Did you hear about the car aerial that married a satellite dish; the wedding was a bit boring but apparently the reception was brilliant. Sadly, I can’t apply this adjective to the response I received for my set of posts over the New Year about entitlement. Yet, unabashed by the evidence that the longer I talk about an issue the less convincing I become, I am this week planning to write a series of posts on aspects of human development…..

Last Thursday I chaired an event at which Richard Sennett spoke about his new book Together. As tends to be the case with Richard’s work the book is often fascinating, sometimes inspiring and occasionally baffling. His core thesis certainly struck a chord.

Sennett joins many other thinkers in identifying both the importance of collaboration to human prospects in the 21^st century but also the challenges of living and working with people – often very different to ourselves in values, backgrounds and lifestyles – in a fast moving, shrinking world. He suggests three attributes which people need to be able successfully and enduringly to function together (and alongside these, three apparently similar attributes they must supplant).

First, we must seek dialogic rather than dialectic communication (in essence this means conversation which accepts and negotiates different perspectives rather than seeking to find a single shared view). Second, we should aim for a subjunctive rather than a declaratory form of expression. Sennett writes:

‘The subjunctive mood counters Bernard Williams’ fear of the fetish of assertiveness by opening up instead an indeterminate mutual space, the space in which strangers dwell with one another…’.

Third, the sentiment that suits modern togetherness is empathy rather than sympathy:

‘Both sympathy and empathy convey recognition, and both forge a bond, but one is an embrace the other an encounter…Sympathy has usually been thought a stronger sentiment…I feel your pain puts a stress on what I feel; it activates one; own ego. Empathy is a more demanding exercise, at least in listening; the listener has to get outside him- or herself’.             

Rather like the objects in an impressionist painting the edges of Sennett’s concepts tend to blur into each other, but what struck me was the congruence with the idea of self-authorship developed by developmental psychologist Robert Kegan. Using a similar framework to Jean Piaget’s pioneering work on child cognitive development,  Kegan’s masterwork is The Evolving Self, in which he describes the stages of psychological development, each subsuming the one before, which take place not just in childhood but throughout life.

Kegan argues not just that we should aspire to greater self-awareness but that we need to reach a higher, more empathic, level of functioning to meet the practical requirements of twenty-first century citizenship. In particular, successfully functioning in a society with diverse values, traditions and lifestyles “requires us to have a relationship to our own reactions, rather than be captive of them”. Kegan writes of an ability to “resist our tendencies to make ‘right’ or ‘true’ that which is merely familiar and ‘wrong’ or ‘false’ that which is only strange”. In a 2002 overview of survey evidence for the OECD, Kegan concluded than only one in five people across the world have achieved the competencies necessary for what he termed a ‘modernist’ or self-authoring order of consciousness.

The view that there is both the need and the scope for human beings to develop to a ‘higher’ level of functioning has many adherents. Another version lies in my articulation of the RSA strap-line ‘twenty first century enlightenment’. But many questions arise?

How distinct is such a view from well-meaning but vacuous view that it would be a better world if we were all better people?

Among the different accounts of human beings need to develop to thrive in the modern world, what are the important similarities and differences?

How credible is the view that human development can enhanced. Perhaps it happens anyway (cf the Flynn effect or Steven Pinker’s recent evidence of declining violence) or perhaps, as John Grey would no doubt argue, we flatter ourselves with the idea we can somehow transcend the flawed character of our species.

Broadly, what routes to enhanced human development hold out the greatest promise: education, culture, institutional innovation, spiritual awakening?

Specifically, what examples are there of sustained improvements in human psychological and behavioural development and can these examples be scaled?

As a strong advocate of a necessary human development thesis, my aim here is to sharpen the case rather than find holes in it. I was excited last week to be contacted by Robert Kegan himself who has said some very generous things about the RSA’s 21^st century enlightenment thesis. But I am also impatient of making the same broad case time and again but not yet feeling it carries sufficient conviction let alone a concrete set of policies and practices.  Of the questions above my sense is that the last is both the most important and the hardest.

Related posts:

1. Barking up the wrong tree
2. In deepest empathy
3. Always look on the bright side of life …

What do you generate by burning bad people? The answer, of course, is synergy.

This overused concept is on my mind right now.

I used it quite a lot this morning in my speech to the HE Leadership Institute (a high point of which was me reading aloud some of the great comments to Monday’s blog). As well as challenging universities to be better at collaboration with other local agencies and with other HEIs I also talked about the need to promote better collaboration within institutions.

It is in spaces and processes which bring together people with different interests, expertise and resources that innovation is most likely to occur. It is also here that we can identify ‘the hidden wealth’ (a capacity for creativity, generosity, trust and solidarity) which often lies dormant trapped between specialisms and hierarchies and crushed by narrow incentives.

In the past, speaking of such issues has (notwithstanding my brilliant way with words, on which it is perhaps unnecessary for me to dwell ongoingly at this moment in time) left me with a hollow sensation. It was all very well blahing on about innovation, but not being a brilliant entrepreneur, inventor or explorer myself, who am I to opine on such matters?

But now it feels like I may have some foundation of authority on which to stand. When the RSA, in conjunction with our friends at CRI, won a contract to provide post-treatment drug and alcohol rehabilitation services in West Kent it was important for three main reasons: first, providing public services on a payment by results basis is an exciting new challenge for the Society; second, we have this opportunity following a six year process of research, prototyping and experimentation; and third, because the bid had Fellowship engagement at its heart.

Already, I hear this engagement paying off with meetings to explore collaboration between the West Kent project team and Fellows who are senior in local public services, the community sector and business. A similarly high powered gathering held recently in Peterborough – also discussing community support for people in recovery – apparently reaped both great ideas and concrete offers of help.

Over the last few years we have sought fundamentally to change expectations of Fellowship. Instead of an assumption that the primary role of Fellows is as donors who enable paid staff  to have ideas to change the world, we see Fellows themselves as being full participants in our charitable mission. This means we can really tap into the hidden wealth of our Fellows and the idea of Fellowship.

Despite West Kent, Peterborough and many other examples of Fellowship action, the journey is far from complete. Having now raised expectations and aspirations we have the welcome, but growing, challenge of providing sufficient support for an ever more active and ambitious Fellowship.

But it does now feel like we can advocate social innovation to others from a position of insight and legitimacy. I also have no hesitation is inviting anyone out there who has a generous, collaborative and inventive mind set to explore the possibility of Fellowship (if you want to know more email me at matthew.taylor@rsa.org.uk).

And finally another synergy: our events team has built some great partnerships, including with prestigious media outlets like Channel Four and LBC. One example is our hosting of BBC Radio 4’s series Four Thought. The short lecture on education and creativity being broadcast tonight at 8.45 is given by RSA Fellowship Council member Gerard Darby. Whatever a self-satisfied old bureaucrat like me says, it is great FRSAs like Gerard who are the best possible advert for RSA Fellowship.

Related posts:

1. Stoking the flames of renewal
2. An enlightened Fellowship
3. Ship-shape and Bristol fashion*

I am writing immediately after the RSA Jobs Summit which I co-chaired with our Chair of Trustees Luke Johnson and former RSA Trustee, and respected independent economist, Vicky Pryce. We had an amazing line up of speakers ranging from senior politicians (David Miliband and David Willetts) to respected academics and policy analysts (Paul Gregg, Jonathan Portes, Paul Johnson) to incisive writers on the economy (John Kay and Diane Coyle) to people with front line experience of business (John Makinson, James Mawson, Elizabeth Varley) and many more.

The conversation had a nice concertina rhythm, moving from broad debates about jobs, enterprise, and investment to more specific questions about industrial policy and labour market regulation. Overall, I was reminded that in policy making what matters is what is important not what may be most novel. Although the sessions spanned political perspectives ranging from Miliband to the unapologetically free market views of the IEA’s Mark Littlewood, and a wide range of expertise, there were some points which came close to achieving a consensus:

• Despite the grim figures the UK has a good record on job creation (200,000 more jobs under the Coalition for example) and – by international standards – a reasonably flexible labour market.
• Our problems lie most acutely in youth unemployment but also in other people and places consistently over-represented among the unemployed and under-employed, and the fact that a combination of fiscal and demographic changes mean we probably have to create about an extra 300,000 jobs a year over the next decade even to maintain unemployment at today’s levels.
• We continue to have major problems with the employability of those young people not going into higher education. The roots of this are complex but we may need to speed up reform to the education and experience we offer 14-19 year olds.
• The over concentration of power, investment and growth in London and the South East is a problem. Most agree that part of the answer is strengthening the city regional tier of government, particularly with elected mayors. There is also recognition of the need for greater flexibility in labour market factors at a city and at a population subgroup level, although what this should encompass (minimum wage level, public sector pay, tax, employment regulation) is more complex and controversial.
• Notwithstanding the pressures of austerity there continues to be strong case for emergency action to create public works jobs for young people.
• Although we should aim to increase skill levels, we will always need many low skilled jobs. But the attitude and life skills of employees and the management skills of employers are important to whether this work can be more or less well remunerated, satisfying and provide the basis for progression.
• Entrepreneurship is vital to future growth and job creation and there are probably more budding entrepreneurs around now than ever before. But we are still quite in the dark about the characteristics which make for a successful entrepreneur and the context which most favours them. When we do find people who have, and act on, great ideas we should cherish them and encourage them to develop this talent in others.
• In terms of its current areas of economic strength (for example, creative industries, pharmaceuticals, business services) the UK is pretty well placed to exploit growing global markets. Despite the abolition of the RDAs, the Government is increasingly willing to talk about the need for industrial policy but this needs to be based on an objective, evidence-based assessment of the emerging areas of technology that we may be able to exploit.

There is little new in all this but it was useful to see the points of broad agreement and to focus minds on the key aspects of a strategy for jobs and growth. We will be publishing a fuller report of the day in a few weeks’ time.

Related posts:

1. Desperate times call for …
2. My name is Bond, ‘Bond for hope’
3. Up the workers

I am speaking on Wednesday about innovation in higher education. I thought I might lay out my speech outline today to see if I can grab some useful feedback from readers ahead of the event.

On one level it is odd to imply there is an issue with innovation in HE. Universities are by their nature hotbeds of new thinking.  Whether it is UCL opening a new campus in East London, Newcastle’s work on becoming a truly civic institution or Northampton’s decision (working with the RSA) to become ‘a leader in social innovation’, every university can point not only to their best teaching and research but also to significant changes in the ways they work. Furthermore, while the requirement under the Research Assessment Exercise that departments show ‘impact’ from their work has been roundly criticised in some academic circles, my impression is that it is opening up new debates and helping those who have always argued for faculty to engage more fully with the world outside academe.

And yet, while this is to be welcomed, it is also arguably the case that most HE innovation is both incremental and largely constrained by the core assumptions and business models of the sector. Truly ‘social innovation’ involves more fundamental questioning, indeed the starting point for this kind of step change is recognition that key aspects of the current system are increasingly problematic.

I plan to suggest four big challenges which could form the starting point for a more radical process of questioning and – subsequently – innovation. In summary these are:

The essence of the student offer: as Stefan Collini has pointed out, there is fundamental tension between the idea of students as learners (which implies they defer to teachers) and students as customers (which implies their preferences are sovereign). Also, some aspects of the student offer may become less powerful (eg course content in a world of free on-line access to some of the best courses in the world) while others become more important (most obviously, the securing of employment).  In the US rising fees in the best universities have been accompanied by escalating investment in things like sports, catering and recreation facilities – is that how we want the taxpayers’ subsidy to fees being channelled in England?

The relationship between universities and their localities: reading a presentation by Newcastle’s  John Goddard – one of our leading advocates  for the civic university – I came across this quotation from Gerard Delanty ‘The great significance of the university is that it can be the most important site of connectivity in the knowledge society…and…a key institution for the formation of cultural and technological citizenship…and…for reviving the decline of the public sphere’. Yet, generally only a fraction of the capacity that universities could bring to the places they inhabit is explicitly tapped.

The nature of universities: according to John Goddard’s research, local public agencies (like councils) often find the authority structure of universities opaque and diffuse; this is a barrier to collaboration. While the relative autonomy of faculty from the university administration is a virtue, and the tendency of academics to view the hierarchy of their discipline as more important than the hierarchy of university leadership is inevitable, it still leaves the problem for universities of how – as institutions – to mobilise to meet shared challenges and pursue overarching objectives.

The core business model: HE is expensive and like all labour intensive industries its costs comparative to the rest of the economy are continuing to rise.  Part of this lies in the complex nature of a university combining the characteristics of a knowledge business (research), a large scale service provider (undergraduate teaching), and a wider public purpose in relation to human development and social capacity. With, among other things, a competitive market, the constant demands for greater efficiency and the growth of international private teaching universities using sophisticated distance learning methods, universities may increasingly need to question their core business model.

Any views on whether these are the right issues to provoke a deeper, broader approach to innovation are most welcome.

Related posts:

1. ‘Bond for hope’: some questions answered (I think)
2. PBR – high hopes, big questions.
3. To err is human….

Some childhood experiences never leave us. The experience of humiliation is particularly hard to forget. Back in the sixties, at the age of eight, I was the only southerner attending Park Grove Junior School in York. To add to my general discomfort I also had a pronounced lisp. Maybe this was why I had a relatively modest part in that year’s nativity play. I was a wise king and my script in its entirety consisted of the word ’myrrh’. I suspect my father knew this when, barely concealing a snigger, he offered to hear me read my lines.

I only had one word but I appeared in two scenes and it was this that led to my humiliation. The rather unsympathetic deputy head in charge of the production came to visit my class to discuss arrangements. Perhaps to compensate for my various inadequacies (or was it was just an early manifestation of my lifetime habit of talking too much) I always put my hand up when it came to questions:

‘Miss, will we change our costumes between the scenes?’ was my innocent but looking back on it, ridiculous question. Even now I can see the sneer on the Deputy’s face. I can’t recall her precise words but it was something along the line of ‘ oh yes, Matthew, of course, we will and we’ll also have a make up assistant on hand to refresh your face paint, unless that is you want to bring your own staff in your own limousine’.

I thought again about this experience on the way from an event today. I had been asked to contribute to a lunchtime seminar about social innovation at Northampton University (if only those cruel teachers could see me now, oh yes!). It occurred to me too late that we had perhaps been a bit too structural in our account of the barriers to innovation (you can imagine the list: silo working, wrong incentives, lack of capacity etc): Because, in reality, one of the biggest inhibitors to innovation is a fear of humiliation.

The simple truth is that many – and it may even be most – people would rather take the small risk that they have wasted a great idea than the big risk that their idea will be greeted with a mix of indifference, scorn and hilarity.

If this seems unduly pessimistic look at the mauling given today by the health select committee to the idea that Sainsbury’s might use shopping habits to identify customers who have caring roles in order to offer them information and advice. The criticism seems to be based on the lazy and spurious idea that the Department of Health is asking Sainsbury’s to test out this idea instead of professionals using more traditional public service channels.

I know the Coalition is a bit tight with money and can even sometimes seem a little unsympathetic to the plight of the disadvantaged, but can you really imagine a Departmental letter to GPs along these lines:

‘Dear colleague, instead of the usual policy of seeking to notice when patients have major informal caring roles and offering them support we would like you to ignore people’s needs on the basis that they might get spotted at the local supermarket’.

That shop assistants could be given a bit of training to spot the shopping habits of carers and then offer these customers information about local services is only a small idea but it is sound, it is free and (unlike many other policy initiatives) it is difficult to see it doing any harm. But judging by the reaction of the select committee perhaps whoever developed the initiative in Government and Sainsbury’s may be tempted in future to keep their good ideas to themselves.

Part of the reason I feel defensive for this scheme is that RSA is itself soon to publish a report about the role that B and Q stores are playing in increasing social capital and engagement in localities. We’re just waiting for a foreward from a minister or Government policy advisor. Let’s just hope they aren’t now put off for fear of being made to look trivial or uncaring.

And on the subject of compassion it may be that the staff of Park Grove weren’t quite as cruel as I paint them: with my speech impediment it must have been tempting to make me the king who proffers the frankincense.

Related posts:

1. A social media challenge for Fellows