#CouncilCulture: Changing the narrative at local councils
How can we change the day-to-day culture at local councils to make relationships with residents and communities more open, collaborative and “Citizen”, and less transactional, paternalistic and “Consumer”? That’s the question we’ve been exploring in our latest Collaborative Innovation project, alongside teams from Waltham Forest, South Gloucestershire and Westmorland & Furness councils (see here for our introductory blog post).
Our first tentative finding? Don’t underestimate the importance of narrative. We’ve been experimenting with how council teams can tell stories that set out the specific shifts they want to make. That’s because we see these stories as the foundation stones or “North Stars” for the desired culture change.
“Stories matter. They can trap us, but they can also inspire us. The stories we tell shape how we see ourselves, and how we see the world. When we see the world differently, we begin behaving differently, living into the new story.” - Brian Eno
Telling simple stories
Crucially, we asked the participating councils to try creating stories through a simple joint writing exercise that focused on making personal connections and using colloquial language. The early results are promising. Participants tended to find the exercise cathartic and useful in crystallising their intentions. Where the narratives have been shared internally, they have been met with a positive response from council colleagues, many of whom offered their own ideas and suggestions.
We believe that this approach could be quickly and easily replicated across different councils and teams as an alternative to a more sweeping, top-down culture change or communications approach. Below, we explain how the narratives were developed and why we think they are a promising ingredient for Citizen-friendly culture change.
Narratives, Rituals, Totems
For this Collaborative Innovation process, we’re trialling a culture change model we call “Narratives, Rituals, Totems”. This involves:
- Articulating a new story about a Citizen future (Narrative)
- Bringing it to life through intentional everyday practices (Rituals)
- Embodying it through attention-grabbing symbolic shifts (Totems)
You can read more about this model here, but our basic hunch is that you have to do all three, more or less at the same time, for culture change to really stick.
Let’s focus on the “narrative” element. This element recognises that there are always “stories” of various kinds swirling around any organisation. These “stories” include histories, memories (good and bad), assumptions and prejudices, and so on. Some are official and explicit, others unofficial and unspoken. But all of these types of stories carry some power to either catalyse or hinder cultural change.
Specifically for local councils, we suspect that many of these stories may nudge council employees towards paternalistic, top-down behaviours or transactional, “service delivery” approaches to local government, even where there is a will to work in more Citizen-friendly ways.
To overcome this, we asked participants to intentionally articulate a new story that can break through the fog of existing, unhelpful stories and point towards a better future. The narratives didn’t have to be perfect: in fact, our hunch was that a less polished but more personal and authentic narrative would be an even more useful lever to help teams set a new direction.
“Dear Citizens”
We created the narratives at our first workshop in Birmingham, using a three-step process.
First, the teams spent some time reflecting on all of the historic ups and downs of the council’s relationship with citizens related to a specific area of work (e.g. community consultation, or place-making).
Second, the teams wrote down 3–4 simple shifts that they wanted to make, based on what they’d discussed. Crucially, these were framed as “From/To” shifts, rather than just visions or ambitions. Participants had to name the past or present shortcomings that they wanted to move away from, as well as the outcomes they wanted to move towards. Examples drawn from each council are given below:
The third and final task was to write a “Dear Citizens” letter. This comprised eight to ten sentences that express the key “From/To” shifts in plain, vernacular language. The aim was to recast the “From/To” shifts (which still might feel a bit like strategic slogans) as a more personal, frank and honest expression of what each team wanted to change — while still recognising the past and present.
We encouraged participants to write using words that they might actually use in conversation with colleagues or residents. That said, the Dear Citizens letter was not intended to be shared with residents, giving participants the freedom to express themselves in a less guarded way.
What people wrote in their letters
As we’d hoped, using this format and approach meant that the letter-writers:
Honestly and frankly addressed past ups and downs
“We know that we are not hearing from all of you and we don’t talk to you in the way you want us to.”
“We’ve seen the fantastic way the community has come together during good times (like the Borough of Culture) and more difficult times (like COVID).”
Elaborated on the shifts they wanted to make
“We know engaging isn’t enough, we need to be braver at giving people more power and influence.”
“[We] want to work with you to co-produce and design services”
“We want to change this and get it right, so we will change what we are doing, to come to you and provide different ways (that you want) to speak to us.”
Found common cause with citizens and described a more equitable relationship
“We will be designing solutions with you from the start for the problems that matter to you — because they matter to us.”
“You know more than anyone what you need in your local area, and we can’t wait to learn from you!”
“None of us is as clever as all of us”
How it helped
In the weeks after the workshop, we reflected together on how the exercise had gone. On the whole, participants found the tool useful and promising. Some participants had shared their narrative with colleagues and received positive feedback. We’ve encouraged all participants to continue to share, revise and add more voices to the narrative.
Above all, the exercise was useful in crystallising in practical terms what the shift from “Consumer” to “Citizen” should look like in each council and team’s specific circumstances.
“Doing the From/To’s and the letter was really helpful. Before, describing what we were trying to do with [our community engagement work] felt a bit nebulous — the workshop felt like the first time I could properly articulate it.”
Some also said it was helpful to write in a quickfire, straightforward manner with low pressure and low expectations.
“It was useful to write in layman’s terms, as if you’re speaking to a resident. It’s more natural, flows better. It enabled more honesty, and helped me put myself in the shoes of a resident more easily… and it wasn’t being written to share with my Chief Exec.”
To our surprise, some teams even said that the process of writing the letter was itself therapeutic.
We were also left with a few questions that we will continue to explore:
- Should the goal be to develop and “extend” each team’s narrative into one that can apply to the whole council, or should each team within a council create their own narrative?
- Should the narratives ever become public-facing? If so, how and where? How would you keep them authentic?
- Are there parts of our councils that might be resistant or sceptical about the value of “narratives”?
Next steps — and how you can get involved
The #CouncilCulture collaborative innovation project will continue until the summer, as we focus on the “rituals” and “totems” elements of our culture change model. We’ll keep sharing updates from the project, but there are also ways for you to get involved as it unfolds.
If you work at a local council, you can try the narrative activity on your own, or ideally with your team — get in touch at andy.galloway@newcitizenship.org.uk for full instructions. We’d love to hear how it goes for you.
If you’d like to receive further updates on #CouncilCulture collaborative innovation project, including invitations to future webinars, workshops and launch events, you can register for email updates.
