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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
14 February 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Despite using the word in the title of my provocation piece, ‘The challenge of co-production when we can’t be trusted to vote for anything’, the first challenge is the word ‘co-production’!
When I talk about co-production many people do not know what it is. Creating any change starts with a conversation, so it is decidedly unhelpful when someone needs to disclose their lack of understanding at the onset of that conversation. The person in the know is immediately in a slightly elevated position. Elevated positions are an unhelpful conversation starter when talking about something which is about equal standings!
True co-production is a way of thinking and working, it is not a standalone technique. For it to work you have to have an organisation that lives and breathes its key values. It will often need transformational leadership. The CEO and leadership team must believe in the moral and operational value of working with customers as equal partners, and must ensure that the values, systems and processes that define the organisation drive the appropriate behaviour.
I share in my piece five key steps to working in this way based on my experience of working as a co-production consultant on these issues in the social sector.
- Awareness: Share with all concerned the thinking behind the decision to take a co-production approach to illustrate transparency.
- Buy-in: For co-production to work, you need buy-in from all parties.
- Expectations: All parties need an understanding of expectations, and knowledge about what they mean in reality - what’s required of them, decision making and so on.
- Performance: Everybody needs to have the required skills to deliver. This is where training and guidance might be required.
- Feedback: Giving regular feedback is important - all parties must remain informed about the current situation, the objectives, the barriers and the likely outcome.
One of the key values in co-production is mutual respect and equal access to information. The theory is that when customers see the whole picture they will be able to help make better decisions and also understand why their ideas cannot be done (if that is a valid outcome). I argue in my piece that a tickbox exercise to consultation, which has been business as usual, is partly behind some of the votes we saw last year (Brexit, Trump etc).
You can’t expect the public to make reasoned judgements without mutual trust, open information and a genuine sense of equality.
If there is a lesson to be learned from 2016 it is that if you want users or the public to follow, you need to understand where they are at and allow them access to your world. You need to do more than listen and do it from a place of equality. By working collaboratively we will produce something better and something that it is much harder to argue against. Only then can we have confidence in our direction of travel.
Please share your views and comments below about her blog and provocation piece, or you can contact her on Twitter.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
08 February 2017
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Social investment is a subject that has been much talked about in recent years. There are some within the voluntary and community sectors with strong views about social investment, either for or against. As someone who has spent almost a decade working in the realm of social investment, I am most definitely an advocate. But recently I have found myself becoming quite frustrated with the social investment sector because I am not sure we are adequately serving those who have social impact at the heart of their mission – charities and social enterprises.
It is no secret that the social sector is operating in challenging times. We are in our 6th year of government austerity and public contracts are feeling the force of that. Given this climate, is the social investment sector providing finance that these often small organisations can access and afford?
Recent research has highlighted the need for social investors to be able to offer not just finance which is lower cost, but also blended finance and finance which can take higher risks. Unfortunately despite this need, often this isn’t the sort of finance that is being offered (although there are a handful of honourable exceptions). What all of this points to is that what the social investment market is currently offering isn’t necessarily what the majority of the market we serve wants from us. We are not responding to demand, but instead we are asking others to fit our needs and those of our investors. And I’m not sure that’s the right way round to be doing things.
When I was interviewed to become a Clore Social Fellow in September 2014 I was asked what change I wanted to help bring about in society. My answer was that I wanted to help redistribute resources; that there is enough money in the world but that at the moment too much of it was accessed by too few, and that I wanted to change that. I still want to change that. And I want to change that because the charities and social enterprises we are here to serve are struggling. We need to:
- Look at new, different and innovative ways to get the money that already exists to a point where it can be used to help the organisations supporting the communities in need.
- Be able to demonstrate that the finance we are providing is creating a social impact and making a real difference to people’s lives.
- Ask investors to support us in offering the type of finance that charities and social enterprises want; simple, straightforward finance that they can afford.
Doing this will be no easy task, but it is something I believe we are duty bound to do. Because if we try we might just do it - and this will benefit everyone.
Please share your views and comments about Deborah’s blog and full piece below, or you can contact her 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,
13 September 2016
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Dawn Austwick is Chief Executive of Big Lottery Fund.
Anyone interested in the role and nature of leadership will not have been short of food for thought lately. The recent referendum debated at length Britain’s role on the world stage – with both sides keen to paint a picture of leadership either within or without the EU. In that debate, we will rarely have seen a more eclectic array of personalities seeking to burnish their own leadership credentials. And both the Conservatives and Labour have engaged in (albeit very different) internal soul-searching about the leadership they need to tackle the post-Brexit era. Theresa May now leads the country – tasked with bringing the country back together and forging a socially just, economically sound, future. A task not without challenges.
But for all this leadership talk, the referendum laid bare the fact that large numbers of people feel disenfranchised and ignored by the powers-that-be. That’s an immediate challenge, and one that civil society has a key role to play in tackling. At the heart of this is giving people and communities a sense of agency over their lives. Here at the Fund, our new strategic framework sets out what sounds like a simple vision: putting people in the lead in shaping their lives and communities. That means people and communities defining their own aspirations, and organisations (including us) supporting them to achieve it. It’s nicely encapsulated by the phrase ‘nothing about us, without us, is for us’. And, in leadership terms that can be quite a challenge to what we are used to.
So what does great leadership look like in a thriving civil society? There’s a conversation starting to emerge around a concept I am calling ‘generous leadership’. John Donne has it in a nutshell:
"No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main."
And if I think back to my time as a trustee of conservation charity the Woodland Trust, it absolutely mirrors how we think of biodiversity - 'it's an ecology, stupid!' Everything is inter-linked and ultimately inter-dependent.
I’ve spent quite a lot of my professional career in the cultural sector. Over the last 25 years a pattern of generous leadership has evolved and developed: with national institutions like Tate and the British Museum jointly curating and displaying their collections with regional museums, training and developing curators and conservators of the future. The National Theatre has pioneered co-productions with smaller production companies and regional houses and sees its own box office as a platform for other companies to benefit from. And we have co-funded Battersea Arts Centre's ‘The Agency’ partnership with People’s Palace Projects, based on a model founded in the favelas of Rio to support young people to make entrepreneurial ideas a reality.
Fundamentally, these cultural institutions developed a more acute awareness of their place in a delicate ecosystem. Civil society has no less rich and diverse an ecosystem (the NCVO Almanac is a useful reference point). ‘Generous’ leaders need to think clearly about what they have that they can share with others – be it money, time, or assets. And that shouldn’t be thought of as a simple act of altruism, but as an exercise in mutual benefit.
Take for example, the acquisition of Only Connect by Catch 22. The latter provides strategic support, scale and greater financial security, the former provides a new innovative arm of the business alongside skills and closeness to community. For this to work, the generous leader has to have a burning focus on mission rather than organisational preservation. This might mean supporting other organisations working with a similar mission to thrive rather than pursuing perpetual growth. Or it might mean offering space and time for an emerging leader from outside the organisation to reflect and develop their ideas, as the Catch22 Fellowship programme does. Generous leadership with a focus on mission may also lead a CEO and Board to decide that income growth is not always the path to achieving that mission - a decision EveryChild took under Anna Feuchtwang’s leadership.
Charlie Howard’s MAC-UK initiative goes even further – set up on a ten year basis with the intention of changing the nature of mental health provision for young people, before exiting stage left. And that points to a further characteristic of generous leadership, of being networked with other people working hard for social change. Rather than simply telling a single story, generous leaders seek to be a part of a wider movement and to share in that narrative instead. That’s a lesson that we funders need to particularly reflect on, having traditionally been criticised for thinking in terms of ‘our’ money and what it achieves, rather than the bigger picture for people and communities: sometimes attribution can get in the way of the best solution. The Early Action Funders Alliance is an example of positive steps in the right direction, bringing together a cluster of UK funders to explore and test ways of preventing problems from occurring rather than simply coping with the consequences.
And so we return to ‘nothing about us, without us, is for us’. As generous leaders, we must renew our championing of the grassroots, staying focused on our mission and how best we can facilitate the work of those we support – the people in the lead. We must be listeners and collaborators with our colleagues in the sector, recognising where and how we can add value. And, as generous leaders, we must welcome the opportunity to challenge our own assumptions of what good leadership looks like, and fully embrace the complexity that will provoke.
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Posted By Clore Social Leadership,
06 September 2016
Updated: 07 December 2020
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Dr Henry Kippin is executive director of Collaborate an independent CIC focusing on the thinking, culture and practice of cross-sector collaboration.
Leadership is a slippery concept. A verb, not a noun. A spirit, not a skillset. It is a term that is broad and deep enough to mean both everything and nothing. But there is no doubt that if leadership matters (as Richard Harries’s excellent paper suggests), then we need to strive to make sure that the concept can hold the weight we ascribe to it. This means we need to work on it.
The concept of leadership development is becoming more tricky to grasp in line with the changing context around it. This throws up more questions than answers. But anyone OK with a degree of complexity and nuance should absolutely welcome that. Peoples’ lives are complex and multi-faceted, so why should we expect positively changing them to be any less so?
Collaborate’s work is about supporting people who want to lead change through collaboration. Our work is about blurring sector boundaries to improve outcomes for the public. By its very nature, it unpicks the way we define sectors and understand services, and in this context effective leadership may have some counterintuitive traits. Let me explain…
1. Great organisational leadership is necessary but not sufficient – those with an eye on health and social care reform (for example) will note the prevalence of high quality hospitals functioning brilliantly within places in which some social outcomes haven’t changed for decades. Does great leadership mean more of the same? Clearly not. But just as unwelcome is a narrow version of system change that might help to keep organisations sustainable but is just as far from real co-production as ever. If the Brexit vote shows us anything, it is the acute need to close this gap. Social sector leaders should be actively working together to do so.
2. Collaboration and consensus make awkward bedfellows – any meaningful change is hard to effect. Yet we often expect this to happen across different organizations with multiple incentives in a complex environment with a remarkable degree of ease. Hope over experience on a grand scale! Beyond creating good vibes in the room, collaborative leaders need to know how to be honest, when to say no (or even better: ‘I don’t know!’), and how to create the right commitment devices to support collective progress against shared goals with multiple stakeholders. That is why we talk about building ‘collaboration readiness’: it isn’t easy.
3. The social sector silo is dead. Long live collaborative social change – social change is not the preserve of the social sector, and nor can the sector deliver some of the aspirations it exists to address in-and-of-itself. Look at the JRF’s strategy for ending poverty: a clear role for business, government and society. Leaders need to care as much about their terms of engagement with other systems and sectors as their own independence, seeing their world through others’ eyes. For a 17-year old looking for work, a smartphone, a broadband connection and a mate with a job are the critical ingredients. None of these things are delivered as public services; none of these things are innate social goods. Yet social sector leaders recognize that part of their role is creating the conditions for these things to be accessible.
So how do we operationalise some of these insights in response to Shaks Gosh’s challenge of ‘new solutions’ and a need for ‘structured leadership development’? Collaborate’s own efforts have been written up recently as the Anatomy of Collaboration: the critical components of cross-sector leadership and delivery as defined by an expert group convened in partnership with Oxford University. One quote from a prominent social sector leader stands out for me: “Collaboration is an offer, not a demand. It should always come with a decent pitch”. One might say the same about leadership.
Please share your views and comments below, you can also follow Dr Kippin on Twitter @h_kippin.
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