What Really Matters?
For all the ups and downs of 2020, it has been a great prompt to reflect on what really matters and what impact we want our lives to have, both in the here and now and once we are gone. That could sound a bit depressing but in practice, I've found it invigorating and a reminder of how lucky I am to do work that I really believe in.
In fact, this last quarter has been full of occassions where these questions of purpose and impact have been front of mind. It's been prompting me to ask whether the question, "How can we make work work better?" ought to be held as a primarily ethical question about what role it's ok for us to play in each other's lives, and only secondly as a technical question about how to achieve organsational effectiveness.
This landed for me during a commissioning meeting I was attending...
In response to a pitch that was going on a bit, an executive said, "You don't have to make the moral case, just the business one". At the time it was a great sound-bite but as I thought about it, I wondered what was really being said here. What if the business case was tough to make but the moral case was inescapable? Was this an assertion that principles are only for people with big enough budgets?
As it happens, I know this executive well and I know them to be thoughtful and principled. None-the-less when we got to talking about it together, it led us both to some pretty big questions about where to draw the lines:
- When is a business model that can only make the business case by compromising its ethical duty to customers and colleagues deemed unacceptable to us? Who gets to decide this and who should decide it?
- When is an institutional reliance on the good will of its staff a fair enough matter of reciprocity between employee and employer and when is it an abuse? Again, who decides and how?
- Going further, when is seeking compliance or alignment a reasonable expectation of colleagues and when is it an unacceptable infringement on a person's right to - and responsibility for - freedom of thought?
These questions have been around for longer than I've been thinking about them (see the clip below) but - I think because of these COVID times we are in - they have been particular present for me over recent months.
So...
Where do we draw the lines and where should we draw them? What is it our individual and collective responsibility to ensure and do? Are we each playing the part we could or ought to play? What (if anything) is stopping us and how (if at all) can we do more and better?
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
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I've been using the past quarter to quite deliberately explore this theme of ethical and social responsibility at work in a number of ways. I thought I'd use this edition of Easier Inc. News to share some of them...
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The ODNE 'Carnival of Disruption'
Joined by friends and colleagues from Society 2045 + delegates from across the globe, early September and the ODNE Carnival of Disruption provided an opportunity to run a session which asked, "How could the world look different and better in 25 years time?".
Delegates used the ethical principles of permaculture as a springboard for their imaginations. How could these principles, deeply anchored in sustainable practices, help to create a positive and compelling vision of a shared future?
The results were captured as word-clouds, pictures, videos, stories, vision statements, graphics and even poems, including this stunning contribution from Easier Inc. Fellow J Kim Wright:
Kim’s Vision for the Legal System - 2045
The seeds of the late 1990s and early 2000s have flourished. We are grateful to our pioneers and trailblazers who held this vision and brought it to fruition.
Lawyers are now recognized for their true purpose: peacemaking, problem-solving and healing wounds of the community. Trials are rare and civil. Collaboration, prevention, and transformation are the lawyers’ stock in trade. We create sustainable agreements and resolutions.
Lawmakers serve, conscious of all stakeholders, and of our interconnectedness with Nature and each other. They work on common goals and values to benefit everyone.
Law enforcement focuses on Right Relationships, working in partnership with the community to foster strong, empowered and safe communities.
Judges are wise leaders who help to balance competing values, hold everyone accountable, and deliver fair results with love, compassion and empathy.
Prisons are a part of our past. Now we focus on rehabilitation, healing, and reconnection for all members of society. Criminal behavior is seen as a symptom of brokenness that needs to be healed.
Law students still learn the focused, analytical thinking that is known as thinking like a lawyer. Now they are also trained in holistic thinking. Art is part of the balanced core curriculum.
Our history of restorative practices and nonviolent communication in schools has helped to produce citizens who tell their truths, take responsibility and accept accountability.
The Legal System Works for Everyone.
There are no more lawyer jokes. They're not funny anymore.
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Find more from this session through the button below. ’s Vision for the Legal System - 2045
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The Palliative Care: 'What Matters?" Conference
Hosted by Easier Inc. fave and all-round force for good Saskie Dorman, this conference was a great opportunity for me to share some provocations about what really matters in public service, including that:
- Public services should be bespoke-by-default.
- Population outcomes are a wicked fiction.
- Pathway thinking is just silo thinking lying on its side.
- Bespoke-by-default costs less (but...)
Virpi Oinonen captured the discussion in some beautiful sketchnotes...
You can find videos, more sketchnotes + Saskie's reflections on this (and other sessions from the conference, including another from me and one from Easier Inc. Fellow Jackie Le Fèvre) via the button below.
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The ODNE 'Carnival of Disruption' (again)
Back at the ODNE conference and again on theme of what matters in public service, I had the pleasure of hosting a fishbowl discussion between a group from our Next Stage Radicals community. It was inspiring stuff and brought together people who are exploring this question of 'what really matters' in practice. They shared stories of success and progress while keeping their feet firmly planted in the hard work that this took. Their warts-and-all accounts went down a storm and you can view the full session in the video below...
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The Next Stage Radicals Community of Practice
Sticking with the Next Stage Radicals, our monthly zoom session asked, "What is the role of moral outrage in effecting system change?".
As the title implies, it wasn't for the faint hearted but the discussion was both moving and powerful. There were no easy conclusions to be had but there was an important recognition that:
- Having the resolve to do what really matters isn't about judging and blaming each other for 'what is'.
BUT...
- This doesn't mean that we should treat 'what is' as 'what is acceptable'.
AND...
- We may be able to use a greater awareness of the friction between 'what is' and 'what is acceptable' as a source of energy, conviction and personal agency to drive change.
A number of those who attended have since written to tell me about how this session has led them to do and notice things that they otherwise would not have done. In one case, this has even led to a change in how a whole local authority is approaching its cost reduction strategy.
For me, all of this has provided a great example - proof positive really - that tuning in to the ethical side of the question, "How can we make work work better?" is likely to be important and importantly different.
Again, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below.
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Over these past months, as I've worked with others to explore this ethical question of how to make work work better, one theme has repeatedly surfaced: what if I'm just not free to do what really matters in my work?
That's a complicated question but here's one way in which I'll be starting to explore that side of things in the coming months....
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Developing A Generative Model of Regulation
This has been a long time in the oven but, following some seed funding from Lankelly Chase Foundation, Easier Inc. + partners at the Centre for Public Impact are convening a Community of Practice comprising providers, funders, commissioners and regulators of public services in the UK. It's aiming itself squarely at how we can create top-to-toe work environments where what really matters is always what really matters here.
In preparation for this, we've heard from both regulators and regulated how there is frustration that the institutional machinery that is put in place to make things better, to enable responsible practice and to try to make what matters what's done, can sometimes have the opposite effect. This initiative will be a chance to understand and act on this, free from finger-pointing and with a firm commitment to exploring through action.
I literally can't wait... and thankfully I don't have to. We start on December 2nd and I'll be keeping you posted.
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Finding Your 'Radical Purpose'
If you've been reading any of this and wondering about what really matters to you - what the purpose and impact that you want to pursue is - then here's something that might help...
For a few months now, each Thursday evening, Easier Inc. Fellow Jose Leal and I have been meeting and exploring the stuff that makes us - as in all of us - tick. Jose has spent years researching this and the conversations have been enthralling, at least for me!
This week, Jose presented V1.0 of a tool he has been working on; a simple '6 minute' web-app that anyone can use to understand themself better - or as Jose puts it, to uncover their essence.
Jose has kindly offered to make this tool freely available through the link below. I've used it, love it and can strongly recommend you give it a go.
NB If you do so, please bear in mind that Jose is still developing the resources that will go alongside this tool, e.g. information that will help you to make the most of the insights it produces. You can help Jose out by sharing your ideas and feedback by sending it on to us via the button below or by getting in touch with Jose over at radicalpurpose.org.
Discover your purpose Send Jose some feedback
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Other Stuff...
Depending how you arrived into this newsletter, you might have noticed that we've done a bit of a refresh on our website. We'll be adding to our resource sections over the months ahead but for now, don't miss our new events page where we've started listing some of the learning and development programmes and workshops we offer on a 'by request' basis.
As part of the Human Learning Systems (HLS) collaborative we've been helping to pull together a report on HLS as a new paardigm for public service. That will be ready around Easter next year. In the meantime keep your eyes peeled for a growing number of case study examples of HLS in practice. We've gatherd dozens and will be uploading them at the link below as each one is finalised.
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And Finally…
This will be our last newsletter of 2020 and, as mentioned at the top of this edition, it's been quite the year. From all of the team at Easier Inc, we'd like to wish you a happy and healthy Christmas and a 2021 where whatever really matters to you is what really happens for you too.
Very Best Wishes,
Andy and the Easier Inc. team.
Thanks for reading!
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