CAST Weeknotes (01– 05 March) — Good enough for now
Hello! I’ll be taking over the weeknotes baton for the Capacity team this month. We take turns donning some of the multiple hats we have as a team — practice makes perfect!
Some weeks tend to be fast-paced, and centred around engagement and learning with our Development programme grantees and digital partners. Peer sharing sessions, wrap up events, learning events… if you’ve missed some of this, you can catch up with my colleague David’s weeknotes. Other weeks provide more space for reflection and consolidation. This week was a bit more like that.
So what were some of our reflections?
“I realised that I personally don’t even question that we’re all doing our best, and have each other’s best interests at heart — that was quite a lovely realisation.”
Those lovely words are those of my colleague Molly, and they do find their echo in our team. Another way to think about it is that trust sits at the core of how we operate. This, we’re finding, becomes particularly important in a context of uncertainty. No big surprise there of course. When there are big, difficult, strategic decisions to make, it’s really inspiring to be working with a team who can trust each other. And this by the way does not mean we necessarily agree on everything!
So how do we find agreement and make progress as a team? Thankfully, there are practical and tested ways to build collaborative and high-performing teams. We’ve had the opportunity to practice together some of the tools and approaches for that with Pete & Abi from Outlandish. This week we’ve been practicing consent-based decision making. When trust feels shaky, decision by consent offers a way to create psychologically safe and productive environments. And that is something to work towards, since we’re told that learning and change happen where uncertainty meets psychologically safe spaces.
‘Good enough for now, and safe enough to try’
As team members and individuals we have different needs and preferences. As an approach, Consent-based decision provides a way to take a step towards a shared common goal, while giving everyone a chance to be heard, and while integrating differences. It makes you think about the distinction between your personal preferences and your range of tolerance. Our preferences are only a smaller subspace of our range of tolerance, and it’s really what falls outside our range of tolerance that we might object to. So the idea is to reach a decision together that might not be perfect, but is ‘good enough for now, and safe enough to try’.
As my wise colleague Ellie reflects, it’s good to be reminded of the value of ‘good enough for now’, of framing that up-front and reinforcing it, so that people don’t get drawn into the challenges and the details. You can read more about this and other related ideas in Abi’s thought-provoking blog on how to lead a (digital) team.
Another brilliant reflection this week came from Ellie:
“It’s so worth spending a good portion of your time each day in ‘giving and getting help’ — it’s an old CAST principle… Making space to read things other people have shared, and responding to requests and the like, are the glial cells that keep the collective intelligence hive mind together and functioning.”
So how to make space for more ‘giving and getting help’ when time is a challenge?
Something we’ve tried to promote in our Catalyst programmes, is the idea of Working in the Open. The Open Working Lineup (AKA the OWLs) have been facilitating this through communication, examples and resources. As a grantee or digital partner you’ll probably be familiar with this now! We’re really pleased that the repository of shared assets has been growing, fed by all the insights from the projects. It’s been heartening to see everyone embracing this way of working, and the aim will be to improve this for the benefit of the wider sector.
One recent example of where this practice has worked really well, is with our ‘Claiming universal credit remotely’ Sector Challenge. The Department for Work and Pensions got in touch and they are now in conversations about how they can look to magnify the impact. And…the project team has been selected to be part of the cross government Service Design Week 2021!
We try to cultivate generosity and collective intelligence in our team too. A small nugget of sharing this week came in the form of the Hemingway App. The app ‘makes your writing bold and clear’, or so they claim! We’ve been using it when writing blog posts and weeknotes. I’ve found it challenging I have to admit, as most of my sentences tend to be long-winded. The app will highlight those in a bright red, making it hard to ignore… But why not give it a try next time you write something, and let us know how you find it.
