Systems Changers: The Project
Nearly at the end
Today I attended session 5 of a 6 session programme entitled ‘Systems Changers’. It is commissioned by Lankelly Chase, delivered by The Point People and Snook, and is looking at how change be made from within organisations, and by those on the frontline.
The programme has been a huge learning curve and has challenged many of my long-held, previously set in stone opinions. It has forced me to re-visit why and how I do things and has taken me on a journey..
I’ve been subjected to all sorts of new experiences from bells dinging to walking slowly (which I talk about in a different blog) to standing in a circle of my peers with my eyes closed whilst they say how wonderful I am. In short, it has been very uncomfortable at times.
For the past four months, I don’t think any of us really knew what we were doing. Presentation after presentation, technique for change after technique for change, constant learning about different ways of working — it has been exhausting.
Today though, I got the feeling that the fog is clearing and as we started the morning with the usual ‘check in’ about how we were feeling, I heard the others talk about their projects and the progress they were making.
It was great to hear. Finally, the little seeds of an idea everyone started with were growing; John is taking on the benefits system, Maron wants to change the mental health system and Charlotte is taking on the world! It was clear that everyone had been caught by the Systems Changers bug and were raring to be let loose on the world.
By comparison, my project seems small and unimportant.
Before I realise it, it is my turn to reflect on the progress I have made this month and I feel slightly scared. My project is about paperwork. How boring is that? There doesn’t seem to be anything ground breaking in my plan and it feels slightly unsafe to share. I am used to taking risks and implementing plans when others wouldn’t so why have I chosen an administrative aspect of my job? I don’t know how to answer that in any meaningful way. What I do know is that policies and procedures are boring and long winded.
My project is to re-write every document we use in our organisation in a kind and polite way. I will take out all the long words and the acronyms, I will not use threatening words like ‘must, don’t and should’. I will demonstrate that I am a human and I will respect you as a human by saying please instead of ordering you to comply.
With a lot of help from Snook I have come up with the statement: ‘This is built using human words. An approach to ensuring all content is people friendly and positive’. This will be on every bit of paper as a reminder of the project aims and I have created a set of principles and toolkit so others can replicate the process if they want to.
I have found that most documents can be reduced in length by a third and they now make sense. So many existing policies are signed without being read, simply because they are unreadable.
The dream is to make every re-written document available to download, free of charge. Why spend time and money creating your own epic writings when you can use these as a template. The content will be accurate and comprehensive, all that needs to be done is to personalise them to your own organisation. It’s so simple.
I want it to be a movement. A movement of human language where compassion is clear. We are not robots with dictionaries embedded within. We are busy, stressed, emotional human beings who need to move away from the corporate culture of sentences which are longer than a paragraph. There isn’t time to waste on dissecting jargon and deciphering acronyms. We want to read what is important and get on with the job of supporting those in need.
As I re-read the last paragraph, I am confident that my project isn’t boring at all. It is interesting and exciting and can make meaningful change in the system. All that is needed is a will to be part of that change.
