Ambition
It’s easy, when you’re leading a small organization that has to work alongside large organizations, to forget that you’re a leader. If you’re not careful, you can end up being sucked into the role of being a junior officer in someone else’s hierarchy, or worse still, or being outside the door when decisions are made.
I have a simple routine I drop into if I suspect myself of being in that place. I check whether what I’m doing, or how I’m feeling about it, is congruent with the ambitions my employers have for the organization I lead, and the population it serves. Other people may see the world as being a messy and awkward series of intersections and networks, with lots of overlaps and shared nodes, but I have a simple task; to put my council, and the people it serves, at the centre of my map of the things and places that matter.
Want an example?
Chris Grayling has announced, today, that it is up to the North to seize control of our rail network and use it to address our challenges. Berwick Town Council has a clear policy on rail, rooted in our economic ambitions for Berwick’s residents, and no matter how much I like or dislike Chris Grayling’s announcement, the acid test is, does that help us?
I first argued that bi-modal trains were a more easily delivered solution than full electrification more thanten years ago, in the context of the rail network in South East Northumberland, when others were arguing for a Metro electrification scheme to Blyth and Ashington that never got off the ground. That feeling of having been proved right is no use to me now though, in the context of Berwick, because Berwick’s problem isn’t about rolling stock or about infrastructure.
Berwick’s problem is timetabling, and making sure enough of the trains that go past Berwick stop here. We have concluded, as a council, that we need the rail network to provide Berwick with reliable, clockface services to the employment centres it wants to connect its residents to; places like Morpeth, Cramlington, Newcastle, Edinburgh and beyond. To do that we need access to the discussions about franchise specifications, and the meeting rooms where city mayors and their ilk are discussing how they take charge of rail in the north.
This policy adopted by the Town Council isn’t just about civic pride; one of the ways to address the low levels of wages and low employment levels in Berwick is to connect it to a wider jobs market. Equally one way to promote inward investment is to connect Berwick to a wider talent pool, so that employers moving here will know they can get the skilled staff they require. Transport links, and the potential to commute either way, is one of the key levers to deliver those changes.
The risk for Berwick is that once again we’ll be outside the discussions. hoping that changes designed to make it possible to get from Newcastle to Manchester or Leeds more quickly might accidentally benefit Berwick as well. My ambition is to lead my organization in such a way that Berwick’s voice will also be heard. It’s an ambition that is congruent with the council’s ambition to make Berwick a more prosperous town, with more opportunities for its working age residents.
