leadership for change programme residential 1 wednesday 25 th june – thursday 26 th june welcome!

Leadership for Change Programme

Residential 1 Wednesday 25th June – Thursday 26th June

Welcome!

Purpose of the programme

• To develop systems leadership skills and capacity amongst public leaders

• To support public leaders to make progress on complex systems challenges in their places

• To make tangible improvements for the people and communities we serve, and in which we live and work

Meet the teamChris Lawrence-PietroniResidential Facilitator & Learning coordinator for Birmingham

Liz GooldResidential Facilitator

Alix MorganProgramme Director

Mark DaltonProgramme Manager

Paul TarplettLeadership for Change Coach for Public Health England

Sue GossLeadership for Change Coach for North Staffordshire

Di NealeLeadership for Change Coach for Blackpool

Jo ClearyLeadership for Change Coach for Public Health Wales

Mari DavisLeadership for Change Coach for Devon

Lesley CampbellLeadership for Change Coach for Staffordshire

Julia MorrisonLeadership for Change Coach for NHS England

David LoveLeadership for Change Coach for Warrington

Matt GottLeadership for Change Coach for Somerset

Forming our learning community

• Who am I?• Who are we?• What are we here for?• How are we going to do it?

• build this learning community• start to explore the ‘six ways’ of systems leadership

practice• frame your systems leadership challenge and identify

common themes and connections• build place teams with LCs and Home Groups with each

other• be stimulated by wider thinking in public services and

key concepts from living systems• frame your first ‘safe-fail’ experiment and how you

intend to act and learn from it between Residentials

What are we here for?Aims for Residential 1

How are we going to do it?• Drawing on the extended leadership capacity and

experience in the room• Experiential exercises and group work• Formal inputs & speakers• Informal evening discussions• Reflection-in-action – ‘Moleskine Moments’• Home Groups• Create the conditions for transformational learning-

offering balance of support and challenge and responding to different learning styles

Learning Cycle1.Experience

Experimenting with and drawing on our

experienceACTIVIST

2. Observation and reflection

Reviewing and reflecting on our experience

REFLECTOR

4. ApplicationApplying new insights, ideas and

actions in our daily work PRAGMATIST

3. Deepening/Re-framingDeveloping our understanding,

testing our assumptions, exploring our thinking

THEORIST

Adapted from David Kolb’s work

How are we going to do it?Today’s agenda

Timing Activity

09:30 – 10:00 Arrival and registration

10:00 – 10:45 Welcome, introductions and programme framing

10:45 – 13:00 Introducing the ‘six ways’ of systems leadershipA provocation

13:00 – 13:45 Buffet lunch

13:45 – 18:00

Our local context and our challengesMarket placeWorking with living systemsReflections

18:00 – 19:00 Free time

19:00 – 20:00 External speaker

20:00 – 21:30 Dinner in the restaurant

Tomorrow’s agenda

Timing Activity

07:30 – 08:30 Breakfast

08:30 – 09:00 Check in- home groups/learning styles

09:00 – 12:45Ways of perceiving Home group Session 1 – framing the challenge from different perspectives

12:45 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 16:30 System tools: Learning cycles and safe-fail experimentsHome group session 2 – Designing the experiment

16:30 – 17:00 Review and reflections

17:00 Depart

CONTRACTING

11

Systems Leadership: Exceptional leadership for exceptional timesSix Dimensions of Systems Leaders

Skills for Systems Leadership

What is systems leaderhip?

Systems Leadership: Exceptional leadership for exceptional times (Virtual Staff College)

Improving outcomes for service users

Ways of feelingPersonal core values

Commitment

Ways of perceivingBalcony & dancefloorThe unseen & unpredictedDiverse viewsSensitivity to narratives

Ways of thinkingCuriositySynthesising complexitySense-making

Ways of doingNarrativeEnabling & SupportingRepurposing &Reframing

Ways of relatingMutuality & EmpathyHonesty & AuthenticityReflectionSelf Awareness

Ways of beingCourage to take risksResilience & Patience

Drive, energy, optimismHumility

For discussion

• What strikes you most about this model?

• Is it helpful in deepening your understanding about systems leadership?

• Are there aspects you would want to challenge or add to?

• How might we model systems leadership as we work together on this programme?

Reflection Question

What do the ‘six ways’ suggest about your learning focus for this programme?

Judy Downey

The Relatives & Residents Association

Lunch in place teams with Leadership for Change Coaches

Our local context and challenge: initial framing

19

Initial framing of Systems Leadership ChallengeIn place teams and with the support of your LC, start to map out and frame your systems leadership challenge between you

Be prepared to share with other place teams your initial framing of your leadership challenge and the system it is part of, as part of a ‘market-place’. Help others appreciate the complexity of the system you are working with

Do this in a visual form, for example using, (rich) pictures, metaphors, mind-maps- be creative!

Put out your stall!

Working with living systems

John Atkinson

Working with living systemsMaking sense of what we see

John Atkinson

fusions@hotmail.co.uk

@tryweryn91 on twitter

www.jma64.wordpress.com

The matter does not appear to appear to me now as it appears to have appeared to me then…

Robert H Jackson – US Supreme Court Judge 1941

How do systems work?

James Phillips Kay - 1830

The social body cannot be constructed like a machine on abstract principles which merely include physical motions, and their numerical results, in the production of wealth.

Maturana & Varela - evolutionary biologyOrganisms, from single cells to eco-systems have a variety of characteristics in common

They have evolved to be in a perfect relationship with their environment

It is a symbiotic relationship, the organism/organisation defines the environment and the environment defines the organism

If there is an external source of perturbation the organism acts to kill it, be it internal or external.

If the organism is held perturbed for sufficient time it adapts to this new condition.

Organisms are self-referencing, they act to preserve their own identity (autopoeisis)

By cultural behaviour we mean the transgenerational stability of behavioural patterns ontogenically acquired in the communicative dynamics of a social environment.

U-curves – Scharma, Kahane, Kubler-Ross

Myron RogersSystemic Approaches to Problems

How do systems work?

How does this system work?

How do I work with this system?

Working with social systems – The Big 5

Chaos and complexity

Emergence

Cognition

Networks

Self-organisation

Chaos and Complexity

A social system like an English place does not map neatly onto an organisation chart

And yet such places are ‘stable’ – ‘stuff keeps getting done’ - so complexity results in order not disorder, despite the mess

Cause and effect may be distant in time and space

This results in many unintended consequences (although not always unpredictable or negative consequences)

And attempting to manage these consequences adds to the complexity with new bodies, meetings, actions and costs. (And more unintended consequences…)

Emergence

Strategies, action points and timescales are more statements of intent than what actually happens

Public services have some guiding ‘rules of thumb’. They can be both helpful and unhelpful. They are not usually applied consciously and determine ‘what goes on around here’..

So simple rules give rise to global behaviour

What might be our ‘simple rules’?

Cognition

The system looks different depending on where you are in it. To understand it requires multiple perspectives

To better understand ‘what’s going on here’ requires multiple and diverse perspectives.

What you see is what you know, in other words, you do not understand what you see, you see what you understand.

Frame of reference is everything, what you see determines what you do.

Keep asking ‘how do we know?’ – what people say they do, and what they do do, are often very different.

Cognition is inseparable from emotion.

Networks

It is the informal structures that make public services work every bit as much as the formal ones

Stories provide the lived experience, this is how we make sense of what happens

Information feeds what people do – so sharing our perceptions of how things work helps us make sense of what we see

Understanding comes from collective behaviour not individual

Self-organization

Social systems seek to maintain themselves

– A living system preserves its identity

– It will change in order to preserve it

They are continually self-referencing ie use past experience ‘the way things are done round here’ to determine how to react

They do that within the limits of what they decide is ‘our business’

Identity is manifested in traditions, symbols, rituals, language, stories and practices

This is about the ‘Culture of Public Service’

The surface Structure

– Tiers of government– Partners– Governance– Organisational form

Policy

– Economy– Crime and security– Health– Health and safety

Systems

– Delivery mechanisms– Formal process– HR, recruitment– Use of technology

Structure

PolicySystems

What’s going on?Identity

– Who are we, what do we collectively stand for?– Different places/roles/professions/organisations

have different identities– Where and how do these come together for

mutual benefit?– Can we frame the space in which this takes

place?Relationships

– Where and in what way do people interact with each other and us?

– What is the balance of formal and informal?– What is the quality of these relationships?

Information

– What is being shared and what is not disclosed?

– Who has access to what?– How do we release the cognitive capacity of a

living system?

Identity

Relationships

Information

Where does this lead us?

Meaning

– Work and lives have a clear purpose and a sense of direction

Trust

– There is an implicit understanding of how all parties are trying to make things better that underpins their interaction

Action

– The things we do are the things that need to be done. Our actions are those that really work

Meaning

Trust Action

How do you work with this? – Myron’s maxims

Real change happens in real work

Those who do the work do the change

People own what they create

Start anywhere, follow it everywhere

Connect the system to more of itself

Market-place

Market-place• One person stays with your ‘stall’. The others travel.

Make sure you have enough time to swap. If you have a Leadership for Change Coach, they will also stay with your stall

• Travel to other ‘stalls’ and find out more about others’ systems leadership challenge

• Be curious, inquire, notice what resonates with your own situation, what is different, what you like to find out more about. Be prepared to share what you have discovered back in your place teams

Sense-making

46

Sense-making• What struck you most from the other systems

leadership challenges? What connections, patterns, similarities and differences did you notice? Any implications for your own SLC?

• What does this tell us about this learning community/system and the wider system we are part of?

• Who might you want to learn more from, find out more about?

Final reflection with LC- agreeing roles, practicalities

48

Final reflection

• How does what I’ve heard, impact on my view of our SLC and my own systems leadership practice?

• What kind of support and challenge will we need from our LC, for our own learning about systems leadership practice and in taking our systems leadership challenge forward?

• How will learning be captured?• Thoughts about Home Groups?• Sorting out practicalities, dates, etc

Leadership for Change Programme

Residential 1

Day 2

Welcome Back!

Check-in

51

Day 2 agendaTiming Activity

07:30 – 08:30 Breakfast

08:30 – 10:00 Check inForming Home Groups and Learning Styles

10:00 – 12:45Ways of perceiving Home group Session 1 – framing the challenge from different perspectives

12:45-13:30 Lunch

13:30 – 16:30System tools: Learning cycles and safe-fail experimentsHome group session 2 – Designing the experiment

16:30-17:00 BreakReview and reflections

17:00 Depart

Home Group Sessions - overviewAim Micro Skill1. Framing the challenge Seeking diverse perspectives

2. Designing a ‘safe-fail’ Suspending certainty

3. Reflection on experiments(s) Deep listening

4. Deepening understanding of the system

Awareness of systems

5. Designing a personal ‘safe-fail’ Awareness of self

6. Critically reflecting on the challenge

Adaptive action

Forming Home Groups• Purpose of Home Group is to enable and maximise

learning on the programme• Stay in place teams• Not more than 3 Place Teams and 9 people per

Home Group• Similarity or difference of geography, systems

leadership challenges – up to you to decide• Will stay together throughout the programme• Will take part in different exercises that will support

your systems leadership challenge and practice

54

Learning Cycle1.Experience

Experimenting with and drawing on our

experienceACTIVIST

2. Observation and reflection

Reviewing and reflecting on our experience

REFLECTOR

4. ApplicationApplying new insights, ideas and

actions in our daily work PRAGMATIST

3. Deepening/Re-framingDeveloping our understanding,

testing our assumptions, exploring our thinking

THEORIST

Adapted from David Kolb’s work

Learning stylesACTIVISTS:• enthusiastic about

the new• here & now• brainstorm• act first, think later• bored with

implementation

REFLECTORS:• range of perspectives• think, then think

again• cautious• action based on ‘big

picture’• listen, then

contribute

Honey & Mumford

Learning stylesTHEORISTS:• logically sound

theories• step-by-step

approach• perfectionists• analytical• rational more than

subjective

PRAGMATISTS:• problems are a

challenge• like to experiment• like to get on with

things• impatient with open-

ended discussions• practical, down-to-

earth• if it works, it’s good

Honey & Mumford

Ways of perceiving

Home Group Sessions - overview

Aim Micro Skill1. Framing the challenge Seeking diverse perspectives

2. Designing a ‘safe-fail’ Suspending certainty

3. Reflection on experiments(s) Deep listening

4. Deepening understanding of the system

Awareness of systems

5. Designing a personal ‘safe-fail’ Awareness of self

6. Critically reflecting on the challenge

Adaptive action

How do we make up our minds?

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (2012)

Improving outcomes for service users

Ways of feelingPersonal core values

Commitment

Ways of perceivingBalcony & dancefloorThe unseen & unpredictedDiverse viewsSensitivity to narratives

Ways of thinkingCuriositySynthesising complexitySense-making

Ways of doingNarrativeEnabling & SupportingRepurposing &Reframing

Ways of relatingMutuality & EmpathyHonesty & AuthenticityReflectionSelf Awareness

Ways of beingCourage to take risksResilience & Patience

Drive, energy, optimismHumility

17 X 24=?

System 1 - Gut• Automatic• Unconscious• Lightning• Intuitive• Emotional• Resemblance

System 2 - Head

• Reason• Conscious• Slow• Effortful• Calculating• Explaining

Monkey Business

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY

• Bat and ball cost together £1.10 • The bat costs one pound more than the

ball.• How much does the ball cost?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMqM4BDqvXY9:34-11:40

Heuristics

A simple procedure that helps to find adequate, though often imperfect, answers to difficult questions.

Kaheneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow, p.100

Heuristics & BiasesConfidence & CoherenceAnchoringAvailability

Confidence & Coherence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMqM4BDqvXY13:29-17:45

Was Gandhi more than 114 years old when he died?

Sale - 10% off!LIMIT OF 12 PER PERSON

NO LIMIT PER PERSON

OR

Availability Heuristic

You are more prone to availability biases when…You are engaged in another effortful taskYou are in a good moodYou score low on a depression scaleYou are a knowledgeable novice (not a true expert)Score high on a scale of faith in intuitionYou are (or are made to feel) powerful

So what?The way we make up our minds is typically driven

by short cutsWe can, and do, readily convince ourselves that we

don’tEveryone does itHmmm…….

Speaking of….• Confidence & Coherence

“She can’t accept that she was just unlucky; she needs a causal story. She will end up thinking that someone intentionally sabotaged her work.”

• Anchoring“Plans are best-case scenarios. Let’s avoid anchoring on plans when we forecast actual outcomes. Thinking about the ways the plan could go wrong is one way to do it.”

• Availability“The CX has had several successes in a row, so failure doesn’t come easily to her mind. The availability bias is making her overconfident.”

Perception-Understanding-Intervention‘It’s not so much the solving of the problem but the framing of it’

Rob Farrands, 2014

Multiple ways of seeing‘We all construct the world through lenses of our own making and use these to filter and select…we need a constantly expanding array of data, views and interpretations if we are to make a wise sense of the world. We need to include more and more eyes. We need to be constantly asking, ‘who else should be here? Who else should be looking at this’

Wheatley, 1999

Multiple dance-floorsIn systems leadership, we know that there may be multiple dance floors and the unpredictability of complex systems may keep some of these out of view, no matter how high the balcony. Thus, for systems leaders, whilst on the balcony, they must also constantly visualise the aspects of the context that are out of view….including what is heard and how it is heard’

VSC Systems leadership synthesis paper, 2013

82

Exercise : experimenting with perceptual positionsHome Group Session 1 : Framing the challenge using perceptual positions• ‘Clients’ gives a brief outline of their challenge and identify one or

more key stakeholders in the situation. They then allocate a ‘perceptual role’ to each of their ‘consultants’ .

• Clients then describe their current thinking about their challenge in more depth

• Consultants listen in silence and then ask one good question each from their perceptual role.. Clients respond to the questions

• Each consultant gives feedback on how they think ‘their’ role might see differently .

• Clients reflect on the feedback and says how their thinking might have changed and what they have learnt. What might this mean for the framing of their systems leadership challenge?

Leadership for Change ProgrammeResidential 1

Lunch

Systems tools: Learning Cycles & Safe-Fail Experiments

Home Group Sessions - overview

Aim Micro Skill1. Framing the challenge Seeking diverse perspectives

2. Designing a ‘safe-fail’ Suspending certainty

3. Reflection on experiments(s) Deep listening

4. Deepening understanding of the system

Awareness of systems

5. Designing a personal ‘safe-fail’ Awareness of self

6. Critically reflecting on the challenge

Adaptive action

Cynefin model

David J. Snowden & Mary E. Bone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making,’ Harvard Business Review, November 2007

Simple• Clear cause and effect• Stable• Sense, Categorize, Respond• Best Practice

• Complacency

Complicated• Hidden cause and effect• Multiple right answers• Sense, Analyse, Respond• Good practice

• Analysis paralysis• Ignoring innovative suggestions by non-experts

Complex• Cause and effect coherent in retrospect• Unpredictability & flux• Probe, Sense, Respond• Emergent

• Temptation to fall back into command and control• Difficulty in tolerating failure

Chaotic• No perceivable cause and effect• Rules have broken down• Act, Sense, Respond• Novel

• Authoritarianism

Simple/Chaotic Boundary• More like a cliff edge• Success breeds complacency

• Catastrophic failure

Disorder

• Unclear which context is predominant• This is where you spend most of your time

Domains

David J. Snowden & Mary E. Bone, “A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making,’ Harvard Business Review, November 2007

Designing a safe-fail experiment• Experiment freely and expect failure. • Consider as many ideas as possible • Start with experiments where failure can be

tolerated. Be comfortable with ‘safe uncertainty’ –• Design experiments that can be monitored. • Run multiple experiments in parallel.• Share the results of your experiments with others• Learn from the results of their experiments,

including about your own practice

RE-FRAMING

EXPERIENCE

DEVELOPINGINSIGHTS &UNDERSTANDING

RECOGNISING ANEW PARADIGM

CONCEPTUALISATION

APPLICATION

Chris Argyris:double loop learning

REFLECTION

Exercise : experimenting with perceptual positionsHome Group session 2: Using the group to create a ‘safe-fail’ experiment• ‘Clients’ outline their current objectives for their shared safe fail

experiment –and their learning edge• Consultants listen in silence and then take time to reflect before

offering one good idea each for a possible safe fail experiment :• Clients reflect on the ideas offered and co-construct a do-able safe-fail

that they can commit to completing before the next residential • Clients consider what they want to learn about their own leadership

practice through the process• Clients complete the safe-fail grid as a reminder of the conversation

and guide to action

Leadership for Change Programme

Residential 1

Review and Evaluation

Thank you, safe journey!