Community – Page 4

I was Head of Applied Leadership at the NHS Leadership Academy for three years and was asked to sit on the ‘Building a Digital Ready Workforce’ National Steering Group. This led to me thinking about what we needed to do to help the boards of NHS organisations in particular to lead the transformation of Health and Care Services making the most of ‘digital’ – whatever that meant.

After much thinking I started to believe that it didn’t really matter what we did to develop boards; workshops, bootcamps, maturity matrices or conferences about AI and genomics. Until we changed how they saw their world and tasted different ways in which they might be able to lead in it, they were unlikely to make substantial changes in their strategy. They might drop a few tens of millions on a new patient record system – but would that really transform? Would that allow new patterns of power and relationship to emerge? Or would it just take some kinks out of the current system?

For me it felt like doing ‘the wrong thing better’.

But what was the right thing? The thing that might ‘develop’ the system?

The thing that went against the habit of Board rooms, Board tables, agendas, PIDs, rag ratings and budgetary decisions?

Against hierarchical expressions of power delivered through plans and Gantt charts and (not so carefully) managed variances?

Well for those of us that have worked a lot in civic society, in community development, the place to look for some clues was clear. Self organisation. Emergence. Transparency. Relationships, Inclusion, Diversity and Trust.

Work in the spirit of pioneers like Harrison Owen, Peter Vaill, John McKnight, Peter Block and others. It was about leading with communities not over them or for them.

Connecting small groups of people with the passion, responsibility and power to make change happen locally and to invite the formal power structure to sit with them and listen. To be influenced and to influence. but mainly to encourage and support. To ‘unleash’ the power of these small groups that care to do their work.

And so we started, with the support of James Freed and Maeve Black at Health Education England and Ian Macintyre from the NHS Leadership Academy, on our project to use Conversations to Transform Health and Care. To see if ‘Leadership as Convening’ might help to really transform Health and Care.

Open Space Events were planned for York, Hull and Scarborough to see if we could find the people who might really have the passion and the responsibility to transform health and care and whether we could help them to find their power….

What is Open Space?

What determines the future of a community?

Whether it becomes a place where most of its members live happy and fulfilled lives or ones that are full of misery and fear?

Does it depend on the decisions made by planners and politicians in national and local government? On what we might call ‘the planners paradigm’ where architects, planners, policy makers and property developers shape the places in which we live.

Or, does it depend on which entrepreneurs decide to operate in the community? On whether ‘Big Business’ comes to town or not? On whether we can encourage enough of the creative class to join our community? On what we might call ‘the entrepreneurial paradigm’ where the presence of many vibrant and creative entrepreneurs (that special breed) provide employment, products and services for those of us somehow less gifted? Who create the wealth and taxes that provide the rest of us with our livelihoods and public services.

Or does it depend on the extent to which everyone is supported to recognise their passions and develop their capability to act in ways that make things better for themselves, their families, their community and the planet as a whole? On the extent to which people are valued by others in the community and able to use the resources of knowledge and experience available to them to make progress? What we might call ‘the capability paradigm’.

Of course all of these things have an impact. If the planners provide poor infrastructure, or if big business hoovers up money from the community and filters it back to distant shareholders then it may be more difficult to develop a sustainable and vibrant community. But not impossible.

I believe that communities which learn how to respond to and support individuals and groups within their ranks who are seeking to make progress; who learn how to access, channel and develop capabilities and potentials will steadily become both more cohesive and harmonious.

I believe that ‘the capability paradigm’ holds the most effective key to building great communities. Communities that embrace it, and learn to master it, will be reported by those living in them as good places to be. They will start to become wealthier and healthier than their more fragmented, less connected counterparts.

But most importantly they will become more fulfilling places to live.

Why Conversations to Transform Health and Care?

The future of a community