Why do people keep working on public service transformation when it’s so often frustrating, slow, and uncertain? https://www.linkedin.com/posts/antlerboy_why-do-people-keep-working-on-public-service-activity-7470006700746465280-UAMv?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAADUV_eUBZSxZvFpx70OV050F6K5HM2MhTMo
Why do people keep working on public service transformation when it’s so often frustrating, slow, and uncertain?
Today I’m running SCiO – Systems and Complexity in Organisation ntroduction to systems practice for a strategy and policy team in a unitary authority, with Aidan Loughran.
I’m preparing a session on legacy and working as one strategic team for leaders navigating local government reorganisation, with Rachel Way.
I’m getting ready for a discussion at the TRIPS conference on why relational public services aren’t currently sustainable — and what might make them so.
And I’ll be at Stronger Things showing how our Commissioning Compass can be a practical way for places to learn their way forward.
Here’s the awkward truth.
I’m not at the centre of any of these movements.
I’ve certainly not become rich from any of them.
Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve been effective enough.
Sometimes I wonder whether I’ve accidentally marginalised myself by standing slightly outside the mainstream – despite knowing these risks.
But every choice has been my own.
So why keep doing it?
Because it matters.
Because we can do so much better than this.
Because the challenge is endlessly fascinating. So many layers interacting, large and small. And every intervention reveals another layer. Another feedback loop. Another possibility.
Because occasionally you see a team, a service, a place, or a person make a breakthrough that changes what’s possible.
And because I know I can’t do it alone.
The real source of hope isn’t me, of course.
It’s the extraordinary people at @RedQuadrant, @the Public Service Transformation Academy, and the many clients, practitioners, leaders, community members, competitors, collaborators, and reformers who keep showing up and doing the work.
Most meaningful change is built by people who rarely get the credit. Who keep going anyway.
Perhaps that’s what transformation really is – no method no programme no reorganisation, just thousands of people choosing, repeatedly, to make things a little better than they found them.
What keeps you working on problems that may take longer than your career to solve?
TRIPS conference: https://www.complexityoutcomes.org/
Stronger Things: https://www.newlocal.org.uk/strongerthings/
Commissioning Compass: https://link.redquadrant.com/commissioningcompass
chosen path 