Last month I reflected on the issue of increasingly complex social problems being faced in the NZ public sector and internationally.
The linkedin article and blog reflected on the need for social innovation in the public sector, highlighting the potential for Systems ways of working (including systems thinking and design thinking) and identifying practical example frameworks and tools.
Innovative ways of working are essential. But in my experience they’re limited unless supported by the right type of leadership and governance.
This reflection explores the importance and influence of leadership and governance in enabling systems ways of work.
Much of modern management was developed during the 20th century and based on ideas of objectivity, where technical expertise was seen as the gold standard. In this era social problems were largely addressed as complicated issues that required a technical solution.
The NZ public sector hasn’t always kept up with the increasing complexity that exists in society. In the New Zealand public sector it is common to see governance and leadership that is not suited to solving complex challenges. I’ve experienced this directly in the health and justice sectors. This is amplified by the public and media scrutiny which can make public sector leaders more cautious and hinders creativity. In a recent news article in The Post, Josie Pagani highlighted this issue again, arguing that “The public sector doesn’t just need cuts, it needs transformation.
Complex situations and systems are different from technical complicated situations in a variety of ways. Table 1 below outlines some of the differences.
In reality, any situation is not so clear cut because a public sector context might involve a combination of complicated and complex systems working together. So any context might sit on a sliding scale between complicated and complex. But the public sector is certainly becoming more complex as time goes on. So this calls for a different type of leadership and governance.
Adapting leadership style to the situation
Systems and design thinking are powerful tools for complexity but they are not a panacea for all public sector illness. Systems approaches, in general, are very time and resource-intensive, especially when used to transform the functioning of any particular policy area of a social system in practice.
The New Zealand public sector can not afford to use up valuable resource on systems approaches to solve simple problems, or even complicated issue that needs technical engineering expertise. So leaders need to know when systems approaches are best suited and should consider carefully before initiating systems approaches and processes. Refer to Snowdon and Boones 2007 HBR article ‘’a leaders framework for decision making for helpful guidance on this topic.
Leadership that enables or inhibits innovation
Public sector leaders need to know what good leadership suited to complexity looks like. They need to know whether they have the capacity, and capability and commitment to lead through large scale changes within policy systems. Otherwise, the exercise will be largely wasted.
Instead of attempting to impose a course of action, Snowdon explains how leaders must be prepared to patiently allow paths forward to reveal themselves. So a leader needs to ask exploratory questions, and be aware of the mood in the room, and then use their judgement to know the best way to respond. To do this within the social sector involves talking with people.
This is a different approach to solving other types of problems. In these situations it’s much easier for a leader to convince themselves they are right or to unwittingly manipulate a social situation so that people say what they want to hear.
Great leadership in these situations requires a strong moral compass, emotional awareness and social intelligence - otherwise people see right through you or learn through experience that you’re not to be trusted. But on the other hand, innovation requires change, which causes friction so a great leader cant be a pushover. Leading through complexity requires you to drive a group of people towards a vision, but a collective vision rather than their own one. As a leader, you need to decide if you are actually enabling or disabling innovation.
Mike Bennetts, previous CEO at Z Energy, is a New Zealand workplace leader who understands the local context and has written some excellent recent LinkedIn articles on this topic.
Leaders operate within governance systems.
Leaders operate within governance structures. Governance is a ‘control’ system and forum for setting direction, strategy, and strategic priority, and then checking and monitoring progress. Ashbys law of complexity states the "The complexity of a control system must be equal to or greater than the complexity of the system it controls."
Complicated issues can be incredibly challenging, but they do have one right answer so they can be solved through linear logic and technical expertise. This means that the governance and strategy can also be linear, driven by technical expertise and upfront visibility of detailed plans. In more complex situations top down management styles and ways of working become less effective.
Instead complex situations in the public sector are relational and intertwined with the very fabric of our society. So they require more experimental and very nuanced ways of working and a different type of leadership and governance.
Case in point
By way of example I had a direct experience of a cross government initiative to address a major social issue two years ago. The issue crosses welfare, health & justice so requires involvement from many agencies including Te whatu Ora; Oranga Tamariki; Whanau Ora; Ara Poutama Aotearoa ( Corrections) Police, and others.
The initiative addressed the complex nature of the issue in that it used a strong whole-of-system understanding to inform its vision and strategic priorities. It also sought cross agency involvement and consensus. These were significant enablers that provided clear and compelling direction for this complex social issue. Unfortunately what I also saw was that the strategy then set top down tactical goals that all agencies had to commit to. The program also developed uniform resources e.g. online training modules. These uniform and simplistic ‘solutions’ didn’t take into account the intricacies of each agency. For example one agency had a significant staffing issue so simply couldn’t commit to the rigid L&D goals set by the strategy. In another agency the online module tool couldn’t be accessed by a big portion of the intended audience as they didn’t have access to computers that was needed. The inflexibility of the goals and solutions didn’t suit the complexity of the situation.
When setting strategy and directions for complicated technical issues governance groups can identify solutions and a clear course of action within their strategic plans. Then can then monitor progress against these and hold management to account in this way. But as mentioned above, this becomes increasingly less effective the more complex a situation becomes, because there is no right answer.
Case in point
As another example,I remember a couple of years ago talking with the head of an social sector innovation function. They were describing how part of their role as program lead was to ‘keep their governance group at arms length’. They expanded on this point, that the governance group wanted to see plans and solutions upfront. But the innovation team didn’t actually know what would work because the environment was unpredictable. Instead they needed space to explore and test solutions, to iteratively work towards an effective outcome. They were happy to be held to account for outcomes but needed space to create the solution through the process.
Governing in increasing complexity
Referring back to table 1, here are a few reflections.
The governance group needs to represent the complexity of the situation it is governing for.
The relationship between the members of the governance group matters.
Governing groups needs to be set a clear direction but not impose a specific course of action to provide space so that paths can reveal themselves.
Governance for complexity also needs to monitor non-linear progress. Rather than ticking off whether a project is ‘on time & on budget’ against the pre-set plan, they need to
monitor the relationships between the people and groups. Also
whether the unexpected challenges are being effectively identified and solved.
At a national level. Wicked national social sector problems may also take many years to improve significantly, so at the level of national politics they might need to be more insulated from the three-year govt election cycle whilst still having democratic integrity.
Large scale sector-wide innovations can take years and sometimes decades to be implemented. Here are a couple of examples of this from the Justice sector.
Case in point - The KROM in Norway
Norway's prison system is renowned as one of the most effective and humane in the world. Norway also has one of the lowest recidivism rates and crime rates the world. It wasn’t always this way. Before the introduction of the rehabilitative justice system, Norway and other Northern European countries had largely punitive justice systems.
But at the end of the 1960s, a prisoners' movement critical of the prison system developed in the Scandinavian countries.. This was particularly strong in Norway where the Norwegian Association for Criminal Reform (KROM) was formed. KROM directly led and influenced substantive changes in the penal system over from the 1970s through to the 1990s and beyond.
Case in point - Dominican Republic
But Scandinavian society has a lot of enablers for social innovation. What about in Central America? For over a decade now, Dominican Republic has been reshaping its penitentiary system. In 2004 the country opened its first prison designed with a focus on education and clean living conditions and staffed by graduates from a newly created academy for penitentiary studies. Now the model system, runs 18 of the Dominican Republic’s 35 prisons
One difference between the traditional Dominican prison system and the new model shows up in the recidivism rates - the number of inmates who commit crimes within three years of being released. Reports show that less than 5 percent of inmates released from the model system re-offend; in the traditional system the rate is 50 percent.
“What’s remarkable about the Dominican Republic’s example is that it has taken place in a country that has the same socioeconomic conditions as other Latin American countries,” said Elias Carranza, director for the United Nations’ Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders.
With these types of wicked social issues, the chopping and changing that happens with three-year election cycle promises can hinder social innovation rather than help. This is particularly true with social issues that always have a high profile, like Health, Welfare and Justice.
If Government policy direction is changed with election cycles, then long term strategic priorities and innovations can be repeatedly undermined. But New Zealand political parties can maintain a bi-partisan position on foreign policy. So why can’t they establish bipartisan positions on other wicked social issues?
Complexity and innovation are not easy. But the New Zealand public sector can get better at it. To do so requires a particular type of leadership and governance to enable innovative ways of working.
No comments:
Post a Comment