This week I was asked to write a  guest blog on Tiger de Souza’s great website and was delighted to do so.  This is what I wrote –

Last week, an unusual thing happened. The internet was buzzing with a story about a parish council. Was this local governance getting some publicity and attention at last? Was social media going to finally help the public understand better the personalities, and the behaviours that are part and parcel of local community democracy? Sadly not. What we learned from a recorded and edited version of a Handforth Parish Council  meeting was something rather different.

The Handforth Parish Council meeting that descended into chaos

We could treat ourselves to the sight of technology tripping up a group of mainly elderly citizens. Then we could roll our eyes at the display of petulance, bad manners and temper tantrums, and gawp at the endless bickering over arcane standing orders, and finally, we could join in congratulating the stoicism and diligence of the clerk – there was even a hashtag #ImwithJackieWeaver to accompany a round of admiring media appearances.

We witnessed a number of men railing at a woman who was trying to introduce order. We watched as they proved themselves completely incapable  of dealing with running a meeting without shouting and insulting others. And we witnessed the way that the rules of engagement  – the much pronounced standing orders –  did nothing to help matters progress. Small wonder that we looked on with horror, and anyone who has never engaged in any local or  community action,  made a silent vow to avoid any such activity in the future.

Well, right now we can all do with a laugh and a viral clip of a disastrous meeting hit the sweet spot for many of us. But along with the hilarity, it’s worth thinking about four other things that the recording showed:

  1. It is hard to imagine that  any woman, who has ever attended a meeting – parish council or otherwise – did not wince with recognition at the naked and aggressive misogyny on such blatant display in this event. The sight of a woman, keeping calm and carrying on, when all around were bawling at her, insulting her or laughing at her maniacally is an all too familiar one to those of us who have been involved in making the hard slog of local democracy and community engagement work. Of course, this was an extreme example, but a quick poll of women friends and colleagues showed I was not alone in having flashbacks to many an unpleasant and difficult meeting.  And sadly none of us were remotely surprised that no one intervened to stop the appalling behaviour. Not one of the people on the call seemed to have either the awareness, or the willingness, to speak out against such bad behaviour.
  2. We all talk about the need for difference in community organising. We know how important it  is that younger people join in and take on leadership roles. That they are made available to people from black and minority ethnic communities, disabled people and with all of us so they can genuinely reflect the rich, diverse and varied communities they serve. This was an object lesson in understanding  why that desire needs much more than talk. As I laughed at the video, I also knew that all too many meetings actually seem just like Handforth’s, and that if you are new to this work, it will look as bizarre, as ill-mannered and as intimidating as this one did. We have to behave differently. And that take practice and serious attention.
  3. Handforth’s travails also highlighted that skills and training are needed when people who care passionately about their community, are put in a room together and start talking. Time after time we talk about the importance of engaging residents, of involving those with ‘lived experience’, of the importance of ‘local participation’ – and then we expect people just to get together (on zoom or for real) and we stand back. Then we are either amazed or delighted when things go wrong. Board members of PLCs get training, and expensive board evaluation.  So do those sitting on the boards of housing associations and hospital trusts. But members of community groups are all too often just given an impossible task  and told to get on with it.  If they are given any rules, they are often in a format (those dratted standing orders)  that do nothing to help genuine engagement; that give no ideas for generating vital and authentic debate and that do nothing at all to protect the voices that are too often shouted down or ignored.
  4. And yet local democracy has never been more important. We’ll never get through our current  terrifying predicament without people prepared to get involved and make change happen. If they suffer abuse, are laughed at and challenged with hostility, can we be surprised that they don’t come back? If the rules are so obscure that they are either discarded, or they dominate proceedings, can we wonder that community engagement is so hard?

A few years ago I wrote a slightly tongue in cheek piece about how to undermine community involvement. In Communities – Nine ways to break them – I talked about the overloading of community groups, the disrespect we show and the lack of support we offer.  If I were doing it now, I’d write about aggressive and undermining misogyny, a woeful lack of attention to the skills training in those involved, and a set of processes that do nothing to enable active and supportive involvement. And I’d conclude again, that if we are really serious about the importance of local democracy, we’d take it all much more seriously. But I’d still want to stand with Jackie Weaver!

If I hear one more leader talk about recovery (without mentioning emotions) I shall scream….

We are going through a period of collective trauma. We’re all facing loss and the attendant grief. For many it is the sadness of mourning someone who has died before their time, felled either by Covid or by illness not treated because of the pandemic. That grief is overwhelming, and we know this week that the shocking toll of 100,000 deaths means 100,000 grieving families. The repetition of that figure does not make it any easier to tolerate, or envisage. 60,000 civilians died in the UK in the Second world War over 6 years, and their loss casts a long shadow. 100,000 people have died in under a year, and we need to mourn every one of them. We need to recognise that individual funerals are in no way sufficient recognition of that level of distress and loss.

But there are other losses too. The children who are spending a precious year, or more, without the companionship of their friends. The young people feeling trapped at a time of their lives when so much should be available to them. The loneliness of people missing human contact. The sadness of people separated for so long. The intolerable circumstances facing people for whom an instruction to ‘stay at home’ is a sentence of violence and abuse. The loss of opportunity, of plans, of future prospects. The loss of jobs, of home, of future. The loss of adventure, and pleasure and contact. A world of loss and grief.

But there are other emotions abroad too. The terror caused by the pandemic. The fear we all feel at hearing the dreadful news. The anxiety caused by communication that, whether carefully and thoughtfully crafted or not, is intended to evoke fear, because fear is an entirely appropriate response to a virus that is both readily transmitted and very serious.

And there is anger. Anger that this has happened, that we haven’t been protected by those charged with keeping us safe. Anger with those we see breaking the rules.

And of course, in the UK there is shame. Shame that in a country as rich and influential as this one, that we simply did not have the resilience, the leadership or the capacity to protect people in this most terrible time. we can admire our leaders and applaud our ‘key workers’, we can thank the NHS and all of this we should do. But we also feel shame that it has come to this. That so many of our citizens have suffered so much. And the dreadful certainty that all of this pain and loss is experienced most by those who already lacked security, money and recognition, is deeply shaming. The fact that being poor, and being black, made the impact so very much worse is deeply shaming, whatever your politics.

No wonder we’re so exhausted and bad-tempered. Grief, loss, fear, anger and shame are powerful and exhausting emotions. The whole population feels them. And just as we know that to recover from natural disaster requires more than just rebuilding, so too coming out of this terrible period will need something different.

It does not need guilt and blaming of people. It does not need further division. But it does need a focus. If recovery is simply expressed as the creation of jobs, (desperately needed), the building of houses, (and how well we now understand the importance of home), and some sort of ‘return to normality, we will miss the point.

Recovery demands that we acknowledge the trauma that has been experienced. That we mourn properly, and publicly and must support those who have lost so terribly. It means that we need to think about our sense of identity, our shared priorities. It means we need to be actively engaged in making the difficult decisions about the shape and priorities of the new world. We need jointly to make shared and credible decisions about protection, and long-term public health. We need to plan and develop new approaches so that we never face this trauma again. But if we do that without recognising the grief, the fear, the anger and the shame, we are effectively telling a country facing post-traumatic stress to ‘pull themselves together’. And I think we all know where that ends. Because there are dark places where emotions are understood and fostered. Places where anger is fuelled, and grief distorted. Places where terror multiplies. Places where people are blamed and difference is exploited. Places where emotions are manipulated.  If we ignore these emotions, this shared trauma, we are storing up trouble for the future.  And that threat is existential.

We have artistic and cultural skills in abundance. We have heritage and sport and fellowship. We need an explosion of celebration and expression, and that needs theatre, music, story tellers. That will need money, but we have the organisations and networks in every part of the country. We have the talent and ingenuity to devise truly creative ways of celebrating.  We know about the mediation of difficult decisions, we know how to build trust and help people to re connect. All over the country there are groups and organisations that have held us together through these very dark days. It is those people who can help us to design and think through the challenges ahead. We know about the power and strengths of communities. We have sacred and beautiful places, and people who are able to inspire, and to soothe. We can create places where people can share and support. We can find ways that people can express their feelings. We can do all these things and we can come through this stronger, and more fit for our increasingly uncertain future.

All of that requires supported, energised civil society in the arts,  and community leadership, in the development of young people’s networks. It requires the deliberative democracy which we know so much about.

It cannot be business as usual. Our recovery can’t simply try to revive what there was before. We can’t just create jobs, and build new roads, and encourage more big shops to return to our desolate high streets. If we ignore these emotions, this shared trauma, we are storing up trouble for the future. And our current approach to civil society  – watching charities forced to shed staff, theatres with no capacity to re-open, artists and creative people forced to abandon their art, community groups spread so very thin, we risk walking into a very dark place indeed.

We have done it before. Marc Stears in his lovely new book tells us that after the horrors of two world wars, the UK recovered because of the extraordinary power of everyday life.  Robert Putnam in his new book reminds us that it is civil society that allowed the USA to recover in the same challenging time. But doing it this time demands an approach that recognises trauma, and consciously helps us all jointly to rebuild. Snapping our fingers and hoping for the life we had before is simply magical thinking. And deeply dangerous magical thinking at that.

We’ve known that a global pandemic would come for decades, and it’s been modelled and planned for time after time. But when it comes it’s a massive and terrifying shock, and the implications will be felt for decades to come. Just now we’re wrestling with the health and economic impacts and learning things we didn’t know about ourselves, as well as confirming what many of us have always believed. And primarily it has confirmed, if it was ever needed, that global shocks hit the poorest people most badly.

It’s becoming a bit of a cliché to say that this extraordinary period is variously as big in its impact as 2008, or 9/11 or 1945. But it clearly is a hugely important moment in our lives and will probably change everything. I feel it’s a bit too early to make dramatic predictions (after all, what use are they just now?) but it is probably the moment to notice accurately what is going on. I often think that change happens in the most unexpected places and when we are not really looking. This is one of those occasions.

  1. We’ve learned that we need strong, trusted institutions. After a decade or more of it being easy to throw brickbats at the NHS, the BBC and the civil service, at a time of national emergency those authoritative and powerful bodies are needed more than ever before. Just notice how often senior politicians invoke ‘our NHS’.  Remember that only 10 days ago the end of the BBC was called for, and carelessly compared to Netflix.  And we’ve learned once more that trust is, and always has been, the most precious currency.
  2. We’ve learned that people do look out for their neighbours and friends, and that a dense network of connections is keeping people going, supporting their well-being and offering practical help. Support really is local, mobile and social – and the outpouring of local support and friendship has been astonishing and heartening to see.
  3. But it has its shadow side and the panic buying, stripping of supermarket shelves, and shameless profiteering is a powerful antidote to those of us who like to think that crises produce the best in people.
  4. We need the state. Anyone who in the last few years has been tempted even for  a minute by the siren voices proposing that the market or the community alone can cope, now knows the absolute importance of a connected, capable and properly powered state.
  5. Experts matter. We need to be allowed to trust the science and the advice. The clear voice of experts rings through all the noise.
  6. But in a world where everyone has access to a publishing platform, we’ve also learned of both the dangers of rumours and false information and the extraordinary benefits of rapid organisation, and the ability to raise concerns from anywhere in the country.
  7. We’ve learned that 1:10 of us in the lower half of incomes can work from home, and 9:10 of us in the higher half can (thank you Resolution Foundation) and that really matters because it makes our economic prospects so hugely different. The Universal Basic Income has its detractors (and I’ve been one) but if ever here was a time for it, it is now. It is feasible, effective and could remove economic anxiety from a nation already massively anxious.
  8. We’ve learned how appallingly degraded our public services have become over the last decade of austerity. We’ve learned that 5000 ventilators for a population this size is the lowest in the developed world. And we’ve learned how very badly some companies have behaved. We’ve learned that even social landlords needed to be told not to evict people who couldn’t pay their rent, and others in the private sector have tried to by-pass this instruction. And we see that, and we will not forget and forgive.
  9. And we’ve seen the very best of what we can do as humans, as community networks and as big institutions, moving to support, to salvage and to save. The generous leadership, ability to organise, willingness to forsake brand and position and just make change happen, has seen the very best of us at the very worst of times.

It’s been a terrifying week, and it doesn’t look as if it will get much better very quickly, but what I’ve observed and felt will stay with me for ever.

 

Part 2

How many Ss spell governance?

This model is designed to help boards decide which mode they are in.  Many of the best boards signal which mode is required for which subject. Good boards are able to readily identify the right mode.  And outstanding boards can move with confidence, and clarity between the modes.

Too many boards behave as if Strategy is the only mode that counts. They risk developing big and irrelevant plans. Others privilege stewardship. They risk protecting and failing to change. Boards which only support are simply cheerleaders, just as perpetual scrutiny is demoralising and nearly always retrospective. Stretching out of context is wasteful.

The challenge for governance is to deploy all five modes, appropriately and with confidence.

Strategy – determining direction, looking five years ahead, shaping the organisation, designing the sort of organisation you want to lead.

  • Is this where we want to be going?
  • Does this direction make sense?
  • Are their alternatives?
  • Have we thought about…?

Stewardship – protecting the assets – including the staff, reputation, capital and investments.

  • What will this do to assets?
  • Does it allow us to serve future generations?
  • What do we risk ?

Support – encouragement, ensuring the right resources are there, enabling, facilitating, problem solving.

  • Is the new system of information management really helping?
  • Is our senior team at risk of burn out?
  • Have we protected them against the attacks and abuse we know they are receiving?

Stretch – being ambitious, encouraging more to be done

  • Can’t we do better than this?
  • Have we registered what X down the road is doing?
  • Is this really as good as we can be?

Scrutiny – checking, assurance, providing external validation.

  • Are really doing this safely enough? What do others say about our performance?

 

 

Part 1

Who’s who on a board
It is very easy to download from the internet, or ask your solicitor, for a list of roles and responsibilities. What does the honorary treasurer do? Should you have a senior independent director? What about the chair and chief executive officer? Does a company secretary serve the board or the organisation? This is all very interesting. But in my observation of boards, both as an adviser and as a member, I have identified a number of different roles, and these all pose different questions:

The Peacemaker asks – can’t we find a common way? Surely there is a different approach?

The Challenger says – can’t we do better? This is simply not good enough for the homeless people in this town. Is it just because it has always been done this way?

But the History Holder says, do remember where we come from. When we started we thought that we could really change opinions about obesity. We need to go back to our roots, and remember what worked in the past.

And the Compliance king or queen will always say, can we afford it? What will the auditors say? Is this legal?

To which the Passionate Advocate will respond, for goodness sake, surely we must take a risk. People are dying of this disease, we must do more.

And the Data Champion says – it is all very well shouting, all the evidence shows that however often we do that, it makes no difference to the outcomes for mentally ill people.

And the Wise Counsellor says, we are not the only people trying to tackle this issue, we need to think carefully, plan properly, and take this step by step.

But the Inspiring Leader will describe her vision, will point to the hills, will enthuse and excite.

While the Fixer says, I think we can get together outside the meeting and sort this out.

And the Risk Taker says, the crisis in Darfur is simply too great. Let’s just spend the money, and it is such a good idea that the funds will flood in.

While the Strategist says, we need to think about what will happen in 2010, and recognise that if the Department of CPT does make the changes that they are planning, then our position will be much stronger and the whole environment will be different.

And the User Champion says, I am worried that we are ignoring the interests of our beneficiaries. We haven’t mentioned their needs all though this meeting.

All those voices, and all those questions, make a really strong board. All good boards hold in balance the entrepreneurialism of the strategist, and the risk taker, along with compliance king or queen, and the data champion. I have seen boards that are entirely entrepreneurial and they are pretty scary. I have also seen boards that are entirely compliance driven, and they are  truly terrifying.

 

This has been quite an extraordinary week in the UK, even in a couple of years that have had more than their fair shares of surprises and shocks. I’ve spent a lot of the last year going around the country listening to people interested in Civil Society Futures and the more I do that, the more I wonder at the surprise expressed by those frequently described as the “political class.”

Nobody who was deeply connected to the communities in Hartlepool and Hull was surprised by the Brexit vote. Those who were surprised were simply not paying attention. Everybody working closely with tenants at Grenfell Tower in Kensington and Chelsea knew about their frequently expressed  safety concerns. They were of course devastated by the scale of the tragedy but they were not surprised. From the treatment of the Windrush generation, to growing  gang violence, to the damaging implementation of Universal Credit – across the country voluntary and community groups, churches and charities,  knew what was happening. But time after time they were they were ignored.

Every system needs early warning. Every system needs to know when things are going badly wrong. Every system needs to know about deep and underlying discontent. In the UK it seems to me that civil society is the canary in our coal mine. Shocks and surprises happen because we are not listening to those repeated urgent warnings.

And a society that does not listen very acutely to warnings of things going wrong, is a society that will always be shocked and dealing with crisis.

When I first heard about framing I heard spin. I thought that it was all about identifying  the prejudice of the public and then pandering to it. I thought it was better suited to advertising and the dark arts of politics than the much more complex world of policy development and communication. I thought it was a way of putting a coat of shiny paint on the crumbling edifice of some of our services.

I was so very wrong.

I learned through early exposure to the framing thinking on issues as different as children’s nutrition, housing and poverty that framing is a technique that is genuinely disruptive, hugely challenging to those of us who think we know best, and is a way of rethinking and challenging the fundamentals of some of the rather weary positions that we are all so ready to recycle.

I learned five things that have changed the way I think about public policy, not just what I say.

  1. I’ve learned something I should have known all along :  how we feel about something is as important as what we know. That old campaigning question – do you know, think or feel?  – needs to be relearned. How we feel really matters and this is true of the people who view an issue from afar, those who are personally and intimately involved and those of us with a professional label.
  2. I’ve learned that everything is  always framed. The question is how it is framed. If you describe your services in terms of pity and distance, than that’s how it will be experienced. If you talk about housing in terms of desperation and  need, then you can’t be surprised if it becomes an emergency service. The question is framing it accurately in ways that are completely authentic.
  3. I’ve learned that if you talk in the way that makes you feel comfortable, you’re probably not listening. And not listening probably means that you’ll never be heard by anyone except people like you. And that reciting  data and research evidence in the way I have been trained, may be easy, but probably means that you’re not being heard.
  4. But I’ve also learned that it’s always about us, not about them. I’ve learned that when I think about  ageing I need to think about what I want as I age, that when I think about poverty I need to recognise that the existence of poverty affects us all, and that the things that matter to me – security, home, love, friendship – are almost certainly  the same things that matter to everyone else.
  5. And I’ve learned that when you talk so that people can hear you, extraordinary things happen. It’s not that’s magically public opinion shifts, but it is that the way in which we all think about an issue shifts, and that shifts what we do, as much as how we describe it.

Framing allows us to challenge our deepest pre conceptions, to understand the ‘received wisdom’ , to interrogate all of our own baggage and to start to do things differently. Mostly I’ve learned that framing isn’t about communications. It’s about everything we do. It’s not a silver bullet, but what it does is challenge professionals, systems and all of us who think we know the answer to think a lot more deeply, and then behave so much more intelligently.

first published for #socialcarefutures @neilmcrowther

 

Over the last decade our institutions and industries have been rocked by accusations of sexual abuse and harm. From the Church through the BBC  to Hollywood and to some of our most precious charities we have heard stories about behaviour that has no place in the 21st century. And we’ve heard about harm done, hurt experienced and the terrible work of both repairing the damage, and atoning for the grief caused.

Most of us have been challenged to think about our past behaviour – not just the abusers, but those of us who fear we may have been carelessly complicit. The averted eye, the nervousness about intervention, the embarrassment when we  knew things were not quite right. And all of us, whether accusers, survivors, perpetrators and institutions have known that there needs to be a better way. We need to find ways of being together  that enable fellowship and friendship but avoid causing such devastating sexual harm and degradation.

I believe this strongly. That’s why I’ve signed up to support #preventsexualharm. Supported by an impressive coalition of organisations including the NSCPCC, NCVO, NOTA, Crimestoppers and powered by Re-shape, this coalition challenges us to think about what we can do to prevent sexual harm in our communities, in our networks and our  organisations. .

This doesn’t feel easy or safe. But I do think it’s a really important way of taking back some control. And a chance for all of us to get the confidence to stop sexual harm – and that should mean that at the very least in ten years’ time we’re not looking back with embarrassment at things going on that we really should have been able to stop. After all, that certainly  doesn’t feel easy or safe .

In the public unfolding of grief in the last terrible few months a number of things stand out. The first is   of course, the helpers. The courage and generosity of those who run to the site of disaster – whether Manchester taxi drivers ferrying people home, or café owners providing drinks or people contributing money.  The community centres and sports clubs throwing open their doors. The collections of money and goods. Along with the heroism of our emergency services, we can be really proud of the way in which all parts of civil society respond so actively and so quickly, giving the lie to the myth that people don’t care, and lead entirely atomised lives. Solidarity exists, and we show it at our lowest, most terrified moments.

But there is something else too which I think speaks to civil society and how we organise. In the face of disaster people congregate `and seek out opportunities to come together physically, not in a web based chat room, but in squares, and gardens, on streets and on bridges. We need places for silence and for contemplation. We need time for reflection. Music and poetry, along with a particular form of oratory have all played their part in providing both a shape for, and an expression of, terrible grief.

Some of those spaces have been churches, mosques, synagogues and other places of worship. In observing this, and taking part in many solemn gatherings, I am struck by how much we can learn from people of faith about the power of the assembly. The use of ritual. The importance of belonging, and of sharing, and of collective expressions of grief, loss, and yes, in our increasingly secular society churches, temples, synagogues and mosques don’t only provide material support- essential though that is. They also teach us how to come together.

I have been also been reading Alain de Botton’s Religion for  Atheists. Although not an atheist myself, there is so much in his clear-sighted view of the contribution made by religion, whether or not doctrine and faith are accepted. And I’ve also been very stimulated by   http://howwegather.org examining how younger generations come together.

At times of national grief, just as much as at times for personal tragedy, we may lack the words to console and express our shared sorrow. And yet there are parts of civil society, both faith based and not, that have so much to teach all of us about the human need for comfort, for sharing and for very present and physical ways of expressing our shared loss and shock.

Civil society   requires us to recognise the value of every human being, and find ways of expressing both our pain and our anger in ways that bring us together. Civil society can be a dry concept, and its behaviour can be equally arid.  But behind that phraseology lies an immense emotional human impulse.  Civil society knows about celebration. It knows about memorials. It knows about collective action. It knows about art and music. We are about everything that makes us human. Let’s recognise that and harness its power