The seeds of enlightenment

March 31, 2010 by
Filed under: The RSA 

I argued last week that an aspect of the 21 century enlightenment project might be to escape the cage of individualism; not to reject the powerful idea of individual rights and freedoms but to address the way we systematically exaggerate our own agency at the expense of recognising social agency (a contrast between personal optimism and social pessimism is a consistent finding of opinion polls).

If we are to overcome this dichotomy it will be in organisations. It is at work, in clubs, charities and community groups – not at the distant level of national society – that we connect to the idea of collective action. Which is why organisational reform and institutional renewal is an important dimension of 21CE. It is why I argue that the reform of the RSA, and particularly the way we think about and resource Fellowship, is not just a means of social progress but exemplifies the kind of progress we need.

With this in mind I was incredibly heartened by a recent visit to Scotland at which I met the Scottish Committee and a wider group of FRSA. Scotland introduced a small social enterprise seed fund a year or so ago and it has made a huge impact on the way the RSA thinks and talks about itself. Bureaucracy is kept to a minimum and there is little enthusiasm for wrangling with head office, instead the focus is outwards, celebrating the impact those small grants are making to the charitable innovations of Scottish Fellows and exploring what kind of new ideas the Society might back next.

Following discussion with Trustees and the Fellowship Council, in a couple of weeks we are launching a RSA wide version of a seed fund. I am hoping it can have a similarly inspirational effect on other parts of the Society.  

Although there seems to be no shortage of good ideas in Scotland, I am always on the look out for the kind of ideas I would love to hear Fellows developing. This morning – speaking at the South West Observatory in Bath – I heard a great example.

Tom Schuller, co-author of the recently published NIACE Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning, was talking about the role that learning can play in improving life for older people. Tom cited a residential home in Cardiff whose manager had decided to be more ambitious than sitting people in front of a television screen all day. The informal curriculum that was introduced included an 83 year old woman learning Welsh from a man sixty years her junior, a 79 year old finding out how to use Skype to get in contact with relatives and a group that took up arts and crafts. The outcomes were stunning. As well, predictably, as higher reported well-being, the use of drugs declined by a half and incontinence pads by two thirds and a resident who had never once before uttered a word asked his neighbour at the painting table what she thought of his plant pot design. And staff turnover also declined significantly.

This was a single case and Tom admitted that there wasn’t enough evidence to know whether the impact could be replicated. It would be fantastic if RSA Fellwos backed by HQ developed expertise in the designing and delivering learning and so transformed the too often deplorable quality of much long term care.

The amount of money and staff support we have set aside for the seed fund is relatively modest at this stage. We simply don’t know what the level of take up will be. But I am crossing my fingers that the problem we are facing in a few weeks will be how to respond to all the brilliant ideas Fellows are developing. This way when it comes to 21st century enlightenment we can truly say we are walking the talk.

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11 Comments on The seeds of enlightenment

  1. Tessy Britton on Wed, 31st Mar 2010 7:03 pm

    2. That all sound fantastic Matthew. Thanks for feeding back on your trip – and in particular Fellows projects – Tom Schuller’s work sounds inspiring!

  2. Di Hinds on Wed, 31st Mar 2010 8:20 pm

    3. I was fortunate to have trained as a teacher at one stage, and encountering the fantastic influences of philosophers like John Dewey, and revolutionaries such as Paulo Freire.

    Although I gave up working in the ‘education sector’ many years ago, my working trajectory has taken me to many places, including evaluation of a so-called ‘health literacy’ scheme in several prison settings.

    I haven’t read the NIACE report, but have encountered many people inspired by learning in a range of contexts and environments. My passion for learning has taken me to rainforests and the most extraordinary settings. It is unfortunate that it is so often the institutionalisation of the learning process within the education system that has made so many people resistant to the process. It is also unfortunate that the term ‘lifelong learning’ has also so often been trivialised and exploited in a number of ways.

    Thanks for revitalising your Fellows’ projects in so many ways.

  3. JamieC on Thu, 1st Apr 2010 7:52 am

    4. I think the Seed Fund will be a very valuable resource for Fellows and will tie strongly into the direction in which the RSA is heading. The input of a small amount of money can stimulate the development of very exciting projects as has been seen in Scotland, and I am really looking forward to seeing the inspiring ideas which will come forward now that all Fellows have the opportunity to access support.

  4. autolycus2010 on Thu, 1st Apr 2010 11:34 am

    5. If the RSA or a similar institution could inspire all residential home managers with Cardif’s example, I for one, would look forward to old age and, since running-costs are bound to fall, be able to afford to stay in one.

  5. Matthew Kalman on Thu, 1st Apr 2010 3:00 pm

    6. Hi Matthew,

    Your inspiring example of the humane outcomes at that residential home in Wales, for some reason reminded me of a workplace improvement/domestic violence example someone once told me about.

    This was an aluminium smelter in New Zealand, where a deep restructure of the organisation using Elliot Jaques’ – somewhat controversial – ‘Requisite Organisation’ principles – apparently led to a major drop in reported domestic violence by the employees (coming from doctors, social services etc, in the town).

    I think it was a team led by some UK organisation development folks who rejigged the company using these ‘Requisite Organisation’ approaches.

    Roughly speaking – I believe – ‘Requisite’ means ensuring that people are guided into job roles of appropriate complexity, that their line-managers are always a full step up from them, and thus able to set a wider vision for them. Often this means removing unnecessary layers of management. The end result is that employees are all in a position to fulfil their potentials – rather than being either ‘in over their heads’ or ‘in under their heads’ as is apparently the norm for 80 per cent of people (no wonder so many organisations are fairly dysfunctional!).

    I’ve not seen this ‘Requsite’ approach work firsthand though, I’m just passing on something a US friend told me…

    NB You mentioned you’d try to catch up with the Kegan/Wilber milieu’s thinking. I’ll e-mail you a few suggestions, papers, whatever…, when I’ve got some time after Easter. Though things are fairly quiet on the Ken Wilber front, I think, as he’s rather ill. Worth keeping up with Kegan and Torbert though – and their work is particularly relevant to organisations/leadership etc.

    Cheers,

    Matthew Kalman

  6. Sam on Sat, 3rd Apr 2010 2:18 am

    7. I don’t doubt that social pessimism can be overcome by the fellowship that comes from being part of a community organisation. However, I expect that the majority of social pessimism is experienced as a result of an individual’s relationship with society at the national level (specifically the state and the media).

    Although (if it exists) Cameronism might be said to be an attempt to link the individual with the state via some sort of community conduit, it’s a pretty unformed philosophy and a relatively unproven idea. After all, there are many opportunities for volunteerism – or social entrepreneurship of a kind – yet these aren’t taken up en masse.

    The problem might therefore be two (or more) things –

    1) People’s pessimism about society is a necessary part of their ego (that underpins their personal optimism by giving it a comparative yardstick). It’s not therefore in their interest to reduce the contrast between the two.

    2) The state and media collaborate (knowingly and unknowingly) to drive people away from the opportunities to achieve fellowship through collective action through celebration of individual achievement and/or denigration of the collective.

    It’s therefore a very interesting question to establish whether organisations such as those in the examples you mention can generate these opportunities on a wider basis, expand their reach and foster greater optimism, or whether they’re ‘doomed’ to work largely within their constituency.

    Of course, the alternative is to tell people to ‘get real’ and lose their individual optimism so that it matches their social pessimism.

    Which would be unfortunate.

  7. Reflexive Leadership – Shifting Balances « Facilitating Change on Sun, 4th Apr 2010 4:50 pm

    8. [...] The first of these two issues is a matter of some debate and energy, particularly in current think tanks.  Matthew Taylor of the RSA is adamant about challenging the current and outdated models of “leadership by deference.”  One of the challenges here is that, to step beyond a culture of deference requires an extra degree of self-responsibility.  This is an interesting challenge and one that can be explored on his blog here. [...]

  8. Hilary Sutcliffe on Sun, 4th Apr 2010 6:37 pm

    9. Liking the practical focus of this, was worried for a bit that the 21C Enlightenment inquiry would be academic and more of a think tank approach than an ‘action tank’ approach. Obviously theory and evidence must support the thinking but, having been involved in the Tomorrow’s Company inquiry in the early 90′s at the RSA, what was great about that was it’s ability to engage people in the things that mattered to them, not what mattered to academics and theorists. The two sometimes seem mutually exclusive, but aren’t at all.

    Good Luck. Look forward to the Seed Fund, I will be one of the Fellows applying!

  9. Alan Tuckett on Mon, 5th Apr 2010 9:18 pm

    10. Matthew gets all the essential details of the work my colleague Tom Schuller described and we support through Informal Learning in Care settings right, but the work highlighted in the blog actually happens in Aisgarth Home in Leicester and at tansley House in Derbyshire. The Leicester work is organised by a social enterprise, Learning for the Fourth Age, which operates in Leicester and Leeds, and the Tansley House work by a charity First taste. You can see a video (Informal Learning in Care Settings) either via the niace website (www.niace.org.uk/news/podcasts-videos) or it is also on youtube. NIACE and BIS, who supported the initiative also publish a report on the work.
    Alan Tuckett, CEO NIACE and a fellow

  10. oldandrew on Tue, 6th Apr 2010 12:37 pm

    11. “I was fortunate to have trained as a teacher at one stage, and encountering the fantastic influences of philosophers like John Dewey… Although I gave up working in the ‘education sector’ many years ago”

    Really?

    Dewey’s ideas not work out in practice?

  11. matthew taylor on Tue, 6th Apr 2010 5:42 pm

    12. Another great conversation. I’m pleased that people seem to welcome linking the principles of 21CE to changes in the way the RSA (and particularly its Fellowship) work. Sorry I got the location of the learning residential homes wrong but delighted to be corrected Alan

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