to look after themselves, how to maintain wellbeing, and how to prevent burnout. It can also offer them suggestions on how to lead authentically in a way that reflects their personal values and ideas while balancing others’ expectations of who a leader is, and what a leader does.
2. Feedback helps social leaders assess their current and potential context. While no one can predict the future of the complex and dynamic world we live in, feedback can give a meaningful voice to everyone involved in a system. Thus feedback from diverse perspectives can help social leaders to understand and assess the current position of their work. Feedback is also an essential element of how individuals and organisations learn, thus it can enable social leaders to adapt their work to meet the needs of their context. Feedback from diverse perspectives can also expose the challenges, options, and possible future directions of the system and give social leaders ideas for how to address or take advantage of them.
Feedback from diverse perspectives enables social leaders to set an inspiring vision that naturally brings others into the process of catalysing social change. Additionally, feedback gives voice to diverse individuals and communities, which allows social leaders to leverage the collective creativity in the system and address challenges and opportunities in a collaborative way. Therefore, feedback makes the social change process more social and collaborative, while also bringing additional resources and support from those who have a similar vision.
To maximise the benefits of feedback, social leaders need to address two main challenges. The first challenge for social leaders is to proactively seek feedback from diverse individuals in a way that makes others feel comfortable to share critical, honest, and objective feedback. The second challenge for leaders is to find the time and space to systematically reflect on the (hopefully) diverse feedback they receive, and decide how to use it to benefit their personal development and the development of their work.
Please share your views about this blog post below, or contact Andreana on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
09 December 2016
Updated: 07 December 2020
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OK, I was wrong, and it took a fellowship to Canada in 2015 to realise it.
I have been involved in the food movement for a decade, specialising in building good food communities. I continue to see many benefits to putting good food at the heart of a community, including increases in social capital and benefits to mental and physical health.
I became increasingly aware of the increase in the number of people visiting food banks and I thought that the sorts of programmes I worked on could reduce this number. I then went to Canada thanks to a Winston Churchill fellowship.
One of the reasons I went to Canada, a country where food banks have existed for almost 30 years longer than in the UK, was to learn how emergency food aid providers in Canada have gone beyond basic food provision to reduce people’s food bills and dependency on the state.
What I actually found was that food aid providers were increasingly disassociating themselves from the message that they were reducing food poverty. They realised that while people need feeding they must also raise awareness of the need to advocate for wider systemic change as, ultimately, that is what’s required to have the necessary impact.
Measurement of food poverty had helped greatly in bringing this to the fore. Whereas the UK government continues to reject calls to undertake national measurement, Canada has been doing so for many years. As a result they understand very clearly that the situation has only got worse despite an increase in food aid, and research from the likes of Valerie Tarasuk at the University of Toronto has provided evidence of the lack of impact that food aid provision has.
I’m not here to bash food banks though. People are hungry and hundreds of groups across the country, very often run by volunteers, are working tirelessly to feed them.
Instead, in my article I call for a need to change the narrative on food poverty and highlight the importance of all of us, including food aid providers, in getting behind this new narrative to prevent the further institutionalisation of food aid. I provide more evidence for why this new narrative is required, offer up suggestions for what we can all do to get behind this new narrative and highlight how in the UK we’re in danger of creating a segregated food system for the poor if we don’t take action now.
Please share your views and comments below, or start a conversation with Seb on Twitter.
Tags:
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