Easier INC

The complexity of the world creates 3 key challenges:

Variety – everyone’s lives are different. People’s strengths and needs are different. As a result, what a ‘good outcome’ for people, and how it is achieved, looks different for each person.

Change – A complex world is an ever-changing world. What works in public service today will not necessarily work tomorrow. What works for one person or one place will not necessarily work for another.

Lack of control – complex systems are beyond our control.  The outcomes that we seek are influenced by a range of people, organisations and structures – public, private and civil society – which are beyond the direct control of Government – either central or local.

These challenges mean that we need to do 21st Century social action (public service, voluntary sector work, etc.) differently. The challenge of complexity means...

To meet the variety of people’s strengths and needs, social action must be able to hear, understand and respond to that variety. To do this, public servants, and others who undertake social action,  must form effective human relationships, so that they have a deep understanding of the people’s lives and context. And they must have the autonomy to respond appropriately to each person’s strengths and needs.

To respond effectively to the variety of people’s strengths and needs decisions about what service is provided to people, and how it is provided, must be taken as close to the person who is being served as possible. This means that decisions about social action must be taken in the work itself – by the person being served and the workers who are serving them.

In complex environments, continuous learning drives performance improvement. In complex environments which are characterised by variety and change, it is not possible for management to specify what ‘good’ looks like from above, and in advance, and to monitor performance against those criteria. Continuous learning enables workers’ practice to improve – through experimentation, gathering data, sense-making and reflective practice.

Management is required to create learning environments and to monitor their effectiveness. Performance depends on managers nurturing (and recruiting for) workers’ sense of intrinsic motivation, rather than the extrinsic motivation of reward/punishment for hitting targets.

In complex environments, continuous learning is required because there is no such thing as “what works” at a programme level – there is no standardised programme which is “best practice” for all times and in all places. In complex environments “what works” is the continuous process of learning and adaptation.

The outcomes we seek are created by whole systems – by the interaction of hundreds of people, organisational processes and structural forces. Achieving better outcomes requires that the actors in these systems are able to co-ordinate and collaborate together effectively. In short, we believe that healthy systems produce good outcomes, and that it is the role of public service leaders to nurture these healthy systems.

We call this approach to public service the Human. Learning. Systems. approach.

The Human. Learning. Systems. approach offers an alternative to the “Markets, Managers and Metrics” approach of New Public Management. It outlines a way of making social action and public service more responsive to the bespoke needs of each person that it serves, and creates an environment in which performance improvement is driven by continuous learning and adaptation. It fosters in leaders a sense of responsibility for looking after the health of the systems, and it is these systems which create positive outcomes in people’s lives.