In the last few months we have been supporting our clients across Government to figure out what this new era of leadership means for how they need to work differently. This period of transition and uncertainty will continue at least up to the upcoming multi-year Spending Review in the Spring. The energy for change across Government is palpable. Yet it is also fragile.
How can we seize this moment?
We believe the ‘mission-led approach’ is a timely provocation to a Civil Service still living with a post-Brexit, post-Covid hangover of command-and-control style management and preoccupation with short-term task delivery.
The mission-led approach can be summarised as a shift from managerial to visionary Government, from administering policy to catalysing collaboration around bold yet concrete visions for society. It carries a whiff of the evidence-based policy and ‘deliverology’ trends from the Noughties. And it may also herald a far more ambitious shift towards the kind of radically participatory and inclusive democracy that is necessary to meet the increasing pace and complexity of change in our world today.
There is widespread acknowledgement that the mission-led approach is fundamentally about culture, yet this can feel nebulous and overwhelming. So it is tempting to grasp for answers in the immediately visible and tangible. Most notably we see a focus on getting the articulation of mission correct, structures like Mission Boards, policies such as strategic procurement in place, and funding structures reformed. It’s not that these are not important things, but we at Mayvin suggest that in this grasping there is a collusion with the existing paradigm that does not serve us.
Instead of writing more complicated policy papers and long strategy documents, the government will set the teams a challenge and empower them to experiment, innovate and try new things.
Pat McFadden
This mindset carries the lingering and seductive hope that as long as those at the top set the right preconditions in place then we can get on with it. It conforms to a paradigm of organisation as machine, and change as a process of refining the parts that make the whole. Yet the mission-led approach carries an implicit recognition that organisations are living ecosystems and change is about connecting the system to more of itself – it’s in the relationships between us, not the ‘things’. Without this loosening up and relational focus, missions will become simply dictats from the centre.
In our experience, the right structural reforms will emerge and be brought to life by people having great, lively conversations around the right questions. Culture eats strategy for breakfast is a well-known saying from Peter Drucker in the early 1990s but it bears repeating. We at Mayvin believe that culture is best known as a verb, not a noun.
A big part of this is about mindset, how do we help people to hold uncertainty and still make progress?
Civil Service Client
How can we start living this new paradigm in our day-to-day, right now?
In our new mission-led offerings for government, we are helping civil servants to see into the messiness of the system and harness the collective energy and wisdom to be found there. We want to give leaders the tools to make the less visible and less valued the first thing to work with, namely:
- the culture
- how we are showing up as leaders
- the relationships we cultivate
- the way we harness information flows
One of the things clients love about Mayvin is that we deeply acknowledge the gritty reality and struggle of change in what Pat Mcfadden this week identified as the “mind-bogglingly bureaucratic” Civil Service. And simultaneously we nurture the visions for the future that spark real movement towards change. Paradoxically, embracing the complexity and anxieties of this moment allows us to let go of old ways of working that no longer serve anymore. And then we can become more intentional and empowered about the things that really matter.
In practice this means we are helping leaders to:
- focus on purpose and let go of unnecessary process
- build more creative networks of relationships that drive change and rely less on consensus decision-making
- develop spaces to make sense of complexity in a way that creates learning and bold action rather than waiting on hierarchical chains of command.
Change will be, as it often is, improvised. Most importantly, communities of leaders and change-makers need to let go of old mindsets and give themselves the permission to courageously embody and create the future in the now.
This is a really big and fast-moving agenda. So how do we make sure people understand how they play a part in all of that?
How do we help them to understand the uncertainty, the opportunity, and how to recognise their contribution in a different context?
Director General Client
Client Stories
To learn more about on how we work with clients on leading in uncertainty. Watch or listen to our podcast case study with the British Heart Foundation talking about their award nominated 'Leading Our Future' leadership development programme, a big part of which was "to create a leadership community that was comfortable with ambiguity".