One Team Gov’s three big goals for 2020 goals (and a few smaller ones)
We want to maintain some things we’ve already done, and to aim for some goals which need coordinated, sustained effort over time.
Why we’re writing this
One Team Gov is a public sector reform movement whose aim is to take practical action to improve public services and reform the way we work. This blog post is from the team who coordinate the overall movement, but is for the benefit of anyone from any country who feels part of One Team Gov.
In 2019, we continued to take the One Team Gov story forwards. This year has seen us go global in every way, with the movement continuing to grow. We run events and meetups and help to create new communities wherever people want them, with a tireless commitment to taking practical actions towards meaningful reform.
We’re really proud of what we’ve achieved so far…
Our three big goals
We sought the opinions of our UK colleagues for their views, and managed to speak with 19 people up and down the country. We asked them:
- What did we achieve?
- What held us back?
- What should we commit to next year?
From this, we held a retrospective and goal setting meeting in London to discuss those points and agree some next steps.
One Team Gov is made up of motivated and proactive volunteers who all have day jobs, it’s impossible to work on everything, so we’ve prioritised these three areas.
1.Climate
The sustainable future health of our planet is the biggest challenge currently facing governments around the world. Public servants are increasingly considering the climate and green issues as part of their day jobs, or actively working over and above their day jobs to help find solutions to this pressing issue.
One Team Gov collectively feel that, guided by our seven principles, we have something to contribute by supporting those who are seeking to resolve this crisis.
To do this we will:
- organise our third global event, focusing on climate, the environment, and sustainability
- support local teams to self-organise events and have discussions around the theme
- support and promote the brilliant work already being done by others in this space
We’ve already kicked off this work and will soon be holding an introductory webinar to enable teams to find out how to organise their own events and get involved.
You can join this webinar happening at 4.10 to 5pm GMT on 28 November via Zoom call using the below link:
2. Leadership
Leading public services has always been tough — we have to tackle complex societal issues that no single organisation can face alone. Today’s landscape is even harder, with volatility and uncertainty the hallmarks of the last 5 years. This is a huge challenge to public service leaders, but also gives us an opportunity to find ways to work more effectively together.
Many leadership training and events lack practicality or has a grade barrier to entry.
One Team Gov want to find space to talk about different leadership models — radical new ways to lead, underpinned by empathy, vulnerability, and collaboration — across a diverse group of people at all points of their career.
To do this we will:
- work with pioneers in new leadership and systems thinking
- speak and write in the open about our experiences and thoughts on leading better
- create safe spaces for people to have conversations that open up possibilities
- develop collective leadership across the public sector, and develop a model or “compass” for collective leadership
- celebrate innovation, creativity and inclusivity in leadership by delivering our online Exploring Future Leadership workshop to fellow One Team Gov-ers across the world
Find out more about this goal by reading the blog post below.
3. Diversity, Inclusion and Wellbeing
The more diverse and inclusive we are as a sector, the better we represent the people we serve, and the more likely we are to come to more sustainable and inclusive solutions.
We want to contribute to making the public sector across the world more diverse and inclusive, attracting and retaining people from a range of backgrounds. The impact of inclusivity is a shift in our mindset, behaviours, and priorities. We want to legitimise a focus on wellbeing across the public sector and support our colleagues to succeed.
We want to build on what’s gone before but believe there is still more to be done.
To do this we will:
- build on or share practical advice for people to make teams more diverse and inclusive
- amplify the need for professional, socioeconomic and cognitive diversity
- connect people who are doing similar things so they can work together
- commit to creating safe spaces to come together and continue this conversation
- support people to tell their stories
Building on from Wellbeing Camp earlier this year, we’ve just kicked off this Twitter thread, which we’d love your comments on.
Some small things
These are the big goals — the ones that need to be expressed and tracked to make progress on them. But there’s a lot going on in One Team Gov all the time, and these activities also form part of our year commitment.
We will:
- maintain our website and online communication
- continue our podcast series
- run regular meet ups, and support the creation of more
- continue to work in the open, holding ourselves to account for our principles
- write new things
How can you get involved?
If you want to help us to achieve these goals, here are some ideas:
- Add yourself to a Trello card that you’re interested in, or add a new idea
- Write something new that aligns with our principles
- Send us a case study that demonstrates good leadership, diversity and inclusion, or climate policy.
- Tell us if you disagree with us on something! We want to hear diverse views and to have open and honest discussions, we are here to learn from our community.
- Come along to one of our events, and bring someone who’s never attended one of our events before.
Thanks for reading this and for helping us to carry on doing this work, we couldn’t do this without our global community and support. Thank you.
~The One Team Gov Team
