Weeknotes S1 Ep 2 People, Culture and Interactions

Weeknotes S1 Ep 2 People, Culture and Interactions

If you are changemaker in local government you so often have to steel yourself for the weekly battle.

And contrary to common understanding it’s not just about the systems, practices, process and bureaucracy that permeates the legacies of our local government organisations. The fundamental underlying challenge is one of culture.

Behavioural culture within councils is usually deeply ingrained within the DNA of the organisation, and often behaviours are the legacy of years of working in traditional profession oriented Silos, this being compounded by recent years of austerity where these unwieldy structures are ‘lifted and shifted’ around the organisation in attempts to make efficiency based financial savings. We are now realising the one of the biggest negative of this narrative, which has to be the effect on people, relationships and how we interact with colleagues and partners.

You will be familiar with the sort of things I’m talking about; the ‘We’ve always done things this way in this department’ or the ‘You focus on your area I’ll deal with mine.’ or ‘Finance is the problem, no HR, no, Corporate Services, no ICT’…..The problem with this is ways of thinking as we develop our understanding of having to manage the complex issues of todays public service provision is that local government is a system, and for meaningful and transformational change to occur, focus should be equally important if not more so on relationships and interactions from a human perspective, alongside the process and governance structures that cross cut the sector. It is these interactions and ways of communicating that will start to quiet the heads down cultures and let us lift up our view above the canopy to see the whole forest.

This reflection is based on the week starting feeling like there was a battle to be appraoched, but ended up with me confirming to myself how much I am driven by the interactions that do happen and that its not all broken but the good stuff often needs scaling and amplification which almost always comes down to leadership and empowerment.

So on that (slightly serious) note, and away from the vibrancy of the progressive design thinking I talked about last week in my blog on the FutureGov unconference, week 2 is a little more business as usual.

My week started with a meeting in London run by the District Councils Network on shared services. This is a theme I will be running with in quite a few of my blogs as its pretty much a large part of my working world.

It was so interesting to speak with colleagues who were going through many of the same challenges as we are in Cambridge and also to see that there are tangible successes, certainly those demonstrated by Stephen Baker at East Suffolk Council which is a recent merge of Waveney and Suffolk Coastal DC. Although they have been on a long (11 year) journey they are really gaining some of the promised lands fruits that sharing resources may offer. A key message from Stephen was that people and culture were absolutely crucial in the progress of their journey and this includes staff, citizens and also (so importantly) elected council members.

There were similar stories from other colleagues, whether demonstrating long term working relationships such as Maxine O Mahoney at Breckland and South Holland, or examples of having to separate shared services as in the case of Cherwell and South Northamptonshire. However the key message throughout was around culture, people and our interactions and how critical leadership is in embedding any approaches around these interactions.

This people interaction was really a theme that I took forward into my week having had some challenging interactions in recent weeks. Often managing the collaborative and diplomatic against the decisive and sometimes blunt, can often be conflictual, especially with close colleagues or other leaders. However you sometimes just have to adjust your approaches to interactions and even if this is outside of your comfort zone or usual operating style it is so important to listen, try and reflect (then try again). This proved really beneficial this week in coming out of it feeling galvanised and like I had strengthened relationships which is so powerful.

Its increasingly important that as leaders in local authorities we continue to network and stay in touch with colleagues and peers. The amount of change and innovation happening in the sector is gathering pace and there are valuable lessons to be learned, knowledge to be shared and importantly standardisation to be achieved across the sector which means ‘not reinventing the wheel,’ and utilising our collective learning. I met with our East of England SOLACE Chair Nicola Beach to discuss how we can use this leadership forum as a platform for sharing and generating ideas and embed positive stories and narratives across profile raising events for the sector. I am thinking of some ideas for an autumn regional seminar (I really want to make it an unconference!!!).

In mentioning SOLACE (The Society of Local Authority Chief Executives) it brings me on to where I am today; sitting on the train from Liverpool Street back to Cambridge after a SOLACE board meeting which I sit on as an NED.

I was first made aware of SOLACE in my previous council; Essex County Council and once I became a member began feeling this could really be a fantastic platform for leading the transition to the brave new world of 21st century local government. SOLACE has always provided fantastic development and networking to seniors execs in councils but with a new innovative MD Graeme McDonald was really pushing in a direction which would embed this into all tiers and not just senior execs.

I wont talk too much about the great work that SOLACE does but they’re linked in the text so you can check them out. I will say that having be nominated on to the board last spring its been an incredibly energising and powerful place to share thoughts and ideas for the future, and chaired by someone who is a real leadership role model for me and a super passionate local government champion in Gavin Jones CEO at Essex County Council.

A key element from todays meeting which was held at the fantastic Places For People offices in Cheapside, was the emerging CPD framework being brought forward by Trudy Birtwell and her team as a clear direction for what sort of leaders we want in the future of our sector. This is so important and will set a professional standard for Local Government Leadership as a profession in its own right which is absolutely the right approach. I will be encouraging peers and colleagues at all levels in their careers to look to this for benchmarking behaviours, attitudes and the ever evolving skill sets which require development in order for us to lead successful organisations into the future.

A new emerging website which is looking fantastic but also user centric and well designed (my design colleagues will be pleased to hear) is also nearing launch and Victoria Barton Rosenthal gave a great in depth updates on the capability this will give us (Dominic Campbell you seem to have made the cut on opening image…)

So in all the week started tentatively and ended really positively, which is the amazing way local government is and why we all are so passionate about it. There were a number of suitably mundane elements too — its not all fun you know! Budget profiling and some not particularly memorable meetings made up the rest which don’t (yet) have a place in weeknotes…

Shares, comments and suggestions all welcome…

POD of the week

Definitely all over New Statesman pod this week with the race to be new PM down to two… Still enjoying back episodes of This American Life (Just love Ira glass’s voice

Music

Found some new music this week — courtesy of that man Peter Green… @sault are great, really enjoying the eclectic mix of genres they straddle…and a bit of a change from my usual 90s playlists.

Things to pick up soon;

Definitely Planning (where do we start?)

Partnerships/Joint working and Co Creation