Change is Possible:
Transforming Public Services through Dialogue and Participation
London, January 2002

If government ministers want to see a transformation in our hospitals, schools and other public services, they need to start by changing themselves. This was the strongest message to come out of our recent Change is Possible conference. Real change cannot happen until there is a shift in the sort of instrumental thinking still dominant in the corridors of power. The limitations of this approach were illustrated by Greg Dyke, the BBC's Director General, when describing the days he spent dressed up as a porter in the Whittington Hospital's A&E Department as part of his research into the Patient's Charter.

"One Friday night," he reported, "a baby was born in the car park; a guy came in and thumped one of the nurses; then someone else came in drunk, swallowed a pile of drugs and started abusing people." Dyke reflected on the absurdity of asking the staff who dealt with these situations whether they had "met their Charter Standards".

"What I said in my report," he continued, "was that you have no chance of reforming the National Health Service unless you can get the staff back on your side. Politicians have difficulty understanding that. They still believe that, if you instruct people to do something, they will do it."

From his position as Special Adviser to Health Secretary Alan Milburn, Paul Corrigan made a similar point. For decades, he observed, management theorists have said that authoritarianism does not work. Yet it remains most people's 'default mechanism'. There is still "a lot more loud shouting going on than loud listening".

Devolution and centralisation
A week before the conference, Tony Blair cheered up some people with a speech that was taken to indicate a change in his attitude towards public services. "If," he declared, "you are on the side of the people who use public services, you should be on the side of the people who work in public services."

There was, though, no apology for the brusque tone of some previous remarks. Consequently, the speech left the really big question unanswered: if you believe simultaneously in centralisation and decentralisation, where is the point at which one belief gives way to the other? When does impatience for results lead you to ignore the need for dialogue and participation?

Our argument is that prescribing targets and imposing sanctions on those who fail to achieve them are ineffectual strategies for achieving positive change. To say that is not at all to question the importance of improving services. It is to say that dialogue and participation are the most effective ways of achieving it.

The commonly-held view that talk is the antithesis of action ignores the complexity of the dynamics within any organisation (or community). Enthusiasm for change comes from people in every area of an organisation being enabled to feed in what they observe, experience and know. This enables the necessary information services flow to the places where it can enable people to work out for themselves what needs to be done and how it can be achieved.

Change becomes possible, therefore, when those who have power focus less attention on the targets being sought than on the quality of the conversations that need to happen if people are to unite in seeking to achieve those targets. The conference identified three elements in making this happen:

1. Understanding
   People will only participate in a creative and constructive way if they are given access to the information they need to understand the drivers behind whatever decisions are being made.
   The best way of informing people is by giving them opportunities to take an active part in discussions about what needs to be done. Sue Grant, Haringey's neighbourhood development officer, spoke of the enormous improvements in street cleanliness that had been achieved when a colleague invited members of the local 'clean team' to contribute their ideas to a breakfast meeting. They had never received such an invitation before.
   
   
2. Confidence
   If people are to contribute, they need the confidence to express their views. This is most likely to happen when they know that those who listen to them to be confident enough to hear what is being said. As Sandra Shears from Suffolk's Sure Start observed, "When you listen to people, they say things you do not expect them to say."
   Speaking to this theme, Suffolk County Council's chief executive Lin Homer reported the exhilaration experienced by a lollipop lady who had been given the opportunity to articulate her ideas on social care, education and the state of footpaths in her area. "I felt like a whole person today," she reported, "I felt as if every aspect of my personality was being used."
   
   
3. Responsibility
   "You don't," Home went on, "actually make a difference until you understand that there is something about you that can be different." Change starts to happen when people can acknowledge their own part in the situations they are seeking to change. That is why officers and elected officials need to put themselves in contexts where they can achieve some degree of objectivity. Victor Gallant, an executive director of North Tyneside Council at the time of the conference, described what he had learned about himself from taking part in action learning sets. Andrew Bailey, communication consultant for BT Talkworks, reported that those who undergo the dialogue audit he has developed almost always start out over-estimating their capacity to communicate.

These three components of change all require high levels of emotional openness and honesty. Elected officials and councillors need to work at understanding each other's point of view. Managers need to find a way of telling each other what irritates them about each other's attitudes and behaviours. Frustrated citizens need to know how to complain constructively when the system lets them down. None of these things can happen unless organisations recognise their responsibility to create opportunities for people to articulate their thoughts and feelings so that they can start believing in their capacity to influence things.

Meeting the blocks
What happens, though, when those in authority refuse to reflect the quality of their listening? "My own struggle," said one conference participant, "is that I have not got the persuasive skills to convince the people in power that there is a different way of working which would be more effective. I find it difficult to get in the place where they are at and to draw them towards me."

Most participants argued that nobody operating alone can make a significant impact in such situations. Victor Gallant urged a strategic approach: "Be realistic. Find people who are positive about change. Develop an alliance, ideally at different levels and in different parts of the organisation. Work with your allies to develop a richer understanding of what needs to be done and how it can be done."

Change is often hard work, but several speakers observed that "joy" comes from seeing things move forward. In taking forward the conference discussions, Antidote will look for ways of making such joy a more common experience.

We would like to thank BT and Serco for sponsoring the conference. You can listen to the talks and download the brochure from the lectures online archive on www.btinterface.co.uk.


Conference reports