Leadership for Change Programme Residential 1 Wednesday 14

Leadership for Change Programme Residential 1 Wednesday 14 th May – Thursday 15 th May Welcome!

Purpose of the programme • To develop systems leadership skills and capacity amongst public leaders • To support public leaders to make progress on complex systems challenges in their places • To make tangible improvements for the people and communities we serve, and in which we live and work

Meet the team Chris Lawrence -Pietroni Residential Facilitator & Learning coordinator for Warwickshire Liz Goold Residential Facilitator & Learning Alix Morgan coordinator for Programme Director Berkshire Mark Dalton Programme Manager

Meet the team Paul Tarplett Learning coordinator for Cambridgeshire Sue Goss Learning coordinator for Ealing and Medway Di Neale Learning coordinator for the national team Mari Davis Jo Cleary Learning coordinator for Croydon Learning coordinator for Telford & Wrekin and Solihull

Forming our learning community • • Who am I? Who are we? What are we here for? How are we going to do it?

What are we here for? Aims for Residential 1 • build this learning community • start to explore the ‘six ways’ of systems leadership practice • frame your systems leadership challenge and identify common themes and connections • build place teams with LCs and Home Groups with each other • be stimulated by wider thinking in public services and key concepts from living systems • frame your first ‘safe-fail’ experiment and how you intend to act and learn from it between Residentials

Learning Cycle 1. Experience Experimenting with and drawing on our experience ACTIVIST 4. Application Applying new insights, ideas and actions in our daily work PRAGMATIST Adapted from David Kolb’s work 2. Observation and reflection Reviewing and reflecting on our experience REFLECTOR 3. Deepening/Re-framing Developing our understanding, testing our assumptions, exploring our thinking THEORIST

How are we going to do it? • • Drawing on the extended leadership capacity and experience in the room Experiential exercises and group work Formal inputs & speakers Informal evening discussions Reflection-in-action – ‘Moleskin Moments’ Home Groups Create the conditions for transformational learningoffering balance of support and challenge and responding to different learning styles

How are we going to do it? Today’s agenda Timing Activity 09: 30 – 10: 00 Arrival and registration 10: 00 – 10: 45 Welcome, introductions and programme framing 10: 45 – 13: 00 Introducing the ‘six ways’ of systems leadership A provocation 13: 00 – 14: 00 Buffet lunch 14: 15 – 18: 00 Our local context and our challenges Market place Working with living systems Reflections 18: 00 – 19: 00 Free time 19: 00 – 20: 00 External speaker 20: 00 – 21: 30 Dinner in the restaurant

Tomorrow’s agenda Timing Activity 07: 30 – 08: 30 Breakfast 08: 30 – 09: 00 Check in- home groups/learning styles 09: 00 – 12: 30 Ways of perceiving Home group Session 1 – framing the challenge from different perspectives 12: 30 – 13: 30 Lunch 13: 30 – 16: 30 System tools: Learning cycles and safe-fail experiments Home group session 2 – Designing the experiment 16: 30 – 17: 00 Review and reflections 17: 00 Depart

Systems Leadership: Exceptional leadership for exceptional times Six Dimensions of Systems Leaders

What is systems leaderhip? Systems Leadership: Exceptional leadership for exceptional times Skills for Systems Leadership (Virtual Staff College)

Ways of feeling Personal core values Commitment Ways of being Courage to take risks Resilience & Patience Drive, energy, optimism Humility Ways of perceiving Balcony & dancefloor The unseen & unpredicted Diverse views Sensitivity to narratives Improving outcomes for service users Ways of doing Narrative Enabling & Supporting Repurposing & Reframing Ways of thinking Curiosity Synthesising complexity Sense-making Ways of relating Mutuality & Empathy Honesty & Authenticity Reflection Self Awareness

Which ‘way of’ do you feel most drawn to? Where do you feel most challenged? Or would like to learn more about? What might this mean for your own learning focus on this programme?

How do we want to model these in the way we work together on this programme? What conditions/norms do we need to maximise our learning and how will we hold each other to account?

Through the looking glass Public spending in the future Stephen Hughes 14 May 2014

Agenda • • Why we are cutting What and how much are we cutting. . . and that might not be enough But there is hope

Why we are cutting • The recession has reduced GDP by 2018 -19 by 16. 7% (£ 281 billion) permanently compared to trends forecast in 2008 • Public spending is unaffected or increases due to recession • Tax receipts tend to follow GDP • With no action borrowing would become 10% of national income

What if we don't cut? • Debt will be £ 1. 6 trillion by 2018/19 even with cuts or 76% of national income • Without them debt would be 2 x national income in less than 2 decades • Ultimately to even attempt that interest rates would rise, economy decline, exchange rate collapse - look at Southern Europe • But in fact financial markets would force cuts or Government debt default - cf Germany in 1920 s

What and how much? Real terms cuts 2010/11 to 2018/19 £billion % change Total spend 28. 3 3. 8 Debt interest 22. 5 46. 9 Pensions 11. 7 11. 2 Other Social security 5. 4 5. 6 Public service pensions 7. 8 160. 3 Other spending pressures 6. 7 8. 3 Total cut in DEL 82. 2 20. 4 Unprotected services 36. 6

Percentage of cuts done so far

Could it be less? • Note that by end of 2013/14 only 36% of DEL cuts in current spend have been made • Osbourne looking at possible £ 12 b cuts in benefits so that spending cuts 2015/16 onwards are only as bad as before then rather than worse!

So. . . • Extra £ 12 b benefit cuts means total DEL saving reduced from 36% to 31%! • £ 12 b is equivalent to 2. 5% pts on VAT or 3% pts on income tax • Or same as 6% cut in all benefits or 13% cut if Pensioner benefits protected.

. . . but it could be more • Spending figures above don't take account of: • Public sector cost of ending contract out of NIC - £ 3. 3 b pa • Dilnot - c£ 1 b pa • Child care policy (£ 0. 4 b pa) and free school meals (£ 0. 8 b) • • • Ending cap on HE student numbers (£ 0. 7 b) Tax income assume that excise fuel duty will rise with inflation bringing in £ 4. 2 b but no Govt has managed to deliver that 1% increase in interest rates adds £ 15 b to cuts needed Pressure for tax reductions in run up and post election Risks in tax receipts - 300, 000 top earners pay 27. 5% of all income tax and that's 7. 5% of all tax receipts

And then there is demography. . . • An 80 yo costs 7 x as much as a 30 yo • Population is growing and ageing • For health spending to rise in line with population growth and change in age make up requires 1. 2% growth pa from 2010/11 to 2018/19 • Even though protected, NHS will suffer real cuts from this source of 10% over the 8 years

Historic NHS spend

The financial summary • • Cuts are inevitable to balance public finances Unprotected services face 36% cuts over 8 yrs NHS has real cuts of at least 10% That excludes pressures of at least £ 10 b and ignores impact of inevitable rise in interest rates (£ 15 b per 1% rise)

But there is hope. . . • . . . and it's in this room!! • Collaboration between public agencies is proven to save money - e. g. Ernst and Young study for LGA on community budgets suggests up to £ 20 b savings possible • Policies that prevent the need for crises intervention are underdeveloped • Local authorities have proven that there are huge efficiencies to be found by service redesign • And we haven't tackled inefficiency at boundaries of professions or getting professional expertise to concentrate on what only they can do

. . . with big challenges • Agreement across agencies about objectives • Bring the public with you • Partnerships cemented with contracts • Collaboration focused on bite-sized projects • But above all. . .

Political and managerial leadership! Questions?

Lunch in place teams with Learning Coordinators

Our local context and challenge: initial framing 34

Initial framing of Systems Leadership Challenge In place teams and with the support of your LC, start to map out and frame your systems leadership challenge between you Be prepared to share with other place teams your initial framing of your leadership challenge and the system it is part of, as part of a ‘market-place’. Help others appreciate the complexity of the system you are working with Do this in a visual form, for example using, (rich) pictures, metaphors, mind-maps- be creative! Put out your stall!

Market-place

Market-place • One person stays with your ‘stall’. The others travel. Make sure you have enough time to swap. If you have a Learning Coordinator, they will also stay with your stall • Travel to other ‘stalls’ and find out more about others’ systems leadership challenge • Be curious, inquire, notice what resonates with your own situation, what is different, what you like to find out more about. Be prepared to share what you have discovered back in your place teams

Sense-making 38

Sense-making • What struck you most from the other systems leadership challenges? What connections, patterns, similarities and differences did you notice? Any implications for your own SLC? • What does this tell us about this learning community/system and the wider system we are part of? • Who might you want to learn more from, find out more about?

Working with living systems John Atkinson

Working with living systems Making sense of what we see John Atkinson fusions@hotmail. co. uk @tryweryn 91 on twitter www. jma 64. wordpress. com

The matter does not appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then… Robert H Jackson – US Supreme Court Judge 1941

How do systems work?

The social body cannot be constructed like a machine on abstract principles which merely include physical motions, and their numerical results, in the production of wealth. James Phillips Kay - 1830

Maturana & Varela - evolutionary biology • Organisms, from single cells to eco-systems have a variety of characteristics in common • They have evolved to be in a perfect relationship with their environment • It is a symbiotic relationship, the organism/organisation defines the environment and the environment defines the organism • If there is an external source of perturbation the organism acts to kill it, be it internal or external. • If the organism is held perturbed for sufficient time it adapts to this new condition. • Organisms are self-referencing, they act to preserve their own identity (autopoeisis) • By cultural behaviour we mean the transgenerational stability of behavioural patterns ontogenically acquired in the communicative dynamics of a social environment.

U-curves – Scharma, Kahane, Kubler-Ross

Myron Rogers Systemic Approaches to Problems How do systems work? How does this system work? How do I work with this system?

Working with social systems – The Big 5 Chaos and complexity Emergence Cognition Networks Self-organisation

Chaos and Complexity A social system like an English place does not map neatly onto an organisation chart And yet such places are ‘stable’ – ‘stuff keeps getting done’ - so complexity results in order not disorder, despite the mess Cause and effect may be distant in time and space This results in many unintended consequences (although not always unpredictable or negative consequences) And attempting to manage these consequences adds to the complexity with new bodies, meetings, actions and costs. (And more unintended consequences…)

Emergence Strategies, action points and timescales are more statements of intent than what actually happens Public services have some guiding ‘rules of thumb’. They can be both helpful and unhelpful. They are not usually applied consciously and determine ‘what goes on around here’. . So simple rules give rise to global behaviour What might be our ‘simple rules’?

Cognition The system looks different depending on where you are in it. To understand it requires multiple perspectives To better understand ‘what’s going on here’ requires multiple and diverse perspectives. What you see is what you know, in other words, you do not understand what you see, you see what you understand. Frame of reference is everything, what you see determines what you do. Keep asking ‘how do we know? ’ – what people say they do, and what they do do, are often very different. Cognition is inseparable from emotion.

Networks It is the informal structures that make public services work every bit as much as the formal ones Stories provide the lived experience, this is how we make sense of what happens Information feeds what people do – so sharing our perceptions of how things work helps us make sense of what we see Understanding comes from collective behaviour not individual

Self-organization Social systems seek to maintain themselves – A living system preserves its identity – It will change in order to preserve it They are continually self-referencing ie use past experience ‘the way things are done round here’ to determine how to react They do that within the limits of what they decide is ‘our business’ Identity is manifested in traditions, symbols, rituals, language, stories and practices This is about the ‘Culture of Public Service’

The surface Structure – – Structure Tiers of government Partners Governance Organisational form Policy Systems Policy – – Economy Crime and security Health and safety Systems – – Delivery mechanisms Formal process HR, recruitment Use of technology

What’s going on? Identity – Who are we, what do we collectively stand for? – Different places/roles/professions/organisations have different identities – Where and how do these come together for mutual benefit? – Can we frame the space in which this takes place? Relationships – Where and in what way do people interact with each other and us? – What is the balance of formal and informal? – What is the quality of these relationships? Information Relationships – What is being shared and what is not disclosed? – Who has access to what? – How do we release the cognitive capacity of a living system?

Where does this lead us? Meaning – Work and lives have a clear purpose and a sense of direction Meaning Trust – There is an implicit understanding of how all parties are trying to make things better that underpins their interaction Action Trust – The things we do are things that need to be done. Our actions are those that really work

How do you work with this? – Myron’s maxims Real change happens in real work Those who do the work do the change People own what they create Start anywhere, follow it everywhere Connect the system to more of itself

Final reflection with Learning Coordinator- agreeing roles, practicalities 63

Final reflection • How does what I’ve heard, impact on my view of our SLC and my own systems leadership practice? • What kind of support and challenge will we need from our LC, for our own learning about systems leadership practice and in taking our systems leadership challenge forward? • How will learning be captured? • Thoughts about Home Groups? • Sorting out practicalities, dates, etc

Leadership for Change Programme Residential 1 Day 2 Welcome Back!

Check-in 66

Day 2 agenda Timing 07: 30 – 08: 30 – 10: 00 – 13: 30 13: 00 -14: 00 – 16: 00 -17: 00 Activity Breakfast Check in Forming Home Groups and Learning Styles Ways of perceiving Home group Session 1 – framing the challenge from different perspectives Lunch System tools: Learning cycles and safe-fail experiments Home group session 2 – Designing the experiment Break Review and reflections Depart

Home Group Sessions - overview Aim Technique 1. Framing the challenge Seeking diverse perspectives 2. Designing a ‘safe-fail’ Suspending certainty 3. Reflection on experiments(s) Deep listening 4. Deepening understanding of the system Awareness of systems 5. Designing a personal ‘safe-fail’ Awareness of self 6. Critically reflecting on the challenge Adaptive action

Forming Home Groups • Purpose of Home Group is to enable and maximise learning on the programme • Stay in place teams • Not more than 3 Place Teams and 8 people per Home Group • Similarity or difference of geography, systems leadership challenges – up to you to decide • Will stay together throughout the programme • Will take part in different exercises that will support your systems leadership challenge and practice

Learning Cycle 1. Experience Experimenting with and drawing on our experience ACTIVIST 4. Application Applying new insights, ideas and actions in our daily work PRAGMATIST Adapted from David Kolb’s work 2. Observation and reflection Reviewing and reflecting on our experience REFLECTOR 3. Deepening/Re-framing Developing our understanding, testing our assumptions, exploring our thinking THEORIST

Honey & Mumford Learning styles ACTIVISTS: • enthusiastic about the new • here & now • brainstorm • act first, think later • bored with implementation REFLECTORS: • range of perspectives • think, then think again • cautious • action based on ‘big picture’ • listen, then contribute

Honey & Mumford Learning styles THEORISTS: • logically sound theories • step-by-step approach • perfectionists • analytical • rational more than subjective PRAGMATISTS: • problems are a challenge • like to experiment • like to get on with things • impatient with openended discussions • practical, down-toearth • if it works, it’s good

Ways of perceiving

How do we make up our minds? Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2012)

Ways of feeling Personal core values Commitment Ways of being Courage to take risks Resilience & Patience Drive, energy, optimism Humility Ways of perceiving Balcony & dancefloor The unseen & unpredicted Diverse views Sensitivity to narratives Improving outcomes for service users Ways of doing Narrative Enabling & Supporting Repurposing & Reframing Ways of thinking Curiosity Synthesising complexity Sense-making Ways of relating Mutuality & Empathy Honesty & Authenticity Reflection Self Awareness

17 X 24=?

System 1 - Gut • • • Automatic Unconscious Lightning Intuitive Emotional Resemblance

System 2 - Head • • • Reason Conscious Slow Effortful Calculating Explaining

Monkey Business https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=IGQmdo. K_Zf. Y

• Bat and ball cost together £ 1. 10 • The bat costs one pound more than the ball. • How much does the ball cost?

https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=p. Mq. M 4 BDqv. XY 9: 34 -11: 40

Heuristics A simple procedure that helps to find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions.

Kaheneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, p. 100

Heuristics & Biases Confidence & Coherence Anchoring Availability

Confidence & Coherence https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=p. Mq. M 4 BDqv. XY 13: 29 -17: 45

Was Gandhi more than 114 years old when he died?

Sale - 10% off! LIMIT OF 12 PERSON OR NO LIMIT PERSON

Availability Heuristic

You are more prone to availability biases when… You are engaged in another effortful task You are in a good mood You score low on a depression scale You are a knowledgeable novice (not a true expert) Score high on a scale of faith in intuition You are (or are made to feel) powerful

So what? The way we make up our minds is typically driven by short cuts We can, and do, readily convince ourselves that we don’t Everyone does it Hmmm…….

Speaking of…. • Confidence & Coherence “She can’t accept that she was just unlucky; she needs a causal story. She will end up thinking that someone intentionally sabotaged her work. ” • Anchoring “Plans are best-case scenarios. Let’s avoid anchoring on plans when we forecast actual outcomes. Thinking about the ways the plan could go wrong is one way to do it. ” • Availability “The CX has had several successes in a row, so failure doesn’t come easily to her mind. The availability bias is making her overconfident. ”

Perception-Understanding. Intervention ‘It’s not so much the solving of the problem but the framing of it’ Rob Farrands, 2014

Multiple ways of seeing ‘We all construct the world through lenses of our own making and use these to filter and select…we need a constantly expanding array of data, views and interpretations if we are to make a wise sense of the world. We need to include more and more eyes. We need to be constantly asking, ‘who else should be here? Who else should be looking at this’ Wheatley, 1999

Multiple dance-floors In systems leadership, we know that there may be multiple dance floors and the unpredictability of complex systems may keep some of these out of view, no matter how high the balcony. Thus, for systems leaders, whilst on the balcony, they must also constantly visualise the aspects of the context that are out of view…. including what is heard and how it is heard’ VSC Systems leadership synthesis paper, 2013

Home: experimenting Group Session 1 : Framing Exercise with perceptual positions the challenge using perceptual positions • ‘Clients’ gives a brief outline of their challenge and identify one or more key stakeholders in the situation. They then allocate a ‘perceptual role’ to each of their ‘consultants’. • Clients then describe their current thinking about their challenge in more depth • Consultants listen in silence and then ask one good question each from their perceptual role. . Clients respond to the questions • Each consultant gives feedback on how they think ‘their’ role might see differently. • Clients reflect on the feedback and says how their thinking might have changed and what they have learnt. What might this mean for the framing of their systems leadership challenge?

Leadership for Change Programme Residential 1 Lunch

Systems tools: Learning Cycles & Safe-Fail Experiments

Cynefin model David J. Snowden & Mary E. Bone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making, ’ Harvard Business Review, November 2007

Simple • • Clear cause and effect Stable Sense, Categorize, Respond Best Practice • Complacency

Complicated • • Hidden cause and effect Multiple right answers Sense, Analyse, Respond Good practice • Analysis paralysis • Ignoring innovative suggestions by non-experts

Complex • • Cause and effect coherent in retrospect Unpredictability & flux Probe, Sense, Respond Emergent • Temptation to fall back into command control • Difficulty in tolerating failure

Chaotic • • No perceivable cause and effect Rules have broken down Act, Sense, Respond Novel • Authoritarianism

Simple/Chaotic Boundary • More like a cliff edge • Success breeds complacency • Catastrophic failure

Disorder • Unclear which context is predominant • This is where you spend most of your time

Domains David J. Snowden & Mary E. Bone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making, ’ Harvard Business Review, November 2007

Designing a safe-fail experiment • Experiment freely and expect failure. • Consider as many ideas as possible • Start with experiments where failure can be tolerated. Be comfortable with ‘safe uncertainty’ – • Design experiments that can be monitored. • Run multiple experiments in parallel. • Share the results of your experiments with others • Learn from the results of their experiments, including about your own practice

Chris Argyris: double loop learning DEVELOPING INSIGHTS & UNDERSTANDING EXPERIENCE APPLICATION CONCEPTUALISATION RE-FRAMING REFLECTION RECOGNISING A NEW PARADIGM

Exercise : experimenting with perceptual positions Home Group session 2: Using the group to create a ‘safefail’ experiment • ‘Clients’ outline their current objectives for their shared safe fail • • experiment –and their learning edge Consultants listen in silence and then take time to reflect before offering one good idea each for a possible safe fail experiment : Clients reflect on the ideas offered and co-construct a do-able safe-fail that they can commit to completing before the next residential Clients consider what they want to learn about their own leadership practice through the process Clients complete the safe-fail grid as a reminder of the conversation and guide to action

Leadership for Change Programme Residential 1 Review and Evaluation Thank you, safe journey!