Words Create Worlds

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Sophie: Hello, and welcome to The Mayvin Podcast.

Carolyn Norgate, and I talk about what happens to language around reform as it works its way down through a system. Change arrives at the top of a system often as transforming, liberating, rewiring. By the time it reaches the people expected to implement it, sometimes it's often about doing more and doing it faster. So something happens on the way down.

This comes partly out of an alumni session we ran recently called Useful Weirdness. Our alumni, for reference , are people who've been through a Mayvin program, a lot of them civil servants, so that was the room we were in.

The Useful Weirdness Session

Sophie: So we're talking about our alumni event we had in June which we called Useful Weirdness: Practicing Change When the Default is More [00:01:00] and Faster.

When Reform Becomes More and Faster

Sophie: We talk to people a lot about using their difference as a way of supporting change, offering difference in service of change, transformation in their organizations.

And what I think we've been noticing as the many iterations of reforming government in the last decade or more. When they hit the middle of the civil service who are expected to implement it, and then the front line, often the, ideas of reform are translated into do more, do it faster.

And there's a sort of betrayal in that because they don't feel that they've been listened to and in some ways they've got less power that things are becoming more and more centralized.

And, even people like Institute for Government have been talking about, there is a real lack of trust between civil servants and Ministers . It's funny, you get a lot of brilliant think tanks who often talk about mindset changes required, and culture, and trust.

But that's not their work. Their work is in the concept. So often we're on a bit of the [00:02:00] sharp end of what does that actually mean and look like in practice. So this session was a bit more about gathering people around that idea, and what was the level of useful weirdness they could offer when things feel a bit stuck.

Noticing the Language of Change

Carolyn: Stuck and, what's the word? Sort of, almost a sort of homogenized, you know. Mm. Whatever the starting point was, whatever the flavor of government, whatever the particular idea around change. In that lack of agency you talk about, there's a sort of sense of, how is it different to last time?

What we were talking about with the people in the room was particularly noticing the kind of language and metaphors that get used around change. And how they can create a sense of difference and hope in that sense often for people. But it also can get quite, they can also get stuck.

The language can get stuck. In quite sort of old paradigms of the way we think and talk about organizations. 

Sophie: And the incongruency we talked a lot about with the participants, didn't [00:03:00] we? So the message often from the top and from politics being about liberating, transforming, reimagining.

Rewiring is the one that is used a lot at the current time. Which promises something, it hints at something more emergent, more open-ended, more full of possibility. And then in reality it's let's do more performance management. We just need to cut costs. We just need to fix things.

You can feel the level of trust erodes though when those two things are incongruent repeatedly. And it happened a bit where we did a lot of work on mission-, didn't we? And I get quite excited about those ideas having been in the thick of that kind of policy world of ideas, and its value is in you can start a new conversation.

Carolyn: Mm-hmm. 

Sophie: You can maybe have permission to kind of have a very different conversation in government and with partners across society. But the moment it becomes just follow this vision [00:04:00] and you'll get there, rather than actually staying in the present and what their reality is. Because people found, mission-led sometimes very, very different from their day-to-day.

Carolyn: Yeah, I think we can take mission-led as an example, but I've seen it with multiple change programs, where the intention and the need for the change is really well understood.

And people get that. But the language around it almost becomes jargonized, and,

doesn't open things up for people. It closes them down.

Yeah, so it's interesting. 

War Metaphors and Machine Thinking

Carolyn: If you think about words create worlds, the way we talk kind of, creates the way we think often.

So, that link between what we're saying and what we're thinking. So helping people notice the kind of metaphors they're using, they don't even realize a metaphor. So I was with a group recently, and they were talking about digging in things feeling like a battle. Yeah, so some of it was very obviously war related, but digging in, I don't think [00:05:00] they saw that as being a kind of war metaphor even though, it may have other connotations, but for me it really, you know, it has a kind of war-like con- connotation.

You know, we're digging in to hold the, hold the line. Also there's just so much language that comes from being in battle, being at war, being a machine. Mm ... rewiring the state has some really interesting possibilities around it, but it's also really mechanistic, isn't it?

You know, we're literally, we, as if we could- ... reorganize the, you know, a wire diagram, - 

Sophie: Yeah ... 

Carolyn: and create some different results. It's not particularly systemic, and yet at the same time, here's another thing that's potentially got jargoned, 

Systemic Leadership in Practice

Carolyn: systems leadership, taking a systemic view.

In the way we help people in organizations seek to become more systemic in their view, that to me, that tends to open up possibilities, open up dialogue. we have, had lots of people in the last couple of [00:06:00] years doing very similar things that we were doing under the mission led banner. Because, what I think was interesting about mission led was the potential for a more systemic way of thinking and working.

But we've had lots of people Bringing back stories of opening up dialogue, bringing together different conversations, letting go of control a bit, working and leading in more emergent ways. Which all feels much more relational, much more systemic, and is having impact.

But is harder to evidence in a classic programmatic way.

Sophie: And often they don't think of it as systemic leadership 'cause it's not I did this clever methodology when I get to put a clever name on it. Mm-hmm. Actually, it's really great systemic leadership is often very human because- 

we've always worked in complex systems. It's iterative, it's adaptive. You're constantly making missteps and trying a different way.

Carolyn: Yeah. [00:07:00] Intuitively people get it, and at the same time, they need to almost give themselves permission or to feel a broader sense of permission that that's actually okay to be like that in an organization.

Sophie: Yeah. 

The Tree Metaphor

Sophie: The other metaphor I had heard recently from a very senior leader is talking about his organization as a tree, which is good, a good start. I love a good organic living- system metaphor. And then he said, "Well, if we could just put some more fertilizer in it, and maybe just pull the branches."

And I sort of had to restrain myself 'cause I didn't have time to get into it, but that's obviously not how a tree grows. And a tree, the way a tree grows or the way a forest grows is often not how we think it should grow. a tree grows crooked, but often for very good reasons.

Carolyn: Mm-hmm ... 

Sophie: so there's a sort- of letting go that's required and letting, you know, trusting the kind of wisdom of your people, the wisdom of the organization.

Carolyn: I mean, I'm n- I'm not a great gardener, as you know, but, I kinda hear that frustration, I fed it and, you know, I [00:08:00] checked the kind of type of soil it was, and it's like, and what's the ecosystem around it? you know, what are, what's the other plants? What's, what else is, what else is going on around that tree? Rather than just focusing on the tree- Yeah

and is this tree performing? 

Sophie: Yeah. 

Carolyn: It's the more and faster coming back in, isn't it? I'm gonna make this tree grow, how can I nurture this whole system? 

Sophie: Yes. Yeah, gardening is often a systems metaphor, isn't it? I quite like that. 

Relational Public Services in Practice

Sophie: The one that's coming in at the moment, is, relational public services with Andy Burnham-

Carolyn: interesting shift in language, yeah. 

Sophie: Yeah. And it's been in local government for a while, obviously in Manchester. You could also say Camden with mission led, was often a much more relational approach.

There's lots of really great examples of where it's, been working. And now the Cabinet Office is actually advertising on that basis. It wants, a relational approach. It wants people who can do a relational approach to public services. And yet what's not often talked about is that how are you gonna get [00:09:00] relational public services out there when you're still operating in a very transactional approach internally to your own civil servants?

You know, that mindset shift and that culture, it's that kind of looking inward. Is hard to do, I think. It's very confronting

Confidence, Fear, and Learning

Carolyn: Yes, and there's quite a lot of confidence and nerve holding around 

The not knowing that comes with that. So how do you have a balance between, Some of the architecture and tools that you might have in that sort of from program management, for example, and at the same time balance that against working with the complexity.

How do you have the confidence as leaders to balance that with this more relational, systemic holding of yourself and the way you're being and creating... We often talk about, you know, how do you create the conditions for people to do the work they've come to do?

Sophie: It's often taking a leap, isn't it? What you're asking people to do [00:10:00] with any reform, which is about, really transformation, transformational change certainly relational public services. What that would involve is a radical departure for the UK state. Mm-hmm. It's never done that before. Leaders have to take a risk to do that, and it's really hard for leaders.

They are under such a huge amount of pressure. Mm-hmm. So I think there's a big industry in kind of saying, "Well, no, that's not quite right. You've got the language wrong there." Mm. "You've taken the wrong approach there." And there's something about just giving ourselves, each other the benefit of the doubt and some compassion because there's not a right way.

Yeah. we have what we have right now, so just how do we make kinda the first step forward together? 

Carolyn: Yes. And I think one of the notions that we often try and help people with their confidence is no one has done exactly this in this context before with this group of people.

People might have done something a bit like it, and there might be some learning, but you need to learn as you go. Mm ... I mean, we often quote, a previous [00:11:00] permanent secretary in one of the government departments we were working with at the point where all the different possible Brexit routes were being explored, so before everything was signed off.

So there was multiple different, no-deal Brexit, off-the-cliff Brexit, governments, departments having to work up many different options. And, her message to her leadership group was, "The one thing we can keep doing is learning." We've gotta do all of this work, but the one thing we can consistently do through this is learn and learn together, because we've not done this before. 

Curiosity vs Judgment

Sophie: I heard a quote recently from a wonderful yoga teacher called, Scaravelli. She said, learning requires infinite time and no ambition." That's great. And I think there is a nugget in there, which is this kind of drive for, like, what are we gonna show?

What are you gonna do? Antonia Romeo she said herself, "Curiosity," and the moment you start bringing in judgment or blame, it kills it. You know? It's such a precious thing to nurture in this government right [00:12:00] now, and it so often is, trampled on in service of accountability.

But I wonder actually if that's a real cover for just fear. There's a lot of fear.

Carolyn: I'm still tickled by that quote given the people we work with who have- ... limited time. And I'm gonna say huge ambition, and I don't mean that personally. I mean it for, the sectors they work in.

Particularly, my background is public sector, and a lot of our clients are in the public sector. And I really feel the ambition for making things better- and for really wanting to change things. So yeah, But I'm going back to Peter Block here, and when he 

talks about, learning involves taking a risk because it's often involves letting go of something in order to- fit into something else. And that is fear-inducing. 

Sophie: Yes. Yeah, often learning is unlearning something first.

Carolyn: Mm. Mm.

Sophie: And certainly, yeah, the whole more and faster is sometimes just like, "And another thing. Do all that, and do a bit of systems leadership." 

Carolyn: Mm. Yeah. 

Kerplunk: What Do We Need to Let Go?

Sophie: So [00:13:00] systems leadership becomes everything-ism. So you know, any mission-led or relational public services I think these have mighty, brilliant, beautiful ideas at the core of them.

If they're just another add-on rather than actually a lens through which you see your day-to-day they will not work. 

Carolyn: Yeah. It's making me think of Kerplunk. Let's not Kerplunk this, you know, when you add loads and loads of things- ... and just, let's kinda think- what do we need to let go of?

What do we need to unlearn? 

Sophie: Mm. 

Carolyn: What do we need to do together? Because we think systemically, then you can't do it in isolation. 

Sophie: Yeah. 

Carolyn: We should probably wrap it up there. 

Sophie: I think we can end on Kerplunk.

Outro

Sophie: I've been reflecting on this conversation, and one thing we didn't say: relationships are not the nice to have around the work. They're how the work gets done, where people learn, where they feel safe enough to ask the difficult question, where they have each other's backs.

Systemic [00:14:00] problems do not yield to the right fix or to one clever mind, they yield to small steps taken together moment to moment, day by day, week by week, month by month and that's the kind of work we've been supporting in the civil service and the wider public sector for 15 years.

So if you're interested in hearing more about that, please come to our event online on the 20th of October. It's not so much an introduction to relational public services as an inquiry and exploration of what happens when we try to reform around relational public services, and how we can do the work without the doing of it becoming just another thing to roll out or another game of Kerplunk.