Jon Harvey Associates Ltd

Quick fix, stay fix and the art of getting more from less

2013-06-14T11:28:00.000+01:00

I have just uploaded a couple of videos to youtube (parts one and two) where I talk through a model that I have been explaining for many years (with live hand drawing!). The model is grounded in total quality management and continuous improvement (which is where I began my consultancy career).

It is not a complicated model. However many people have told me that it has really helped them to understand the significant challenges faced my them as leaders, in trying to get more from less.

Resources are very tight and demands are even greater: whether you work in the public, voluntary or commercial sectors. The need for organisations to work more elegantly has never been greater.

So please, have a look at the videos and let me know what you think. You can find them here: (Part One & Part Two)

I have also written about this model here too, if reading is more your style.

Payment by Results and lamp posts

2013-06-13T14:34:00.001+01:00

Many years ago at school, I studied SMP Maths. I always remember the cartoon at the front of the chapter on statistics. It showed a drunken man leaning against a lamp post. The caption read: some people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamp post, for support rather than illumination.

And so yesterday, the Ministry of Justice published

Statistical Notice: Interim re-conviction figures for the Peterborough and Doncaster Payment by Results pilots

I was drawn towards this document by a combination of Russell Webster's excellent blog and the BBC news at midday. It kind got up my gander a little bit as it seemed to be exercise in political punditry rather than a clear analysis of whether the new Payment by Results regime may actually be working (or not). With my gander raised, I emailed the statistician involved with a number of questions which I reprint below.

The questions are a bit geeky, I know. But I do think it is vital for us all to know the precise evidence for whether PbR can work or not. Feel free of course to comment or indeed write with your own questions too.
________________________

Dear Mike Elkins

I have just read through your publication. I have a number of questions and I would be most grateful for your thoughts:

1. The pilots began on 9 September 2010 and the 1 October 2011 (Peterborough and Doncaster respectively.) Please can you qualify “began”?
2. Given that “the next Proven Reoffending Statistics quarterly bulletin will not be published until 25 July 2013”, why did you publish your results today rather than a few weeks from now?
3. I understand that “the interim re-conviction figures being published in this statistical bulletin are based on periods half the length of those that will be used for the final results” – daft question I am sure, but presumably this applies to both the ‘experimental’ subject averages and the national comparators?
4. You say that these “interim 6 month re-conviction figures are available for almost all of Peterborough cohort 1 (around 850 offenders) and half of Doncaster cohort 1 (around 700 offenders)”, please can you explain what has happened to the other portions of the cohorts and why they are included?
5. In terms of methodology, you say “offenders enter the PbR pilots after their first eligible release from the prison within the cohort period”, please can you explain “eligible” in this context and whether the national comparator figures also cover the same “eligible” group?
6. You explain that the key difference is that reconvictions only count offences for which the offender was convicted at court, whereas the National Statistics proven re-offending measure also includes out of court disposals (cautions)” and “Additionally, there are a number of other differences between the pilots and the
7. National Statistics proven re-offending measure in terms of which offenders are counted within the cohort”. Are you able to say what difference these differences might make to the figures? For example, what number of offenders per hundred are usually subject to a caution (or similar disposal) as opposed to a court conviction?
8. Again I assume that given that the “Peterborough pilot includes offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months, whereas the Doncaster pilot includes all offenders released from custody regardless of sentence length”, the national comparisons are on a like for like basis?
9. You explain that the “success of each Peterborough cohort will be determined by comparison with a control group (of comparable offenders from across the country)”. How will this ‘control’ group be selected to ensure there is no inadvertent or unknown bias? Indeed was there (will there be) any form of randomised control trial element to either of these two trials (and extensions)? If not, what is your considered professional judgement as a statistician as to the validity of these results to guide future practice?
10. For Doncaster, success “will be determined by comparison with the reconviction rate in the baseline year of 2009”. How will this accommodate national and/or local trends in (say) sentencing practice or levels of crime?
11. Given that normally reconviction rates are measured on a 12 month basis and these interim results are measured on a 6 month one, how much is that likely (based on past data) to have depressed the reconviction rates?
12. You say “Whereas in this publication, to eliminate the risk of seasonality and enable a consistent comparison over time, all figures relate to offenders released in the 6 month period from October to March”. I may well be missing something here, but by only using the six winter months, are you not likely to increase the risk of a seasonal effect in the data? Please explain further.
13. Given that the Peterborough cohort finished on 1/7/12, and allowing for the 6 months plus 3 (for court delays), this takes us up to March 2013. So on this basis, why have the last three months of data (April, May and June 2012) been excluded? (As far as I can see there is no explanation of this decision, but forgive me if I have overlooked it.)
14. Given that I assume that data is ordinarily collected on a quarterly basis, it would have been helpful to have presented your data in a similar way so that trends could be spotted over time rather than use the fairly arbitrary 19 month period to show the data. Why did you present it this way? Please could I have the data on a quarterly basis.
15. Given that you must have the data for Peterborough for the missing 19 month period (September 08 to March 11), and acknowledging that this overlaps with the pilot beginning, please could I have this data nonetheless.
16. Likewise, please could I have the data for the quarter beginning April 2012.
17. You say “Nationally the equivalent figures show a rise of 16% from 69 to 79 re-conviction events per 100 offenders”. How do you get 16%? I can see a rise of 10 ‘points’ or a rise of (10/69*100) 14.5%.
18. (As an aside, this is quite a large rise nationally in re-conviction rates comparing the period from just before the last election to period after. Have national rates continued to rise or have they levelled off now?)
19. You say “these interim figures show a fall in the frequency of re-conviction events at Peterborough” which is drop from 41.6% to 39.2%. At what threshold of probability is this statistically significant?
20. Please can you confirm that the OGRS scores cited relate to the cohort groups in both Peterborough and Doncaster (rather than all offenders who were released)?
21. Why are the national re-conviction scores given next to Doncaster data (which average 32.9%) differ from the scores given next to the Peterborough data (average 37.9%)? I know the period is different and there is some missing data, but this still seems like a large difference…

I look forward to your thoughts

Many thanks

________________________

And now I wait...

UPDATE: FoI inquiry has been acknowledged. 20 working days or less to go... (140613)

Digital local services: the zero challenge!

2013-05-31T10:05:00.004+01:00

Recently, I had the great pleasure of facilitating a vibrant symposium on how to harness the power of digital in the delivery of local services - so that there can be more effectiveness, efficiency and economy.

The day was one of series organised by ITW. If you are not already signed up to be part of this network (or the several others that ITW have put together...) what is stopping you? It is free for people from the public sector, and becoming a private sector partner is well worth your investment.

It was also a delight to work alongside my daughter, Jess on that day too. She took the answers to three 'zero challenge'* questions and turned them into a themed visual presentation. The questions were:

What must we learn from the past: what should we now stop, start and carry on doing?
If the future is nothing else, we must make sure that it… what?
In order to sweat our existing assets and capacity, we really should… what?

And this is what Jess produced.

(I have also uploaded a 7Mb version of this to my google drive, if you want to access that.)

I may be biased of course, but I think this picture neatly and beautifully summarises many of the challenges ahead as local services grapple with how to make digital working far more than just uploading existing forms onto the net (!)

So if you are a public sector person looking to network around some core issues, you can contact ITW here. And if you are from the private sector, please get in touch via this page. And if you looking for a Visual Communication Artist, Photographer & Project Manager then you can contact Jess via this email contact.

*Re 'zero challenge': this is something I have designed to fit into a day which is already jam packed with inputs & workshops. It provides a still moment of reflection, prompted by some critical questions designed to generate some useful insights from the participants at the very outset. It also helps the participants focus in on the day itself.

The vital role of PCCs in preventing crime

2013-05-09T07:45:00.000+01:00

Since Police and Crime Commissioners (PCCs) have an emerging vital role in crime prevention (not just reduction) – I thought I would dig out the impressive work of Professor Paul Ekblom.

Professor Ekblom can be found residing here: http://www.designagainstcrime.com/ where he promotes his work to reduce and prevent crime. I first came across his work when he was at the Home Office and I remain hugely impressed by his “Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity” model which I think provokes much good thought leading towards actions to be taken to prevent and reduce crime.

Using his model as a prompt, there is much that the best PCCs will be able to do to reduce and prevent crime through the powers that they will have and the leadership influence they will bring:

Given that the potential offenders must first have a predisposition for crime (criminality), the PCC will be able to engage with a range of public agencies to coordinate and focus early intervention and progressive actions with communities (and perhaps even individual families) where criminality is at its highest.
Offenders usually lack resources to avoid crime (such as ability to restrain impulses, exercise social skills and gain a legitimate living). The PCC has a role here to support programmes which assist known offenders get out of the cycle of criminal behaviour through skills training, supporting apprenticeships as part of Police procurement and so forth.
People who commit crimes are by definition ready to offend (e.g. motivated by boredom, shortage of money or need for drugs, being in a conflicting relationship, being in a particular emotional state). Disrupting these motivations is therefore critical. While many of these motivations are very personal and ephemeral, a PCC can support drugs rehab programmes and even Relate in its efforts to help people maintain stable relationships. (I have often joked that the National Offender Management System should run a free online dating agency since one of the most effective factors in reducing crime is being in a fun, loving and stable relationship where you have much to lose.. or am I joking?)
And then there are the resources for crime (the skills, inside knowledge, criminal contacts, tools, weapons etc). All the evidence points towards those who get mixed up in the criminal justice systems stay mixed up in it – for a whole array of reasons. One of these reasons is that people get more resources to commit crime in the future. This has got to change. Whilst I am not advocating the solitary confinement of Victorian gaols where it was believed that criminals could ‘catch’ criminality from breathing others’ air (see pic below of the old Lincoln Prison chapel), I am saying let’s keep people out of gaol as much as possible. New PCCs will have much to learn from (say) the experience of transformation of New York City where a recent article reviewing a new book stated: Much greater use was made of alternatives to incarceration, such as community sentences and residential drug treatment, as well as “drug courts” and other non-traditional ways of hearing cases.
In one of my previous occupations, I was a health education officer. At the Oxfordshire Health Unit where I worked, we used the Health Belief Model as a source of inspiration for much of our activity. In a similar vein, the Conjunction of Criminal Opportunity model uses the idea that offenders calculate whether the risk & effort is outweighed by the scale & likelihood of reward. PCCs can act to boost the perceptions that risk and effort are high and rewards low by (for example) entering into a dialogue with local media to increase the perception that offenders will get caught and their rewards will be confiscated.
I am not sure what a PCC can do about offenders needing to be present in the situation whereby an offender can commit a crime, other than ensuring that all efforts are taken to keep known past offenders busy with other stuff. Idle hands an all that. The provision of good youth services (being myopically and cynically cut by many local Tory authorities when they calculate that many young people can’t or won’t vote) is a must naturally, as are projects mentioned above.
But there is much that PCCs can do to ensure that crime preventers (as Ekblom calls then) are present, capable and credible by adequately funding the police service in terms of numbers and skills development. Moreover, these preventers can be anyone with a formal crime prevention responsibility (police, community safety staff, concierges) or an informal one (residents, parents, teachers or employees in general). This means that PCCs should be supporting other projects designed to support this second category by acting to criticise politically short sighted cuts in (say) caretakers for sheltered housing places. These criminal event preventers can reduce the likelihood of crimes being committed by shaping the situation (e.g. by locking doors) or influencing the offender (e.g. by applying social pressure not to steal). They can intervene during the event (defending themselves or their property, or that of others) or react after it. The preventers’ potential to intervene and react can influence the current crime event through the offender’s anticipation (‘Will the victim or passers-by overpower me? Will I be identified to the police?’). It can also influence the next event by the action taken (e.g. victims securing their house against repeat burglary, or reporting to the police to initiate detection, criminal proceedings and punishment). (Italics are mostly Ekblom quotes above, by the way)
Just as there are crime preventers, there are also crime promoters who by contrast increase the likelihood of a criminal event by careless or provocative behaviour or more practical contributions such as supplying weapons or buying stolen goods. The PCC support for effective police action to disrupt such networks is obvious.
Targets of crime may be human, physical property, data, environmental or service-related. Targets must be attractive and vulnerable. PCCs can use their leadership to help people understand what action they can take (as individuals, as partner agencies, as businesses etc.) to reduce vulnerability and attractiveness. Locking bikes and keeping expensive mobile phones out of sight come to mind. PCCs can sponsor gating projects to make access to homes less easy. Thicker walls between flats can reduce noise disruption and violence which can follow. Again PCCs have a role here in influencing planning authorities and housing developers.

This is just a sample of what Ekblom’s model can do to inform and support what PCCs can and must do to prevent and reduce crime. The trick will be prioritising the range of possibilities so that each PCC uses their time and resources to maximum effect.

What would be your priorities?

(If you visit Lincoln, the old prison is well worth exploring for its fascinating focus on air conditionning and keeping prisoners apart from each other - the prison is more or less preserved in aspic..)

All in the mind? (Is social media helping reduce the fear of crime, or not?)

2013-04-29T09:30:00.001+01:00

What I want to focus on in this blog is whether social media (in all of its forms) is helping to reduce the problem of the fear of crime. But first some background:

While the Crime & Disorder Act 1998 was in committee stages, I mounted a one-man campaign to have reducing not just actual crime & disorder as the aim for local community safety partnerships but also the fear of crime & disorder written in as a statutory aim. I did not succeed but I still wonder how the UK would be different had my campaign been successful.

For we still have a significant gap between the public’s experience of crime and their fear of it. As an excellent article in the Guardian last week pointed out:

Two thirds of respondents to the British Crime Survey (now the Crime Survey for England and Wales, or CSEW) consistently say that they believe crime has increased a little or a lot over the past decade.

Do read the whole article. It has some excellent references and asks some important questions.

Fear of crime is a large problem, in my view, for several reasons including making some people reluctant to leave their homes, the way it twists the debates around policing & crime, and the ways in which certain groups of people are demonised.

But to return to the question: is social media is helping this situation or not. (I guess I fear that it could be making things worse.) I posed this question last Saturday to a the BlueLightCamp unconference (hastag #ukblc13) and a most useful discussion was had.

(FYI: the camp was a collection of people involved with the emergency services who came together to talk about the use of social media in these areas. It was a great day, by the way! And big thanks to those who came along to the session I ran.)

With that discussion on social media and the fear of crime, I was left with a series of questions:

How can we design the social media space to reduce the opportunities for fear of crime to be made worse and increase the chances that people will feel safer instead?
In other words: are there principles from the ‘designing out crime’ practices in the real world that could be imported into the social media space?
Can the idea that people generally feel more assured, confident and safe if they see a uniformed officer in their community (and I know this is up for hot debate), be applied to social media – a sort of virtual 'hi-vis' police presence?
How much is known about the full impact of police tweeting, blogging etc: are people now better informed and assured or are the public now even more fearful? (Has any research been done on this?)
Are there ways of putting messages out there that will narrow the gap between the perceived and actual incidence of crime and disorder (and ways that make the gap bigger?)
Is some policing social media unwittingly making things worse for the public?
If we take the view that much of the mainstream traditional media still focus on crime reporting that magnifies fear, how should the social media protagonists in the policing world respond?
Although I am not suggesting that the fear of crime can drive people to suicide (can it?), in the ‘real world’ there are signs put up on (say) Clifton Suspension Bridge and at the ends of station platforms offering people help. Is there a social media equivalent that could help people reduce any distress about the fear of crime?
Should Neighbourhood Watch organise a social media branch?
What do you think might be done? (All ideas welcome!)

It is performance management Jim, but not as we know it

2013-04-25T08:08:00.001+01:00

I have read two rather excellent pieces this morning about managing and improving performance in the public services.

First I came across this piece by Mike Ledwidge entitled "Why has it all gone wrong within our public services". It is a bit of a polemical rant containing some ideas that I would not support* but its main thrust that the public services have been failed dismally by politicians and managers who think performance can be managed by measuring outputs is well made. To cite one paragraph (but do read the whole article):

You CANNOT performance measure a ‘complex system’ by outputs. Now if you do not understand EXACTLY what that sentence means let us hope you are not involved in anything to do with the management of our public services. Sadly we now have thousands of senior public servants who think they do know what they are doing with targets and measurement, and clearly they don’t. Complex systems have more than one purpose. If you measure the police on arrests and detections, any prevention they do will muck that up. If you ‘performance measure’ on crime reduction, officers will find ways to not record crimes. The awful tale of the rape unit in Southwark trying to improve their stats is an example of the result of government pressure and targets.

And then later, @TheCustodySgt pointed me towards an excellent piece by @SimonJGuilfoyle entitled "Panic!" In his article, Simon uses his long experience of such matters to highlight how managers often lurch into action based on an erroneous understanding of performance variation. Again, please read the piece as it contains a delightful cartoon which makes the point very clearly:

The post is about the unintended consequences that can occur when managers draw erroneous conclusions about data

As regular readers know, this is a subject I have mentioned before in several places. I wrote this recently on another blog which has many links.

So for the uninitiated politician and manager charged with the responsibility of improving public service performance and getting quarts out of pint pots... here are some pointers:

Achieving social outcomes (the improvements in society that we pay the public services to produce) is mighty complex: don't even think you can boil things to simple linear or transactional 'customer' relationships!
Everything varies: the weather, leaves in the forest, need for social care and disturbances on drunk Saturday nights...
But, there are patterns in these variations which need to and can be understood (well mostly): public services need to be resourced and organised around these variations
Measurements & targets change that which they are measuring and targeting (and not just in the way that a watched pot never boils!)
As Deming famously said "drive out fear": if your system of performance management contains even a wisp of fear, people will do weird and unexpected things that are not what you intended

I could go on...

But please, just read some work by Deming, Checkland, Ohno or Seddon. And please (please!) stop wasting precious public resources on fluffy, vanity systems of performance management that are mostly "sound and fury signifying nothing!"

* e.g. the comment "At one stage we were 20,000 teachers short, and some have been replaced by people who, like some doctors, are not easy to understand" which is an unnecessary xenophobic swipe, it seems to me

Policing & Crime Plans and frontline discretion

2013-03-25T11:52:00.001Z

We are nearing the time when all 41 PCCs will have published their Police and Crime Plans. In the months running up to the election of the PCCs, many people expressed concerns that their introduction would lead to political control of what the police services and police officers do. Despite clear statements in the legislation that operational leadership would still rest with the Chief Constable, many people were and probably still remain concerned.

The worry, I assume in part, comes from a belief that the objectives framed by the PCCs for their areas in these forthcoming plans will inevitably affect what police officers and staff do on the ground. There will be many of course, who will believe that such lofty strategic plans are a long way from the 'sharp end' and will make little difference.

With all this in mind, I dug out an extract from a proposal I submitted over a year ago to a police service which wanted to commission some research into how their officers and staff perceived their operational discretion and independence when balanced against their relationship with constabulary policy, procedures and performance management regime. It looked to be a fascinating piece of work and I was fed up that I did not win it! But such is life!

As part of my submission, I devised a set of questions that could be asked of front line officers to get inside how much their felt their professional discretion and responsibility was compromised and/or supported and/or unaffected by wider policies, objectives and plans etc. Here are those questions:

How much individual responsibility do you consider you currently have on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means “I only do what I am instructed to do” and 10 means “I am 100% in control of what decisions I take at work”?
Using the same scale, where do you think you ought to be (and it may be the same)?
How much accountability do you consider you currently have on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means “I am not held to account for anything that I do or achieve” and 10 means “I am held to account for everything that I do or achieve”?
Using the same scale, where do you think you ought to be (and it may be the same)?
In your view, how is the fit between what you are responsible for and what you are held to account for? For this the scale is 1 “no fit at all, I am often held to account for that which I am not responsible” through to 10 “I am only held to account for that which I am responsible for”?
Using the same scale, where do you think you ought to be (and it may be the same)?
Given all of these questions above, what would you say that would add depth and colour to your answers? What evidence, examples or stories do you have to illustrate your views?
One summary interpretation of the ‘Oath of Allegiance’ is that you have (within its scope) total independence to do all that you consider necessary to support and maintain the Queen’s Peace. If you think the reality is somewhat different, please tell me how it is different?
Do you have any examples of where you acted in accord with the Oath but independently of force policy and procedures? What are those examples?
Are there other examples where you acted dependently upon force procedures but in your view, not in accord with the Oath? What are those examples?
What is the difference that makes the difference between those two extremes? How do you determine how much independence (of policy and procedures) you can exercise?
On the basis that it is the job of everyone working for the Police to make effective and efficient decisions, what helps you make those kind of decisions?
And what gets in the way of making decisions that serve greater effectiveness and efficiency?
In your view, what needs to happen so that you can be more confident in your own decision making – and that of your colleagues as well?

So if anyone wants to some more research now - especially into how the new Police and Crime Plans may impact frontline decision making - you are welcome to use these questions as a starter for ten (although an attribution would be lovely).

And if you are a frontline officer / member of staff - and you would like to answer these questions anonymously - please do get in touch. (jon@jonharveyassociates.co.uk) I would be interested in your answers!

The shape of things to come?

2013-03-24T18:39:00.002Z

Some people are getting in a froth about the expanding teams supporting the Police & Crime Commissioners around the country:

New police chiefs (who you didn't vote for) pay cronies thousands: Crime tsars give friends and allies jobs worth up to £73,000

Apart from the fact that this should be 'whom you didn't vote for'... I am wondering what people honestly expected? Certainly, the suggestion that cronyism is alive and well in some offices of the PCC is an accusation that might stick in some places. (A subject I have blogged about before.) However the idea that a single individual could ever really cover the job of PCC without some significant and close support is laughable.

By means of comparison, I am merely a lowly town councillor. I get about 200 emails a month and just yesterday I despatched a stack of one year's worth of council agendas and other papers 18 inches high to the recycling bin. I am one of 17 councillors and between us, with half a dozen staff, we just about manage to stay on top of all the issues. We hope. I spend about a day per week on council related business. And I admit, I do not read every document in depth that comes my way. But we are a team, and I know that my councillor colleagues will read some of the pieces I miss and together we cover all the bases.

Now transpose this to a PCC. My local PCC has a population of 2.3 million people to cover with 17 local authorities. The budget of course is much bigger than my town council. The buck stops with him and therefore he must stay on top of a very wide range of issues. As I mentioned before, even if only 1% of the people resident in the Thames Valley Police Area write to their PCC once every year, that equates to over 400 letters and emails every week which require investigation and a response.

So I am none too surprised that many PCCs are creating bigger teams. Frankly, in my opinion, they have little choice unless they want to treat the job as something of a part time jolly.

So please read more about one example: the team that Bob Jones is creating in West Midlands. I know Bob and he is not sort of man to spend taxpayers' money without very good cause. Given the size of his 'constituency' and the need to liaise with a significant set of local authorities & other partners, he is creating a Board that has the capability and capacity to do the job.

I would also suggest that Bob is creating the shape of things to come. I am guessing here, but I would imagine that he would favour having an elected board of assistant commissioners as one way of spreading accountability and democracy.

Could this be the model for a policing governance structure that a future government might install?

Association of PCCs

2013-03-23T11:41:00.002Z

Yesterday it was announced "Police Commissioners agree to form national representative body" along with details of the new Board that will be steering the APCC from here onwards. Here they are:

New APCC board of Directors

Tony Lloyd PCC (Labour - Greater Manchester) and Chairman of the APCC and Directors:
Sir Graham Bright PCC (Conservative - Cambridgeshire)
Anthony Stansfeld PCC (Conservative - Thames Valley)
Vera Baird PCC (Labour - Northumbria)
Ron Ball PCC (Independent - Warwickshire)
Simon Hayes PCC (Independent - Hampshire)
Cllr Simon Duckworth (Chair of Police Committee - City of London)

I wish them well - along with the secretariat (Mark Castle OBE: Chief Executive, Joel Charles: Communications Officer and Tania Eagle: Programme Manager) on their journey to support PCCs having due influence over the future of policing and action to tackle crime in England & Wales.

As regular readers know, I was part of a small group of people who made a parallel offer to PCCs to support them on this journey. (See details of CoPaCC here.) As the offspring of the Association of Police Authority, the APCC always had the cards stacked in their favour of course. Us 'CoPaCCers' knew this. Nonetheless, it is my hope that, perhaps, we influenced the debate around the formation and establishment of the APCC.

It is also my hope that being on the 'other side' as it were, will not mean that either the APCC or PCCs in general see us people they would not want to do business with. I became involved in CoPaCC because I want to help PCCs to do all that they can do to improve police and crime services around the country. We remain on that same page.

Also CoPaCC has not gone away. Please keep an eye on the website and watch out for services as they develop. We remain a confederation of associates who will continue to offer help and support to Police and Crime governance in England and Wales.

How will the police service enable the ‘frontline professional’ to fight crime and protect the public?

2013-03-22T16:58:00.000Z

On Wednesday 13 March between 10am and 12 midday there was a live debate on Twitter using the hashtag #futurecop (from gavthecop)

So I thought I would add my two pennyworth as I was travelling for much of this time. Here are some ideas:

The office of constable is possibly one of the most legally empowered frontline roles in the country but the impression I get is that not many PCs feel this way. How come? Perhaps a start to answering the overall question would be found in understanding why...
I have already blogged about the value to be found from not only empowering / enabling the frontline officers (PCs, PCSOs and other staff) but also empowering / enabling citizens and communities to take (evidence based) action to prevent and tackle crime & disorder. (Blog is here) Our aim should be to create 'barefoot crime preventers'
Speaking as a socialist of course, I cannot help but notice that socio-economic class features highly in the analysis of where crime happens, which communities are most at risk etc. So perhaps a good dose of sociology and/or socialism as part of police training would be a good thing... While all frontline officers are well versed in addressing racism, sexism, ageism etc... what about a little more about tackling classism?
Also as I have blogged before, policing resources should be deployed into areas where there is most risk of harm / actual harm. This might mean that there is sufficient resource to take a long term view of crime and disorder in those areas and engage in some solid prevention. This would be an alternative to constant 'fire fighting' and reactive policing which often arises in places where resources are severely stretched.
Perhaps every Neighbourhood Action Group or Community Safety Committee should be required to have a random five members of the ordinary public present each time they meet. These people may give a greater voice to their concerns and help frontline officers know more about what they should be tackling. Equally if any of these five people fall asleep during the course of the meetings, the meeting would have to stop!
I have also blogged before about the role of the PCC in crime prevention with a strong focus on the work of Paul Ekblom and his conjunction of criminal opportunity model. Much of this is applicable to frontline officers also.
Section 17 of the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act imposes "…. a general duty on each local authority to take account of the community safety dimension in all of its work. All policies, strategies, plans and budgets will need to be considered from the standpoint of their potential contribution to the reduction of crime and disorder". (Source here) Has this law ever been fully enacted? Could frontline officers, perhaps with the back up of the PCC, now be using this more?

What are your ideas?

Groundhog Day?

2013-01-10T14:16:00.001Z

Nineteen or so years ago, the previous Conservative administration passed the Police and Magistrates’ Courts Act 1994 which introduced the now defunct police authorities and brought in the idea of Annual Policing Plans. In May 1995, I began my twelve years with the Office for Public Management.

One of the first ideas I had was to convene a series of workshops in the autumn with police authority members, police staff and police officers, involved in the process, to reflect upon the first year of policing plans and think about the next.

I produced a briefing paper based on the four workshops: Fitting Aspirations with Reality: Developing more effective annual policing plans which OPM have kindly agreed to allow me to republish. I thought their might be some lessons in there which are still valid...

I have uploaded a scanned pdf to my google drive and you can access it here (not least for the list of people who came along - many of whom are still around in the policing world...)

The key points to emerge were:

the most important ingredient for successful annual policing plans is the development of a close partnership between chief constable and police authorities
the best plans are those which 'spring off the glossy page' and turn into carefully integrated organisation development initiatives. Good plans encompass issues such as internal and external two-way communication, performance management and structural redesign
much controversy and confusion surround the allocation of resources in support of, and made explicit within, annual policing plans. It is likely that resolving this matter will greatly help the progressive development of these plans.

So much has changed since then...(?)

The section headings include:

The costing of policing plans
Involving key stakeholders successfully
Avoiding the hazards (and developing good practice) in public service planning

I won't summarise the whole document (do please read it), but here are the ingredients for successful public service planning drawn from the discussions at the workshops:

Clarify the purpose
Build in flexibility
Set realistic targets
Develop stakeholder 'ownership'
Connect the plan to the 'real world'
Be bold

These points and many more are expanded on the document linked to this blog post.

What do you think? Have we moved on much in the last 17+ years?

Leadership in 3 words (2013)

2012-12-27T08:32:00.002Z

It is that time of year again when I ask people to name the three words that people think describe the leadership we are going to need in the forthcoming year. (Previous posts are here and here). My three words are:

inclusive
bold
focused

I have already posted this on twitter - and here are others' contributions so far:

@PaddyBriggs: competent would be progress...
@OpenEyeComms: innovative, aware, agile
@DorsetRachel: Brave, transparent, inclusive
@StitchMitchell: Stop Fiddling Expenses
@CCLeicsPolice: transparent, principled, energised
@LabourBroomhill: Judgement, Kindness, Challenge
@PW0559: Caring; Consistent; Comprehensive
@quakerpen: Truthful, imaginative, nonconforming
@OfficialSaundra: Sensitive, Informed, Decisive
@youcanrugby: communication , direction , brave (I'm also going to add a strong team)

Thanks to all those people who have contributed so far. But what are your three words? What three words sum up the kind of leadership we need in 2013?

Please post below or tweet at me with the hashtag: #3lship13. Thanks

UPDATE: here are some more contributions from this morning. Thanks to all

@JohnCharlesDyer: One For All
@SusanPopoola: Empathetic, Convicted, Wise
@Alanw47: Fair, Honest, Transparent
@Suzze05: Fair ( not driven by influential lobbyists), informed (based on evidence not ideology), listens!
@tsdpete: Understanding, humility and conscience
@betsypud: true socialist values
@IanChisnall: Bold, Consensual, Inclusive (not we're all in this together LOL)
@driveukmartin: industrious virtuous hardworking
@puppyjohn1999: Compassionate, Flexible, Autistic
@RichardJMurphy: Courageous; Compassionate; Competent

#1dy4cyp

2012-12-19T08:31:00.002Z

Later on today, I am popping into Worktree in Milton Keynes for a mince pie and seasonal cheer. Worktree is a local charity that assists school students to understand and prepare for the world of work. Schools invite Worktree in to run events that give their young people experience of being involved in a work-type project, find out more about careers beyond what their family members do and generally help to boost their confidence and skills. I am one of many business people who help them to do this by helping to facilitate these events. (For the sake of clarity: these are not paid gigs!)

So as I woke up this morning, I was mulling on this part of my day and reflecting on my post from yesterday about the need for us all to play our part in creating a more 'child-liking' world.

I am no longer young but I can imagine that if I were, this year would have troubled me lots. Whilst I hope that what fills the lives of children and young people are good or frothy or educational things, I suspect much of the bad news will have filtered through to them. As TV and Radio celebrities are accused of child abuse, as children get murdered in their primary school classrooms and as young people find it hard to get jobs and pay for higher education the world might appear to be a very unfriendly place for children and young people. If I were a young person, this year probably will not have helped me to feel great about what the future has in store for me.

As adults, we can do something about this. We can of course try to be good parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and friends to children and young people. But perhaps there is a little bit more we can do.

With the blog post, I would like to start a small campaign to encourage every adult to commit to doing one day of voluntary work next year in support of children and young people. This could mean helping to paint a local scout hut, clearing rubbish from a local park, spending a couple of afternoons in a local children's centre reading stories, assisting a local school to rewire its wifi system, taking part in a project similar to what Worktree does in Milton Keynes or a hundred other possibilities. I am also hoping that employers would support this initiative too, in some way.

This idea may go viral (a bit like Movember) or it may not. But if you have read up to here, please pause for a moment and consider how you might spend your 'one day a year for children and young people' (#1dy4cyp) in 2013.

And if you like this campaign, please write about it too, post the link to this blog post on your Facebook page, retweet it to other people etc, etc. Or you can quietly just do it, and be a part of making the future a little bit brighter for children and young people.

Childlike: my theme for 2013

2012-12-18T16:51:00.001Z

Seasonal greetings!

As always at this time of year, I spend some time reflecting on the past 12 months and thinking about the year ahead. And as I have done for several years previous, I have ‘adopted’ a new word in support of the ‘I can’ charity which helps children to communicate (http://www.adoptaword.co.uk/index.php).

This year I have adopted ‘childlike’…

It did not take me long to choose this word. And I want it to represent two connected themes for me. Firstly the meaning of the word is about engaging with the world in a trusting, playful, creative and appreciative way. In my opinion, we need to do that more, far more. Sometimes, it seems to me, that people, corporations and governments persist in using old ways to solve knotty and wicked problems, even when those old ways make no real difference. With a tad more courage and innovation, more childlike ways might perhaps be deployed to sort out the problems more effectively. What do you think?

And secondly, but more importantly, we need a world that likes children more! Recent events in Newtown, Connecticut and Nangarhar, Afghanistan, though very different, just underline how our world does not look after our children and young people nearly as well as we should do. Children are simply too often the forgotten casualties of war, economic mismanagement, bigotry and plain ordinary abuse.

So I hope that 2013 will be a year when more children and young people get to live free from harm and full of the joy of growing up into amazing adults. Let us be more childlike (and child-liking) in how we create that world, a world that would be better for us all.

May I wish you, your family, your friends and colleagues a healthy, happy and prosperous 2013.

Imagine a meeting...

2012-12-05T08:33:00.000Z

Yesterday I attended a meeting which was billed as a consultation. Many people (approximately 80 I reckon) had given up their own time to be there: to listen, learn and be listened to. A good array of sandwiches was put on and then at about 12.30, the chair of the event announced the start of the event.

We were then talked at for over 80 minutes solid, leaving less than 10 minutes (within the formal allocated time) for 'Q&A'. I was not the only one who a) highlighted that this was not a consultation meeting and b) it was a real & palpable lost opportunity. (I am being oblique here as I do not wish to name the organisation in question. But essentially a way forward was being described and the very people who could help with the implementation of that strategy were in the room but were not given the chance to offer their ideas.)

I was immensely frustrated! As were many others, I believe.

How many other meetings or events or conferences are just like this one? We are in the middle of a severe economic crisis in the UK and beyond into the world. If I am being bold, I regard it as immoral that meetings can still be organised to tackle some aspect of this crisis but the process of the meeting inhibits full debate, suppresses creativity and/or fails to harness the brainpower, expertise & commitment in the room. It is quite simply wrong, dammit!

Now I do not accuse the conveners of these meetings to be so wrapped up in their power & egos that they are malevolently constructing meetings to force their views of the world on to other people.

Instead I prefer to consider that people just do not know that there are a 1000+ ways to make meetings more productive for all concerned. However, they just slip into the usual way of doing things, usually with good intent. But we all know that if you always do what you have always done you will always get what you have always got...

And so I appeal again (yes I have written about this before - here for example), please if you are convening a meeting of any kind... if you think that:

the world is a scary, complex and fast changing place that needs new ways of organising / allowing more of the 'right' things to happen...
most meetings, events and conferences set up to find those 'right' things and take them forward just don't do it very well...
somebody's 'platform power' often means that many others lose power and voice, but that it doesn't have to be this way..
there is often so much attention paid to inputs/outputs that lasting outcomes (and the imagination to take us there) hardly get a look in...
you would like to find out more: learn, share and support other people who think like you....

... then contact me or a 1000 other good facilitators around the world who can help you make a real difference to your meetings. Please!

Supercharging the Power of We

2012-10-15T10:12:00.002+01:00

Today is international Blog Action Day.

And the theme this year is the 'power of we'. In other words it is about what we can do together to change the world for the better.

As chance would have it, I have just returned from the World Open Space on Open Space in London. This was the twentieth WOSONOS and 140+ people from across the world assembled in Stoke Newington to examine and develop Open Space practice.

It was a blast!

Reports of most of the 80+ workshops convened and ran during our few days together can be found here. The reports are many and diverse. Please have a browse. (There will be a more accessible and edited pdf file emerging before to long and if you want a copy, please register with the site above.)

Open Space is a process designed to get out of the way of people choosing to have the conversations they need to have in order to grow, develop, learn and create (etc.) - as individuals, groups and communities. Often when people come together, someone somewhere has decided the agenda that needs to be followed. In Open Space, the agenda emerges from those present.

In this respect, Open Space is wonderfully able to allow, help and encourage people to discover their own power of we...

You will know how Open Space can work if you can imagine a meeting or a conference where people use their time to talk about exactly what they need to talk about with people who share a common interest and even passion, unshackled by other people's agendas and interests.

You can find our more about Open Space from here or here - and many more places (just Google the phrase...)

But if you really want to discover how Open Space can super charge the power of we - why not consider coming along to the next WOSONOS in Florida next year? There will also be regional Open Spaces on Open Space in Egypt, Norway and Italy coming up soon too. (I will post details as soon as I have them).

Or contact me - I would be happy to talk with you.

And I will record here my sincere thanks to organising committee for WOSONOS 2012 and everyone else who helped make it a success - it was a sublime, affirming, fun and challenging few days. Thank you!

How do you cut back?

2012-09-28T17:57:00.001+01:00

Times are tough for everyone. Whether you are a business, a public organisation or some kind of charitable or community body, you will be having to cut back on your spending. Here are three ways in which it can be done:

Which do you think is the best way?

Inspirational leadership & the new Police & Crime Commissioners

2012-09-28T10:21:00.000+01:00

On Thursday 4 October from 12pm to 2pm, the Guardian are hosting a live web discussion whether the elected PCCs can improve police morale at a time of privatisation, cuts and perceived political bias. (Do join in! I will be taking part.)

This got me thinking about what attributes a PCC will need to have to inspire the police (and others within their influence) towards improved morale and even greater results. So, last night, on the train off to see the Beach Boys at the Royal Albert Hall, I mapped out this list:

First and foremost, the PCC will need to show total respect for the work that police officers and staff do and the people that they are. Any hint that the PCC regards him or herself as being above other people is to be avoided... (yes, you know what I am referencing).

In my experience as a leadership development adviser, lesson 101 for leaders is have a crystal clear vision. People may not always agree with that vision but they at least know what direction is being taken. Uncertainty about direction is big downer. (I have written before about what makes for a good vision.)

Given the political nature of the job, I think it will be vital for the elected PCCs to engage in 'worthy politics' which might be best defined as not petty, point-scoring party politics. Nobody (least of all people in the police service, I suspect) is inspired by politicians who only seem to want do down the opposition or leap in front of the press camera at any given moment.

If there is one thing that I know that really frustrates police officers and staff is not having the equipment to do their jobs effectively, efficiently and safely. PCCs will boost morale if they arrive with a clear commitment to ensure adequate kit. Any PCC who thinks they can save money by not doing so does not really understand policing.

People in all organisations like to see their leaders being held to account. Whatever the PCC can do make their challenges (and support) to their Chief Constable open, transparent and accessible will boost morale.

That said, an inspirational PCC will always challenge constructively and remember that giving feedback often says more about the person giving it than it does the person on the receiving end. Having the wit to ask good questions, especially ones that have come from either side of the front line (ie from victims too) will be essential.

A PCC will boost morale by just doing one simple thing: listening. Sadly, in my view, too many politicians (of all hues) spend too much of their time in broadcast mode and seem unable / unwilling to answer straight questions... or even just hear what people have got to say. Listening is good and will help. Being available and accessible is good and will help.

Police culture has a lot to do with ACTION! (Sometimes with not enough circumspection and reflection, I would add!) And so to boost morale, the PCC will need to be seen as a person of action. I am not advocating some sort of manic inititiativitis (the police service already has enough of that) but I am saying that if a PCC gets to be known for always being at HQ, this will not go down well. Remember, police officers notice where cars go and where they park...

An inspirational PCC will understand that it is their job to earn respect not demand it... and certainly not create symbols (such as chains of office) to impose respect upon people.

Be funny and occasionally self deprecating. A PCC who cannot make people laugh or who is so pompous as they are unable to laugh at themselves will not do wonders for staff morale. Humour slices through reserve and opposition in a way that often rational debate cannot.

I think we have seen great examples of emotionally intelligent leadership from CC Peter Fahy and ACC Garry Shewan (of Greater Manchester Police) in the last couple of weeks after the murder of two young police officers. They were both rock solid but able to show emotion and understand how much emotion there was around. A good PCC will be able to do the same and will understand that the work of the police service (and the wider justice agencies) is often filled with highly charged emotion. Unfeeling steel automatons need not apply: PCCs must not be 'robocops'.

And finally, in my view, PCCs will need to practice ethical and authentic leadership that is marbled with integrity and clear values. If a PCC is perceived as saying one thing but doing (or deciding) another, this will damage morale. If a PCC uses principles like a drunk uses a lamppost (for occasional support rather than illumination for the journey), this will not work. One of things that police officers and staff are very good at, is spotting charlatans.

But what do you think? You are welcome to comment below and/or join the Guardian debate next Thursday.

Time for fewer nostrums

2012-09-25T12:59:00.001+01:00

I will nail my colours to the mast: I believe it is outrageous when politicians direct a body under their control to begin or maintain a course of action when evidence shows that action to be (at worst) harmful or (at best) ineffective. Good politicians achieve a balance of ideology, popularity, science and pragmatism. Bad politicians allow this balance to get skewed too far in one or two directions.

Yesterday saw the publication of a report from Policy Exchange (a ‘Right leaning thinktank’ as it is often described) about electronic tagging. You can read it here. To quote the website intro “The report notes that in other countries, in particular the US, ankle bracelets have become smaller, smarter and more durable. The most advanced forms of tags are now GPS-enabled allowing the police to pin point someone’s exact location at all times. However, the lack of competition and the current nature of the contracts in the UK market means the taxpayer is losing out.”

In the introduction to the report itself, Chris Miller (a former senior police officer) says “What we have been given instead is a sclerotic, centrally controlled, top down system that has enriched two or three large suppliers, that lacks the innovation and flexibility of international comparators and that fails to demonstrate either that it is value for money or that it does anything to reduce offending.”

Not only does this report effectively damn the current commercial suppliers of electronic tagging but also proposes (remember this is a ‘Right leaning thinktank’) insourcing the process.

Meanwhile in Scotland last week it was announced that G4S (famed supplier to London 2012 and one of the suppliers of tagging in E&W referenced by Policy Exchange) have just won a contract to supply tagging to the criminal justice system north of the border. Admittedly, the tagging being provided is of the GPS kind referenced in the PE report.

But… nevertheless… on what planet did it make sense to award this contract? I would love to know whether the procurement process in Scotland included contact with Policy Exchange. Did they share data? How did due diligence ensure that the contract signed with G4S would not also lead to the kind of sclerotic lack of innovation that Chris Miller highlights?

Let me repeat, I am not (really I am not) against the outsourcing of all services. I am not some kind of Orwellian despot who believes that the public services should provide everything from Victory Gin to a telescreen in every home. But as I hope that my article in the Guardian from a few months ago made clear, outsourcing is a veritable minefield of hidden costs (both financial and human) that have often been overlooked. This needs to change. Now!

I really hope that the politicians vying to become Police and Crime Commissioners pay heed to the evidence & science when deciding on the shape of their policing plans. Policing already has far too many nostrums in its practice. Good PCCs will be in the vanguard of introducing more evidence based practice (including commissioning)!

PS But beware commercially sponsored research into finding out what works as Ben Goldacre (as always) highlighted at the weekend. A great, must read article for anyone concerned about evidence based practice in the public services.

What keeps leaders inspired?

2012-07-23T09:24:00.000+01:00

A simple question with many answers

I have just published a new blog which startes with a simple question: what keeps leaders inspired? This blog will be all about the answers that people give to that core question. It is through these intriguing and always very personal answers, that the simple aim of the blog will be realised. It is my hope that my new blog will prompt you to consider what inspires you as a leader.

Everyone who has contributed to this blog was asked this question:

What book, poem, film, speech, painting, quote, story, passage, or person (or whatever) continues to inspire your leadership?

And then I asked them a second question to go a little deeper and tell more of their story:

What is it about this piece that inspires you and helps sustain you as a leader? In other words, tell me the story behind your selection.

As you will read on the blog, the answers were rich in thought, reflection and feeling.

Of course, we all have many sources of inspiration and people were asked to select just the one. But in so doing, I believe that people chose the one story / film / book / idea (etc.) that really mattered to them.

How would you answer?

The importance of inspiration and inspirational leadership

The root of the word inspiration lies in the Latin for breathing. Inspiration is the act of breathing in, something we do when are about to say something, or make a decision or take action. All leaders need to breathe in. All leaders need inspiration. Inspiration is what can make people become breathtaking leaders.

Perhaps inspirational leadership is also about first breathing in for oneself and then helping others breathe in as well. This is leadership which enables people to take action. But this is leadership that first invites people to draw breath, to pause, reflect and deliberate on what is the next best thing to do.

Being a leader is often hard, very hard. Inspiration keeps us going when the wind is against us or the next goal is not quite just round the corner. Our inspiration can guide us when we are not quite sure what to do next or when we are facing a tough choice.

We can use our inspiration to infect others when they too are facing hard choices or stretching goals. Indeed inspiring people is often a much to do with re-kindling hope in the future. Leaders with inspiration can help people to 'aspire' once again.

Inspirational leadership is perhaps the opposite of 'expiring' leadership! To expire literally means to breathe out – but has come to mean to die. And so on this basis – leaders with inspiration can breathe life into an organisation. All organisations need leaders who can inspire, especially when those organisations are suffering troubled times. Leaders can bring new inspirations when a breath of fresh air is needed.

A key theme that emerged from several of the contributions I have had so far was the way in which inspiration helped people connect the past with the future, not just for themselves but also for the people they worked with. This connection provides both hope and stability: a sense that an inspirational past experience can provide a hopeful foundation for the future.

Inspirational leaders nurture hope in the future in many ways: Drawing on their past experience, they paint a vision of the future. They make this vision broad enough and narrow enough so that people can see themselves in it and plot a path towards it.

Moreover this vision is believable: it is a vision in which people can have confidence and believe is possible to achieve with determined effort. These leaders communicate this vision well by using their own stories to bring the vision to life. As a consequence, the vision begins to take on a life of its own. The vision is used to make decisions about priorities. Inspirational leaders use their vision to create collaboration where there may have been conflict and dissent before.

Crucially, the leaders make the vision an attractive one, one that inspires people because it resonates with people's deeply held beliefs about what is important and worthwhile. Inspirational leaders invest time in understanding what matters to their stakeholders.

Inspirational leaders recognise and work with the emotional side of organisations, understanding that change and improvement are rarely about logic alone. They know that change creates feelings and look for ways to harness these feelings in support of overall goals.

Inspiration gives leaders the strength and substance to shake organisations up. They make the space for people to experiment and try out new ways. They give permission to get things wrong in pursuit of improvement (so long as learning is captured). They do this by including people, by demonstrating that people can help to shape the future. Inspirational leaders make it possible not only for colleagues to impress each other, but also make it OK, critically, for people to impress themselves.

Inspirational leaders build confidence and foundations for the future in this way.

Architects often put 'spires' on buildings to encourage people to look upwards rather than down, to dream of better times and admire what has been built. Inspirational leaders do something similar, they help people make the connections between humdrum and lofty goals – they help people to look up, to look around, to look beyond...

These are all the reasons why inspiration is so important to leaders. On this blog, you will read about how leaders like you are using their inspiration to make things happen. These are breathtaking leaders.

The core themes: be inspired

This blog will be a rich mix of stories, insights and ideas about leadership and inspiration. Do be inspired to dip into this blog and read the contributions. So with this as a purpose, here is a trailer for some of the key ideas contained in the chapters to come.

For several people, being an inspired and inspiring leader means having the courage to be your own person. This is partly about a combination of boldness, confidence, knowing oneself and keeping on with an idea when you are surrounded by doubt… and partly about something that cannot be bottled or perhaps even described. It is about being sure sighted and sure footed, being rooted in a solid sense of one’s own map of the world. When you have read a number of the blog posts, you will spot this theme cropping up in many places.

Many analogies are drawn about leadership and this blog is not short of few more. There is one that shines through in one chapter but which is implicit in several others: the leader as sculptor. In this analogy the role of the leader is to draw out the form that is hidden within the stone, to create a smooth and elegant shape that draws attention and thence action. It is about taking a mess of ideas and materials and bringing forth structure and direction. And with this direction a path is found and people follow and a leader practises their art.

An idea that has inspired me particularly over the years is the role of leaders as people who expect more and delight in more when the people they lead deliver more. I have a video in my head of Tom Peters talking in his breathless and passionate way to an Albert Hall full of managers. He entreats them to want people to develop, to want people to grow, to spend time helping people learn and thence to enjoy the fruits of those actions. I can hear him saying “if you don’t get a buzz from seeing your staff grow and develop… don’t be a manager, be something else!”

And so it is no wonder that you will find in a number of the blog posts, lots of similar ideas about how critical it is for leaders to see potential in people, to expect more (and get it) and to delight in how this yields people who are extended beyond what they thought was possible.

Other ideas you will discover include the value of knowing where you stand, the importance of people being more likely to remember how you made them feel (rather than what you said), the need to act not just think, the difficulty but the necessity of being able to cradle contradictions. You will read how determination continues to help people be leaders, how taking responsibility also means letting go, why plans are better made of loose knots than fixed rivets, and how humour lubricates and enthuses.

This blog is an emerging cornucopia of snippets about what it means to be a breathtaking & inspirational leader. On these pages, I suspect, you will find ideas that you already know and have made part of your practice. There will be other ideas that may leave you cold. And still there may be other ideas that hit you like a hammer and perhaps make you question all that you think you know about being a leader. You won’t know which they are until you read them.

The central thread

At its heart, this blog is about keeping on keeping on.

In other words it is about leadership as being essentially about defiance: defying the rocks and stones on the path and keeping on. It is about bracing and moving through desolate times when support is difficult to find. It is about breathing in and focusing on the goal even when you look back and your followers are somewhere in the distance. It is about keeping the people with you inspired, even when there are many trying to do the opposite.

It is about proudly, solidly and compassionately staying inspired even when you feel just inches away from a trough of cynicism, despair and hopelessness.

It is the stuff that great leaders have, the famous leaders we all know about and admire. But they have it because of who they are, not because they are famous. The fame came after their ability to remain inspired in courageous defiance of the many pressures and challenges they faced. We can all be that inspired. We can all be great, breathtaking and inspirational leaders!

http://inspirationleadership.blogspot.co.uk/

Being true to your (rock) roots

2012-06-27T18:03:00.003+01:00

I had the delight of seeing Rock of Ages last night (IMDB review and details here) I am not sure if there is such a thing as a schlock musical, but if there is, this is a pure example. Delicious OTT performances which just about stay within the bounds of good (not over) acting. But still, as I say, this space is not about reviewing the film - but is about the leadership lesson...

And that would be (again this comes up): authenticity. If the film is about anything it is about being true to yourself and in the case of this movie: true to your rock roots. Most of the main characters have epiphanies of one kind or another brought on by a combination of hormones, alcohol or (this is a musical of course) falling in love.

In the film, people are impelled, if not propelled, to face up to themselves and to see what they really are. But how much of this do we experience in real life? As leaders, for how long do we pretend to ourselves that we are something that we are not. Perhaps some people manage to do this for a whole career while others just never do it all.

I suspect for most people, and I include myself here, it takes a long time to really and deeply confront who you actually are and what you really want to do. Given that leadership can often be about putting on something of an 'act' (one of my favourite film lines comes from All that Jazz: "It's showtime!"), I wonder whether it takes leaders longer to confront who they are, or maybe it takes leaders less time? What do you think?

As a leader, have you met yourself, really met yourself?

Snow, fire and water

2012-06-18T17:46:00.005+01:00

I saw Snow White and the Huntsman last week (IMDB review & details here) which is fairly obviously a reworking of the age old story. As always, this blog post is not a review of the film although I will say: this is not a film that I suggest that you spend your pennies upon.

But as always, when I see a movie, I seek to find a leadership theme within it. There are many themes in this film (arguably that is one of its problems) including loyalty, vanity, courage, jealously and revenge. It is quite a ‘dark’ film: even the fairies look a little scary. And so it has got me thinking about how leaders should tackle shadow side emotions, perhaps their own or in others.

I will focus on how leaders may handle emotions around them, emotions that are corroding team work, innovation and high performance. What can a leader do?

In my time, I have observed leaders who tackle deviousness and subterfuge (for example) with greater levels of both so as to out-manoeuvre the original perpetrators. Meet fire with fire are their watch words. This only serves to embed such behaviours even more deeply into the culture of that organisation or their part of it.

Other leaders (not unlike Snow White in the movie, as it happens) source their power from positive emotions and confront the perpetrators honestly and tactfully with integrity, strength and a focus on key values. They fight fire with water instead.

So when you see such negative emotions and associated behaviours arising in your organisation (or perhaps even in yourself), how do you react?

With fire or water?

13 more questions for potential police and crime commissioners

2012-06-13T15:25:00.005+01:00

Guardian Public published this article today - and you can read it here:

This is a follow up to my earlier article - mentioned on this blog here (with added comments) - and available on the Guardian site here.

If you would like to respond to the latest article here - please post them below. I will be interested to read what you say. Many thanks

Comparing Open Space and Unconferences

2012-04-30T16:39:00.001+01:00

A couple of weeks ago (as my post below outlines) I attended my first unconference. I was interested to see how it would be different to the Open Space process that I know so well. What follows is my comparison - and it is after only one unconference. But here are my reflections - please add your thoughts too:

History
OS: Harrison Owen book 1993 (born 1985)
Unc: Bloggercon 1998

Principle
OS: Participants shape the agenda
Unc: Participants shape the agenda

Tradition
OS: Native American
Unc: Sci Fi Geek

Guidelines
OS: 4 principles + 1 law: worked / explained
Unc: 4 principles + 1 law: mentioned / minimally explained

Social media
OS: Peripheral
Unc: Central

Assumption
OS: People can read paper easily - put agenda on the wall
Unc: Everyone has a twitter account and knows how to use it - put agenda on twitter/social media

Topics / agenda
OS: Written in first hand by person suggesting the idea
Unc: Interpreted onto a spreadsheet by facilitator

Discussions
OS: From the floor of the event
Unc: Both from the floor and predetermined (perhaps via social media)

Agenda scehdule
OS: Negotiated by individual sponsor / whole group
Unc: Set by facilitator

Follow up
OS: Whatever happens... and when its over....
Unc: Debates continue via social media

Have I been fair to unconferencing - indeed is my description of OS one that you would recognise?

Social Media and Police & Crime Commissioners

2012-04-17T12:26:00.003+01:00

The Blue Light Camp unconference ( description here) met on Sunday 15 April in Manchester just ahead of the BAPCO event. To quote the website: BlueLightCamp was born as an idea by Sasha (@sasha_taylor) from the ashes of an online #nhssms discussion in relation to how social media was being used during the 2011 disorders in some UK cities.

I went along, as did many others, to discuss the role that social media can play in assisting the blue light services do what they do - only better. I ran one session entitled

"Should Police & Crime Commissioner candidates use social media (SM) during the election - and once elected should the new PCCs employ SM? And if yes and yes - how? What are the opportunities and challenges?"

The first answerers almost shouted "how can the PCCs not use SM?!" Social media is a key way (perhaps even now the prime way) to gather people's ideas and concerns. Even though social media users are a subset of society - other mechanisms also represent a sample of society as well. One contributor (and I won't name people) made the important point that when you consider what is termed the 'fire hose' of information now being produced by the social net (twitter, and facebook, and google+ and you tube and and and...) there is a wealth and wide diversity of what the world is talking and thinking about. Strategy now needs to be informed by analysis of this fire hose of information.

So given that the resounding answer to my initial inquiry was that SM is a vital way for PCCs to listen to their publics, the discussion then moved into what are the lessons to be aware of, and what are the challenges. Here are some of the points made:

Social media is just that - be social, be real, be interesting - and people will want to engage with you
Consider whether one or several accounts is needed - perhaps one for the 'office of' and one for the PCC her/himself
Be clear on what can be promised in response to messages in terms of speed for example and do not overlook the huge issues around confidentiality
Social media is an ideal way to engage with third sector organisations as well
Don't be naïve (such as pretend a mistake was due to someone hacking your account...)
Note that the volume of material that SM channels can assemble can grow and grow - so do not underestimate the need to curate and archive the material
Keep the debates focused and have one place in which several sources can be brought together
SM will be able to raise awareness of the PCC elections and the use of virals is not to be underestimated in boosting democratic involvement in these new elections
SM is boundary-less whereas PCCs are focused on a geographical space and so this has to be factored in (although perhaps PCCs should also be thinking about the people who work, play or study on their patch even though they are not resident there - the police have to after all)

And finally, one issue was raised about what role the Police Authorities have in organising hustings for the PCC candidates. One view was put that why should the PAs be involved in this at all as this is beyond their interest. On the other hand, others said that if the PAs did not arrange these hustings, who would? This is a debate that is set to run. What is happening in your area?

So all in all a very useful discussion about social media and its application to the new political leaders on the block. Watch this space!

(PS I will blog separately about my impressions of 'unconferencing' as this was my first one, particularly how it relates to Open Space.)