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The Challenge of Leadership in Leeds

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One of the big challenges of leadership is that, once you assume it, you are there to be shot at.

It is not necessarily that people want to bring you down.  But they do want to know that ‘the leaders’ know their stuff, that they are credible.  That they are worth following on a journey.  That they deserve the commitment of discretionary time and effort too.  That it will all make a positive difference in the end.

In leadership, you have to earn your followers…

The problem is further compounded if:

  • leaders choose to more or less replicate a leadership process that the last time around didn’t pull up any trees
  • there is even a whiff of a suspicion that this is not a genuine attempt at leadership but a bit of a box-ticking exercise undertaken at the behest of ‘head office’
  • there is no clarity about how a vision, once developed will be used to really engage and mobilise the talent, skills and resources of all stakeholders
  • different opinions, instead of being heard, are simply denied and refuted

When some of these conditions are met, then vision based leadership becomes very, very difficult.  Attempts are likely to be met with, at best, ‘passive aggression’.  And I think that this is the situation facing us in Leeds at the moment with the Leeds Vision 2030 process.  It is a situation that faces many leadership teams.

People are giving up time and money to engage in a leadership process that should be a very high stakes game for the city.  Shaping our international profile, providing a platform for a socially just society, rising to an array of carbon and environmental sustainability challenges and delivering an economy that works, are just a few of the opportunities and challenges that the process needs to address.

This is why I think some people, myself included, were disappointed when we first saw the new ‘Leeds Owl‘  and strapline that have been developed to brand the Vision 2030 exercise.  Personally I think that Phil Kirby’s criticisms are justified. So too Lee Hickens.  And I have made some observations about the symbolic meaning of the owl. In what is a multi-cultural and international city we should show some sensitivity and awareness of what our city symbol means in parts of Japanese, Hindu and African history.

There are all sorts of things that the council is now doing that I think show signs of progress.  Setting up facebook pages and twitter feeds for example.  Far more council staff seem to be really engaging, online and off, in some of the stuff that is happening in the city.   But these tools are double edged swords.  Reputations take a long time to build online and can be very quickly lost.  They will certainly surface more and more critical responses (let’s face it few of us find the time to write a response that says ‘Great work, keep it up!’) than more traditional and ‘managed’ consultations

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhmjnYKlVnM]

But it seems there is still astro-turfing going on.  It can be tricky to sort out the authentic voices.  And web2.0 savvy folks will forgive many things – but bad design and perceptions of inauthenticity are not amongst them!

I believe the ‘What If Leeds…’ logo debate is only partly about the aesthetics and meaning of the brand.

It is, for me at least, much more importantly a signifier of a very important question.  Can we work with Leeds City Council and its mechanisms for exercising leadership in the city, or should this be a DIY job?  We just keep on organising and doing what we can to shape life in the city by doing our own stuff.

Is the council a credible and trustworthy partner for local people already running themselves into the ground doing what they can.  Or will it just sap our time, energy and morale?

Will the engagement continue once the Vision is developed, bound and on the shelf?

Personally I am very optimistic that the appointment of Tom Riordan shows a real willingness to engage and partner more effectively.  But there is a lot to learn on both sides if we are to make this work.

At the moment I think Leeds is a more exciting City than it has been for a long time.  Interesting things are happening at the grass-roots in business, culture, community development, marketing and technology.   And, if we can get the engagement with the council right, we might be able to pull off something of real importance for the city.   But we must have confidence in those we engage with and their ability to manage effectively the complex process for strategic change that they have chosen to use.  And we must earn their trust too.  This is a two-way process.

It is not just about ‘us’ going on a journey with ‘them’.  It is about all of us journeying together.  Learning has to be done on all sides.

Or should we just go it alone?

Who Are the Innovators?

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Recently I have been reflecting with Imran Ali about the nature of innovation in the city (of Leeds in this case) and how it might be developed.  The assumption being that more and better innovation will be an unalloyed good in a fast changing, dynamic, complex yet very finite environment.

Most of the discussion has focussed on some obvious innovation levers that we believe could yield some relatively quick and easy wins, such as:

  • encouraging more innovation across traditional boundaries of department or role
  • seeking applications of technology for social innovation
  • thinking as idealists rather than realists – exploring the art of the possible not just the pragmatic
  • providing ‘investment ready’ development programmes
  • engaging non traditional sources of funding in the innovation process and so on.

But the implicit assumption all of these approaches to innovation is of an innovative elite.  A creative class with the brains, the money (or access to it) and the networks to figure out how to make things significantly better for the rest of us.  Scientists, technologists, financiers, policy makers, politicians, environmentalists, campaigners, entrepreneurs (social and not so social) and academics are all encouraged, incentivised and trained to ‘unleash’ their creativity and innovation.

But how many in the city form part of that elite?  The hallowed few from whom progress is expected to emanate or who feel it is their duty to change the workings of the world. A few thousand perhaps in a city of 800 000.  I suspect it is less than 1% of those living in the city.

I believe that innovation, creativity and change in pursuit of progress, are essential human qualities that will find means of expression.  Regardless.

  • How does the potential of ‘innovation’ play out for the rest?
  • How do the processes of creativity and change in search of progress manifest for them?

Well, I suspect there is another slug of the population who are deeply engaged in creativity and change in relation to developing their  practice, in the more or less explicit hope, that they may be able to join the elite.  Training, learning, networking and thinking of ways to get their hands on the innovation levers.  Would-be entrepreneurs, politicians, students, scientists and bureaucrats who are working their way upwards and onwards.  Some, of course will join the elite. But most, by definition, will not.  And they will join another group of potential innovators.

These are the ones who do not wish to change the world/city/community.  Perhaps they have given up on the challenge. Perhaps they never engaged with it.  But the essential creative drive remains and will be expressed.  It may play out through personal lifestyle choices.  Living the environmental life perhaps, gardening,  reducing the golf handicap, pursuing cultural enlightenment, renovating houses/cars etc.  Progress is defined in more or less personal terms.  It is perhaps the pursuit of happiness rather social change.   Work becomes a job rather than a way to make a mark on the world.  Creative courage is reserved primarily for ‘out of hours’ activities.

And then there is another group who never really established a foothold in ‘the system’.  Those for whom a steady salary providing some level of ‘disposable’ income was never really ‘on the cards’.  Vocational and professional routes for creative expression never opened up for them.   From this group I suspect the systems demands not innovation and creativity but just passive compliance.  Do as your told, smarten up tour appearance, brush up your CV and look for a job.  Or at least pretend you are looking for a job.  But the drive to innovation will out.  Creativity will be expressed.

So when we are looking to support innovation in the city where is the great untapped potential?

  • Does it lie in providing more and better support and training to the elite?
  • Or should we try to mobilise middle England, Big Society style, to rally tot he cause?
  • Or should we perhaps change the terms of engagement with those at the margins of the system?  To shift from a coercive approach to a coaching one?

Anyone for ‘Innovation Coaches’ in Leeds?

Leeds Arena – Winners and Losers?

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So it seems certain that Leeds will get an Arena.

An important gap in our cultural birthright (the right to see middle-sized events that are not big enough for large stadiums but too big for 3000 seater venues, without having to travel 40 miles) will be plugged.

The city will have an ‘Arena sized’ ‘economic’ and ‘cultural’ engine like most other large northern cities.  We will no longer be different.  We will have ‘caught up’. Good for us!  The timing is interesting.  Leeds seems to be getting dangerously late into the ‘large events’ market.

Never again will the cry be heard ‘I have to leave Leeds for a city with an Arena’.  Another hole through which Leeds talent escapes will be forever filled.  Currently we lose too much talent to the south and west because of the ease with which one can take in a James Blunt gig in those places.

We want Leeds to develop an identity?  Let’s give it an iconic arena!   Perhaps one that changes colour? A place where we can go and view ‘talent’ when it briefly visits our city because of the economic upsides on offer.  Now THERE is a plan.

But perhaps I am pre-judging.  Perhaps the Arena will have coherent and resourced plans to provide Leeds with an affordable showcase for its own talent as well.  Perhaps it will have a meaningful programme of community engagement.  Perhaps it will become an asset for all of the city and not just those parts that can afford to pay?

I am not sure quite what the funding cocktail is for the latest plans for the arena.  Back in May it was just shy of £10m of Govt money in a £55m project.   I am not sure how much the council is putting in the pot. Or how much will come from private investors.  I can’t find much about it on the web.  But it seems now that the project has become an £80m investment. [Just been told that the Yorkshire Post is today running a story that says all £80m is coming from public sector purse.  £70m from Leeds City Council, £10m from Treasury].

That is a lot of investment.  And it will demand a return.  Clearly the investors believe they will see real financial gains from their investments.  They plan to be beneficiaries of the project.  And the public sector will rub its hands with glee at the increased GVA in the city.  And we can always rely on ‘trickle down‘ to ensure that we will all benefit from the redistribution of wealth that the new Arena will trigger.  Can’t we?  It is a part of an economic development strategy that says we can spend our way to a better future.

The developers, planners, architects and builders too will surely gain.  It is their raison d’etre to profit from this sort of project.

And for a couple of years we will create a few hundred jobs for builders, surveyors and other trades while the Arena is built.  And once it is in place there will no doubt be opportunities in Arena Management, retail and box-office.

And there will be a supply chain too who will benefit, Promoters, record labels and their artists, Marketing and Branding agencies, printers and franchise holders, maintenance workers and so on.

But it will not be a major employer in the city.  And most of the long terms jobs available to locals will be low skill and low wage, stewarding, ticketing, concierge and retail.

Of course it will be a major economic player. It has to be.  It will have to suck up hundreds of thousands of pounds every week in ticket sales.  It will have to be branded and hyped.  My vote would be for ‘The Marks and Spencer’ Arena to reflect Leeds noble retail heritage.  Hundreds of thousands of pounds that, yes, will pay wage bills, will pay for a supply chain and will provide a return to investors and managers.  It will be fascinating to see how much of the cash hoovered up by the Arena will actually be retained in the city.  My guess is that much of it will leave the Leeds economy.

The SMG group have the gig to manage the arena (they also manage the MEN Arena and many others all over Europe).  It will be fascinating to see the kind of programme they can put together and the interest that they show in engaging with local developing talent.

And what will the impact of the new Arena be on other venues?  Well clearly Sheffield and Harrogate believe they will feel the pinch.  Although Manchester seems quietly confident that their suite of arenas will remain untroubled by the new kid on the block.  But what about other Leeds venues?  Any way that The Academy, The Cockpit, The Refectory, The Brudenell etc will benefit?  I suspect that the Academy may lose market share to the Arena.  But most of the other venues serve very different audiences and I remain optimistic that they will be relatively untroubled by the Arena.  But will there be any upsides for other Leeds venues?

I think it is interesting that the Arena Showreel chooses to walk you through a boxing promotion.  And it is very strange to see a boxing ring with an audience on just three sides!   That is a brave design feature.  A three sided arena.  More intimate perhaps.  Certainly different.  But will the large shows designed for four sided arenas come to it?  I am thinking Monster Trucks, WWE and the like?

I guess we can anticipate boxing, comedy, pop, rock, classical, opera, fashion and many more event genres using the Arena.   And I would be interested to see how the Arena will actually benefit each of those circuits that are already embedded in the local economy.  Will having a large boxing venue drive a renaissance in Leeds Boxing?  Ditto opera, comedy, fashion and so on. Will the dream of playing a Leeds Arena provide additional drive and ambition in the city?  Or will the Arena take market share from these sectors leaving many of the incumbents struggling further.  Will ‘Arena Opera’ coming to the city be a boon for Opera North or a threat?

What will the impact of a development like the Arena be on ‘fairness’ in the city.  On social justice?  On the inequalities in wealth and health that exist in our city?  Will it make Leeds a more equitable city?  Or will it be an asset for those with disposable income that will only serve to widen the gap?

Will it provide a boom in the production of ‘culture’ in the city or in consumption of culture being sold to the city?

What will the impact be of pulling the centre of the city further north?  How will it impact on land values and uses?  Will local estates become more, or less desirable places to live in the shadow of the Arena?  What will the impact be on traffic flows?  What will those who arrive by train and walk up to the Arena make of their engagement with our city.  No doubt the city centre bars will find them to be yet another lucrative market to target.  I wonder just where the touts and the merchandise vendors will set up their pitches?

Of course the Arena will be a mixed blessing.  There will be winners and losers.

My best guess is that most of the winners will be in the business community and those with significant disposable income.  And the losers will be those for whom a £10m public investment may have been used to provide well considered and long term processes of community based economic development.  Providing community groups and local residents with the resources that they need to build their own economies, cultures and communities.

I am not against the Arena.  But neither am I for it.  What I am against is the continuing massive investment in the built infrastructure in the city that seems to imply if we can just get the right buildings in the right place we will get progress in our very wonderful city.  We won’t.

The most successful examples…[of economic and community development]…result not from top-down policies imposed by local governments but from organic, bottom-up, community based efforts.  While…government and business leaders pressed for big government solutions – new stadiums and convention centres – the city’s real turnaround was driven by community groups and citizen-led initiatives.  Community groups, local foundations and non-profits – not city hall or business led economic development groups – drove…transformation, playing a key role in stabilising and strengthening neighbourhoods…Many of…(the) best neighbourhoods…are ones that were somehow spared from the wrath of urban renewal…
Richard Florida – The Great Reset
When are going to ‘get’ this?

Does Big Society Foretell the Demise of Confrontational Government?

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Kevin Harris has written a fascinating post about the possibility of the transition to Big Society foretelling the demise of confrontational we/you type government.
I too can see a way in which Big Society foretells the demise of command and control. However I can also see dozens of ways in which it doesn’t.  The recent Marsh Farm decision provides an example.
Government has a long track record of maintaining the status quo while providing the illusion of radical change.  Left/Right, Centralise/Decentralise, National/Local.  They all look like major change, but in fact politicians and civil servants collude to ensure that nothing REALLY happens.  It is  as if the pendulum of change is allowed to swing through an arc of only a very few degrees.
Kevin makes a good point about the nature of  you/me thinking.  A shift to ‘we’ would do no harm at all.  But I am not holding my breathe.  The very nature of democracy means that we elect a ‘you’.
In my mind the real shift needs to from a perspective where government seeks to engage us in the delivery of their agenda to one where it learns to engage itself in the development of our agendas.  A government focussed on enabling citizens in pursuit of their interests rather than recruiting them to do the work of the state.
But I will not hold my breathe for that swing of the pendulum either.
Perhaps it is time we learned to wean ourselves off the teat of the state and learn to make progress without them?

The Future is… Nomadic?

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Is it time for a post-settlement society?

Are home ownership, long-term council house tenancies and commitment to a community doomed to become little more than quaint memories of how society used to work?  Do they restrict the mobility of skills, knowhow and muscle power that a modern economy demands?

There are many that argue this case.  Richard Florida suggests in his book The Great Reset that the creative classes should no longer tie themselves down geographically by committing to mortgages and buying properties.  Grant Shapps, Housing Minister wants social housing tenants to have Housing Freedom Pass and a National Home Swap Scheme to allow tenants to move in pursuit of work, or for ‘any other reason’.

The message seems to be ‘don’t commit yourself to a community – be prepared to follow the money – the future is nomadic’.

Can you imagine a society divided into the rooted and the rootless?  Those who can afford to commit to a community for the long term and those who can’t?

It used to be that we wanted people to come to our communities and stay in them.  To shape a society and an economy that would serve the community.  To care about community.  Now the big idea seems to be shaping community to serve the economy.

  • Is this progress?  Or a progress trap?
  • Should we engineer society to meet the increasingly dynamic demands of a growing and shifting economy?
  • Or should we engineer the economy to serve the kind of communities in which we wish to live?
  • Will increasing social mobility help to reduce inequalities and promote social justice?  Or will it create even more stark demarcations between rich and poor?
  • How will our city evolve if the churn in our working communities is significantly increased?
  • Or will the possibility of a digital Britain and an economy that is ‘lighter than air‘ mean that spatial mobility is much less of an issue than we may think?
  • Or is it just a lot of fuss about nowt?