Communicating revolutionary ideas inside a bureaucracy
UK Local Government
This blog series shares the experiences of a UK local government who are experimenting with more human-centred ways of working. It’s early days. They don’t want to talk publicly yet so, for the purpose of sharing their story, we call them Tealville Council.
Like many UK Local Authorities, they’ve struggled with 10 years of reducing income and increasing pressure on their frontline services.
After reading Brave New Work, a few staff were inspired to try some experiments with meetings, purpose and information sharing. But one of their biggest challenges so far has been getting others as engaged and energised as they are.
The Problem — How might we bring others on this journey?
There was a lot of excitement… Colleagues gave up their lunch hour to attend the launch session… They were intrigued and keen to read Brave New Work.
But, in an organisation with over 2,500 staff, this excitement was contained within a small group of people. How could they encourage everyone to get involved in making the organisation better?
“How might they effectively communicate this ‘thing’ was possible, and could make a real difference to the Council and its residents?”
Just like in many large hierarchical organisations, messages from senior leaders don’t always reach frontline staff; and even when they do, they’re not always acted on. So how could they get their message to everyone? How could they demonstrate they weren’t just doing a bunch of random ‘improvement’ activities and were committed to deeper, more fundamental change? How could they inspire others to join this cause?
The experiment: Storyboards
Tealville staff regularly use ‘Storyboards’ to quickly visualise ideas and get feedback. So they invited some colleagues to map out a ‘day in the life’ of someone working for this modern, flatter, and more trusting organisation.
The storyboard began with sketching an employee waking up, immediately clear on where and how they could work towards their purpose.
From that point onwards, it got difficult. Every activity they tried to map looked just like ‘traditional’ improvement activities, not dissimilar to the ‘Digital’ journey many Councils are on.
It’s easy to show someone checking their phone and deciding they’re not needed in the office. It’s really hard to show a team co-designing their purpose and checking against this to decide where best to use their time.
They soon admitted defeat.
The next experiment: communicate lots of small experiments
Rather than trying to effectively summarise and communicate ‘this thing’, they’ve simply been pressing on with small experiments.
Here are some examples of how they’ve been learning by doing:
- Evolutionary Purpose
The Director (who had brought copies of Brave New Work for his reports) invited the team to host an Away Day. They used the Operating System Canvas to begin a serious discussion about Purpose. After feedback and several iterations, the Directorate now has a purpose that can be communicated, allowing each team to check their activities against this. A broader discussion around the canvas led to staff committing to actions (for example making their calendar visible and completing a user manual for me).
2. Celebration
The team hosted a great big Christmas party to help build a sense of excitement and community. Unexpectedly, the Chief Exec turned up. This was great as they were involved in agreeing the challenges they would face and the values they’d be held to. The party collated meaningful actions, publishing them online to hold each other accountable.
3. Shining a light on what’s already great
They created two case studies, showing colleagues that within Tealville Council some excellent recruiting practices were already happening. These lit up the organisation and inspired HR colleagues to invite staff to an open session to help rewrite the recruitment policy.
4. Revolutionary Bookshelf
They’ve created a hub of books and resources to encourage people to take the first step, share ideas, think in new ways, and give them the confidence to discuss things.
It’s these small experiments that are helping them to progress. Success, so far, has come from getting small things done, and communicating them.
Challenges
Without a ‘plan’ or a grand narrative, it’s not immediately clear to people what ‘this thing’ is. Some people place it in a bucket of ‘practical facilitation techniques’ which feels safe, known and understood. But the point being missed is this ‘thing’ is a shift in thinking beyond what is known and comfortable.
Perhaps because there’s no plan, they’re feeling some tension within the organisation to corporatise this, with formal communications, a timeline and activity plan.
Here lies the rub. They want to spread it far and wide but not at the cost of losing the freedom for individuals to choose a personal journey of development: where human beings support each other as they grapple with adult-to-adult relationships at work.
For now, they’re holding firm. This is not a culture change programme.
What’s next?
Maybe it’s not possible to communicate ‘this thing’ in a two minute ‘elevator pitch’ or ‘storyboard’ to someone who has never read Brave New Work or Reinventing Organisations. For now, they’re experimenting and sharing their learnings by:
- Continuing to communicate small wins on their internal message board
- Providing open invitations so others can be part of future experiments
- Creating a community of practice with other Local Gov orgs. To meet and work through the challenges of holding revolutionary ideas in an incredibly bureaucratic environment.
This blog is part of a series sharing how 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.
