The pseudo-Darwinist conspiracy
Why do we still believe that competition is the only way forward?
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The people’s Olympiad
Martin Willis FRSA directed an intercultural community project as part of the West Midland 2012 Cultural Olympiad earlier this year. He argues that more time should be spent celebrating this kind of grass roots activity, which captures the spirit of the people’s Olympics.
On Tuesday 13 March, over 100 people from community groups, voluntary and religious organisations, schools and colleges gathered for the launch of the West Midlands 2012 Cultural Olympiad. They represented thousands of people in grass roots groups who are celebrating the Olympic values of respect excellence and friendship. Their projects range from a two-day festival of learning disabled dance led by Mencap; a six-metre high Godiva awakening in Coventry with actors, dancers, musicians and fireworks; an exhibition examining children’s lives from the 18th century to the present day; and over 30 community games inspired by the 1850 Wenlock Olympian Games.
A few days before, we had all been sent a special email stating that the Leader of Birmingham City Council and the Director of the London 2012 Festival would be making an exciting announcement prior to the general launch of the whole West Midlands programme. What might this be? Extra funding for local cultural and sporting groups? An award recognising the work of community champions? A film project to capture the grass roots creativity of West Midlands people?
On the contrary, the assembled throng were decidedly underwhelmed by being told of the plan to stage the world premiere of Stockhausen’s six-hour opera Mittwoch in Birmingham. The revelation that this will include an extravagant section, in which a string quartet performs in four separate helicopters, was in sharp contrast to the work of local volunteers and community groups, often done on a shoestring. Read more »
Valuing human capital
The old corporate cliché that ‘our people are our greatest asset’ is based on a fundamental truth. Michael Echols FRSA argues that the way we evaluate economic success and the impact of investment in people needs to reflect this.
In a knowledge-driven economy, organisations depend on the intelligence, talents, skills and expertise of their employees to create value.
The problem is that our macroeconomic theories, standard accounting protocols, evaluation tools and decision-making structures do not allow us to properly recognise, value and invest in these seemingly intangible, yet vital, assets.
As we search for new sources of innovation and growth in the context of a weak and fragile economic recovery, attention has turned towards investment in infrastructure as an important source of economic stimulus in the short term, and growth in the longer term. However this has tended to focus on physical infrastructure rather than the human resources upon which our economic prospects depend. Read more »
Improving process or transforming outcomes?
Public service ‘improvement’ strategies are, in reality, very often measured by organisations’ success in delivering a process, not how lives improve for individuals and their communities. Dr. Peter Dudley FRSA argues that it is third sector organisations that are leading the way in taking a different approach.
“‘It hurts when I do this.” “Then, perhaps, you should stop doing it.“ Parents will recognise some or other variant of this most frustrating of conversations and, no doubt, will have given some or other form of the same reply. Having heard it countless times before, my 16 year-old certainly gave a wry smile as she proofread this piece. So why is it that we tolerate a similar attitude in the management of our organisations and (in particular it seems) when it comes to our institutions of state?
In any civilised society there are three main areas that should be of prime concern to the established state: health, education and civil security. The managed provision of services in these areas forms not only a necessary basis for wealth creation but also, and in the most fundamental sense, any claim to legitimacy.
The difficulty with such fundamental provision – especially when it is free at the point of consumption – is that the drivers of adaptive change can become divided. What constitutes a successful hospital/school/prison can look very different to the consuming patient/pupil/prisoner than it does to those who are responsible for its funding. And so, the notion of ‘improvement’ must be open to interpretation. Read more »
What could brands mean?
A new international survey finds that people care little about brands. Umair Haque FRSA argues that this signals a need for brands to make a huge leap in becoming trusted and relevant to people.
A metamovement is pulsing across the globe. From India to Israel to Washington, DC we are seeing a movement of movements, no two simplistically alike, yet each inspired by the last and strengthened by the next. The cry ringing out across the world is one of failure; not merely the failure of mechanistic, insatiable growth, but of this growth to yield meaningfully better lives and to add up in social, political and human terms.
This much is vexingly self-evident: the triumphalist rhetoric of yesteryear was more a myth of Icarian hubris than an unfolding chronicle of real-world prosperity. We live in an age of fracturing institutions and splintering social contracts; an age of lost generations and broken dreams; an age of crisis and convulsion. And maybe, just maybe, even an age of dissent. Read more »
Serve to lead
Much of what we read about leadership seems at odds with our experiences of it in action. Frank Hore and David Low FRSAs have observed many leaders in action and think they know why.
For over 25 years we have seen ‘leadership’ as more a function of ‘the led’ than of ‘the leader’; managers and staff had a prescription in their heads of what their leader should look like and how he or she should behave (although all those we have looked are male). There are probably various reasons for this, including the impact of stressful times and job insecurity and a history of exposure to extreme command and control methods.
Leaders were perceived to fit the prescriptions that had been drawn up for them and given considerable latitude in their actions and pronouncements; as long as they refrained from doing anything completely opposed to the expectations which their people held for them, they were seen to be just what we want. They were identified as precisely meeting our needs today, even when objectively – in the eyes of external observers, for example – their thoughts, speech and actions were not even vaguely near the mark.
So what does this prescription sound like? It might go something like this: ‘someone who’ll fight our corner’; or ‘someone who’ll keep the bad guys (in head office, say) away’; or maybe ‘someone who’ll face up to the problems we have’ (which was not always the same as ‘someone who’ll do something about them’)! Read more »
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