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Systems thinking approaches are gaining traction as an effective way of understanding and working with increasing complexity. They are being put forward by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as well as the World Health Organisation as a way to tackle the complex and unpredictable environments we now operate in. As the world has become increasingly interconnected, national or local boundaries cannot isolate and control social problems. The climate emergency, war and...
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Collective leadership feels timely and important in an uncertain, fast changing, and challenging world. This report comes at this heightened moment of urgency and appetite for renewal, bringing potential to do things differently in public services and communities. The opportunities and challenges of true collaboration-in-practice, in the absence of blueprints, mean that it has never been more necessary to change ways of working and foreground learning. As outcomes remain important, and...
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My focus here is on the realities of evaluating in complexity where ‘nothing is clear, and everything keeps changing’. I outline how I use a series of ‘provocations’ that allow people to choose their own starting point. Sharing those choices fuels conversations that discover, explore, and co-create (rather than manage) our mutual expectations and assumptions and track how these might themselves be influenced by the work as it unfolds. This account draws on a review of literature and my...
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"Have you ever wondered if there might be a better way to work together? Perhaps you would like to find ways to avoid habits, or patterns of behaviour, that whilst you say you don’t like them, you seem unable to escape." Written & narrated by Cathy Sharp (Research for Real) and animated by Keira Oliver (Collective Leadership for Scotland) and her son (10yr) in an animation-sprint style (created quickly, but with care), this film summarises the ideas and practices of action inquiry. It...
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This paper explores the thinking and practice of ‘action inquiry’ an embedded learning practice that can help navigate complexity when practising change together. The paper uses examples from social contexts where there are concerns about community wellbeing and health care. These are drawn from collaborative or collective leadership development programmes within public services that seek to bring new attention to the qualities of how people think, converse and interact, as part of their...
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In this provocation, the author attempts to cite the advantages of collective leadership while acknowledging the objections and fears of challengers. Collective leadership is seen as remote because it defies the traditional view of leadership as an individualistic attractive quality that not only protects us but is efficient when applied. Nevertheless, the collective alternative may not only be advisable but required in a connected world featuring a networked economy. The contemporary...
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Drawing on action research, this paper recasts evaluation as ‘action inquiry’, an embedded evaluative learning practice that can help navigate complexity when enacting collective leadership. It is offered as an invitation to inquiry amongst a reasonably well-informed audience of policy makers and practitioners who work in and for public services. It will particularly interest those who provide research, evaluation and facilitation support, and those seeking to develop a more relational...
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