Brave New Local Government
Cancelling meetings in Stoptober
“And that’s another hour of my life wasted…”
How many times have you said that after a meeting?
It’s no surprise that £45.5 BN is wasted every year in the UK due to bad meetings.
This local government is no exception; there seems to be a large number of meetings and people frequently on their phones and laptops during them. Frustration is running high. To increase the impetus for change, building works has put meeting space at a premium; a great time to act! Their challenge: can they encourage staff to cancel pointless meetings and rethink the ones they keep?
Taking a step back, we’re at the beginning of, what I hope to be, a rewarding journey for some friends in local government. It’s early days and they don’t want to talk publicly yet so for the purpose of sharing their story, let’s call them Tealville Council.
Love or hate Local Government; it’s where policies meet people. It has enormous power to change lives. Yet, the last decade has seen big reductions in income weaken vital services for a growing and ageing population.
To help deal with the pressure, Tealville Council has been working on change programs for a few years. They’ve had success in using Agile techniques and often look ‘out there’ for improvement opportunities. What they hadn’t done was rethink the bureaucracy that was right in front of them.
Reading Aaron Dignan’s ‘Brave New Work’ book was a pivotal moment for the Council, with one director buying copies for their direct reports. It’s this inspirational book that has made change look possible for them, providing practical tips on where to start.
These inspired staff invited colleagues to a lunchtime event, to review the Brave New Work Operating System (OS) canvas (which helps teams consider, often for the very first time, why they work the way they do). Almost every area of the canvas got peppered with post-it’s describing what’s not working.
The team added them to a Trello board and invited staff to add cards that map back to the canvas. Many agreed that how they meet and share information would be a good place to start, as they hoped it would demonstrate improvement is possible relatively quickly.
Most of us complain about how much time we spend in meetings, yet we all keep turning up! In the UK, we sometimes call October, ‘Stoptober’, a good time to publicly commit to stop smoking or drinking. With recent references to bureaucracy as a cancer, stopping meetings feels especially apt.
So they threw the Stoptober meeting challenge out to Council staff and fired the first shot in their organisational-wide bureaucracy battle.
“Don’t attend any meeting where you can’t explain to a local resident the value you’re adding”
The proposal
So how are they going to try and make this happen at Tealville?
- They’ll work with colleagues to co-design what a good meeting looks like. New meetings will be designed with a clear purpose and attendees will understand what’s expected of them.
- They’ll challenge the culture of closed calendars. Linking this to both ‘openness’ and reducing the stress of trying to book people when it’s unclear what building they’re in.
- They’ll act as champions, co-opting more colleagues to this cause. They’ll challenge those who continue to hold unproductive or non-inclusive meetings.
- Their director will be a visible supporter, challenging other senior leaders to rethink both the meetings they attend and the meetings they run.
- They’ll also champion the organisations values. They believe staff are capable and motivated enough to find the information they need to do their jobs (as long as their purpose is clear, and the information is accessible).
- To help with access to information, they’ll build (with their digital colleagues) an organisation wide understanding of the document storage platform. They’ll also align this with the rollout of Microsoft ‘Teams’.
Support
This isn’t going to happen on its own or in their spare time (I’m pretty sure they have none of that). And they don’t need the ‘go-ahead’ on another change programme. What they do need is support and time to inspire a truly grassroots, inclusive movement who feel empowered to create their own, better workplace.
Encouragingly,
- Their manager has allowed for time in their busy weeks to further this cause
- Their director has challenged them to find more colleagues willing to try small experiments
- The director has also agreed to seriously consider what meetings are giving good value, and
- In the spirit of transparency, opened their calendar for all colleagues to see and used the internal message board to communicate this
What they’ve learnt so far
Lesson 1: Be patient with others, you need them!
With the Director and boss on board, my friends were incredibly excited; the organisation felt wide open for change, and they were ready to change it!
In the 3 weeks since launch, they’ve made progress but not unleashed the storm of creative change they dreamed about. Making time to encourage and support others has slowed them down. But here is the lesson: sacrifice speed to bring others with you.
Lesson 2: Listen, learn and adapt
The process is making them aware of some great practices they never knew existed. Without talking to colleagues, they would be missing the opportunity to build on existing experience. The lesson: remain revolutionary in intent but evolutionary in behaviour.
Lesson 3: Look after yourself
They are incredibly lucky to be given time for this but the reality is hard. The day jobs don’t go away because the boss said they could try something new, and they’d hate to let their colleagues down. This has increased their stress levels. Mostly in a positive way as they’re excited by what’s possible at the Council and in wider society.
To make sure no one’s getting overwhelmed they check-in and communicate regularly via WhatsApp.
Can they really cancel meetings and decline invitations?
It’s early days. There have been some cancellations but only time will tell if there is long term, positive change. By benchmarking and checking in regularly with staff they’ll start to understand if the results are beneficial.
What’s next?
- They’ve uncovered some excellent things already happening around recruitment. They’re turning these stories into case studies so other managers can see that recruiting a more diverse team doesn’t have to be difficult.
- They’re going to demonstrate some of the decision making techniques often used in Design Sprints at the next directors’ management meeting.
- They’re holding a mini Christmas event to celebrate what’s worked, discuss what hasn’t, and ask colleagues to write pledges on postcards for what they will do differently in 2020.
This is the start of my friends’ journey and their public commitment to keep trying. With their help, Tealville Council is taking its tentative first steps towards becoming a more progressive organisation; supporting and trusting staff to do their best for the residents and businesses they care so deeply about.
“I always get to where I’m going by walking away from where I have been” (Winnie the Pooh)
