photo by Patrick Hadfield on flickr

Since it started, I have had a difficulty understanding the “Occupy” movement – Occupy Wall Street, its London cousin Occupy LSX, and the many (apparently thousands) demonstrations that have sprung up around the world.

My difficulty was that I couldn’t see what they were for.

I couldn’t see what they wanted.

I’ve also had several conversations about Occupy in the last month, perhaps stemming from discussion of the key events of the year; I think Occupy resonates with many people in the UK – even if we don’t understand it, there seems to be a feeling that it is a good thing.

One conversation – on the back of a couple of articles I read in Rolling Stone – made me think maybe I was asking the wrong questions: I found myself debating with someone who is much more active and has been down to Occupy LSX many more times than I have that it didn’t matter that they had no demands or agenda, that it wasn’t clear what they stood or the fact that they have no identifiable leaders.

The very fact that Occupy LSX is there is holding corporate Britain (and, given their camp in the shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, spiritual Britain, too) to account is what matters. They are saying “things are wrong and we want change” – not that they have all the answers and know what needs to change, not even agreeing how much needs to change. Their presence in the heart of the City acts as our collective conscience, reminding people – especially those who pace the trading floors nearby – that there are consequences to their actions.

There is a saying: “the markets don’t have a conscience”. Perhaps they do now.

Yet a few other things I have watched and read, and conversations I have had, suggest that those who perhaps most need to change – the fund managers and traders, the corporate expense-junkies – have yet to understand that society has changed and is calling for them to listen, to reflect and to try to understand. For instance, this report shows just how far removed some of America’s ultra-rich are from most people. (As Scott Fitzgerald is [apparently erroneously] reputed to have said, “The rich are different from you and me…”)

Someone working with a large financial institution told me how the people running it were so cocooned that the idea of spending a comparatively small amount – about the same as some of the larger bonuses that get reported – on sponsoring arts and cultural organisations that are suffering from central and local government cuts. This ought to have been a “no-brainer”, but the idea of giving money away seemed an anathema. (They spent over £50m in advertising, according to their last annual report).

I don’t think I have been able to make sense of OccupyLSX, but I guess we still need the conscience that the Occupy movement can make apparent.

(Incidentally, this blog post discusses the role of “leaders” and the context they bring, and what it may mean for the Occupy movement.)

photo by Patrick Hadfield on flickr

The first was in my local supermarket. I wanted cash-back in a debit card transaction. The cashier printed off the receipt, asked me to sign it to authorise the transaction – which I did – and then handed the signed receipt back to me to dispose of anyway I liked.

This process added nothing. In other supermarkets, I have been asked to sign the stores’ copy of the receipt – in which case they then have evidence that I authorised the transaction and had accepted the cash. This presumably formed part of those organisations’ audit trail – though I never believed that any supermarket retained a paper copy of the transactions, relying instead on their electronic systems. (I’ll happily be disabused of this.)

But for my local supermarket to get me to sign the receipt and then hand it back to me makes no sense whatsoever. It is, frankly, bonkers. I can only assume that the cashier was incorrectly completing the process, or the store management had instigated a process without understanding why or what outcome they wanted. Instead, they just held up the queue a little.

[Edit: Joanne Jacobs has pointed out that by the shop making me sign my receipt, they may be protecting themselves against my returning with the receipt and claiming I didn't receive the money. This is true - although by getting me to sign the receipt before I've received the money, it is still open to abuse by the check-out person...]

The other experience involved my bank. I called them to arrange payment of my tax bill. The operator asked for my phone number, which I gave them. And today I had a phone message from my bank saying that the payment hadn’t been made because they wanted to check that it wasn’t fraudulent. Aside from the unlikely scenario that a fraudster would be paying a tax bill – I mean, really! – my bank phoned the number that someone they thought might be a fraudster had given them to check that person wasn’t a fraudster. Their security check involved information that I imagine anyone determined to pretend to be me would be able to find out. (Though it is a good idea to keep a lot of that kind of stuff hidden on Facebook!)

I completely accept the need for security, but having “security” processes that do anything but provide security is dangerous: if my bank actually believes that what they do is providing them and their customers security from fraud, then they really do have big problems.

Last week, Dan Currell of Corporate Executive Board spoke at the RSA on Doing Better Business – business integrity, transparency and profitability. (There were four other speakers on the podium, but, frankly, they added little.)

Currell was discussing recent research by CEB across over 500,000 employees in 130 organisations, which identified seven factors (out of 200 investigated) which mitigate against wrong-doing by employees or the organisation, and are indicators of an ethical organisation culture. These factors are

• comfort speaking up
• trust in colleagues
• direct manager leadership
• ”tone” at the top
• clarity of expectations
• openness of communications
• organisational justice

I don’t think any of these are surprising: if one were to describe a positive, healthy organisation culture, these features would probably feature high on the list. (Indeed, the research by CEB supports a service they provide, which includes a “cultural audit”.) Of all seven factors, the first – “comfort speaking up” – apparently trumped all the others. Again, not necessarily surprising – the seven factors may be pretty well linked – if you are comfortable speaking up, the others are likely to be in place, too. An ethical culture may be embodied by comfort at speaking up (which would make it pretty easy for an organisation to assess).

The interesting thing was the relationship between “integrity”, measured on these factors, and ten-year shareholder return – a highly significant (p < 0.01) correlation of 0.58. Those organisations that score highly for integrity also make more money shareholders over the medium term.

Of course, as Currell acknowledged, correlation is not causation: it could be that integrity causes organisations to be more profitable, or both are caused by another factor – or, as someone in the audience pointed out, maybe only highly profitable organisations can afford an open, trusting culture. Currell’s money was on the second – that good management fosters both an open culture and a profitable organisation. With a healthy, ethical organisation culture, these features are likely to form positive feedback – management will recruit those who fit and promote the culture; employees are more likely to listen and act on customer feedback; and managers will manage their staff in ways that reinforce the culture.

He didn’t really answer his own question: instead, this was a kicking off point for a discussion about the press and society – and which feeds which.

The fourth estate – which Blom-Cooper said Fielding originally applied to “the mob”, and only later became attached to the press by Carlyle – demonstrated power without responsibility; but whilst irresponsible, they were not too irresponsible. (Milly Dowler’s parents and the McCanns, together with more celebrated witness to Leveson, may disagree.)

He discussed the problem of regulating the press in the age of electronic media. Broadcasters are regulated by OfCom; the press by the PCC (regarded by many as toothless); the internet not at all. Perhaps, Blom-Cooper suggested, a single media regulator was needed. (It wasn’t clear that Blom-Cooper fully understood new media such as blogs, let alone Twitter, and how these interact with more traditional media.)

For Blom-Cooper, it wasn’t news-gathering and reporters apparently errant methods, but publication that was the real issue: breach of privacy, he felt, came with publication. I think he is wrong on this: in phone-hacking (albeit an extreme example), the breach of privacy surely came with the intrusion? Blom-Cooper’s point was that it was papers’ editors who were responsible, not reporters, and editors who needed a code of ethics – and to manage their reporters. (Paul McMullan’s claim that editors at News of the World knew that voicemails were being intercepted puts a different light on this: clearly they were responsible, and didn’t act.) For Blom-Cooper, what isn’t reported – the information and knowledge that the press “sit on” and withhold – is as important as what is.

He expressed the view that “journalism is the best medicine for the truth” – that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”, perhaps: a free press is needed within society to hold others – those with power – to account. Knowledge that wrong-doing may become public leads to self-censorship of action. (This again leaves press “stings” like those carried out by the “fake sheikh”, including those that are clearly designed to expose wrong-doing like corruption in sport in a hard-to-justify swamp.)

The difficulty with the PCC is that it can only act after the event – the Press Complaints Commission needs a complaint to act. A code of conduct would be better than statutory regulation, he thought, but clearly it would need to have teeth. A widespread change in the culture of the press – its ethics, perhaps – would also be needed for editors to comply with a code of conduct.

With the development of electronic media and the internet, the fourth estate is returning to the mob: anyone can become a citizen-journalist and, despite the concentration of media in few hands (and, Blom-Cooper pointed out, this concentration is not new – Murdoch and Desmond today were more than matched by Beaverbrook and Rothermere, thought little of flexing their power to influence governments), anyone can now become a publisher, too. The role of the press in a civil society requires the freedom criticise society – but also the freedom to criticise the press. Educating readers into the ways of the press may be as important as educating the press itself – its editors and reporters.

I think the exposure – the disinfectant of sunlight – press methods have received in the Leveson inquiry is probably a good start.

One of the unions, Unison, explains they are striking “to defend their pensions, after they voted overwhelmingly to join the TUC co-ordinated day of action”.

The Government proposals – and it isn’t easy to find them (I have tried: they are pretty well hidden) – stem from the Hutton Report, published last year.

Hutton’s recommendations included (taken directly from the executive summary of the report [pdf])

• pensions will continue to be an important element of remuneration
• public service schemes, along with a full state pension, deliver at least adequate levels of income
• Government must honour in full the pension promises that have been accrued by scheme members: their accrued rights
• members of the current defined benefit public service pension schemes should be moved to the new schemes for future service, but the Government should continue to provide a form of defined benefit pension as the core design
• a new career average revalued earnings (CARE) scheme should be adopted for general use in the public service schemes
• Government should increase the member’s Normal Pension Age in the new schemes so that it is in line with their State Pension Age

There are also several recommendations about the administration of public sector pension schemes and the transparency and publication of data about them.

Basically, then, the Hutton report recommends that members of public sector pension schemes get to keep what they’ve got – their accrued rights – but will be moved to new schemes for future rights.

The HM Teasury website sets out the Government’s proposals:

If you are currently in a final salary scheme, when the changes come into effect in 2015 your pension will be worked out differently. Your pension will be worked out using the salary you earn in each year during your career rather than your salary at retirement.
…
Your retirement date will be changed so that it is the same as the date you take your state pension.

You will be able to retire earlier than this and no one will be forced to work longer. Current public service workers can draw the full pension benefits they have earned under their current pension scheme at their current normal pension age. For many people who are near retirement, this will be 60. However, you may choose to work longer and earn more pension benefits under the new scheme.

(This webpage isn’t dated; I assume it sets out the earliest proposals from June 2011, rather than the amended proposals set out in November 2011.)

The first paragraph quoted sets out the new pension schemes, the second changing the usual retirement age in line with the state pension, the third assuring accrued pension rights: what was set out in Hutton.

This is a similar situation to that faced by many employees in private sector pension schemes: you keep the pot you’ve built up so far, but the scheme is changing for future pension accruals.

This is of course a change to terms and conditions; but it strikes me as different to the rhetoric being laid out by the unions. It does represent a decrease in remuneration – pension rights are effectively deferred salary, and by increasing the age at which a pension can be taken, the Government is reducing the total value of the pension. But the protection given to accrued rights means it is only future rights that are being changed.

Dave Prentis of Unision is quoted as saying “This is a fight not just about whether it is right to increase contributions, but it’s a fight for the survival of public service pension schemes.” Not according to Hutton or the Government it isn’t – it is a change to the schemes.

Jonathon Ledger of Napo said “[Government’s] attack on their pension entitlement is not fair, not reasonable and not necessary. They have joined the hundreds of thousands of hard-working public sector workers who are uniting in defence of their pensions – pensions earned after years of demanding work on behalf of our communities.” This is ambiguous, but I think wrong – the pensions earned so far – the accrued rights – are protected.

And so on and so forth.

I started writing this post to support my view that public sector workers were right to strike. I have changed my mind: I had the misconception that the Government policy threatened the pension rights earned to date. It clearly doesn’t. What is being changed are the future benefits. Public sector workers are indeed being asked to work longer and pay more into their (new) pension schemes – and if that happened to me, I’d probably want to strike, too. But they are not losing any of their earned rights to date.

Any worker is free to strike; any worker is free to move to another employer. In the current economic circumstances (and I write this as they are debating the Chancellor’s autumn statement on the radio: it doesn’t look pretty), that right to move to another employer is probably fanciful.

But I can’t help thinking the public sector workers – whether they strike or not – are on a hiding to nothing. And I no longer support their strike.

[Many of the links in this post came from the Guardian. This is because the Guardian had the easiest to navigate archive of articles relating to the public sector pensions proposals and Wednesday’s strike. I was shocked how hard it was to tease out the issues from all media sources, including the Guardian.]

In the spirit of the unconference, then, I thought I would put down my own thoughts on what work might look like in the future. I say my own thoughts, but frankly they probably all come from other people – not least The Economist, which recently had a special survey on the future of jobs – and people like Charles Handy have been writing about changing working structures for decades. None of this will be new. Most of it will probably be a bit random…

Of course, there will probably be many different futures for different people in different careers, and at different times. All futures are contingent. Some of these futures may even be reality now.

Here are two videos which aim to show two remarkably similar visions of a connected future at work and at home, by Microsoft and Ericsonn respectively:

These things may come true – they even be working as portrayed for a very few early adopters – but I believe that for most people in the world – probably even most people in the rich nations – these realities will never happen. (Please don’t get back to me in ten years’ time when it turns out this is exactly how we all live our lives…)

One of the many the futures of work may be no future at all: economist Chris Dillow has looked at the numbers, and reckons mass unemployment may be with us for a very long time. He reaches this conclusion on the basis of forecast of economic growth, which is way below the growth needed to reduce unemployment significantly. Thus, under- and unemployment are likely to be features of the work environment for a long time to come.

This may have major social implications, making competition for (some) jobs intense, perhaps reducing the income generated by work, and severely restricting applicants and employees expectations.

Another possible future may be an increase in the freelancing. Since I started freelancing a few years ago, the number of freelancers I know has increased dramatically. The use of job-websites such a elance and oDesk makes connecting freelancers or contract workers with their clients easier, and – for tasks that can be done anywhere – can cut costs. Why pay a freelancer in New York if you can pay one in Islamabad a tenth of the cost? Social networking sites like LinkedIn will play a part in this pattern too, oiling networking and building a contact base – maybe everyone will need their own CRM system to keep up with all their contacts (and potential clients and customers), too.

The Economist survey describes a world of micro-freelancers, in which tasks are broken down and bid (and paid) for in terms of minutes rather than hours or days – Amazon’s Mechanical Turk does this already, and yesterday I learned of two sites – TaskRabbit, which enables those with time on their hands (be they un- or underemployed) to do tasks that the rich, but time-poor, haven’t time to do, and CloudStaff, which provides virtual PAs based in the Philippines to anyone online anywhere. The Economist sees this as leading to a polarisation of work between “good jobs and commoditised ones in America and many other rich countries”, and describes a world in which

One strategy could be [for the unskilled] to find a high-flyer and stick close. Even if joining their posse is out of reach, there are still horses to be fed and watered. The time-poor new rich are generating demand for household staff, and this sort of work can be very well paid. A private secretary and general factotum can earn up to $150,000 a year nowadays. Salaries for standard butlers range from $60,000 to $125,000 and a head butler can make as much as $250,000, according to the website of the Butler Bureau.

This sounds like a return to a feudal society, with a increasing inequality across many measures.

Coupled with this is the flattening of organisations to the extent that they may become virtual – all the functions outsourced. I heard of a company yesterday that has only two people running it – a managing director and a sales manager, all the other functions being outsourced or bought in. This company was spun out of a university to capitalise on intellectual property created by academics, but other organisations can now do the same. Nike is seen as a popular manufacturer of training shoes and sports equipment, but it can also be envisaged as a specialised design company, with its other functions outsourced – notably manufacturing and distribution.

Much has been written about “portfolio careers“ - I have certainly changed direction several times, and I reckon many freelancers would view that they have portfolio careers. It can be a very flexible lifestyle, but the freedom to do lots of different things is balanced by a lack of stability and security which would not suit everyone. (Not having responsibilities like a mortgage or children helps…) Many might view this new world as a frightening place, full of rapid change and lacking in security.

I remember a discussion I had twenty years ago with my then-boss in a consultancy. (I wasn’t a consultant – I was working in the finance function.) He described how he wanted to move the firm to a “donut” structure: a core of full-time employees, with associates to call on outside that, and freelancers to help on specific tasks: this was a variable resourcing model, where the firm didn’t have to pay for people to hang around (or to learn, or help others learn…) in slack periods. I don’t know if that company moved that way, but it seems to me that whilst the donut model would work well, not many organisations have adopted it. (What would you call a flat donut model? A pancake? The pitta end?)

I’m not quite sure where this leaves us: a myriad of future working patterns, with everyone someone on the spectrum of work from fulltime at one end through parttime to freelancing to unemployed at the other. Some people may just opt out altogether – my guess is that the black economy would prosper at a time of high unemployment and uncertainty. It sounds as if it will be a time of growing inequality. Alternatives might be sought – perhaps the “Occupy Wall Street” and “Occupy LSX” movements are a symptom of that.

The internet may enable some people to prosper – putting buyers and sellers of services together, for instance – and may commoditise others’ skills. Maybe there will be a premium on those with social media skills. Anyone for blogging…?

I think it is at least in part due to some recent visits to a council tip. I had been helping a friend clear his late mother’s flat; my job was to drive the car, full of unwanted things, to the tip. The feeling of waste was palpable: huge mounds of waste and junk, most of it destined for landfill. We recycled what we could, separating paper, wood, metals, glass and paper, but we could see council workers laying into the piles with forklift trucks. Perhaps some of the disused (and for all I know unusable) electrical goods would be stripped down and the metals and rare elements they contain recycled, but it seemed unlikely. (Interestingly, the council’s rules forbid anyone removing items from the tip – so even if I saw something I might have had a use for, I couldn’t have taken it. That said, it looked like a few people were on the look out for something the might scavenge.)

This came to mind when, again at the RSA, I saw Anthony Giddens talk about the politics of climate change. Where MacArthur was upbeat, Giddens felt very downbeat; indeed, with politicians so unable to cope with climate change, civilisation felt beaten down.

Giddens identified many difficulties for politicians in dealing with climate change. Solving the issues with ameliorating or even reversing climate change requires long term action across national boundaries, when politicians are elected (or appointed) with local or national responsibility over a short time span: ours have four or five years between elections, so getting them to worry about expensive action to be taken over twenty to fifty years which may not benefit their electorate (since many of us will be dead by then) seems an impossibility.

Giddens made two powerful points which felt prescient. The first was his strong view that we shouldn’t assume technological solutions will come to our rescue. The belief that it might may act as a counter to more concrete action – we might just shit around waiting for technology to save us until it is too late for anything else. (That said, recent developments in carbon capture and storage may give us hope, and Giddens said that we must search for ground breaking technological initiatives which may help.)

The second was that many believe we are past the tipping point – a long way past.

The political will to solve these problems seems lacking. Obama has been disappointing, failing to take radical action, in part since his hands are tied by a Republican congress – Giddens was critical how the debate on climate change is largely polarised along political lines when it is such a big issue that it should be beyond politics. In the UK, David Cameron’s desire for this government to be the greenest ever seems empty rhetoric.

Giddens identified four areas that needed progress if we are to avoid the worst ravages of climate change:

• bilateral and regional agreements in place of “legally binding” worldwide agreements which have failed to deliver

• searching for ground breaking technological, social and political initiatives
• in-depth intellectual and policy work to underpin our understanding of the impact of climate change – what will climate change and its amelioration mean for us in terms of employment, prosperity, growth and so on; this is needed he said at a very basic level – how will we need to change the way we think about our lives in a truly sustainable environment?
• transforming the way we live our lives: actually putting these things in to action – for instance, if industrial society has run its course, how can we live our lives at a very basic level

Giddens said that this was a message of hope, not despair; I’m not sure the audience agreed with him.

After the talk, Matthew Taylor asked for a show of hands: who in the audience felt the solution to the problem of climate change lay in the hands of either governments and politicians, individuals changing their lifestyles, or market forces. Hardly anyone believed the answer lay with governments, with lifestyles and markets split roughly equally.

Clearly, these aren’t either/or questions: the answer must be “yes” to all three mechanisms of change: governments must develop policies to motivate markets and individuals to do what they can.

But looking at the mountains of waste at the council tip which our lifestyles contribute to, throwing things out rather than fixing and reusing, I don’t feel hopeful.

The theme this time around was “The Future of Work”. Given rising unemployment, increasing lifetime work (and decreasing pensions funding) and changes in the nature of careers, it seemed like a pretty prescient theme.

As seems to be common in these kind of events, we started off discussing some very open questions to get our mental facilities going and to help us come up with topics for discussion later. The first up was “what’s good about work?” The table I was at debated what work actually meant – how were we meant to interpret the question? (Being an unconference, of course, it was down to us to decide…) The answers to this preliminary included parenting, volunteering, hobbies and community activity as well as paid employment – though we generally concentrated on the latter, since that seems to be how society defines it. It is a spectrum, though.

Back to that first question, then: what IS good about work? Work is many different things to different people. My table came up with a long list: variety; social; money; security; routine; learning; something to keep us occupied; helping others succeed; making a difference; providing a purpose and identity; a sense of belonging and community; ambition; achievement.

Most of these are covered by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – things which we need to feel fulfilled. The interesting thing for me is that these needs can be met in many different ways – not just through employment: those other things we identified as “work” can go a long way to filling any gaps left in our needs by paid work – though to meet the most basic of Maslow’s pyramid – the physiological and safety needs – in our society we generally need money, and for the majority that means paid employment.

The second question was the flipside, then: “what is bad about work?”. A long list, again: stress; lack of skills; [rigid] job descriptions; unemployment; underemployment; perceived value; self esteem; how others value you; other people; tribal competition. There must be more. Many of these seem to reflect the social side of work – how others see us and, specifically, value us. For many people, their own sense of value stems from others’ perception. In a capitalist environment, society puts a financial value on our labour. The unemployed may think that they have no value.

Then we were asked what was perhaps the clincher, given the first two: “what would you like to change about work?” This was a bit like opening the flood gates. Here we go: discipline; company culture; society [let’s start big!]; creating a healthy environment; bad management; communication; focus – and identify – the real problems; give people the time to think; litigious culture; create organisations that value their staff; trust; innovation.

The last question is possibly the simplest: “what blocks change?” Another interesting set of responses: fear; uncertainty; risk aversion; organisation culture; mind-set; the economy; media; a lack of self-awareness; lack of time; loss of middle managers and their experience; politics, both internal and external.

I think any one of the points from any of these four lists could be expanded at length, and many of them are open to interpretation – the debate on, say, “bad management” could go off in all sorts of directions.

Whilst we pondered and decided on topics for the afternoon unconference sessions, there was a panel discussion with a difference. The event was held in the Spring, and one of the projects they run is helping unemployed graduates: several from this group sat in front of us and described their experiences. They were an impressive bunch, articulate and passionate. It must have taken a lot for them to sit in front of 70-odd professionals and discuss their feelings at facing rejection after more than 100 applications. Darius Norrell, one of the people behind the Spring, suggested that any process in which one party get nothing from it has to be wrong: most candidates receive a rejection with no feedback whatsoever. The only outcome is demoralisation – probably on both sides: companies don’t really have recruiters, they have rejectors.

There were tales of typical system dysfunction. Two stick in my mind: graduates told that to be successful, they have to be really focussed in their applications – but to qualify for jobseekers allowance (and presumably other benefits too) they have to prove that they are actively applying for as many jobs as possible; and the large number of applicants for graduate jobs – ie roles for people fresh out of college – told that they didn’t have enough experience. Life is tough for graduates seeking a role.

There were several recruiters in the audience, and they seemed pretty determined to change the way they work – which would be a good start.

I volunteered to run two conversations in the unconference session. The first – conceived before the session with the graduates – was around how society and workers cope with periods of un- and under-employment. (I can’t actually remember wording I used on the grid of sessions!) I didn’t (and still don’t) have strong views, but I think it is something that we will need to come to terms with. As a freelancer, I can spend long periods when I am not doing paid work; with UK unemployment at 2.6 million (8.1% of the workforce) at the end of August, nearly 1 million of whom are aged under 24, the impact on society could be large.

Needless to say, there were no answers. Periods of unemployment need not be unproductive: several people talked about using volunteer work to obtain new skills and maintain self-esteem and social contact – the “work habit”, perhaps – when society seems to not value our contribution.

The issue of youth unemployment is acute. At a time of high unemployment, 45% of business find it hard to recruit people and report that applicants have poor literacy and numeracy skill (among others). The need for experience before candidates are considered for positions explains the rise internships (and is presumably explained by increasing competition for prestigious jobs), and there was a discussion of the morality of internships – generally these were viewed dimly, limited to those who can afford to work for next to nothing – previously fulfilled by volunteering, now expanded into profitable businesses. It was suggested that making loans or grants available for interns might redress the balance in favour of the less-priveleged.

There were ideas of projects to tackle both unemployment and the bleak nature of high streets in the recession by using empty retail spaces for other types of enterprises, like Spacemakers does. (I worry that there is a danger that volunteering and pop-up enterprises may actually exacerbate unemployment and the recession by crowding out “for profit” enterprises: it would be interesting to know if there have been any studies on that.)

The other session I convened followed on from the third and fourth questions earlier (as well as my interest in organisation culture): what kind of culture makes organisations open to change and innovation? This was another wide ranging discussion. The difficulty of organisations to articulate their culture, and for the actual culture to reflect the espoused culture, featured: to what extent do senior managers really affect the culture on the shop floor? They clearly influence the culture – they set out the foundations – but their vision and values can be diluted by the time they trickle down. (Perhaps another advantage of flatter structures – senior managers’ ability to influence culture?)

The consensus seemed to be that organisations able to adapt to change and innovate would have high trust systems; embedded vision, values and culture promoting openness, listening, and accountability without fear; reward and performance management processes that reflect the values rather than work against them; and essentially embody “the learning organisation”. They’d need to value ideas, recognise and value individual and team contributions, and have a clear view of the behaviours desired in their staff and managers.

I also went to sessions on digital literacy (using digital tools to facilitate communication across teams and to promote collaboration); and using social media in organisations (more specific than the previous session, this looked at specific tools that can be implemented) – these sessions covered much of the ground that the unconference sessions of Tweetcamp did.

It was a great day – it is impressive what a bunch of people can do in a day. I do have one major quibble, though. The theme for the day was the future of work – the new world of work; it was only after the sessions had closed that I realised there hadn’t been any discussion about the future of work per se – no one painted a picture of what the future of work might look like. Since at an unconference the delegates dictate what will be discussed, I accept my share of the blame for this… But it would have been useful to have some debate. Instead, I think I shall have to paint my own picture in a future blog post…

My main concern is that, given the scale of cuts to the public sector in this country – traditional cost cutting mechanisms familiar to anyone working in either the public or private sector over the last decade or so won’t work: you can’t “salami-slice” 25% of your costs away without the system seizing up. The complexity of public sector service provision appears to be such that something has to give: it is like that game where you have a tangle of sticks, and try to remove them, one by one: quite quickly the pile becomes unstable. Things could collapse.

What is needed is a different way of looking at the system – and a different way of structuring it – a complete rethink of the way services are provided. Despite recently meeting some very impressive public sector change managers at Tuttle a few months ago (I believe they came from Lambeth, though I couldn’t swear that), I’m worried that to come up with cuts quickly, most public sector service providers will instead do things the way they have always done them. Indeed the culture of the organisations they work in will drive them to this – they have neither the time nor, perhaps, the skills to think through how to do things differently.

Unfortunately, my friend wasn’t able to change my mind: indeed, he seemed as concerned as I was.

There were, my friend felt, many ways in which money could be saved: he believed that a lack of joined up thinking in the public sector wasted many billions of pounds. For example, local councils are responsible for social care of the elderly, the local NHS trusts for medical care; some simple interventions by local councils which could keep the elderly out of hospital were often put in place, because the council could save money by not doing so (at the expense of the NHS). [To counter this, my friend told me a great story of an enlightened local council that gave residents in care-homes a new pair of slippers every year – and, in doing so, reduced the number of falls those residents have, and the number of and length of hospitals stays they require.]

Early intervention appears to be more effective than late; but when money is short, late intervention becomes the rule – crisis management, if you like. This wastes money and time – and with headcount being cut, time isn’t always available. I was told another story of a local authority which had analysed in detail where their money went; it turned out a number of “chaotic families” were responsible for millions of pounds of local authority expenditure across a range of services – housing, social services, education and public order. It would have been much cheaper to send the children from such families to public (ie fee paying) schools and to rehouse the families in hotels. Though expect they might then have spent a fortune defending their actions from the Daily Mail onslaught… Instead of such drastic action, early interventions, joined up across several authority functions, could have saved the authority a lot of money, but the cuts had made this is less rather than more likely: functional managers are responsible for their own budgets, not for enabling other departments realise savings. Managers have a “guilty knowledge” of total saving that could have been made.

There are many services that local authorities have a legal obligation to provide. With funding short, they have to prioritise. It isn’t possible to make any cuts without affecting people (particularly if you are trying to do things the same way – that is, “salami slicing”). People – a service’s users – complain. It is easy to understand why a council such as Brent would seek to cut library services, since the real pain of removing access is less than, for instance, cutting social services. On the other hand, users of library services may be a bit more savvy than users of social services – they know how to use the courts to their advantage.

There are two other players in all this: central government and the media. The government largely controls local authority income: it funds local authorities by government grant and has recently frozen council tax. (Councils can also raise funds through other services, such as parking.) By freezing council tax, central government is stopping discussion of council funding as part of the democratic process – even if voters wanted to pay more for local services through increased council tax, they can’t. Council tax raises only about 25% of council funding (according to DirectGov.co.uk), so councils would have to increase council tax considerably to make up for other government cuts.

Political interference by central government is rampant. Eric Pickles communities and local government secretary (an appointment which isn’t mentioned in the biography on his website), makes frequent pronouncements on the priorities for local government – which is his job – but frequent changes of priority make planning difficult for local authorities. (Personally, I believe that the best place to make decisions on priorities for local communities are at a local level; but I am not certain that the population as a whole trust their local representatives with these decisions. They may be right.)

The media also plays a big part, because they have the create a storm, divert attention and – perhaps – ruin careers. This may sound melodramatic but Sharon Shoesmith, Haringey’s former head of education, was fired by Ed Balls, then Children’s Minister, following a firestorm of media criticism over the death of Baby P. The Department of Education and others lost an appeal (and the right to further appeals) over their action. Devolving decision making to local authorities creates a lot of media heat – the cliché of the postcode lottery as a media scandal is rampant. Frankly, a postcode lottery is exactly what one should expect from local authorities making decisions for their communities, and no one should be surprised that local priorities differ.

Of course it is important that public officials are accountable for their actions, and the media are one of the ways that we can hold elected officials accountable. Scrutiny is important; but it needs balance

This leads to another barrier to change in public services: it can make managers overly risk averse, even when change is needed. My friend told of a meeting with an elected council member during which the councillor bellowed “find out who is responsible for this blame culture – and fire them!” Surprisingly, no one around the table held a mirror up to the elected representative.

A culture of risk aversion and resistance to change may become engrained in an organisation – and when that organisation is trying to change radically, that is a dangerous combination. Trying to bring about change in such a risk averse organisation is a difficult proposition. Not many people would be keen to take on the task, and those within such an organisation are not likely to be up to taking it on.

Which brings us back to the salami slicer as a way to make cuts…

It was a pretty gloomy conversation, all in all. There are clearly pockets of clear thinking – the people I spoke to from (perhaps) Lambeth, my friend themselves – and, surprisingly, the private sector: apparently, some large companies working with the public sector have some bright ideas, in part because they can have a longer term view than those within the public sector. (I foresee media comments about “back-door privatisation”…)

Whatever happens, I hope those working for change in the public sector get it right: many things within our society ride upon it.

I was really impressed by Dame Ellen MacArthur. I had no idea what her connection to sustainability was, and I had been surprised to see her on the panel; but she made her interest completely clear. When she had been sailing single-handed around the world, she said, she had an epiphany: isolated in the oceans, thousands of miles from port, she realised her resources were distinctly limited: the only energy, water and food she had access to were what she had packed. (Ok, she could have fished…) This made her think about how precious the world’s resources are (presumably she had a lot of time to think) – it is a closed system, after all, like her boat – and on her return, she decided to stop sailing and focus instead on learning about those limited resources – the stuff she wasn’t taught at school. And she set up the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which aims to “inspire people to re-think, re-design and build a positive future”. It worked for me.

MacArthur realised the need to move from a linear model of consuming resources to a “circular” model: increasing efficiency of the linear model can only buy us a bit more time – we are still going to run out of resources one day. Most products are designed to be disposed of, not recycled. MacArthur described the circular economy as one in which waste is designed out – and the rise of commodity prices (a result of the linear economy and finite resources) makes recycling more economically viable: products can be remanufactured, as Ricoh are now doing for its printers and copiers. By designing recycling into every aspect of a business – its products, services, processes, everything – a business – and the economy – would be re-envisaged: and new, profitable business models would be built. She described an A-level student who said that he now looked at every product he used in a different light – what it would look like if the future had been designed in. we need to rethink everything we use.

The last two speakers focussed on what this might mean for different sectors. Paul King talked about the built environment, and how we needed a revolution in the way we think about buildings. Working with companies that are adapting to the green agenda, he said people often ask him if he doubts the motives of such companies: never, he said – he knows that they are purely driven by profits, and that there is nothing wrong in that if it also drives them to develop green solutions. One of the problems is that even if all new building was designed for low carbon-usage, only 20% of buildings would be so adapted by 2050: most of our structures pre-date new standards, building methods and designs. So ways to retrofit low- and zero-carbon technologies – we need to reimagine our relationship with the built environment, he said.

Penny Shepherd talked about the financial environment; building on MacArthur’s theme, she said finance needed to be redesigned too, with a wholesale systemic change (and given the economic turmoil in the Eurozone, who can doubt her?).

It was a fascinating, enlightening and ultimately positive discussion. I reckon that if the true environmental costs of extracting finite minerals (especially for technological uses – mobile phones, computers and the like are dependent on rare minerals, and are rarely recycled), more companies would be prompted by the profit motive to move to circular models. A role for government, perhaps?