VASE: centering conversation for social innovation collaborators
A little back story to illuminate the intent for this framework
Yesterday my husband and I hosted our family who celebrated being together on a long weekend. Thirteen of us gathered in our yard and eventually around the dinner table. They lingered in conversation together — four generations — while the toddlers got along, mostly giggling, the entire time.
It was incredibly functional and I’m full of gratitude as I write. We’re all supporting each other through various elements of housing and health challenges while we anticipate the looming season of fire and smoke.
I quietly reflected on how my heart has also been filled by my extended relations I’m connected to through my work as a public servant.
I felt like I could start writing about an idea I’ve been refining with my team. The “ Value, Align, Scale, Enable (VASE) framework” has emerged in the last month as a way to have a conversation that helps us influence bureaucracy. We’re aiming to shift the mindset, decision making, practices, and norms to build a more resilient and responsive public service.
I wonder if it might be more universally helpful though. So I’ve been testing it and getting positive feedback.
This morning… naturally I was called to write next to, well, a vase my family gathered around last night.
It is a working title, and I’m open to changing it… but it seems to be getting pretty sticky.
I picked up my sister and pre-teen nephew on the way back from grocery shopping before the gathering. We got caught up on various things… and when asked about my latest adventures, I took the opportunity to test one intent of the framework: accessibility.
Without any visual, I explained the challenge of getting meaningful work done in public service. That the world is changing fast, expectations and needs are changing even faster, and that we need a diversity of people to go together, from beyond our borders, if we want solutions that mesh well with the real world.
I expressed how I, like many other social innovators, have learned practices and methods and frameworks for moving through the complexity of human systems. And, that it is hard to bring others along as the “magical work” yields benefits.
My sister works with pre-school children. Every day is a tumultuous mix of inputs. The children love her and the parents marvel. She understands this “magic” at the core.
Eye contact. Clarity. Deep attention. The right mix of norms and rules and flexibility. Coordination and collaboration with her colleagues and parents. A loud voice. A soft voice. Visible clothing. Changing plans. Walking in lines and holding hands. Safety assessments of parks and beaches. Pick up schedule.
I explained to my sister how I’ve seen a pattern in the initiatives that do well and scale, and those that don’t. There are so many moving parts though, that while I intuitively can navigate, it is challenging to explain.
Others in this work have told me they experience the same. Most of us have been asked to offer the “playbook” to help others. I’m hearing that we commonly struggle with that.
I’ve really, really wanted to offer helpful insights to others, though. I’ve made several attempts at sketching journeys and even rough lists. I’ve participated in helping others to build lists of principles and evaluation frameworks. Some of it is helpful. None of it has yet felt cohesive or generative or relational enough.
Most attempted playbooks give the sense that you could hand it to anyone and have them understand and get optimal results. And over time, with trial and error (as I have experienced) perhaps that is true. Most of us started out hopeful and scratching the surface, right?
Yet we increasingly sense we don’t have time. I think we need something to guide us collectively, and bring more people along thoughtfully, now.
As I explained to my nephew and sister, the work we do is creative as we intervene in a system that we sense needs a nudge or disruption. Our core belief is that people can have better experiences (e.g. health, housing, safety).
I have a hypothesis that there there is a cohesive, integrated set of elements or factors we need to pay attention to to realize futures with better potential for wellness.
Eight (8) Facets of Organizational Health
I’m not sure if this is exactly the list, or if this is the right language for you, dear reader. I’ve done my best to generalize this from the digital service delivery language I’ve most recently participated in.
Appropriate practices:
- We need tools, methods or practices to inspect, build, test, and improve what we create.
- We need small-ish groups of diverse people to function well together as they explore potential.
Service orientation:
- We need to look closely, with deep attention to the moments that illuminate realities within the system.
- We need to look broadly at the journey and holistic functions that shape the flow toward outcomes.
Governance and Leadership:
- We need enough structure — norms and policy — to guide our thinking and interactions and work that also allows us to flex with dynamics.
- We need the right conditions to make responsive decisions that guide people and resources involved.
Activated ecosystem:
- We need to communicate clearly and provide momentary signals so that people can navigate on their own, yet collectively.
- We need to nurture safe, connected spaces for the power of networks to leverage what we are learning and building.
All of this comes together as a whole set of interrelated parts that can be any shape, colour, or size to suit the context people are in.
AND it requires that we gather and relate to each other to determine specifically what we need each of these parts to look like. It does not work if we are not transparently arranging these elements together (see what I did there?)
The VASE emerged… one day I put these elements in a circle and on a whiteboard to start testing it at an open house at the The Exchange. I realized that as a pie diagram, when one half of the elements were addressed, a higher level capability surfaced.
When appropriate practices and service orientation are addressed, we get VALUE delivery.
When an organization is service oriented and the leaders are paying attention with effective governance, we unlock ALIGNMENT to support prioritizing objectives that lead to outcomes.
When practices are combined with an active ecosystem and communications are flowing well, we see SCALE of learning that can leverage and amplify what teams produce.
And when an active ecosystem of peers validate their experience together and leadership is paying attention and aligning governance… we ENABLE the whole system to do more.
None of this will be new to Lab practitioners or social innovators. These are elements and dynamics that shape and surface around the real work.
I expect people will be able to reflect on magical experiences, or the humble failures, and sense that these elements were, or were not, in place.
Back to my hypothesis: if we regularly pay attention to these elements, it will help us realize futures with better potential for wellness.
What Next?
When my sister, nephew and I arrived home, we had engaged in about five minutes of conversation about the framework. My sister laughed at me… noting my inclination to make this government thing a piece of art (we’re both artists). I don’t think it would possibly hold value (or water) if it didn’t.
My nephew suggested I should write a book about it.
I committed to sharing this artwork with the the world, and letting it do what art does: inspire conversation and invite interpretation for people who might value the experience.
I have lots of ideas (and even more questions) about how this framework might be used or adapted. I am currently considering it to be a facilitation tool. Perhaps it qualifies as a liberating structure.
My arrangement of the facets in VASE are open sourced. I’m curious to see what adaptations or applications others come up with!
If you want to participate in a collective conversation with people around the world interested in this kind of thing, please reach out. I’ll do my best to find a way to connect folx.
H
