Week 8, 2024
Reflecting on the week.
Work
Reflecting on how truly unresilient change efforts can be if you have rapid leadership turnover. Just shy of 10% of senior civil servants (SCS) left the civil service last year - with the figure jumping to 20% for DDaT SCS. And, of course, that’s an average across departments - there are some places where the leadership flight has been closer to 1 in 4. This often means departments and agencies are carrying leadership vacancies and already swamped leaders are “acting up” on temporary promotion or in interim roles. So when, in this context, another board-level sponsor announces their departure, what are the options for a digital or technology leader keen to push forward with significant change. Do they wait for the new leaders to be in place? But for how long? And surely given turnover rates there’s always someone with their hand on the doorknob, whatever time you choose. Reflection: the instinct to wait for things to “settle down” and become clearer before investing time and energy on communicating change is an unhelpful but understandable one. If you accept that your org needs to move to “the last operating model it’ll ever need” because you’re moving to a model of continuous (not discontinuous) change, then your work to communicate change, recruit champions, bolster allies and build the digital literacy of those with their hands on the levers of power will never be done. Sounds exhausting, I know - but if your model for change is a continuous one then your model for change leadership should probably be too.
I enjoyed a really great workshop with a new client leadership team. I forgot how effortless it can feel to get good work done when you have a well-designed session run by a great facilitator for a group of leaders who, because they don’t work in a toxic culture, respect and trust and collaborate sincerely with each other. Reflection: momentum and genuine progress aren’t hard to build and maintain if the cultural and relationship conditions are in place. Though clients largely aren’t buying consultancy to help them get on with each other better (can you imagine the business case for that procurement?), it’s a success factor they ignore at their peril.
We had a fantastic Design Community of Practice session this week - where we all shared our different experiences of prototyping. I think this is the first workplace in a while where I haven’t felt at least a little inadequate because of my lack of “proper” design training or qualifications: my experience instead is of prototyping policy, strategy, governance, operations, services, ways of working - and that’s all incredibly relevant to the challenges we’re supporting our clients with. Reflection: I think finding my niche was more about matching my unique knowledge/skills to the right contexts/problems - and not about labels or specialisms. This combination of knowledge, skills and experience is why I was able to contribute so much to the drafting and development of The Radical How (published this week by PD for Nesta): my experiences at NHS Test and Trace were a perfect case study for new ways of working; and my deep knowledge gained working at the centre of government on governance, performance management, finance, assurance and risk is incredibly valuable for people trying to create the enabling environment for sustaining continuously improved services.
Personal
This week has been about balancing.
I’ve taken a number of steps so far out of my personal comfort zone that I’ve lost sight of where I started, though I’m confident this is the direction I want to head in. And I’ve had two ill kids on my hands over half-term - with the usual parental guilt attached (when we had a day out, it felt like I was asking them to do too much when they should have been resting; when they had a duvet day I felt like I was being a neglectful parent, not making the most of what could be quality time). Reflection: there’s a work programming version of this too, isn’t there? When things are busy, you worry about capacity and burnout - and when they’re quiet you’re anxious to make hay while the sun shines. It’s just a professional version of the “should-ing” many of us do in our personal lives.
I had dinner and spicy margaritas with a truly beautiful soul; completed some more extreme dot-to-dots (I’m starting to see them in my sleep); and started a new jigsaw puzzle.
I’m trying to persuade myself to return to the partially drafted skeleton of the book I’m writing (on optimistic leadership) but seem to have lost my writing mojo for now it seems. So I’ll likely spend today in the garden office, doing a bit of a spring clean.