Win or lose in this election, I will not regret having done it. First of all, you meet a lot of people. You get to understand what is on people's minds. I am also quite impressed by just how much people understand politics and current affairs.
What also hits me is the preciousness of democracy. The fact that it is the public that chooses whether I am a Councillor next week, not a committee or a bureaucrat. They have the choice.
And while choosing a Councillor doessn't translate into anything like real control or empowerment on most issues, it is a golden thread of accountability that defines the type of society we are.
I would like to see more of this: recall, citizen referenda and citizen-led legislation like you see in the US. Politics beyond politicians which invigorates civil society - and keeps politicians on their toes.
Competition is key to this. Without competition, the benefits of democracy disappear too. In the neighbouring division to mine, in which I live, there are no leaflets, poster or visits.
Because there is only one winner. Now and always. He gets around 50% of the vote but no more. Most people know the situation and, surprisingly, don't engage. And he feels more accountable to his party's whips than the people who put him there. This isn't the right balance, I feel.
By contrast the competition in my Division is intense and three-way. At least two candidates, including myself, are visiting every household in the Division and leafleting intensively.
If we win, we know we have to be active, energetic representaives, not the do-nothing types you find in the Labour or Tory monocultures that you find in inner-cities or the rural shires.
For this reason, PR is needed. Alternative vote at local level would retain the link but ensure that whovever won had the endorsement of the majority. It would also enliven debate and engagement.
Which is why Cameron's announcement and interview yesterday can be seen as politicial bluff. Because if he was remotely serious he wouldn't exclude electoral reform from his list.
Electoral reform is the oxygen of decentralisation and wider engagement in politics. Without it, most votes don't count for a thing. If Labour had any sense they too would come out for PR, like Alan Johnson has done.
`Typical Lib Dem' I hear you thinking. Well yes, you are right. For Lib Dems have always championed the radical decentralisation now being aired by the mainstream parties. But you can't give power away to any meaningful degree without a voting system that also recognises the value of each and every vote.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
When Work Isn't Working
I was on the phone yesterday to CEO-friend of mine. It was lovely to speak to him, as ever, but he's not happy man. Not at work anyway.
Like a lot of CEOs, he's just not enjoying the job. He struggles to believe that his organisation is making a difference and he despairs at the mountain of crap he has to deal with every time he goes to work.
He contrast this life with his earlier one with a much smaller organisation. This felt far more `real' and he felt that, however difficult things got, he was making a tangible difference, not, as he put it, `wasting his time' in his current role.
We discussed the nature of senior jobs. Are they all a bit like this? Low on satisfaction, high on hassle. With an accompanying sense that only a small droplet of social good emerges from the oil-refinery of inputs and outputs over which one presides as a CEO.
Obviously not all the top jobs are bad. There is fun to be had. I, for one, am in a more fortunate situation than my friend. But he has a point. We talked a bit about money.
What you get above 45k is, he says is commensurate with the level of stress you have to ensure. The top salaries are essentially buying not only your skills but also your ability to absorb negativity and, perhaps most crucially, your consent to set aside your own fulfilment through meaningful work in exchange for a good standard of living.
Again, this reflects, I think, only some jobs - but more than perhaps we'd all be comfortable admitting. At times (normally during long meetings), I too feel I am divorcing myself from what I used to actually enjoy in order to earn more than I once did.
Where does this leave us? My friend is seriously considering his options. He yearns for a more meaningful if less well paid existence. Something brand new is on his mind.
For me, I am staying where I am, for now. My situation is cushioned by an amazing senior team and board. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. But, in the middle distance, I envisage change, if only to restore that vital connection between myself and the direct delivery of benefit.
Like a lot of CEOs, he's just not enjoying the job. He struggles to believe that his organisation is making a difference and he despairs at the mountain of crap he has to deal with every time he goes to work.
He contrast this life with his earlier one with a much smaller organisation. This felt far more `real' and he felt that, however difficult things got, he was making a tangible difference, not, as he put it, `wasting his time' in his current role.
We discussed the nature of senior jobs. Are they all a bit like this? Low on satisfaction, high on hassle. With an accompanying sense that only a small droplet of social good emerges from the oil-refinery of inputs and outputs over which one presides as a CEO.
Obviously not all the top jobs are bad. There is fun to be had. I, for one, am in a more fortunate situation than my friend. But he has a point. We talked a bit about money.
What you get above 45k is, he says is commensurate with the level of stress you have to ensure. The top salaries are essentially buying not only your skills but also your ability to absorb negativity and, perhaps most crucially, your consent to set aside your own fulfilment through meaningful work in exchange for a good standard of living.
Again, this reflects, I think, only some jobs - but more than perhaps we'd all be comfortable admitting. At times (normally during long meetings), I too feel I am divorcing myself from what I used to actually enjoy in order to earn more than I once did.
Where does this leave us? My friend is seriously considering his options. He yearns for a more meaningful if less well paid existence. Something brand new is on his mind.
For me, I am staying where I am, for now. My situation is cushioned by an amazing senior team and board. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. But, in the middle distance, I envisage change, if only to restore that vital connection between myself and the direct delivery of benefit.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Learning the Hard Way
I am mostly enjoying my new life as a small-time politician. The campaign takes me back to the early days of Speaking Up. All volunteers, young and old, all in it together. I love the challenge of working out people's skills and melding together a team that clicks. I also relish the buzz of the campaign.
My `Campaign Crew' is a motley group ranging from 82 to 22. I have senior professionals, I have call-centre staff, pensioners and students. Unusually most of my crew are not Lib Dem party members and three are members of other political parties. I've not worked with this kind of diversity for a long time. After years of working with only with my senior team and board this is actually a refreshing kind of challenge. Fortunately I am loving it. Mostly.
This week the campaign had its first hiccup. One of the team, a prominent member of the local party, wrote part of my second leaflet and included in it an incorrect fact about one of my opponents' voting record. 3500 of these had been printed and 500 delivered before I got an angry call from the gentleman whose good name we had besmirched.
Understandably upset, he demanded that we withdraw the leaflet and apologise. Then the paper called and suddenly I am part of a story about the depths to which local politicians will go to gain petty advantage.
My more experienced colleagues tell me, like kindly uncles, that this is all par for the course. Local politics is, they say, pretty aggressive and personal at times (my opponent pulled no punches in his communication). It all left me a little...unsettled, if I am honest. Which I am sure was the desired intention.
Where does this leave me? Do I accept that local poltiics is a bit of a knockabout and give as good as I get? Or do I seek to act in the way I do in other areas of my life where I try, wherever possible, to seek the common ground and get things done through trust. A path I have always found to be the most productive.
For now, I am going with the latter, whatever people tell me. The people I really admire in politics - Frank Field, Vince Cable etc - are all `real people' as much as they are professional politicians. The public actually like this about them. While I am sure they are superb operators, they are smart enough to realise that the highly adversarial means of doing politics in this country are actually not particularly effective at achieving its ends. And that they are a turn off for voters, especially the young.
If elected, I will seek to work in the way I always have to make good things happen. And, yes, this includes a personal note of apology to my opponent, despite his reaction, which was not what I am used to in such situations. When I look back in a few years time at this blog I may laugh at my naivety. But is there any point doing this if you're not going to be yourself and bring to the table what has worked well so far in your life? If that's the case, why bother?
The lessons of this week have been harsh ones though. Check your facts. Be in control of your message. Anticipate how opponents might try to convey not only what you stand for but how you operate as a person. This is, I am learning, a tough game, even at local level. The gloves are off and if you leave yourself open, as I did, you will get one in the head. I don't believe there is anything inherently `personal' in any of this stuff (candidates apparently have great fun together at the count, once the war for votes is over), but, in the meantime, anything you do which can count against the way voters perceive you is fair-game.
My `Campaign Crew' is a motley group ranging from 82 to 22. I have senior professionals, I have call-centre staff, pensioners and students. Unusually most of my crew are not Lib Dem party members and three are members of other political parties. I've not worked with this kind of diversity for a long time. After years of working with only with my senior team and board this is actually a refreshing kind of challenge. Fortunately I am loving it. Mostly.
This week the campaign had its first hiccup. One of the team, a prominent member of the local party, wrote part of my second leaflet and included in it an incorrect fact about one of my opponents' voting record. 3500 of these had been printed and 500 delivered before I got an angry call from the gentleman whose good name we had besmirched.
Understandably upset, he demanded that we withdraw the leaflet and apologise. Then the paper called and suddenly I am part of a story about the depths to which local politicians will go to gain petty advantage.
My more experienced colleagues tell me, like kindly uncles, that this is all par for the course. Local politics is, they say, pretty aggressive and personal at times (my opponent pulled no punches in his communication). It all left me a little...unsettled, if I am honest. Which I am sure was the desired intention.
Where does this leave me? Do I accept that local poltiics is a bit of a knockabout and give as good as I get? Or do I seek to act in the way I do in other areas of my life where I try, wherever possible, to seek the common ground and get things done through trust. A path I have always found to be the most productive.
For now, I am going with the latter, whatever people tell me. The people I really admire in politics - Frank Field, Vince Cable etc - are all `real people' as much as they are professional politicians. The public actually like this about them. While I am sure they are superb operators, they are smart enough to realise that the highly adversarial means of doing politics in this country are actually not particularly effective at achieving its ends. And that they are a turn off for voters, especially the young.
If elected, I will seek to work in the way I always have to make good things happen. And, yes, this includes a personal note of apology to my opponent, despite his reaction, which was not what I am used to in such situations. When I look back in a few years time at this blog I may laugh at my naivety. But is there any point doing this if you're not going to be yourself and bring to the table what has worked well so far in your life? If that's the case, why bother?
The lessons of this week have been harsh ones though. Check your facts. Be in control of your message. Anticipate how opponents might try to convey not only what you stand for but how you operate as a person. This is, I am learning, a tough game, even at local level. The gloves are off and if you leave yourself open, as I did, you will get one in the head. I don't believe there is anything inherently `personal' in any of this stuff (candidates apparently have great fun together at the count, once the war for votes is over), but, in the meantime, anything you do which can count against the way voters perceive you is fair-game.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The Anonymous Pol
I am feeling very virtuous right now. For a small-time politician anyway. On my rounds I picked up a lot of concern about a local road near a school where there is no crossing.
I wrote a letter to the paper (the titan Bury Free Press) and was immediately called by a journalist.
Time to come clean but risk being outed a a pol or to milk the story but risk exposure? Being risk-averse, and reasonably clean, I fessed up but pointed the journo to the local mums.
However, I am, as anyone knows me, never one to miss an opportunity. So I did pop round to let the Mums know I had called the paper and they wanted to run the story. And, that, yes, I was stepping out now, because I thought it would run better without politics.
For a moment I felt the cynicism melt away as bid goodbye, jumped into my Scrapage Focus (a grand and its yours) and sped away. OK so I don't make Friday's paper. But this felt like a good result in these overcast times. And it certainly felt right. Two votes rather than, say, 20. Maybe I will live to regret it. But, somehow, I don't think I will.
I wrote a letter to the paper (the titan Bury Free Press) and was immediately called by a journalist.
Time to come clean but risk being outed a a pol or to milk the story but risk exposure? Being risk-averse, and reasonably clean, I fessed up but pointed the journo to the local mums.
However, I am, as anyone knows me, never one to miss an opportunity. So I did pop round to let the Mums know I had called the paper and they wanted to run the story. And, that, yes, I was stepping out now, because I thought it would run better without politics.
For a moment I felt the cynicism melt away as bid goodbye, jumped into my Scrapage Focus (a grand and its yours) and sped away. OK so I don't make Friday's paper. But this felt like a good result in these overcast times. And it certainly felt right. Two votes rather than, say, 20. Maybe I will live to regret it. But, somehow, I don't think I will.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Politicians - you're all the bloody same!
Its not a great week to be out knocking on doors as an aspiring small-time politician. People just don't want to know. MPs of all parties have done fantastic damage to not only to politics but also to the social fabric.
The scandals of the week have given documentary, indeed granular, proof of the grasping, maximising nature of many of our politicians. And to all the curmudgeons who say `They're only in it for themselves', well the proof is there now for all to see.
On the doorstep, all you can do is say you agree and tell them what a nightmare it is at local level where we don't get paid etc. A lot of people tell me they are not going to vote, as a protest. Others, even committed voters, just don't know what to do next. This has, flummoxed them.
And this is perhaps the most worrying aspect to all this. The cynics were always there, a small minority. Most people in this country recognise the need for politics, they might not engage that much but their tacit consent is key to our system working. If it is withdrawn, we're all in trouble.
All of this opens door not only to mass disengagement but also the political fringe. I suspect the BNP will benefit in many areas because of this.
What also interests me is the way nearly all MPs - the better people as well - all pretty much got what they could. Obviously this is so much the norm in Westminster that people soon lose any inhibition once elected. I wondered to myself what my claim would have looked like were I an MP for, say, Bury St Edmunds. Would I have a second home? Might I have used all the available means to furnish it without dipping into my own pocket. Could I have resisted the temptation to realise capital gains when I finally sold it?
I would like to be able to say No, No and No to all of these questions. But I am not sure it would always be quite so straightforward. While the moralist within me would want to resist, the human in me would ask futher questions: If all my peers claim for these things, wny shouldn't I? Is it within the rules, after all, to claim things which are incurred in setting oneself up as an MP who has to, effectively, live in two places? And, at the end of the day, I may not be an MP forever and my career prospects have already ben pretty shredded by getting into politics all those years ago.....
I think all of this is, in the wider context, pretty weak. But I can see how many MPs, otherwise pretty OK people, will have got to where they are now.
Anyway, my campaign is going well I think. I have a great team ranging in age from 22 to 82. What I enjoy is the sense that we're in it together and everyone is there because they want to be. It reminds me in many ways of the early Speakining Up. And, yes, I have having a lot of fun.
The scandals of the week have given documentary, indeed granular, proof of the grasping, maximising nature of many of our politicians. And to all the curmudgeons who say `They're only in it for themselves', well the proof is there now for all to see.
On the doorstep, all you can do is say you agree and tell them what a nightmare it is at local level where we don't get paid etc. A lot of people tell me they are not going to vote, as a protest. Others, even committed voters, just don't know what to do next. This has, flummoxed them.
And this is perhaps the most worrying aspect to all this. The cynics were always there, a small minority. Most people in this country recognise the need for politics, they might not engage that much but their tacit consent is key to our system working. If it is withdrawn, we're all in trouble.
All of this opens door not only to mass disengagement but also the political fringe. I suspect the BNP will benefit in many areas because of this.
What also interests me is the way nearly all MPs - the better people as well - all pretty much got what they could. Obviously this is so much the norm in Westminster that people soon lose any inhibition once elected. I wondered to myself what my claim would have looked like were I an MP for, say, Bury St Edmunds. Would I have a second home? Might I have used all the available means to furnish it without dipping into my own pocket. Could I have resisted the temptation to realise capital gains when I finally sold it?
I would like to be able to say No, No and No to all of these questions. But I am not sure it would always be quite so straightforward. While the moralist within me would want to resist, the human in me would ask futher questions: If all my peers claim for these things, wny shouldn't I? Is it within the rules, after all, to claim things which are incurred in setting oneself up as an MP who has to, effectively, live in two places? And, at the end of the day, I may not be an MP forever and my career prospects have already ben pretty shredded by getting into politics all those years ago.....
I think all of this is, in the wider context, pretty weak. But I can see how many MPs, otherwise pretty OK people, will have got to where they are now.
Anyway, my campaign is going well I think. I have a great team ranging in age from 22 to 82. What I enjoy is the sense that we're in it together and everyone is there because they want to be. It reminds me in many ways of the early Speakining Up. And, yes, I have having a lot of fun.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
24 Hour High
Possibly my most active 24 hours for some time. At this time (10pm) yesterday I was at UEA Norwich watching and admiring the incredible Doves play a very loud set to the East Angles. It takes a lot to get me out to live events these days (I don't like armpits, dives or hanging-around) but for Doves I waive my rules.
A bit like Elbow, Doves are all fairly un-glam, post-ego northern blokes around my age who just do what they do. They wear shit clothes, don't do `chat' with the audience beyond the occasional `Thank-you, Norwich' (which I like), but are clearly honoured by people's interest and enthusiasm. I left with my heart yearning for more, and ears ringing loudly all the way home.
A seven to seven day at work today. Six big meetings, back to back. Wondered how I would do it but actually started enjoying myself quite quickly. Funny how this happens. I even found the disciplinary-type meeting I had today oddly satisfying (I often feel physically ill in advance of these things). Reminded me I can be tough if I have to be.
Spent quality time with my Chair, my SMT and several individual SMT. I have an unsually talented senior team. In this I am incredibly lucky. All of them are super-bright, motivated and, to a person, honest and nice. I think I pick well but I simply follow the maxim that you should try to appoint people better than yourself. They never cease to impress me.
Finally got back to the kids who I haven't seen all week. Get a welcome I don't really deserve. See my mother who has been down all week and I haven't spent an hour with. Feel on a `work-high', the drug I spent most of my 20s and 30s, hooked on. The come-down will arrive in about....36 hours. It actually feels like I have taken something. Which is why I need to be careful. I can't sip from this bottle too often or I go backwards. Time to stop I think...
A bit like Elbow, Doves are all fairly un-glam, post-ego northern blokes around my age who just do what they do. They wear shit clothes, don't do `chat' with the audience beyond the occasional `Thank-you, Norwich' (which I like), but are clearly honoured by people's interest and enthusiasm. I left with my heart yearning for more, and ears ringing loudly all the way home.
A seven to seven day at work today. Six big meetings, back to back. Wondered how I would do it but actually started enjoying myself quite quickly. Funny how this happens. I even found the disciplinary-type meeting I had today oddly satisfying (I often feel physically ill in advance of these things). Reminded me I can be tough if I have to be.
Spent quality time with my Chair, my SMT and several individual SMT. I have an unsually talented senior team. In this I am incredibly lucky. All of them are super-bright, motivated and, to a person, honest and nice. I think I pick well but I simply follow the maxim that you should try to appoint people better than yourself. They never cease to impress me.
Finally got back to the kids who I haven't seen all week. Get a welcome I don't really deserve. See my mother who has been down all week and I haven't spent an hour with. Feel on a `work-high', the drug I spent most of my 20s and 30s, hooked on. The come-down will arrive in about....36 hours. It actually feels like I have taken something. Which is why I need to be careful. I can't sip from this bottle too often or I go backwards. Time to stop I think...
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Blue and Blue Sky
Sometimes you have days in which meeting after meeting helps you put your own life and future in bettter perspective. I am thinking about my future a lot at the moment. Maybe it is because I turn 40 in precisely two months. Or perhaps it is because I sense that my own needs and skills will, at some point in between the near and middle-future, require a new chapter.
The day started with a one-off, free coaching session with a wonderful man called Stephen Crookbain who works in the world of executive search. He helped me realize, definitively, that I don’t, under any circumstances, want to take a `big job’ as CEO or MD of a large social sector organisation.
This is the first time I have written this down publicly because, till now, there was a `never say never’ thing in my mind. But there isn’t any more and I feel better already. Sure, my only channel to plenty of money has probably closed but it feels a relief to say `No, that isn’t my journey’.
Then I went to the Commons to meet Nick Hurd, the Shadow Charities Minister. Nick is a likeable man with a good mind and is sincere, I believe, in his vision for the sector as a vibrant, independent sector which enjoys a more trusting, less bureaucratic relationship with the state. “What do you think of our Green Paper?” was his question.
My answer was that I liked its overall message and that it was refreshingly candid and accurate in its understanding of the challenges. Where I felt it could be clearer was on the question of how the sector can, on the one hand deliver more of what is currently delivered (often badly) by the state while remaining independent from it, its roots firmly in civil society. I sense it will take something more than trust and partnership to cover the transfer of resources that such a move would imply.
The realities of power would, I think, make it very difficult, for a new government to invest into the sector without clear `contractual’ relationships, in which the outcomes are not defined disporoportinatley by the budget-holder.
We talked about how Speaking Up has developed and he was interested to hear about the contrast between the ways different types of funder operate, from Impetus Trust on one side – where the agreement was one sheet of A4 – to certain Government funders who ask for copies of my diary and emails (I wonder if they actually ring the people I meet to ask what we discussed, what I was wearing etc).
The afternoon brought me to Mick May, founder of Blue Sky. There is only one qualification to work for Blue Sky. That you have a criminal record. Mick excepted. He is an ex-banker who did nothing naughty (according to himself) and got out years ago before his soul was corroded into nothing. He spent a year out of work and eventually got a job with Groundwork. This morphed, after a time, into Blue Sky which started in West London and is now branching out in Manchester.
Mick is one of those magnetic story-telling entrepreneurs in whose presence it is easy to fall under a spell. `So what's the truth of it all?' I ask, in response to my own reaction. Well, not everyone gets jobs and yes its very bloody hard all the time. And the secrets to its success? Having ex-cons as operations managers is a big factor, he tells me. Because the men respect them. The one non-con (and ex-copper)didn't last five minutes.
The Blue Sky story is one worth hearing and I hope Mick gets to tell it to more people as Blue Sky grows. He pops us in Nick Hurd's speeches all the time, being just on the London MPs doorstep. They are both former bankers, he says, with a smile. Mick himself comes across as a man re-born. He says he had to wait till 45 till he did what he wanted in life. He says that I (at a mere 40) have done it all so young'. And it did feel like a weird inversion, me the grizzled pro wondering about life as a retired social entrepreneur, Mick a decade older, totally mad for it.
He emailed me afterwards thanking me for a great meeting. It felt like it should have been me delivering the thanks.
The day started with a one-off, free coaching session with a wonderful man called Stephen Crookbain who works in the world of executive search. He helped me realize, definitively, that I don’t, under any circumstances, want to take a `big job’ as CEO or MD of a large social sector organisation.
This is the first time I have written this down publicly because, till now, there was a `never say never’ thing in my mind. But there isn’t any more and I feel better already. Sure, my only channel to plenty of money has probably closed but it feels a relief to say `No, that isn’t my journey’.
Then I went to the Commons to meet Nick Hurd, the Shadow Charities Minister. Nick is a likeable man with a good mind and is sincere, I believe, in his vision for the sector as a vibrant, independent sector which enjoys a more trusting, less bureaucratic relationship with the state. “What do you think of our Green Paper?” was his question.
My answer was that I liked its overall message and that it was refreshingly candid and accurate in its understanding of the challenges. Where I felt it could be clearer was on the question of how the sector can, on the one hand deliver more of what is currently delivered (often badly) by the state while remaining independent from it, its roots firmly in civil society. I sense it will take something more than trust and partnership to cover the transfer of resources that such a move would imply.
The realities of power would, I think, make it very difficult, for a new government to invest into the sector without clear `contractual’ relationships, in which the outcomes are not defined disporoportinatley by the budget-holder.
We talked about how Speaking Up has developed and he was interested to hear about the contrast between the ways different types of funder operate, from Impetus Trust on one side – where the agreement was one sheet of A4 – to certain Government funders who ask for copies of my diary and emails (I wonder if they actually ring the people I meet to ask what we discussed, what I was wearing etc).
The afternoon brought me to Mick May, founder of Blue Sky. There is only one qualification to work for Blue Sky. That you have a criminal record. Mick excepted. He is an ex-banker who did nothing naughty (according to himself) and got out years ago before his soul was corroded into nothing. He spent a year out of work and eventually got a job with Groundwork. This morphed, after a time, into Blue Sky which started in West London and is now branching out in Manchester.
Mick is one of those magnetic story-telling entrepreneurs in whose presence it is easy to fall under a spell. `So what's the truth of it all?' I ask, in response to my own reaction. Well, not everyone gets jobs and yes its very bloody hard all the time. And the secrets to its success? Having ex-cons as operations managers is a big factor, he tells me. Because the men respect them. The one non-con (and ex-copper)didn't last five minutes.
The Blue Sky story is one worth hearing and I hope Mick gets to tell it to more people as Blue Sky grows. He pops us in Nick Hurd's speeches all the time, being just on the London MPs doorstep. They are both former bankers, he says, with a smile. Mick himself comes across as a man re-born. He says he had to wait till 45 till he did what he wanted in life. He says that I (at a mere 40) have done it all so young'. And it did feel like a weird inversion, me the grizzled pro wondering about life as a retired social entrepreneur, Mick a decade older, totally mad for it.
He emailed me afterwards thanking me for a great meeting. It felt like it should have been me delivering the thanks.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Art of Communication
You may have heard recently that Spandau Ballet are reforming and going on tour. One of their many hits (they were one of my `guilty pleasure’ bands as a teenager, alongside my more public following of the Smiths etc) was a song called `Communication (let me down)’,
I’ve been thinking about communication quite a lot recently both in my professional and personal life. At work, we have been introducing some changes, part as an immediate response to recession, part to make sure the organisation is fit for purpose and prepared for whatever is ahead of us long-term. Thankfully, there are no redundancies and, when compared to what is going on even in other charities (cuts in budgets, major job losses, aggressive restructuring), our is low-richter-scale change.
However, I have been surprised at the level of response to these modest proposals. Which is not so much about the content of the change (people, by and large are OK with it, with notable exceptions) but the way it feels `done unto' to some people. Quite a few people have felt communication to be poor. This is despite quite a lot of time and effort from some very able people going into the very question of how we communicate the change. So a condundrum. Despite heaps of effort, not all of our communication hits the mark.
This leads to an obvious question: what indeed does good communication actually looks like in organisations? Although clearly not an expert, I have three hunches. The first is timing. People seem to respond better if the timing is right. Trouble is, of course, organisations cannot privilege some over others in terms of releasing vital information. Meaning one person’s good time may be another’s terrible time. Rules and regs mean we can't have `quiet chats',or discreet, off-the-record `heads-up' to particular key people etc, even when these are what both the person and the organisation probably would benefit most from.
The second is about medium. Being taken through plans in person is always better than by letter or email. Because it all has to be simulatanous - or worse, in some bizzare rote-order dictated by employment law, communication tends often to be electronic. This is inherently cold, even if you warm the language up a bit.
The third is about just this: tone and `humanity’. Often communication about change in organisations defaults into structural, metallic sounding language, which makes people feel immediately on guard. Again, this is partly what the rules of employment laws demand we do, but it seems to really grate with people and put them on an immediate defensive and break long-held `psychological contracts' that people feel they have with the organisation.
The really challenging thing for me as CEO of an organisation which is genuinely caring for its people is how even we, tend to struggle at important time with communication.
It can, at times, feel almost inevitable to do it a particular way, without either breaching legal processes or principles of fairness around access to information. Yet, at the same time, the standard organizational communication template, to which most organisations adhere, seems to cause real problems in terms of how people feel who are on the receiving end.
It is an interesting conundrum and not one unique to my organisation, which is why I feel I can talk about it openly. And it begs the bigger question of how we do communicate really well in organisations that contain many people.
Unfortunately neither Tony Hadley or Steven Morrissey have answers to either.
I’ve been thinking about communication quite a lot recently both in my professional and personal life. At work, we have been introducing some changes, part as an immediate response to recession, part to make sure the organisation is fit for purpose and prepared for whatever is ahead of us long-term. Thankfully, there are no redundancies and, when compared to what is going on even in other charities (cuts in budgets, major job losses, aggressive restructuring), our is low-richter-scale change.
However, I have been surprised at the level of response to these modest proposals. Which is not so much about the content of the change (people, by and large are OK with it, with notable exceptions) but the way it feels `done unto' to some people. Quite a few people have felt communication to be poor. This is despite quite a lot of time and effort from some very able people going into the very question of how we communicate the change. So a condundrum. Despite heaps of effort, not all of our communication hits the mark.
This leads to an obvious question: what indeed does good communication actually looks like in organisations? Although clearly not an expert, I have three hunches. The first is timing. People seem to respond better if the timing is right. Trouble is, of course, organisations cannot privilege some over others in terms of releasing vital information. Meaning one person’s good time may be another’s terrible time. Rules and regs mean we can't have `quiet chats',or discreet, off-the-record `heads-up' to particular key people etc, even when these are what both the person and the organisation probably would benefit most from.
The second is about medium. Being taken through plans in person is always better than by letter or email. Because it all has to be simulatanous - or worse, in some bizzare rote-order dictated by employment law, communication tends often to be electronic. This is inherently cold, even if you warm the language up a bit.
The third is about just this: tone and `humanity’. Often communication about change in organisations defaults into structural, metallic sounding language, which makes people feel immediately on guard. Again, this is partly what the rules of employment laws demand we do, but it seems to really grate with people and put them on an immediate defensive and break long-held `psychological contracts' that people feel they have with the organisation.
The really challenging thing for me as CEO of an organisation which is genuinely caring for its people is how even we, tend to struggle at important time with communication.
It can, at times, feel almost inevitable to do it a particular way, without either breaching legal processes or principles of fairness around access to information. Yet, at the same time, the standard organizational communication template, to which most organisations adhere, seems to cause real problems in terms of how people feel who are on the receiving end.
It is an interesting conundrum and not one unique to my organisation, which is why I feel I can talk about it openly. And it begs the bigger question of how we do communicate really well in organisations that contain many people.
Unfortunately neither Tony Hadley or Steven Morrissey have answers to either.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Wilf
We are having some fine morning and evenings this April. Here in Nowton, the seasons are inescapable and we’re currently seeing an eruption of green as the park takes it summer colours.
My first sight on waking each day are the ancient trees behind our house,one of which is, sadly, dying. They are beautiful in the morning sunlight and soften the senses before the days occupations arrive.
That sight is followed, almost immediately, by that of my boy whose cries have roused me from sleep. He is regular, is Wilf. Six thirty on the dot most days. Earlier if he’s ill.
Wilf is my second child. He was just born nineteen months after his sister, Ruby. He was a December baby and arrived just as the holidays began. However, unlike with Ruby, whose arrival I greeted with immediate floods of love and tears, I felt oddly detached about Wilf. And this continued for quite some time, several months in fact.
I actually got a bit worried, so different was the feeling. I knew I loved him - but in a kind of abstract, distant way. I did all the same things but it felt an echo of how it had the first time. Of course I felt guilty, a bit, but more perplexed than anything, if I am honest.
Then, suddenly, several months down the line, out of nowhere, I fell for him. Almost to the other extreme where he is now in the front of my mind more than I sometimes think he should be. I now love him utterly and totally and looking at him melts my heart.
It might be that, finally, we connected. As a newborn he was often ill and cried constantly. Plus he cleaved to Katy and seemed to be be very much what Louden Wainright III described in his song about his young son, `Rufus is a Tit-Man'.
However this did change once I could do more for him. I realised too that he is probably going to be more like me than my daughter. Wilf is clearly quite a delicate chap, unlike his gregarious, happy-go-lucky sister. He is a smallish baby and I will be surprised if he grows any taller than five six or seven. He has also taken longer or burble than his sister. I suspect he'll be a late-developer, like his dad.
I love Wilf in a very different way to the way I love my daughter. Just as passionately but definitely differently. More protectively perhaps. I sense that many people love their children in different ways - and sometimes less than their other kids, truth be told.
Yet this remains fairly taboo, despite many people reporting it in their own lives as children. Which is unfortunate, as I am sure I am not the only parent in the world who hasn't been sure whether they would ever love their child as much as they really should.
My first sight on waking each day are the ancient trees behind our house,one of which is, sadly, dying. They are beautiful in the morning sunlight and soften the senses before the days occupations arrive.
That sight is followed, almost immediately, by that of my boy whose cries have roused me from sleep. He is regular, is Wilf. Six thirty on the dot most days. Earlier if he’s ill.
Wilf is my second child. He was just born nineteen months after his sister, Ruby. He was a December baby and arrived just as the holidays began. However, unlike with Ruby, whose arrival I greeted with immediate floods of love and tears, I felt oddly detached about Wilf. And this continued for quite some time, several months in fact.
I actually got a bit worried, so different was the feeling. I knew I loved him - but in a kind of abstract, distant way. I did all the same things but it felt an echo of how it had the first time. Of course I felt guilty, a bit, but more perplexed than anything, if I am honest.
Then, suddenly, several months down the line, out of nowhere, I fell for him. Almost to the other extreme where he is now in the front of my mind more than I sometimes think he should be. I now love him utterly and totally and looking at him melts my heart.
It might be that, finally, we connected. As a newborn he was often ill and cried constantly. Plus he cleaved to Katy and seemed to be be very much what Louden Wainright III described in his song about his young son, `Rufus is a Tit-Man'.
However this did change once I could do more for him. I realised too that he is probably going to be more like me than my daughter. Wilf is clearly quite a delicate chap, unlike his gregarious, happy-go-lucky sister. He is a smallish baby and I will be surprised if he grows any taller than five six or seven. He has also taken longer or burble than his sister. I suspect he'll be a late-developer, like his dad.
I love Wilf in a very different way to the way I love my daughter. Just as passionately but definitely differently. More protectively perhaps. I sense that many people love their children in different ways - and sometimes less than their other kids, truth be told.
Yet this remains fairly taboo, despite many people reporting it in their own lives as children. Which is unfortunate, as I am sure I am not the only parent in the world who hasn't been sure whether they would ever love their child as much as they really should.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Laughter and Life
Sleep deprivation teaches you lots of things. It gives you a sense of what it must like being old, really old.
Today, following a night up with Ruby, who has chicken-pox, my mind is full of headachey fog. I keep dropping things. It takes me ages to get anything done. Thinking is hard. Every movement feels like an effort and all I want to do is just...sit down.
The best book I have ever read about ageing is by Diane Athill who last year wrote `Somewhere Towards the End' at the age of 91. While old people formed an important part of my life until quite recently, I never quite grasped what it was like to be encased in an old body until I read her book.
A successful old age, it transpires is about being able to successfully manage ones decline and to take delight in the small things. After a while, the absence of ailment feels, in itself, a blessing. The touch of air on skin. A child's smile. A tasty tomato. All of these become bigger pleasures as death nears - if you're someone whose pot is half-full.
As someone in `the prime of life' who is also often anxious and disconsolate, despite all the good things I have going for me, I fair-dread the onset of old age. I struggle, at times, to take pleasure in the big things, never mind the small ones.
And I worry too much. Far too much. I zap one worry only for another to come along, like an unending game of Pac Man. In fact, I think I probably need to be hypnotized or something. There's a Paul McKenna book in there somewhere... `I Can Make You Chill'.
I am not alone though. This inability to really enjoy the good things in life seems
to intensify in middle-age. I was reading today that Richard Curtis, that scion of comedy, said that he hasn't laughed, really laughed, since about 1982.
Although I laugh a lot (not least at my daughter's night-time interpretation of her angrychicken-pox as `A MOUSE IN MY BED DADDY!!!') something registered here. Even when I was a teenager, and, believe me, I was your typical depressive Smith-fan teen (what would be today termed an `EMO'), I recall collapsing in uncontollable laughter at something or other on a near-daily basis.
I don't remember when I last did that and indeed wonder if I will ever again. In fact, the nearest I came to this was last year when my terrier-dog ran up and nipped the arse of a particular reviled neighbour when she was putting out her bin.
What that says about me I would prefer not explore.
Anyway, the sun is out and I am about to go out to see if anyone will vote for me in June. Happy days!
Today, following a night up with Ruby, who has chicken-pox, my mind is full of headachey fog. I keep dropping things. It takes me ages to get anything done. Thinking is hard. Every movement feels like an effort and all I want to do is just...sit down.
The best book I have ever read about ageing is by Diane Athill who last year wrote `Somewhere Towards the End' at the age of 91. While old people formed an important part of my life until quite recently, I never quite grasped what it was like to be encased in an old body until I read her book.
A successful old age, it transpires is about being able to successfully manage ones decline and to take delight in the small things. After a while, the absence of ailment feels, in itself, a blessing. The touch of air on skin. A child's smile. A tasty tomato. All of these become bigger pleasures as death nears - if you're someone whose pot is half-full.
As someone in `the prime of life' who is also often anxious and disconsolate, despite all the good things I have going for me, I fair-dread the onset of old age. I struggle, at times, to take pleasure in the big things, never mind the small ones.
And I worry too much. Far too much. I zap one worry only for another to come along, like an unending game of Pac Man. In fact, I think I probably need to be hypnotized or something. There's a Paul McKenna book in there somewhere... `I Can Make You Chill'.
I am not alone though. This inability to really enjoy the good things in life seems
to intensify in middle-age. I was reading today that Richard Curtis, that scion of comedy, said that he hasn't laughed, really laughed, since about 1982.
Although I laugh a lot (not least at my daughter's night-time interpretation of her angrychicken-pox as `A MOUSE IN MY BED DADDY!!!') something registered here. Even when I was a teenager, and, believe me, I was your typical depressive Smith-fan teen (what would be today termed an `EMO'), I recall collapsing in uncontollable laughter at something or other on a near-daily basis.
I don't remember when I last did that and indeed wonder if I will ever again. In fact, the nearest I came to this was last year when my terrier-dog ran up and nipped the arse of a particular reviled neighbour when she was putting out her bin.
What that says about me I would prefer not explore.
Anyway, the sun is out and I am about to go out to see if anyone will vote for me in June. Happy days!
Saturday, April 11, 2009
On Holidays
Holidays are good. Not only do they refresh the body but a new place, a new routine also shuffle the synapses. We were in the South Downs, by the sea. I did a few long, hard eight-mile runs on the compacted sand of Bracklesham Bay. I did 24/7 parenthood. And, as always, I was glad to get back to home turf.
Although I've got better in recent years, holidays have been a challenge for most of my living memory. As a kid, I seldom enjoyed the forced proximity of all four of us in some caravan or guest house. As an adult, I either can't fully switch off or feel a bit more anxious than usual, free from the usual preoccupations.
Yes, holidays remind me of how, at the end of the day, I am a bit of a worrier for whom work is a kind of balm. A place where I can make lists and ticks them off. Where I can be in control. Where I am on top of things and myself. Take me out of this and I feel a less solid proposition altogether.
We liked the South Coast. It was warm and gentle. Palm trees fringed the garden. The people were less impressive. There is a self-satisfied air to many of them. This is the place where the wealthy retire. For this reason, I am not sure I would go back. But we enjoyed it overall.
I got to read. Jonathan Littell is a US writer, raised in France. Two years ago he published `The Kindly Ones' in French. 5000 copies were printed. He has now sold a million and has just come out in English. Its a fictional first hand account of Max Aue, an SS Intelligence officer. Aue is a bureaucrat who doesn't know how to fire a gun properly. His job is to help the SS to organise its grisly work. The central thesis of the book is that the Holocaust wasn't the work of `monsters' or sadists but ordinary men. People like Max Aue. Intellectual. Aesthete. Killer.
Littell's intention is to make you ask yourself if you would have stepped back from following orders to kill defenseless people, as troops could do, if they chose, without fear of punishment. In reality few did. They just got used to it, saw it as work. Unpleasant work, but for the greater good. Sure, there were both sadists and people who cracked up with guilt but, on the whole, you just got on with it.
I would advise anybody to read this book. While very upsetting and graphic at times, it is also provides a fresh voice in this much written about area. The voice of the SS officer. Not an `ordinary' man but not necessarily someone who would normally kill or oversee killing. At 900 pages it is rather vast but you will not be disappointed.
Although I've got better in recent years, holidays have been a challenge for most of my living memory. As a kid, I seldom enjoyed the forced proximity of all four of us in some caravan or guest house. As an adult, I either can't fully switch off or feel a bit more anxious than usual, free from the usual preoccupations.
Yes, holidays remind me of how, at the end of the day, I am a bit of a worrier for whom work is a kind of balm. A place where I can make lists and ticks them off. Where I can be in control. Where I am on top of things and myself. Take me out of this and I feel a less solid proposition altogether.
We liked the South Coast. It was warm and gentle. Palm trees fringed the garden. The people were less impressive. There is a self-satisfied air to many of them. This is the place where the wealthy retire. For this reason, I am not sure I would go back. But we enjoyed it overall.
I got to read. Jonathan Littell is a US writer, raised in France. Two years ago he published `The Kindly Ones' in French. 5000 copies were printed. He has now sold a million and has just come out in English. Its a fictional first hand account of Max Aue, an SS Intelligence officer. Aue is a bureaucrat who doesn't know how to fire a gun properly. His job is to help the SS to organise its grisly work. The central thesis of the book is that the Holocaust wasn't the work of `monsters' or sadists but ordinary men. People like Max Aue. Intellectual. Aesthete. Killer.
Littell's intention is to make you ask yourself if you would have stepped back from following orders to kill defenseless people, as troops could do, if they chose, without fear of punishment. In reality few did. They just got used to it, saw it as work. Unpleasant work, but for the greater good. Sure, there were both sadists and people who cracked up with guilt but, on the whole, you just got on with it.
I would advise anybody to read this book. While very upsetting and graphic at times, it is also provides a fresh voice in this much written about area. The voice of the SS officer. Not an `ordinary' man but not necessarily someone who would normally kill or oversee killing. At 900 pages it is rather vast but you will not be disappointed.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Demob-Happy
My last day before heading off the south coast to spend Easter getting to know Katy and the kids again after a few weeks of frenetic activity. First week off since Christmas and, I sense, just in time. We are house-swopping for the first time. The website is full of nice houses owned by people who don't have loads of spare cash for proper holidays. I feel both excited, and slightly nervous!
Had a good run-in this week: Rattled off my Guardian and Third Sector pieces without too much pain, had excellent meetings with Jonathan Lewis, CEO of Futurebuilders and Peter Holbrook of Sunlight, which is probably my favourite social business of all time. Another keynote yesterday, this time at the Big Lottery Fund. Essentially about what to do now that Lottery money isn't really there any more. Didn't dare charge for that one, given how much we've had off the Lottery down the years
And between times lots of lovely work work inside Speaking Up. I don't talk about that stuff much here, but I have to say, we have such good people in our organisation. The people really make the place what it is. And I can't praise my senior team enough. They really are what every CEO dreams about. How else do you think I manage to spend so much time doing what I think a CEO should do: build profile, plan for the future, make the right connections.
Something has bothered me a lot recently though. Not to with us but to do with one of our major contracts with a state organisation which shall remain unnamed here. Working with most of our government partners, whether local or national, is, most of the time, fine. The monitoring can be onerous at times, but seldom excessive.
Last week, however, I learned that a body paid by the state wanted to know not only who I had met in recent times but also wanted copies of my calendar and email correspondence to prove that I was not making things up. This was part of an audit which, bizarrely, has now to be audited by somebody else, not from the monitoring body, to check their audit wasn't phoney.
Civil liberties issues aside, this captures perfectly where I think things have gone a bit wrong in government this last few years. People are being paid to watch the people who are watching us watch ourselves. It does not indicate trust. It sends a very bad message. It doesn't help anyone, least of all the people we are all seeking to serve. Yes it is public money. And that's exactly my point. If the public actually knew about this waste - which of course they never will, it is never actually calculated - they would be scandalised.
As you will know now, I am not a Tory but Cameron stuck a very strong note with me recently when he said (I think at Voice 09) that the relationship between the state and its people (including the third sector) needs to start from a position of trust. I don't feel particularly trusted right now, knowing someone somewhere is poring over my diary, possibly ringing people to check we met, what we talked about etc.
Time for a new approach. Time a holdiday. Back online 14th April.
Had a good run-in this week: Rattled off my Guardian and Third Sector pieces without too much pain, had excellent meetings with Jonathan Lewis, CEO of Futurebuilders and Peter Holbrook of Sunlight, which is probably my favourite social business of all time. Another keynote yesterday, this time at the Big Lottery Fund. Essentially about what to do now that Lottery money isn't really there any more. Didn't dare charge for that one, given how much we've had off the Lottery down the years
And between times lots of lovely work work inside Speaking Up. I don't talk about that stuff much here, but I have to say, we have such good people in our organisation. The people really make the place what it is. And I can't praise my senior team enough. They really are what every CEO dreams about. How else do you think I manage to spend so much time doing what I think a CEO should do: build profile, plan for the future, make the right connections.
Something has bothered me a lot recently though. Not to with us but to do with one of our major contracts with a state organisation which shall remain unnamed here. Working with most of our government partners, whether local or national, is, most of the time, fine. The monitoring can be onerous at times, but seldom excessive.
Last week, however, I learned that a body paid by the state wanted to know not only who I had met in recent times but also wanted copies of my calendar and email correspondence to prove that I was not making things up. This was part of an audit which, bizarrely, has now to be audited by somebody else, not from the monitoring body, to check their audit wasn't phoney.
Civil liberties issues aside, this captures perfectly where I think things have gone a bit wrong in government this last few years. People are being paid to watch the people who are watching us watch ourselves. It does not indicate trust. It sends a very bad message. It doesn't help anyone, least of all the people we are all seeking to serve. Yes it is public money. And that's exactly my point. If the public actually knew about this waste - which of course they never will, it is never actually calculated - they would be scandalised.
As you will know now, I am not a Tory but Cameron stuck a very strong note with me recently when he said (I think at Voice 09) that the relationship between the state and its people (including the third sector) needs to start from a position of trust. I don't feel particularly trusted right now, knowing someone somewhere is poring over my diary, possibly ringing people to check we met, what we talked about etc.
Time for a new approach. Time a holdiday. Back online 14th April.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Venturing North
To Cumbria. At the invitation of Dan Heery of Cybermoor, a technology-based social business. Dan is also Chair of Cumbria Social Enterprise Partnership.
Last Monday, Cumbria felt a long way away. I wasn't looking forward to the drive or the pile of email on my return. But I was glad I went. Cumbria, on a bright morning, is a blessing. I wound through Ambleside then Grasmere, home of Wordsworth. I can now see where the poems came from. My heart soared too, quite unexpectedly. There is something heavenly there.
I arrived in Keswick along with about a hundred others. The Lakes cover a massive area but people know each other and there is a villagey atmosphere - in a good way. My speech seemed to go down well. My message about the recession is to beat it by seeing it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to push the social business message. And, of course, to create a brilliant new offer for our times. Times when people are crying out for something they can trust.
During one speech I drift a little and start reading Liam Black's piece in Social Enterprise. He's clearly as spooked as I am by what's going on, where it is all going and what's going to happened afterwards. Plenty of social enterprises are going down he says and, of course, he's right. Because we are no better prepared than anyone else for what's coming. The final bubble to burst will be Government spending. That will be the one which hits us hardest because, at the end of the day, loads of us either do business with the Government or (still) get large subsidies from it. Liam generally calls things right. He also writes brilliant stuff and should, in my view, be writing for the Times or FT.
The best bits of the day happen during my `surgery'. I am set up at a table where people can come to discuss their challenges. Here I meet two elderly women (both at least 75)from Workington who saved the town's museum by taking it over from the council who were about to closed it. `We have a few dinosaurs to slay' one of them tells me before asking me to email a pdf of my presentation to her.
Then I meet Carl Hodge, a former RAF man who is business development guy for South Lakeland Society for the Blind. He's asking me if I think he should do an MBA. Judging by what he's achieved in a short time, I think he should be teaching on one. He's set up three trading companies, including a braille translation business which he bought out. He should be a case-study to send to charities who don't think they have any commercial potential. The word social entrepreneur could never be better applied.
Friday and I am in the North West, seeing the irrepressible Rob Harris of Advocacy Experience. Rob owns this business but is is very much a blended value entity - a social business in my view but it probably wouldn't get the Kitemark. Rob and I exchange views about how our own sector will come through the coming public sector recession. He shares my views about the lean times ahead. We both believe we're going to have to reinvent advocacy services that offer the same outcomes and quality but for at least 20% less cost. Its a tough square to circle but we both have ideas we're excited about.
Lunch with the excellent Matt Stevenson-Dodd at a lovely eaterie in the unlikely environs of suburban Warrington. There is a lot to do at his place and a lot hangs on how the organisation fares this next year. His quality will, I think, see him through, but its a tough assignment and he will need nerves of steel to deal with deep-seated issues, topped off, of course, by the recession.
On the way back, the phone rings. Its my exuberant business development director Paul Morrish. We have won another major tender, this time in Suffolk, in partnership with Out and About, a brilliant charity based in Eastern England. This brings to £2 million the new business Paul and his new team have brought in this quarter. After two extremely poor quarters this is a big relief. Paul is, of course, a big factor in this, though he would, being him, share the credit generously. To keep slogging away through a dark winter, losing time and again takes both guts and balls. Paul has both (!) and I am delighted for him.
So why, then, you might ask, am I still worrying about the recession if my sales are through the roof? Well, dear reader, it is because the party, for now, is still going on in the public sector. This is the last bubble to burst but the pin will be pricked in 2010, mark my words. If you want a feeling for how it will be look over the Irish Sea. A 6% drop in GDP. Unemployment at 15%. Public spending slashed. House prices down a third on peak. And that's just this year. Perhaps we won't get it quite so bad, but that's what's coming. I do not joke when I say to my people that we have two years, top, to secure the future of this organisation and its mission.
Oddly, I feel quite energised about it. I like white-knuckle rides.
Last Monday, Cumbria felt a long way away. I wasn't looking forward to the drive or the pile of email on my return. But I was glad I went. Cumbria, on a bright morning, is a blessing. I wound through Ambleside then Grasmere, home of Wordsworth. I can now see where the poems came from. My heart soared too, quite unexpectedly. There is something heavenly there.
I arrived in Keswick along with about a hundred others. The Lakes cover a massive area but people know each other and there is a villagey atmosphere - in a good way. My speech seemed to go down well. My message about the recession is to beat it by seeing it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to push the social business message. And, of course, to create a brilliant new offer for our times. Times when people are crying out for something they can trust.
During one speech I drift a little and start reading Liam Black's piece in Social Enterprise. He's clearly as spooked as I am by what's going on, where it is all going and what's going to happened afterwards. Plenty of social enterprises are going down he says and, of course, he's right. Because we are no better prepared than anyone else for what's coming. The final bubble to burst will be Government spending. That will be the one which hits us hardest because, at the end of the day, loads of us either do business with the Government or (still) get large subsidies from it. Liam generally calls things right. He also writes brilliant stuff and should, in my view, be writing for the Times or FT.
The best bits of the day happen during my `surgery'. I am set up at a table where people can come to discuss their challenges. Here I meet two elderly women (both at least 75)from Workington who saved the town's museum by taking it over from the council who were about to closed it. `We have a few dinosaurs to slay' one of them tells me before asking me to email a pdf of my presentation to her.
Then I meet Carl Hodge, a former RAF man who is business development guy for South Lakeland Society for the Blind. He's asking me if I think he should do an MBA. Judging by what he's achieved in a short time, I think he should be teaching on one. He's set up three trading companies, including a braille translation business which he bought out. He should be a case-study to send to charities who don't think they have any commercial potential. The word social entrepreneur could never be better applied.
Friday and I am in the North West, seeing the irrepressible Rob Harris of Advocacy Experience. Rob owns this business but is is very much a blended value entity - a social business in my view but it probably wouldn't get the Kitemark. Rob and I exchange views about how our own sector will come through the coming public sector recession. He shares my views about the lean times ahead. We both believe we're going to have to reinvent advocacy services that offer the same outcomes and quality but for at least 20% less cost. Its a tough square to circle but we both have ideas we're excited about.
Lunch with the excellent Matt Stevenson-Dodd at a lovely eaterie in the unlikely environs of suburban Warrington. There is a lot to do at his place and a lot hangs on how the organisation fares this next year. His quality will, I think, see him through, but its a tough assignment and he will need nerves of steel to deal with deep-seated issues, topped off, of course, by the recession.
On the way back, the phone rings. Its my exuberant business development director Paul Morrish. We have won another major tender, this time in Suffolk, in partnership with Out and About, a brilliant charity based in Eastern England. This brings to £2 million the new business Paul and his new team have brought in this quarter. After two extremely poor quarters this is a big relief. Paul is, of course, a big factor in this, though he would, being him, share the credit generously. To keep slogging away through a dark winter, losing time and again takes both guts and balls. Paul has both (!) and I am delighted for him.
So why, then, you might ask, am I still worrying about the recession if my sales are through the roof? Well, dear reader, it is because the party, for now, is still going on in the public sector. This is the last bubble to burst but the pin will be pricked in 2010, mark my words. If you want a feeling for how it will be look over the Irish Sea. A 6% drop in GDP. Unemployment at 15%. Public spending slashed. House prices down a third on peak. And that's just this year. Perhaps we won't get it quite so bad, but that's what's coming. I do not joke when I say to my people that we have two years, top, to secure the future of this organisation and its mission.
Oddly, I feel quite energised about it. I like white-knuckle rides.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Beating the Recession
I keep getting asked to do pieces about how to beat the recession at the moment so I thought I'd start by blogging about it.
My main response to the recession so far has been to fear it but not actually do that much! This is, so far, a mainly private sector recesssion. The 100,000 or so people signing on for JSA each month do not, on the whole, work for charities or councils!
However, this is changing. PriceWaterHouseCoopers have just predicted a 1.6% real annual reduction is public spending from 2010 till at least 2013 - or a 50 billion annual tax hike. As Andrew Rawnsley said in today's Observer, the game is up for the public sector - and their big deliver-partners such as charities, many of whom, like Speaking Up, now get most of their money from the state.
The better charities are now taking pre-emptive action. And, yes, I count Speaking Up among this number. It is clear to me as a CEO that everything is on the line for us in the next three years. Worst case is that we lose all our gains over the last five years and retreat to being a local charity in Cambridgeshire. Best-case is that we continue to grow, create abundant social profit and recast our business in the face of new needs. The likely outcome is something in between. My job, as CEO is to get as near to best-case as it is possible for someone in the top job to do.
So how will you beat the recession? Three things will matter. The first, and most important, is to advocate the right strategy for the organisation. Get this one wrong - and many do - and the mission stalls. And in a recession, a bad strategy stalls you real quick. Good strategy means understanding your environment and aligning the resources of the organisation - current and future- with changes in that environment. It sounds easy but its not. You need to look at everything, including radical restructuring, strategic partnerships and mergers, if this serves the mission long term. The alternative is failure. And CEOs that get strategy wrong will, I predict, be those signing on for JSA in a couple of years' time.
The second important thing for CEOs is to face the reality that the third sector is about to enter a deeply turbulent period - and act accordingly. This means using your power as CEO to cull projects and roles which you know, in your heart, aren't adding value. Things which, in the good times, you didn't really feel it was worth sticking your neck out about. Accepting that you, as CEO, will have to make tough choices is the first step to actually making them.
Thirdly, beating the recession will be about delivering services cheaper and better. This means recognising the needs of commissioners and funders and taking out cost, even when people say it can't be done. It also means being innovative, finding new ways to deliver more for less. The `burning platform' of the recessionw will give CEOs a one-off opportunity to press their staff to create the necessary change for organisations to survive.
So, three ways the recession: the right strategy, willingess to make very tough choices and a renewed focus on delivery, value and innovation. All of the above will require you, as CEO, to face-down people who think you're out to downgrade the work of the organisation. The response to this is to remind people that without the right changes there simply will be no organisation and the long-term mission will, withing a very short time, not exist. And if in doubt, remind yourself of your role as CEO: to protect the long-term mission of your organisation.
My main response to the recession so far has been to fear it but not actually do that much! This is, so far, a mainly private sector recesssion. The 100,000 or so people signing on for JSA each month do not, on the whole, work for charities or councils!
However, this is changing. PriceWaterHouseCoopers have just predicted a 1.6% real annual reduction is public spending from 2010 till at least 2013 - or a 50 billion annual tax hike. As Andrew Rawnsley said in today's Observer, the game is up for the public sector - and their big deliver-partners such as charities, many of whom, like Speaking Up, now get most of their money from the state.
The better charities are now taking pre-emptive action. And, yes, I count Speaking Up among this number. It is clear to me as a CEO that everything is on the line for us in the next three years. Worst case is that we lose all our gains over the last five years and retreat to being a local charity in Cambridgeshire. Best-case is that we continue to grow, create abundant social profit and recast our business in the face of new needs. The likely outcome is something in between. My job, as CEO is to get as near to best-case as it is possible for someone in the top job to do.
So how will you beat the recession? Three things will matter. The first, and most important, is to advocate the right strategy for the organisation. Get this one wrong - and many do - and the mission stalls. And in a recession, a bad strategy stalls you real quick. Good strategy means understanding your environment and aligning the resources of the organisation - current and future- with changes in that environment. It sounds easy but its not. You need to look at everything, including radical restructuring, strategic partnerships and mergers, if this serves the mission long term. The alternative is failure. And CEOs that get strategy wrong will, I predict, be those signing on for JSA in a couple of years' time.
The second important thing for CEOs is to face the reality that the third sector is about to enter a deeply turbulent period - and act accordingly. This means using your power as CEO to cull projects and roles which you know, in your heart, aren't adding value. Things which, in the good times, you didn't really feel it was worth sticking your neck out about. Accepting that you, as CEO, will have to make tough choices is the first step to actually making them.
Thirdly, beating the recession will be about delivering services cheaper and better. This means recognising the needs of commissioners and funders and taking out cost, even when people say it can't be done. It also means being innovative, finding new ways to deliver more for less. The `burning platform' of the recessionw will give CEOs a one-off opportunity to press their staff to create the necessary change for organisations to survive.
So, three ways the recession: the right strategy, willingess to make very tough choices and a renewed focus on delivery, value and innovation. All of the above will require you, as CEO, to face-down people who think you're out to downgrade the work of the organisation. The response to this is to remind people that without the right changes there simply will be no organisation and the long-term mission will, withing a very short time, not exist. And if in doubt, remind yourself of your role as CEO: to protect the long-term mission of your organisation.
Friday, March 20, 2009
On the Stump
Today I knocked on 200 doors. As well as seeing a lot of UPVC, I met a startlingly wide range of people. Happy ones, miserable ones, mildly aggressive ones, gay and happy ones. Most were older (I was calling in the daytime), nearly all were OK about me calling and I had a good old laugh with quite a few of them. I met three 90 year olds, all of whom vote, one who had voted Liberal since the 1930s.
My resident survey is designed to drill down to the key issues upon which I will base my campaign. Middle Schools come high up, especially for Mums and Dads (Bury's Middle School system is being abolished by the Tories in the next few years). I was amazed by how local a lot of people's concerns are: parking, traffic nuisance and so on. A lot of people see themselves as powerless in the face of officialdom and, over time, just resign themselves.
I was surprised by how many people want to talk. Not just older people but also the young mum, surrounded by her kids, talking about the parking problems in the street. The teacher talking about the schools. People, I noticed, weren't looking to me for answers but to be heard.
Today has shown me how important knocking on doors is to identifying support. You get a pretty good sense of who might vote for you come the election. Most are happy for you to come back. They appreciate seeing someone from one of the parties, once they realise you're not flogging something. But the most precious haul from today was the 30 or so people who I think will vote for me, particular if I go back nearer the election. Few of these are, I sense, committed Lib Dems, but, rather, people who responded particularly well to the visit and the message. If I can do enough of this type of day, between now and the election proper, I reckon I can harvest a lot of votes.
The territory today was mostly quiet residential streets, mostly bungalows with neat gardens, a five year old Nissan in the drive and `Neighbourhood Watch' signs on the door. Not Labour territory, by default Tory but, I noticed, not committed Tory.
Politically the thing that stuck me most profoundly was the number of people (10-20) who said they would vote Lib Dem if Vince Cable was leader. The man seems to strike a massive chord with voters. Indeed, at this rate, I will be trying to get my photo done with him, such is he a hit with voters. Cable is seen as straight-talking and right about things. Indeed had the leadership election been a year later, I have no doubt now that he would have been taking us into the next election. Clegg, by contrast, isn't mentioned. People just don't know him and his similarity, visually, to Cameron, won't, I feel, help us come next year.
I did, at a few doors, encounter some raw anger about the political class. A real bitterness that politician have screwed-up big time and got away with it, their own financial futures intact. The `plague on all your houses' reaction wasn't common (perhaps five people in all) but edges with anger, which you tend to register.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed myself today. For any aspiring politician, this is a necessary rite of passage. You have to listen to people, you have to connect with their concerns. You also have to empathise because if you don't do this, you're not going to win their support, especially as a Lib Dem in a town divided mostly into Con-Lab. My reception, on the whole, was positive, better than anticipated and it made me want to do it all again soon.
It also made me believe that, with a fair wind, I can actually win.
My resident survey is designed to drill down to the key issues upon which I will base my campaign. Middle Schools come high up, especially for Mums and Dads (Bury's Middle School system is being abolished by the Tories in the next few years). I was amazed by how local a lot of people's concerns are: parking, traffic nuisance and so on. A lot of people see themselves as powerless in the face of officialdom and, over time, just resign themselves.
I was surprised by how many people want to talk. Not just older people but also the young mum, surrounded by her kids, talking about the parking problems in the street. The teacher talking about the schools. People, I noticed, weren't looking to me for answers but to be heard.
Today has shown me how important knocking on doors is to identifying support. You get a pretty good sense of who might vote for you come the election. Most are happy for you to come back. They appreciate seeing someone from one of the parties, once they realise you're not flogging something. But the most precious haul from today was the 30 or so people who I think will vote for me, particular if I go back nearer the election. Few of these are, I sense, committed Lib Dems, but, rather, people who responded particularly well to the visit and the message. If I can do enough of this type of day, between now and the election proper, I reckon I can harvest a lot of votes.
The territory today was mostly quiet residential streets, mostly bungalows with neat gardens, a five year old Nissan in the drive and `Neighbourhood Watch' signs on the door. Not Labour territory, by default Tory but, I noticed, not committed Tory.
Politically the thing that stuck me most profoundly was the number of people (10-20) who said they would vote Lib Dem if Vince Cable was leader. The man seems to strike a massive chord with voters. Indeed, at this rate, I will be trying to get my photo done with him, such is he a hit with voters. Cable is seen as straight-talking and right about things. Indeed had the leadership election been a year later, I have no doubt now that he would have been taking us into the next election. Clegg, by contrast, isn't mentioned. People just don't know him and his similarity, visually, to Cameron, won't, I feel, help us come next year.
I did, at a few doors, encounter some raw anger about the political class. A real bitterness that politician have screwed-up big time and got away with it, their own financial futures intact. The `plague on all your houses' reaction wasn't common (perhaps five people in all) but edges with anger, which you tend to register.
Overall, though, I really enjoyed myself today. For any aspiring politician, this is a necessary rite of passage. You have to listen to people, you have to connect with their concerns. You also have to empathise because if you don't do this, you're not going to win their support, especially as a Lib Dem in a town divided mostly into Con-Lab. My reception, on the whole, was positive, better than anticipated and it made me want to do it all again soon.
It also made me believe that, with a fair wind, I can actually win.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Parish Rewards
In December we moved to Nowton, a village of 30 houses and 100 souls, two miles south of Bury St Edmunds. To the north,it is bounded by Nowton Park, a former private estate now owned and managed by St Edmundsbury District Council. Its sort of National Trust-lite. Big trees, well-signposted walks but with five-a-side pitches and free parking too. Perfect.
To the South, West and East, sit acres of wide-open Suffolk pasture and arable land, gently rolling, the austerity punctuated by occasional trees and the odd, interesting fold in the land. The village is spread over a couple of square miles so nobody is really on top of each other. This spacing out gives an airy, liberated feel to the place. There are people but not in your face, a community but in no sense a commune.
Presiding over local village affairs is the Parish Council. I first went to see them upon arriving because a couple of visitors to the house, having left, returned to the door, white-faced and shaken having just avoided being hit by cars on the blind bend before our house. Wanting to take action to slow traffic but, at the same time, not offending local sensibilities about signage etc I went to Parish Council and my County Councillor, and asked for their views. Thankfully they backed me and two months later we have a letter from the Suffolk County Council committing to a series of measures which will, I hope, make a difference.
Tonight I showed up to the Parish Council meeting to say thanks and drop off a card to the convenor of the Parish. Apparently, this is a rare success, due, in part they think to the drive coming, in the first instance, from a local resident, rather than the parish representative body, something I found both odd and a bit perverse.
Just now, later on, in my inbox there is a mail from the Convenor. Would I mind taking regular responsibility for keeping the bus shelter across the road clean and also mowing the grass around the village sign opposite our house?
I smile and reply saying that nothing would give me more pleasure.
To the South, West and East, sit acres of wide-open Suffolk pasture and arable land, gently rolling, the austerity punctuated by occasional trees and the odd, interesting fold in the land. The village is spread over a couple of square miles so nobody is really on top of each other. This spacing out gives an airy, liberated feel to the place. There are people but not in your face, a community but in no sense a commune.
Presiding over local village affairs is the Parish Council. I first went to see them upon arriving because a couple of visitors to the house, having left, returned to the door, white-faced and shaken having just avoided being hit by cars on the blind bend before our house. Wanting to take action to slow traffic but, at the same time, not offending local sensibilities about signage etc I went to Parish Council and my County Councillor, and asked for their views. Thankfully they backed me and two months later we have a letter from the Suffolk County Council committing to a series of measures which will, I hope, make a difference.
Tonight I showed up to the Parish Council meeting to say thanks and drop off a card to the convenor of the Parish. Apparently, this is a rare success, due, in part they think to the drive coming, in the first instance, from a local resident, rather than the parish representative body, something I found both odd and a bit perverse.
Just now, later on, in my inbox there is a mail from the Convenor. Would I mind taking regular responsibility for keeping the bus shelter across the road clean and also mowing the grass around the village sign opposite our house?
I smile and reply saying that nothing would give me more pleasure.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Startin' Over?
On June 4th I am, for the first time in my life, standing in an Election. It is the local government poll for Suffolk County Council. I am standing in Hardwick Division (or ward) for the Liberal Democrats who, last time, got 28% of the votes next to the victorious Tories' 39% and lowly Labour's 25%. Winnable-ish. But on the same day as the Euros with the Tories sky-high in the polls, I am not the bookie's choice!
Why and why now? Its a good question. The answer, I think, is that I feel its the next stage for me. You see, I've chosen so far to express my politics almost exclusively through my work. Speaking Up has been, in a way, my way of saying to the world what I believe in: personal empowerment, self-direction, social equality and an entrepreneurial, non-statist approach to social change.
For a long time, I felt this was the only real way for me to change the world. Politics seemed slow and, at times, pointless. I wanted to focus, laser-like, on issues I cared about and make a difference, without wasting a gram of energy on the heat and light of politics. Added to this, I didn't, as a younger man, have the skill, insight or inclination to be effective beyond what I chose to do through the organisations I set up.
But that has changed. I am a bit older now. I understand the world better. My skills have broadened, my confidence grown. I also know better what I believe now, which sounds odd, but I took a long time to truly make up my mind on many things.
Coupled to all this, my days of serial entrpreneurship feel like they may be behind me now. Like a blocked songwriter, I just don't have another tune in me right now. As Paul Weller once said, `after a while, they just stop coming'. He was right. There was a time in my late 20s-early 30s when I set up an organisation a year for five years. But the truth is that I haven't actually set up anything new for years.
Some of this dearth is stage-of-life stuff - kids, the job, being permanently fatigued - but part of it is that I may have `done' that particular approach to changing the world and now want to find another. The nearest I seem to get these days to social entrepreneurship is helping others who are doing what I used to do back in the day.
So what do I believe in policy terms? I'd like to say I am a classic Liberal Democrat but, in truth, my beliefs are a bit more of a political alphabet soup than that. I don't, for example, remotely mind CCTV being everywhere. Nor do I spend too many sleepness nights worrying about who MI5 might be keeping an eye on. In truth, I am probably more far `right wing' than most Liberal Democrats. Indeed certain people in the party like Simon Hughes (the lefty-Christian Liberal MP) really don't do much for me at all.
However, I am very clear about a few things. I believe in a state which operates within clearly defined, written limits. Even in an era where we need a strong state to respond to global change, I think it is ever more important that we decide, formally, as a society, what government is and isn't allowed to do. A written constitution.
I also think the public sector is far too big. The corrective to 90s public squalor has swung the other way and we now have long passed the point where additional spending made any difference. We need a public sector which is smaller (25% smaller), which is managed so it can succeed and in which real-world terms and conditions are imposed, immediately, upon the people working within its organisations.
Finally, I want to see radical decentralisation of power. As anyone who has run a successful organisation knows, centralised systems tend to underperform. Britain is currently run like Shell in the 1960s. From the top down. And we wonder why nothing really works. It takes a huge leap of faith to let go of the levers, but, one day soon, Government will need to pass power down the line. Not just to local government. But to wider civil society. And, as a key part of civil society, the third sector should be a much larger shaping force in the way Britain works. Delivering services but also shaping them too, as users and local managers of resources.
This all probably sounds a bit David Cameron, I know, so I need to stress this I am not a Conservative. Unlike the Tories, I believe that it is right for politicians to seek to change the natural order by deliberate effort. I am also basically optimistic, rather than sceptical, about human nature. Given basic safety, fairness and equal-opportunity, most people tend to elevate social solidarity to a primary value very easily. Look at the trust-based societies of Northern Europe for an example of this. High trust societies are successful ones. They are also ones in which social inequality is actively challenged, not seen as `the natural order'.
Therefore Government, in my view, needs to create the conditions in which the best aspects of human nature can thrive and where the worst are actively discouraged. Yes, I guess I am talking about social engineering. But where Labour has gone wrong in my view has been to focus on settting up endless Government programmes, instead of nurturing the capacity of our society to be the one in which most people aspire to live: One that is just, safe,cohesive, trusting, regardful, optimistic.
Does this sound like the UK today after 12 years of Labour Government? No. Therefore I am, like most people, deeply worried about the future of our country and, of course, the wider world. We are, in the G20, entering a period of low growth and likely social fragmentation. The end of oil is near. I think living standards may well have peaked for a lot of people in the richer countries. For those outside the elite nations, the picture is particularly bleak. Warming is already having profound effects. You don't need to be James Lovelock to believe that its 50/50 whether half the places within the Tropics will even exist a hundred years from now.
The challenge, then, for politics domestically, is to lead and broker a new kind of settlement on the economy, to redefine the role of the state in the face of new challenges and to engineer conditions in which our society can cohere rather than fragment. It is to set a course for this country which weans us off oil within 50 years. It isn't hard to imagine. We have always been inventive. I can almost see the UK, in 50 years time, as a bit like a gigantic social enterprise: earning its living through successful products which address the challenges of others globally, but always mindful of the need to balance our financial returns with wider social returns globally. Returns without which, ultimately, we are all endangered.
Politics starts for me on the Nowton estate next Friday afternoon when I do my Residents Survey as a prelude to my campaign. I am asking people what they think about a whole raft of issues in our area from Post Offices at risk to the closure of our middle schools next year. In doing this I hope to find out who might vote for me in June.
My political career may begin,end or just be delayed on June 4th. But, whatever happens, I think I will have learned something from the experience of seeing the world through the eyes of people I otherwise would probably never see or encounter in my life at the moment, never mind talk to or listen to.
Why and why now? Its a good question. The answer, I think, is that I feel its the next stage for me. You see, I've chosen so far to express my politics almost exclusively through my work. Speaking Up has been, in a way, my way of saying to the world what I believe in: personal empowerment, self-direction, social equality and an entrepreneurial, non-statist approach to social change.
For a long time, I felt this was the only real way for me to change the world. Politics seemed slow and, at times, pointless. I wanted to focus, laser-like, on issues I cared about and make a difference, without wasting a gram of energy on the heat and light of politics. Added to this, I didn't, as a younger man, have the skill, insight or inclination to be effective beyond what I chose to do through the organisations I set up.
But that has changed. I am a bit older now. I understand the world better. My skills have broadened, my confidence grown. I also know better what I believe now, which sounds odd, but I took a long time to truly make up my mind on many things.
Coupled to all this, my days of serial entrpreneurship feel like they may be behind me now. Like a blocked songwriter, I just don't have another tune in me right now. As Paul Weller once said, `after a while, they just stop coming'. He was right. There was a time in my late 20s-early 30s when I set up an organisation a year for five years. But the truth is that I haven't actually set up anything new for years.
Some of this dearth is stage-of-life stuff - kids, the job, being permanently fatigued - but part of it is that I may have `done' that particular approach to changing the world and now want to find another. The nearest I seem to get these days to social entrepreneurship is helping others who are doing what I used to do back in the day.
So what do I believe in policy terms? I'd like to say I am a classic Liberal Democrat but, in truth, my beliefs are a bit more of a political alphabet soup than that. I don't, for example, remotely mind CCTV being everywhere. Nor do I spend too many sleepness nights worrying about who MI5 might be keeping an eye on. In truth, I am probably more far `right wing' than most Liberal Democrats. Indeed certain people in the party like Simon Hughes (the lefty-Christian Liberal MP) really don't do much for me at all.
However, I am very clear about a few things. I believe in a state which operates within clearly defined, written limits. Even in an era where we need a strong state to respond to global change, I think it is ever more important that we decide, formally, as a society, what government is and isn't allowed to do. A written constitution.
I also think the public sector is far too big. The corrective to 90s public squalor has swung the other way and we now have long passed the point where additional spending made any difference. We need a public sector which is smaller (25% smaller), which is managed so it can succeed and in which real-world terms and conditions are imposed, immediately, upon the people working within its organisations.
Finally, I want to see radical decentralisation of power. As anyone who has run a successful organisation knows, centralised systems tend to underperform. Britain is currently run like Shell in the 1960s. From the top down. And we wonder why nothing really works. It takes a huge leap of faith to let go of the levers, but, one day soon, Government will need to pass power down the line. Not just to local government. But to wider civil society. And, as a key part of civil society, the third sector should be a much larger shaping force in the way Britain works. Delivering services but also shaping them too, as users and local managers of resources.
This all probably sounds a bit David Cameron, I know, so I need to stress this I am not a Conservative. Unlike the Tories, I believe that it is right for politicians to seek to change the natural order by deliberate effort. I am also basically optimistic, rather than sceptical, about human nature. Given basic safety, fairness and equal-opportunity, most people tend to elevate social solidarity to a primary value very easily. Look at the trust-based societies of Northern Europe for an example of this. High trust societies are successful ones. They are also ones in which social inequality is actively challenged, not seen as `the natural order'.
Therefore Government, in my view, needs to create the conditions in which the best aspects of human nature can thrive and where the worst are actively discouraged. Yes, I guess I am talking about social engineering. But where Labour has gone wrong in my view has been to focus on settting up endless Government programmes, instead of nurturing the capacity of our society to be the one in which most people aspire to live: One that is just, safe,cohesive, trusting, regardful, optimistic.
Does this sound like the UK today after 12 years of Labour Government? No. Therefore I am, like most people, deeply worried about the future of our country and, of course, the wider world. We are, in the G20, entering a period of low growth and likely social fragmentation. The end of oil is near. I think living standards may well have peaked for a lot of people in the richer countries. For those outside the elite nations, the picture is particularly bleak. Warming is already having profound effects. You don't need to be James Lovelock to believe that its 50/50 whether half the places within the Tropics will even exist a hundred years from now.
The challenge, then, for politics domestically, is to lead and broker a new kind of settlement on the economy, to redefine the role of the state in the face of new challenges and to engineer conditions in which our society can cohere rather than fragment. It is to set a course for this country which weans us off oil within 50 years. It isn't hard to imagine. We have always been inventive. I can almost see the UK, in 50 years time, as a bit like a gigantic social enterprise: earning its living through successful products which address the challenges of others globally, but always mindful of the need to balance our financial returns with wider social returns globally. Returns without which, ultimately, we are all endangered.
Politics starts for me on the Nowton estate next Friday afternoon when I do my Residents Survey as a prelude to my campaign. I am asking people what they think about a whole raft of issues in our area from Post Offices at risk to the closure of our middle schools next year. In doing this I hope to find out who might vote for me in June.
My political career may begin,end or just be delayed on June 4th. But, whatever happens, I think I will have learned something from the experience of seeing the world through the eyes of people I otherwise would probably never see or encounter in my life at the moment, never mind talk to or listen to.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
The title of today's blog - and also of a fabulous book by Japan's foremost author Haruki Murakami. I bought this book as a small-time fan of Murakami but mainly because he's a runner and I am too.
`When I Am Running' is all about Murakami's development as a writer and a runner. He started both at the same time, the comparatively late age of 32. He believes that what makes a good runner also makes a good novelist. Yes, talent, but also focus, endurance and an ability to get through pain. His writing in `When I am Running' is simple, simplistic almost and, if you didn't know this was the writer of `Norwegian Wood', you'd almost believe it was produced by a lesser writer.
What I have enjoyed most so far in this book is the extent of my own identification with Murakami. He is a grafter. He has talent (far more than I) but is also aware that things dont' come easily to him. He has to really try often where things come easily to others.
Murakami also has a straightforwardness to him I can relate to. He sees life in terms of choices. No pain, no gain. Nothing good happens without insane levels of commitment, unless you're just freakishly talented or fortunate. This is a man for whom writing isn't just an intellectual outpouring, but a long, hard marathon, something for which he has to constantly push himself towards, a titanic effort requiring a backbone of steel.
Running has been a feature of my own life since I was about 18. I began using it to manage stress when I was going through a rough patch mentally. I never stopped. I have been running at least twice a week now for 20 years. My performance as a runner peaked in my early 20s, quite early for a runner when I completed the Great North Run in 1hr 24 minutes. Then I got injured and couldn't run hard for several years. I never quite got back to that level and now half-marathon in about 1hr 45 mins.
Running feels as much part of my identify as it does Murakami's. What do I think about when I am running? Not a lot. He is right, it is semi-meditative. Fragments come and go. Things do get worked out but not on a logical level, particularly. For me, like him, that happens, if it ever does, on the page.
Today's run was in the splendid frost of an early morning. I did an hour, out through our gate, past the village sign and into the fallow Suffolk pasture that surround our house. The sky is big here, the fields mostly unbroken by hedgerows, huge, subtlely undulating tablecloths with distant, splinter-fences.
Sometimes when I run I feel I am filled with water. At such times, I barely get beyond walking pace. Today though I was strong and even managed to sprint for a half-mile. I am accompanied, as always, by my terrier-dog, Stanley, who could probably run all day and then some. His natural athletic talent runs far in excess of my own.
I arrive home, pleased with myself, at 8.30am, following a fine hour to hear both children in a state. They have been ill with tummy bugs and I was up several times in the night. The volume doesn't phase me though. I am beyond stress. That is what running means to me.
`When I Am Running' is all about Murakami's development as a writer and a runner. He started both at the same time, the comparatively late age of 32. He believes that what makes a good runner also makes a good novelist. Yes, talent, but also focus, endurance and an ability to get through pain. His writing in `When I am Running' is simple, simplistic almost and, if you didn't know this was the writer of `Norwegian Wood', you'd almost believe it was produced by a lesser writer.
What I have enjoyed most so far in this book is the extent of my own identification with Murakami. He is a grafter. He has talent (far more than I) but is also aware that things dont' come easily to him. He has to really try often where things come easily to others.
Murakami also has a straightforwardness to him I can relate to. He sees life in terms of choices. No pain, no gain. Nothing good happens without insane levels of commitment, unless you're just freakishly talented or fortunate. This is a man for whom writing isn't just an intellectual outpouring, but a long, hard marathon, something for which he has to constantly push himself towards, a titanic effort requiring a backbone of steel.
Running has been a feature of my own life since I was about 18. I began using it to manage stress when I was going through a rough patch mentally. I never stopped. I have been running at least twice a week now for 20 years. My performance as a runner peaked in my early 20s, quite early for a runner when I completed the Great North Run in 1hr 24 minutes. Then I got injured and couldn't run hard for several years. I never quite got back to that level and now half-marathon in about 1hr 45 mins.
Running feels as much part of my identify as it does Murakami's. What do I think about when I am running? Not a lot. He is right, it is semi-meditative. Fragments come and go. Things do get worked out but not on a logical level, particularly. For me, like him, that happens, if it ever does, on the page.
Today's run was in the splendid frost of an early morning. I did an hour, out through our gate, past the village sign and into the fallow Suffolk pasture that surround our house. The sky is big here, the fields mostly unbroken by hedgerows, huge, subtlely undulating tablecloths with distant, splinter-fences.
Sometimes when I run I feel I am filled with water. At such times, I barely get beyond walking pace. Today though I was strong and even managed to sprint for a half-mile. I am accompanied, as always, by my terrier-dog, Stanley, who could probably run all day and then some. His natural athletic talent runs far in excess of my own.
I arrive home, pleased with myself, at 8.30am, following a fine hour to hear both children in a state. They have been ill with tummy bugs and I was up several times in the night. The volume doesn't phase me though. I am beyond stress. That is what running means to me.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Drying Up
My blogging is feeling a little dry right now. I am, alas, one of the doom mongers – see next week’s Third Sector piece - for whom these times seem designed to leave in a state of both affirmation and low-level angst. Partly linked to my own future anxiety - something that has been gnawing at the back of my head since I created a future for myself in which earning a lot of money becomes a necessity rather than a by-product of whatever I freely choose to do.
Isn’t it odd, though - this capacity we have for not appreciating what we have and letting some future abstraction bog us down, take the edge off things. Even when looking at my beautiful, perfect, healthy children or looking out of my window at the amazing Tripods-like cedars that seem to stomp across the park, I can’t quite appreciate what I’ve got or achieved. My own health is good, my marriage is very good, I do mostly what I like, with caveats.
So why worry? But I do. The state of the world is part of it, I know but part of it almost feels wired in. Is it this which gives me the hunger for climbing the next hill? That same dissatisfaction that allowed Roy Keane only an hour of happiness following Man Utd’s 1999 Treble before he became edgy enough to want to do it all again. I don't know. Perhaps I just need to relax, to listen to the wonderful Bryn in `Gavin and Stacey' and "Take a Chill Pill". Life is good. I know it and I don't.
Isn’t it odd, though - this capacity we have for not appreciating what we have and letting some future abstraction bog us down, take the edge off things. Even when looking at my beautiful, perfect, healthy children or looking out of my window at the amazing Tripods-like cedars that seem to stomp across the park, I can’t quite appreciate what I’ve got or achieved. My own health is good, my marriage is very good, I do mostly what I like, with caveats.
So why worry? But I do. The state of the world is part of it, I know but part of it almost feels wired in. Is it this which gives me the hunger for climbing the next hill? That same dissatisfaction that allowed Roy Keane only an hour of happiness following Man Utd’s 1999 Treble before he became edgy enough to want to do it all again. I don't know. Perhaps I just need to relax, to listen to the wonderful Bryn in `Gavin and Stacey' and "Take a Chill Pill". Life is good. I know it and I don't.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday's Endings
Sometimes I get to Friday evenings feeling full of energy and achievement, still wanting more. Other times, I limp past the finish line like a cramped marathon runner, all achy and tired. This was one of those Fridays. It hasn't been a bad week, on the whole. Quite the opposite in fact. A good meeting with my excellent senior team. A successful trip to London and, today, the launch of Speaking Up's Youth Parliament, comprising young people from Cambs, Suffolk and Peterborough. Seeing our excellent teams in action and the enthusiasm of all the Mums and Dad's was lovely.
Spoke to Jim Paice, our local Conservative MP who, unlike Lib Dem David Howarth, fulfilled his commitment to come along. We mused about the £60 billion annual budget deficit facing the next Government and say we're glad that the newly rebuilt school we're standing in will be completed by then. Paice thinks its a lot more than £60 billion, which, if true would mean we're trying to plug a 12-15% gap between known income and planned expenditure in just 2 years time.
Earlier in the week I had been on an ACEVO Working Group looking at how CEOs can better engage staff in their organisations. Although this is considered to be a strength of third sector organisations, the truth is we get more tribunals than any other sector. The group was actually quite good with a range of people from all kinds and sizes of organisation. It was chaired by the genial and super-bright Jon Sparkes, CEO of Scope and also, I am delighted to say, Trustee of Speaking Up. Unlike some clever people who wear their intelligence like bling, Jon is under-stated and keeps it all simple. This makes his gift something to admire rather than grimace at, or feel envy for.
The problem we all face, we discovered, was the disjunction between attempts to de-machine our organisational cultures (more personal appearances, a clearer, more human organisation voice) and the clunking machinery of the Employment Law and personnel rules which many of our organsiations contain. And no time is this clanking louder than in a downturn when the `At Risk' letter go out, formal `consultation' has to take place with about 5000 people who might be affected by 20 job losses and the secrecy about restructure has to be absolute in order to prevent the odd rascal suing you for some breach of employment law.
The solutions are not to be defeated by the machine. To continue to be human. To use your HR people to formalise informality and to keep beating away at the message that there is no conspiracy. Many of us too are seeking to involve staff in strategy and create an organisational conversation. We, for example, use a fortnightly e-bullet called `Heads Up' which I use to flag up where I see things, a sort of CEO blog, but not one that has been put through the internal PR mincer. Just a fairly straight-up account of the issues. Unsurprisingly to me, I know people read it and, to a point, appreciate its tone and content.
My final stop in London is at a well-known social investment company which I love very much (and its not that one) which was doing some market-research on its own positioning in the sector. One of the exercises was when the names of all the agences were thrown on the table on cards and we were asked to group them. There were commercial banks, `charity banks, social lenders, equity-investors grant-givers. Interestingly this organisation did bits of all, with the possible exception of grant-giving. Their positioning was as a boutique social finance agnency which, if they didn't do it, could find you a man or woman that could.
A necessary force, I thought. But what is still missing from this market in my view is a social investment agency that goes much further down the risk pathway than loans, or performance-dependent returnable grants (or quasi-equity). Its the Angel investor market. Those people, like David Gold of Glimmer (he's the only one and he's very small) who say, `I like this idea, this person, this acorn, and I'm going to take a flyer on it'. Very few people do that. The organisations getting social investment tend to be those that have three or more years track-record. This is a blockage on social innovation, one which a Social Investment Bank would not, I believe solve, due to the degree of risk. One in ten successes, while the norm in venture capital, would not, I suspect, impress the Treasury.
The week ends as the week began, in the bedroom upstairs, trying, against tiredness to negotiate clothing on and off the body of my lovely one year old son, Wilf. He's laughing tonight, particularly when I make parping noises on his belly. He loves play, the rougher the better. This boy goes to sleep the second you lay him down and shut the door. I then go read to Ruby, two stories (she always insists on two). Fortunately, tonight's are mercifully short and she's practically asleep by the end. As always, I rub her back, and we run through all the people who love her, something he joins in after a while. She is an adorable child. I think, briefly of David Cameron who lost a child this week. I struggled to contain myself when I heard that news, as I think a lot of people did who have children. You know what it means for the rest of your life, the sense of loss that never goes, that shadow on your heart. I feel a huge sense of sorrow for Cameron and his wife. And, then, predictably perhaps, relief that it was not my child that died on Wednesday morning.
Spoke to Jim Paice, our local Conservative MP who, unlike Lib Dem David Howarth, fulfilled his commitment to come along. We mused about the £60 billion annual budget deficit facing the next Government and say we're glad that the newly rebuilt school we're standing in will be completed by then. Paice thinks its a lot more than £60 billion, which, if true would mean we're trying to plug a 12-15% gap between known income and planned expenditure in just 2 years time.
Earlier in the week I had been on an ACEVO Working Group looking at how CEOs can better engage staff in their organisations. Although this is considered to be a strength of third sector organisations, the truth is we get more tribunals than any other sector. The group was actually quite good with a range of people from all kinds and sizes of organisation. It was chaired by the genial and super-bright Jon Sparkes, CEO of Scope and also, I am delighted to say, Trustee of Speaking Up. Unlike some clever people who wear their intelligence like bling, Jon is under-stated and keeps it all simple. This makes his gift something to admire rather than grimace at, or feel envy for.
The problem we all face, we discovered, was the disjunction between attempts to de-machine our organisational cultures (more personal appearances, a clearer, more human organisation voice) and the clunking machinery of the Employment Law and personnel rules which many of our organsiations contain. And no time is this clanking louder than in a downturn when the `At Risk' letter go out, formal `consultation' has to take place with about 5000 people who might be affected by 20 job losses and the secrecy about restructure has to be absolute in order to prevent the odd rascal suing you for some breach of employment law.
The solutions are not to be defeated by the machine. To continue to be human. To use your HR people to formalise informality and to keep beating away at the message that there is no conspiracy. Many of us too are seeking to involve staff in strategy and create an organisational conversation. We, for example, use a fortnightly e-bullet called `Heads Up' which I use to flag up where I see things, a sort of CEO blog, but not one that has been put through the internal PR mincer. Just a fairly straight-up account of the issues. Unsurprisingly to me, I know people read it and, to a point, appreciate its tone and content.
My final stop in London is at a well-known social investment company which I love very much (and its not that one) which was doing some market-research on its own positioning in the sector. One of the exercises was when the names of all the agences were thrown on the table on cards and we were asked to group them. There were commercial banks, `charity banks, social lenders, equity-investors grant-givers. Interestingly this organisation did bits of all, with the possible exception of grant-giving. Their positioning was as a boutique social finance agnency which, if they didn't do it, could find you a man or woman that could.
A necessary force, I thought. But what is still missing from this market in my view is a social investment agency that goes much further down the risk pathway than loans, or performance-dependent returnable grants (or quasi-equity). Its the Angel investor market. Those people, like David Gold of Glimmer (he's the only one and he's very small) who say, `I like this idea, this person, this acorn, and I'm going to take a flyer on it'. Very few people do that. The organisations getting social investment tend to be those that have three or more years track-record. This is a blockage on social innovation, one which a Social Investment Bank would not, I believe solve, due to the degree of risk. One in ten successes, while the norm in venture capital, would not, I suspect, impress the Treasury.
The week ends as the week began, in the bedroom upstairs, trying, against tiredness to negotiate clothing on and off the body of my lovely one year old son, Wilf. He's laughing tonight, particularly when I make parping noises on his belly. He loves play, the rougher the better. This boy goes to sleep the second you lay him down and shut the door. I then go read to Ruby, two stories (she always insists on two). Fortunately, tonight's are mercifully short and she's practically asleep by the end. As always, I rub her back, and we run through all the people who love her, something he joins in after a while. She is an adorable child. I think, briefly of David Cameron who lost a child this week. I struggled to contain myself when I heard that news, as I think a lot of people did who have children. You know what it means for the rest of your life, the sense of loss that never goes, that shadow on your heart. I feel a huge sense of sorrow for Cameron and his wife. And, then, predictably perhaps, relief that it was not my child that died on Wednesday morning.
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