What would be the perfect system for the public sector to adopt
Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_the-perfect-system-for-the-public-sector-activity-7190972783244292096-v8t4 What do you think I need to add to explain this fully?
I asked for exam questions recently and, Jim Nicholls threw me a doozy!
I’ve spent 25 years or more thinking about this, so rather than agonise, I’m just typing my answer straight.
There are two answers, which point the way to a third.
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First: do really really good work analysing your citizens, their needs, your priorities for shifting public outcomes, and then design an adaptive, outside-in organisation which really works on the needs you have identified.
Each part of that is important, and deserves a breakdown I don’t have time or space for here. But in being part of kicking off the transformation of Hammersmith & Fulham council in the early 2000s, I’ve seen this work well — as far as it goes.
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Second: work with individual citizens to deeply understand their needs and ‘pull’ in the required expertise. It’s really really the Vanguard model, which I was bowled over by in 2002, and which informs so much of the ‘community paradigm’, ‘human learning systems’, ‘the liberated method’ and so on, and which aligns with the way Cormac Russell has taken Asset-Based Community Development forward.
It’s brilliant — when you can create a bubble to deliver.
And it’s brilliant at creating passionate converts and bitter enemies
And then the organisational immune system kicks in, and takes over.
That’s because it’s a threat, and because it doesn’t offer all the answers to the pressures of meeting demand within reducing budgets, nor does it tell you how to actually build an organisation that can do this in either a targeted or a scaled way.
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Both approaches have complementary blind spots.
The third approach is to recognise that we are trying to help people achieve their purposes in life. So what counts is what adds value in their lives:
1- we need big clunking production of ‘services’, capabilities and outcomes at scale where we know the overall needs
2- and we need intensely focused, human-centred partnering to work with individuals and families and groups to create value that makes sense in their context
3- so (1) need to do both mass-production to meet large-scale needs, and to offer the capacity and capability in the right place at the right time to be ‘pulled’ (2) for truly citizen-centred services
This requires a type of thinking and a type of organisation which recognises both sets of approaches and needs and can work with both. The work isn’t fully done yet and nobody — save a few people with services to sell — is claiming it is. But I am working on it.
What do you think I need to add to explain this fully?
#publicsector #innovation #transformation #publicservices
Join the discussion on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_the-perfect-system-for-the-public-sector-activity-7190972783244292096-v8t4 What do you think I need to add to explain this fully?
I asked for exam questions recently and, Jim Nicholls threw me a doozy!
I’ve spent 25 years or more thinking about this, so rather than agonise, I’m just typing my answer straight.
There are two answers, which point the way to a third.
__
First: do really really good work analysing your citizens, their needs, your priorities for shifting public outcomes, and then design an adaptive, outside-in organisation which really works on the needs you have identified.
Each part of that is important, and deserves a breakdown I don’t have time or space for here. But in being part of kicking off the transformation of Hammersmith & Fulham council in the early 2000s, I’ve seen this work well — as far as it goes.
__
Second: work with individual citizens to deeply understand their needs and ‘pull’ in the required expertise. It’s really really the Vanguard model, which I was bowled over by in 2002, and which informs so much of the ‘community paradigm’, ‘human learning systems’, ‘the liberated method’ and so on, and which aligns with the way Cormac Russell has taken Asset-Based Community Development forward.
It’s brilliant — when you can create a bubble to deliver.
And it’s brilliant at creating passionate converts and bitter enemies
And then the organisational immune system kicks in, and takes over.
That’s because it’s a threat, and because it doesn’t offer all the answers to the pressures of meeting demand within reducing budgets, nor does it tell you how to actually build an organisation that can do this in either a targeted or a scaled way.
__
Both approaches have complementary blind spots.
The third approach is to recognise that we are trying to help people achieve their purposes in life. So what counts is what adds value in their lives:
1- we need big clunking production of ‘services’, capabilities and outcomes at scale where we know the overall needs
2- and we need intensely focused, human-centred partnering to work with individuals and families and groups to create value that makes sense in their context
3- so (1) need to do both mass-production to meet large-scale needs, and to offer the capacity and capability in the right place at the right time to be ‘pulled’ (2) for truly citizen-centred services
This requires a type of thinking and a type of organisation which recognises both sets of approaches and needs and can work with both. The work isn’t fully done yet and nobody — save a few people with services to sell — is claiming it is. But I am working on it.
What do you think I need to add to explain this fully?
#publicsector #innovation #transformation #publicservices
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