17 Comments on The pro-social council – what is to be done?

Martin Smith on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 2:47 pm


Dear Matthew

I was very interested in your blog today on the pro-social council.

It felt timely in the light of the budget, made me think again about the connundrum of the gap between the performance and perception of public services, and chimed with the direction I believe we are taking in Tower Hamlets (building of course on a rich history of social networks in the East End, which have experienced radical change over the generations but which remain intense).

I’ve set out below an extract from our new Community Plan 2020 (Sustainable Community Strategy) launched by the LSP earlier this year.

“………….. Underpinning all these themes is a desire to build One Tower Hamlets – a borough where everyone has an equal stake and status; where people have the same opportunities as their neighbours; where people have a responsibility to contribute and where families are the cornerstone of success.

One Tower Hamlets also means bringing different parts of the community together, encouraging positive relationships and tackling divisions between communities – as well as providing strong leadership, involving people and giving them the tools and support to improve their lives. People’s participation in the Partnership is critical. We will only be successful if we keep listening to, and acting on, feedback – so that together we can drive forward the improvements we all want to see.”

We arrived at this text through iterative discussion, debate and consultation in the LSP, but your blog seemed to me to provide the structured rationale for why we reached the One Tower Hamlets conclusion.

I’ve asked a couple of people here who are much cleverer and knowledgeable than me for their thoughts, but subject to that would be interested in Tower Hamlets being part of the consortium of local authorities you are hoping will come together.

Martin Smith
Chief Executive
London Borough of Tower Hamlets

Matthew Kalman on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 4:41 pm


Hi Matthew,

We have to be careful what thick social networks we call for – or else we might end up promoting quite regressive monocultures (as the Government appears to have decided it did in the past, with certain Islamic groups).

It’s not just monocultural ‘bonding’ social capital that we want to encourage, but the more cosmopolitan ‘bridging’ social capital.

I’m also not quite clear about the direction of causation in all this – you seem to suggest that if we build networks that will lead to the creation of a widespread prosocial mindset or culture – as the former ‘determines’ the latter.

I wonder whether the networks might emerge naturally from the right mindset or culture rather than vice versa….?

But I guess it feels a lot more straightforward to build some networks than to work to change cultures or mindsets. Is that a cop-out though? (A case of ‘my only tool is a hammer, so every problem starts looking like it must be a nail’).

Some people do actually try to work on the culture element – eg Lawrence Harrison and his Cultural Change Institute at Tufts University:
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/cci/default.shtml (though a fair bit of his focus is on the Third World).

That said I totally support efforts to nurture most existing networks… (Maybe supporting the online social media innovators – people like Steph Gray at DIUS – is one way to do this…?)

BTW, if you’re interested in local government leadership and the power of conversation, you should dig out a copy of the report ‘Flying High – A new look at local government leadership, transformation and the power of conversation’, produced by the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (SOLACE).

It’s (mostly?) written by Sol Davidson – someone who does understand about enabling changes in mindsets and values.

The report is largely about the importance of nurturing post-conventional leadership capacities in local authorities:

“It is not always necessary for the chief executive to be post-conventional but it is important that they develop or recruit this capacity or give more time and space for those who demonstrate post-conventional behaviour. This is sometimes difficult, as quite often post-conventional individuals, by their very nature, will be challenging, disturbing of the status quo and more likely to be seen as ‘mavericks’.

We need to get these kinds of leaders and these kinds of capacities in place, then we’ll get the kind of organisations we need (including the right kind of local authorities) and they will inevitably promote the networks and prosociality we want.

Funnily enough, there’s a two-day event later on next week on exactly this topic of ‘Transforming leadership and generating responsive, inquiring organisations’ – it’s being run by Harthill Consulting, though price-wise is, I guess, mostly targeting the corporate market. I’m managing to get along to one of the two days, I hope – and feel keen now to ask something about where prosociality might fit in, after reading your blog!

Matthew

James Horn on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 4:46 pm


Good point about supporting the existing networks – look to the churches, mosques and schools – that’s where things are happening at the moment.

Councils actively supporting existing infrastructures is a good place to start – church youth groups, PTA events, parish visiting schemes – these things are happening but could be much more expansive with proper resourcing.

Steve Broome on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 5:33 pm


Another great blog. Some thoughts on a couple of the six point (six now, anyway) checklist:

(a) the RSA discussed the concept of cognitive polyphasia last year (http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/private-optimism-vs-public-despair) and asked if people can simultaneously hold conflicting accounts, which is more important: their individual experience (generally good for the NHS, say), or their general view (typically bad)? In evaluating success, central and local Government often use opinion polls to measure against fixed, rational criteria. But people tend to make judgements on emotional experiences, remembering peak and end of service points in particular. The emotional trumps the rational, seemed to be a key point from the debate as I remember it.

The extent to which opinion polls ask questions that resonate with our own experience and questions we ask ourselves is also, well, questionable. Of course I can answer on a scale of 1-10 how I rate the local council, but does this provide useful information to understand and affect behaviour change, or that reflects my life experience and the wider social context? The framing and focus research effects can also be considerable.

The RSA’s work in ‘Connected Communities New Cross Gate’ touches on tracking through the consequences of different methodological approaches to understanding neighbourhoods. The core evidence base for project intervention here has tended to be an in-depth household survey, but qualitative follow up with survey respondents reveals a deep frustration with this approach and has in some cases actively diminished respondents’ propensity to engage.

I have to admit that the stats geek in me loves rooting around in the multivariate depths of SPSS, and there are important and robust trends, correlations that can be seen through the big survey approach. But the point is the balance and value of mixed methods approaches.

There may well be resource implications in undertaking ethnographic work and social network analysis. Central government performance frameworks require progress on indicators that depend on these surveys, so it will may be as well as rather than instead of. But this links to point (c). In our Connected Communities work, we’ll be exploring how communities can be re-conceived as networks; outreach workers as network managers (who look to expand and strengthen social inclusion through networks); neighbourhood managers as meta-network managers (who focus on creating the valuable bridges between different key nodes and networks). The focus will be on getting more out of existing (or fewer) resources through a social network approach and on embedding this conceptualisation in local organisations and institutions.

Cathy Lee on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 7:19 pm


I like what you say about spending less on opinion polls and more on gaining insight on how people actually live their lives and frame their social reality. I guess the only issue with that kind of project, however, is that it can potentially be very resource-consuming. Opinion polls are popular because they are quick and cheap. To truly delve into how people perceive the world and strategize accordingly, takes a bit of effort. Mike Thompson once teamed up with Karl Dake (he was the best at quantitative CT-driven research and developed incredibly accurate measurement tools for accomplishing just what you mentioned) in a study for Unilever on household consumption styles. From a research perspective, what was significant about their work was that it was conducted double-blind and a marriage between quantitative psychology and qualitative anthropology—unheard of at the time and still less so now. While Mike (and two others) conducted informal guided interviews with households, which sometimes ran two hours long, Karl used various survey instruments of his own creation, like proverb pairs, e.g. “look before you leap” versus “he who hesitates is lost.” What was amazing about their research (and why I seek to further develop that sort of work now) was that they separately diagnosed each house into one of the four CT categories using their respective data sets. For hierarchical households, they had 85% agreement; 70% for individualist households; 75% for egalitarian; and 90% with fatalistic households. For more details, see Karl and Mike’s “Making Ends Meet, in the household and on the planet.” I suppose one doesn’t have to dig as deeply as Karl and Mike did, but traditional questionnaires would definitely require revamping.

By the way, I agree with Matthew Kalman about it being important to get a mix of social capital- not just bonding (within a group sharing a social identity/egalitarianism) and bridging (between individuals of equal power based more on mutual interest than identity/individualism) as he mentioned but also linking (up and down power differentials/hierarchy).

carl allen on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 8:56 pm


The great majority of people are in a very few networks. And perhaps most people are unable to be in more than a few networks for a range of reasons from affordability to opportunity to time to that is not what they are accustomed to.

But from observation in England’s inner cities, the meetworks that community developments workers and voluntary and community action deliver have been starved of resources while regeneration has not been starved of resources over the last 10 years.

Thus the meetworks that precede networks has not been occuring as needed.

Yet where is the value from all that regeneration spend?

Regeneation has gotten nowhere most of the time since the meetworks that precedes networks has not happened.

carl allen on Fri, 24th Apr 2009 11:03 pm


By way of note, it is important the amount of diverse networks over time that an individual participates in rather what the individual belongs to at any one point in time.

Meetworks is another discussion.

Chris Cook on Sat, 25th Apr 2009 7:10 pm


Whether or not there is a dilemma or the trilemma cited

“between open market globalisation, social stability and a small state.”

depends on your assumptions.

You make the usual assumption in relation to state and market of EITHER Public = State OR Private = Individual or Corporate, where Corporate means “Joint Stock Limited Liability Company”.

Up here in Scotland – where we have “Not Proven” as well as Guilty and Not Guilty verdicts – Glasgow Council has four municipal Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) which illustrate that different assumptions are possible.

We at Nordic Enterprise Trust have been working, with a little Norwegian government money, to develop new partnership-based mechanism which demonstrate that it is in fact possible to resolve the trilemma.

This may be achieved through creating networked cross-border partnerships, which operate on a “Not for Loss” basis, as Dr Yunus puts it, and involve markets, but not profit (since there is no profit and loss within a partnership).

The result is stable, since the instability caused by rentier capital and leverage/ deficit-based money is not present.

Moreover, the State is minimal – since there is a new synthesis between public and private, whereby productive assets may remain in public stewardship, but with public and/or private operation.

This recent presentation in Edinburgh may be of interest.

http://www.slideshare.net/ChrisJCook/old-town-partnership-08-04-09

matthewtaylor on Mon, 27th Apr 2009 4:51 pm


Thanks Martin. A very kind and heartening response. We will certainly come back to you when our ideas are more fully formed

Best Matthew

matthewtaylor on Mon, 27th Apr 2009 4:54 pm


Thanks Matthew.

Fascinating as always. Of course, we need to distinguish the different types of social capital and what they are useful for. The American research claims to have explored the direction of causality and to believe that it flows from social support to prosociality

Sol is my coach! So I’ll make sure I get the book from him

Best

Matthew

matthewtaylor on Mon, 27th Apr 2009 4:54 pm


Thanks James

Any good concrete examples?

Best

Matthew

matthewtaylor on Mon, 27th Apr 2009 4:56 pm


Thanks Steve. Really helpful

matthewtaylor on Mon, 27th Apr 2009 4:58 pm


Thanks Carl. Interesting points

How would you define meetworks?

Matthew

Matthew Kalman on Mon, 27th Apr 2009 8:07 pm


Hi Matthew,

I’m very jealous that you’ve got Sol as a coach – he came along to that big day-long event that I organised for Don Beck a few weeks ago (‘From Rule Britannia… To Cool Britannia… to Integral Britannia – Summit on the Future of Great Britain’ – what a name!).

Some years ago (the first time I met Sol) I even had a bit of a coachy-style chat with him – and he recommended mindfulness meditation to me. And then thought about it – and changed his mind. Gestalt therapy would be a better bet for grounding my clearly roving/undisciplined mind

I seem to run into Sol periodically these days – only when I make it along to particularly interesting events…

If you’re free on Wednesday or Thursday you and Sol should try to get along to some of that Harthill event on ‘Transforming leadership and generating responsive, inquiring organisations’. Or even just meet up with Prof Bill Torbert et alat the meal after the first day…

BTW, I suspect Sol’s even more of a Bill Torbert/Jane Loevinger ‘Leadership Development Framework’ person, than he is a Spiral Dynamics fan (as you mentioned once before). Though it’s a bit silly of me to speak for him – and I don’t know him well…

If you ask for a copy of that SOLACE ‘Flying High’ report on leadership, conversation etc – from Sol, I recommend you ask for the orginal, full-length, unedited version – not the final shorter version. And if he shares the more meaty version that with you, then please share it with me

Sol did some major work with the top 100 or so leaders at Kent County Council – and I think even did leadership maturity assessments of them. Boy would I love to know what that experience was like. And what the spread of maturities was! Where there many people who ‘in over their heads’, or even ‘in under their heads’?

As you know, I think this adult maturation stuff might be the hidden dimension that explains much of what goes on in organisations. (Or doesn’t go on, when we’d like it to be going on – like ‘Learning Organisations’).

Sol also worked with Beverley Alimo-Metcalfe, who has a ‘Transformative Leadership Questionnaire’/model that is quite popular (esp. in the UK public sector) – but I’m not sure Beverley actually has a model or practices for actually enabling leadership maturation into the more transformative modes. Which was, I guess, where Sol came in…

I’ll try to say hello at the NDI09 event tomorrow – the particular work stream I was in at the event seemed to have rather more energy and real insight than was coming from those various ministers, in general anyway…

Cheers,

Matthew

carl allen on Mon, 27th Apr 2009 9:45 pm


Meetworks have 2 stages

1. The meet …managed series of opportunities and/or opportunistic actions where people are
2. The works … what any individual in the meet can put in that enhances the conversation of the meet so that people willingly self-organise beyond the meet.

Opportunistic actions are for matters that are critical but either background or emergent. Managed opportunities are for critical matters that are at the front of people’s mind.

The history of the meetwork includes one-liners that people remember and reuse, quality and passion of argument. A one liner such as “consultation is not a substitute fro analysis of an issue” can persuade the audience to demand better quality information and stop a decision making process. Quality and passion of argument can make people demand that a different or minority voice be accounted for.

The history of the meetwork sets the tone for the future formation of a network.

Pro-social councils « Local Democracy on Tue, 28th Apr 2009 8:23 am


[...] Pro-social councils Posted on April 28, 2009 by Paul Evans Here’s the RSA’s Matthew Taylor making the case for a pro-social framework for local government.  [...]

Ritchie Somerville on Tue, 28th Apr 2009 4:42 pm


Dear Matthew,

I was fortunate enough to hear you at the National School of Government conference on Monday discussing these points. As someone seeking to make a difference in local government i found your observations and assertions challenging and enlivening.

The concept of civic leadership focusing on pro-social behavioural development as a means to achieving, rather than instead of, social, environmental and economic aspirations is simple and powerful.

The element that I feel you only hinted at in your discussion was the outcome focus and tangible product that must act as the nodes through which, or around which, these social networks can form: the rock for the coral?

Being clear about these nodes – early wins – that can allow others to observe or experience more active engagement in collective decision making, linked to more self sufficient behaviours, whilst contributing to the collective capacity of their society is what will mark out the winners and losers in the drive to address the social aspiration gap through community planning in the time of austerity.

Regards,

Ritchie

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