MAKING THINGS HAPPEN - MY PERSONAL LEARNING
This year, I have celebrated my 50th birthday. Scary really, as I feel as if only now, am I starting to get in to my stride; and to understand how to achieve positive impacts in organisations and campaigns. I guess 50 is as good a point as any, to reflect on what I have learnt about how. The "Areas of Interest" part of this website focusses on the what. This is what I have learnt about how.
The overall how is based on trying to follow the Values described in Passions and Purpose. This section pulls together some of my key personal learning - often learnt very painfully through mistakes and failures. Over the past few years, I have pulled together my learning in key areas which I have found to be particularly important as a portfolio worker involved in a variety of public, private, community and cross-sectoral partnership organisations; and where I am influencing rather than line-managing.
In order to:
I need to be able to:
1. Operate as a social entrepreneur
I summarised some of my approaches in advice to other social entrepreneurs, in the inaugural issue of "Social Enterprise" magazine in July 2002.
2. Engage stakeholders
"Stakeholder" is now a buzz-word - but each of us as individuals or in organisations have stakeholders - and successful organisations and individuals engage rather than just managing - or even - ignoring their stakeholders. Adrian and I identified ten common mistakes and conversely 10 Critical Success Factors for Stakeholder Engagement in Step 6 of Corporate Social Opportunity. I used these as the start point for a BLU Implementation Group (Board) lunch-seminar on the lessons for business support. CLICK.
I also recorded an off-the-cuff BLU 50 Lesson piece on my lessons from the National Disability Council on engaging stakeholders. CLICK
3. Lead through influence rather than line-management authority
Most of my work involves influencing rather than managing. I captured some reflections on such "Influencing leadership" for a training course organised by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (ACEVO) and the consultancy TELOS.
I started to tease out what leadership for Responsible Business means, in Step 4 of Corporate Social Opportunity, and in the "Value of Values" pamphlet. The Government-initiated CSR Academy are now promoting CSR competences for managers (not just for CSR specialists). This is based on some initial work led by the Ashridge Management. I see strong links to on-going work on the link between Values and Corporate Responsibility.
4. Build and sustain cross-sectoral partnerships
Most of my work over the last quarter century has involved cross-sectoral partnerships: business, local and central government, voluntary organisations and community groups. Cay Stratton - then at BITC - teased out some Partnership Principles and I used these in the "Work in Society" presentations for the Prince's organisations in 1993-96. They were refined with the international perspectives of Ros Tennyson of our sister organisation International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) in "Everybody's Business" (Part 3 - Step 6). The attached is an edited version of a lecture to a BITC Staff Conference in Doncaster in Autumn 2003 which draws on all the above.
5. Learn continuously
Jonathon Porritt in his BLU lecture this year, said that Change-Makers can never know enough and that we must be constantly open to new learning. The futurist and strategy guru Arie de Geus says that "learning faster than the competition is the only source of sustained competitive advantage." In BLU, we are spending a lot of time and energy now on developing a Knowledge Management Toolkit and Personal Knowledge-Management training.
6. Achieve Change
The 2005-06 BLU lecture series: "Conversations with Change-Makers" focussed on the experience of five successful change-makers. My summary of their lessons was published by BLU in September 2005.
7. Be in different parts of the world and in different worlds
I have always tried to have visited more countries than I have years, in order to understand different civilisations and cultures.