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When the bureaucrats show up in Leeds….

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‘Bureaucrat’ to me is not a dirty word.  I happen to think we need people to organise policies and procedures to bring some sense of organisation and pattern.  To enforce the rules when they need enforcing.  Government and governance can be good.  As long as they remember certain things.

Bureaucrats have been turning up at meetings organised by people who do not work in the official bureaucracies of the city.  They are not employed by the Council, or Business Link, or the Regional Development Agency, or the Arts Council.  But they recognise gaps that these agencies leave and they fill them.  There are enormous gaps left in the online world (anyone tell me of a bureaucracy that does a good job of engagement online?) and the world of the independent and the creative.

These ‘worlds of ones’ are difficult to service for bureaucracies who prefer to batch process large groups of similar types as this offers a much more cost efficient way to ‘achieve’ the outputs that they are contracted to achieve.   At least on the surface.

For me the presence of the bureaucrats is a very welcome one.  The more diverse the group the more potential for something interesting to happen!  They bring skills, resources, political insights and a certain knowledge about how things actually get done in the city that few of us can match.

It is interesting to watch the way in which some of the bureaucrats engage.  For some there is much  note-taking and reporting back, but very little interaction or contribution.  For others the contributions are mainly defensive and explanatory, providing the background to a particular campaign or decision that the ‘world of ones’  has been less than impressed by.  And some perhaps offer personal opinions, thoughts and beliefs, fearlessly, recognising that they attend these conversations as people and not primarily as bureaucrats.  And some, perhaps most yo an feel are torn between keeping their heads down and ‘managing’ risk or just diving in and facing the consequences, whatever they may be, later on.

Leeds Council and its agencies are beginning to wake up to the ‘online community’ (I hate that label as most of my life is not lived online).   What is interesting for me know is to see what happens now.

Are we (The Twitterati, the Web 2.0 Evangelists, the ‘people that slag us off’ as we were recently described) simply a new addition to the list of ‘stakeholders’ to be ‘managed’? Or is there an understanding that perhaps things have changed.  That hyperlinks subvert hierarchy and bureacracy.  That we may be impossible to manage but might respond well to engagement and facilitation. That we are not interested in justification and defence but in relevance, identity and soul.  That co-creation might offer a way forward?

We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.  I wonder if we will be able to develop a way of working in the city that blends the best of chaos and order.

Who is up for Chaordic Leeds?

Elvis said it best: “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”

We’re both inside corporations and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they’re really just an annoyance. We know they’re coming down. We’re going to work from both sides to take them down. – Cluetrain Manifesto

Leeds – ‘Knightsbridge of the North?’

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John Baron over at Guardian Leeds is running an interesting poll at the moment, asking about whether Leeds City centre is sanitised and sterile, whether we should welcome the development of yet more retail space in the city and whether Leeds should aspire to be the Knightsbridge of the North.
And I am genuinely surprised that the majority of pollsters seem to think that the ‘Knightsbridge Strategy’ makes sense….(NB the poll is still open so perhaps things will change).
As one who remembers when the Merrion Centre was new, and has seen several new developments ‘revolutionise’ the retail experience in Leeds, I am far from certain that they have helped to achieve any real progress for the city.
I can think of worse fates than to be the ‘Knightsbridge of the North’ – but not many.
It will commit us to a long term strategy based on retail infrastructure development and we will witness the ‘old’ centres going to the wall as newer, bigger more glamorous centres come to take their place.  The centre of retail gravity will shift around the city as too much capacity fights for too little footfall.
Developers, planners and builders will be happy.  So too will the politicians as they can keep announcing the ‘creation of new jobs in construction and retail’.  And those of us that can afford to buy our way to consumption fuelled temporary contentment may enjoy it for a while, before the more or less inevitable existential crisis, or whatever we use to keep it at bay, eventually gets us.
When I am working with people on their personal and professional development I ask them three questions:
  1. What do you want to have?
  2. What will you do in order to have it?
  3. If you do that what will you become?

In the case of Leeds the answers seem to be:

  1. We want to have – A prosperous economy based on tourism and retail (finance may still be crucial but is no longer flavour of the month), creating lots of low paid jobs and providing a great playground for those with disposable income
  2. What are going to do so that we may have it – Pursue ever greater retail and leisure development projects.  Allow our city to become a giant retail hoover to suck up capital from across the north and put it in the pockets of retailers and developers who can afford to play the game.
  3. What will we become if we do this – The ‘Knightsbridge of the North’. A northern simulacrum of a London suburb where the ‘haves’ can flaunt their wealth while the ‘have much lesses’ work the tills and warehouses and the ‘have nots’ are pushed out of sight. A city where the gaps between the rich and poor continue to rise, but GVA, like exam results, continues a relentless rise.  Where we rely on trickle down and Victorian philanthropy to retain an air of decency.

Often with personal and professional development the secret to getting a better future is to start the process with question 3.

Then, ‘what we do’ and ‘what we have’ might just serve our dreams rather than sabotage them.

That is why it is so important that we get a Vision for Leeds that works for all of us in the city.

A little less conversation, a little more action please…Leeds…

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Conversations of different types are opening up all over Leeds at the moment.

Organisations like Together for Peace host them as a way of helping people make connections around shared values and turn ideas into positive action.  The Culture Vultures have been flocking to conversations to talk about issues that matter to them with like-minded folk (generally this group is made up of younger early(ish) adopters of social media with a background in the creative arts and digital media).  The Leeds Initiative have been holding conversation as a way of drawing out priorities for the Vision for Leeds holding conversations both face to face and virtually.  Indeed my own twin projects of Progress School and Innovation Lab are little more than structured conversations focussed on helping individuals and groups who wish to make things better.

But what purpose does conversation serve if it does not result in a decent action plan?

Perhaps we need a little less conversation, a little more action please?  I sense frustration breaking out in all sorts of places that all this chatter is getting us no-where.  It does not build tram systems, arenas or social justice.  It just recycles hot air. Endlessly.

Well all I can say is that if the conversation is just re-cycling hot air then you are doing it wrong.  In good conversation something shifts.  Things are learned.  Possibilities are created by the group that no one member could have seen on their own.  The conversation itself transforms the way we see the world and the range of possibilities it offers.

So the conversations are building commitment, clarity, relationships and frustration.  Sounds like the perfect heady brew from which some really interesting innovation and change can emerge.  You see, contrary to the great Action Plan Myth some worthwhile projects are spontaneous, they emerge, take shape and make their mark.  They are not handcrafted in Microsoft Project, developing 5 year Gantt charts with milestones and objectives to be ticked at every stage. Hard work, commitment, flexibility, relationships and, above all perhaps, passionate belief make exciting things happen.

And everything, yes, EVERYTHING starts with a conversation…

So, if you find yourself frustrated, wanting a little less conversation and a little more action please just ask yourself what you can do to move things on a bit.

Perhaps a change of tactics is just what’s needed.

And one thing I am pretty clear about.  The more you try to steer the conversation towards action plans and outcomes the more anaemic those conversations become as people start to lobby and advocate rather than listen, explore and learn.

So, a little more conversation, frustration, relationship and commitment please.

The action has already started…and it is all around us…just this week end I witnessed the birth of @nofishybusiness and a wonderful trip to the seaside where 70 people from all over the UK (but mainly Leeds) were bought together by Leeds band Hope & Social to share music, food, conversation and dreams.  Test Space Kitchen made its debut at Temple Works, one of the world’s leading community organisers is coming to train in the city…

Things are happening all around us.  And if you can’t find something that works for you then just start something yourself.  The chances are that you are not alone….

NB not sure what YOU can be doing to make things better?  Try Progress School…

It’s NOT all about the economy, STUPID!

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So the coalition has major plans to re-balance the economy.

It seems that as far as the UK is concerned this re-balancing means shifting from being paid to move money around (financial services) to the production of wealth through the creation of value by manufacturing and value adding services.  It also seems to imply shifting the economic engine away from the South East…getting the rest of us to pull our weight.

Local Economic Partnerships and a £500bn regional growth fund (a fraction of the budgets available to the Regional Development Agencies when they led this work) are being set up to make it happen.

This sort of re-structuring of the quangos in pursuit of the holy grail of economic growth has been going on for decades.  And I am sceptical about what it achieves.

It configures largely the same people, sitting around largely the same tables having largely the same conversations (skill needs, infrastructure development, investment readiness etc), pulling on the same ‘economic’ levers (vocational training schemes, growth investment funds, business support, enterprise zones, ever diluted ‘apprenticeships’ in pursuit over more skilled jobs) and getting pretty much the same, generally disappointing, results – just under a different brand.

The majority of people are not engaged, leadership is weak and one dimensional (economic growth is king) and the whole shooting match leaves most of us as passive recipients of whatever the private sector led quangos decide to do.  Perhaps invest in the waterfront, build an Arena, a new relief road, or a large mixed use development, you know, flats and shops and workspaces and all….

Why?

Well I believe at the root of the problem is the misguided believe that it is all about the economy.  That the economy is a puzzle to be solved that is disconnected from other aspects of how we choose to live.  If we can just get the economy right – then the rest will surely fall into place.  I think that even if we did ‘just get the economy right’ we would be in no danger of approaching utopia any time soon.    A growing economy seems at least as much progress trap as progress.   Even if we could run ‘the economy’ in a way that delivered ‘no more boom and bust’ I really don’t believe that it alone help us to achieve the ‘better’ communities that we crave.  We have been throwing cash at our most deprived communities for decades and progress remains slow.

When we treat the economy as a closed system, as some kind of sacred cow two inter-related problems occur.

Firstly we start to treat human beings as ‘factors of production’ that we can manipulate and influence for the good of the economy.  The anointed can encourage us onto our bikes, into big society, or to look at ‘opportunities’ in construction, retail, call centres etc, all in the name of ‘the economy’.  Volition, aspiration and enterprise are dulled at the service of the economy.  Just keep your heads down, do as your told, and we will deliver stable economic growth is the message.  Hardly the recipe for an enterprise culture.

The second thing that happens by treating ‘the economy’ as a sacred cow is that the creative tension that lies at the heart of truly inspiring innovation is lost.  The one-dimensional focus on GVA stops us from pondering the really big questions such as:

  • How do we create sustainable economic growth and build communities in which we are proud to live?
  • How do we design work so that it is productive and promotes well-being and happiness?
  • How do we create wealth and manage the transition to a sustainable steady state economy?
  • How do we build an economy that includes all of those who want to find meaningful work?

Instead by making the economy the holy grail we get a society that on the one hand pursues economic growth (anyone for Going Up a League) while on the other hand provides crumbs from the table to ameliorate the negative social impacts that presumably are seen as just the price that we have to pay for a great economy (How about we Narrow the Gap too).  Cultural and creative activities are judged merely by their impact on the economy rather than the soul.

One of the real pleasures, and lessons I learned, from working with Danone at their social innovation lab was the way that they knew that it was these creative tensions that held the key to breakthrough innovation.  By choosing to split out the economy from wider questions of community, sustainability and well-being I believe we trap ourselves in the same old sterile debates amongst the same old business voices.

It is not just Local Enterprise Partnerships and their various fore-runners that do this.  Councils do it too (Leeds Council is based on four directorates, Adult Social Services, Children’s Services, City Development and Neighbourhoods and Environment).

The Leeds MPs, who I am delighted to see have pledged to overcome party differences to advocate for the benefit of the City in their Team Leeds endeavours, have agreed that each MP will have an individual policy portfolio.  This is sure once again to separate ‘the economy’ from other aspects of community development.  In the competition for resources that is bound to ensue I am sure it will be the ‘all about the economy’ mantra that will carry the day.  No surprise too that  Leeds Chamber of Commerce played a key part in the Team Leeds initiative.

Now of course we have to organise somehow.

Specialisation and the division of labour make sense.  But let’s make sure that the way to choose to slice things up does not ignore vital interconnections and does not allow us to consistently put the cart before the horse.  To allow one part of the whole system to dominate the conversation and allow the benefits of development to accrue to the few.  For the business interests to accrue too much power.

  • Anyone for a whole systems perspective?
  • Understanding the city as a complex adaptive system rather than as a reducible puzzle to be solved?
  • Time for innovation?

A Radical Idea for a LEP…

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First of all reject the temptation to be entirely strategic.

Don’t try to analyse the economy like it is a game of monopoly where you can understand the roll of the dice, seeing and preparing for an uncertain future.  Don’t pretend that people and their aspirations count for nothing as you ponder the balance between investing in ports, ring-roads, runways or fibre.

Instead learn to compliment strategic development with a responsive approach.  One that engages residents in their hopes and aspirations for a better life and gives them the power and the responsibility to pursue them.  Put your faith and confidence in people.  Provide them with hope, leadership and support.

Dare to be relevant to people and not just ‘the business community’.

A city region of around 3m people like Leeds would require a network of around 75 coaches to provide access to person centred coaching support for everyone that really wanted it.

  • It would engage about 45 000 people in the process of providing direct hands on assistance to their peers.
  • It would provide direct assistance to about 16500 beneficiaries a year, the vast majority of whom would make significant progress in their personal journeys as a result of benefiting from a coaching rather than a coercive approach.
  • I would anticipate at least 750 sustainable business starts from this cohort every year.  I would envisage business survival rates around the 90% rate after 3 years.
  • It would make a very real difference to the perceptions of some 20 000 people a year about the extent to which they feel that they ‘belong to’ and ‘feel supported’ in their community.
  • In addition to traditional ‘enterprise’ outputs I would expect substantial impacts on health and well-being as well as increases in volunteering, cultural productivity, mental health, fitness and so forth.
  • It would help to integrate the dual priorities of economy and community rather than treating them as separate and often incompatible determinants.
  • Within 3-7 years I would expect it to have made a sustained and measurable difference to the enterprise culture in the city region.

And it would cost about £3.75 million a year.

The price of a very rich wo/man’s house.

NB this piece was prompted by reading ‘The Economic Opportunities and Challenges for the emerging Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) in Yorkshire and Humber – Briefing Paper‘.

As far as it goes this is an ok piece of work. Unremittingly strategic, focussing on communications, infrastructure development and targeting support at key industries – all tried, tested and largely at best partially successful ideas for economic development.  One of the ideas challenges it identified is to develop sufficient ‘low skill jobs’ for our low skill economies.   It talks about the structures required to ensure integration of LEP structures across the region.  One can almost here the creaking of bureaucracy…