I’m really excited to see the shift in the Test, Learn and Grow work as Nick Kimber and the team put the focus on movement building. If we want to get beyond pilots and make test and learn ‘how we do things round here’ across the sector then its time to lean in and take things off the page and into the real world. The underpinning drive of this to disrupt the status quo feels real and urgent.
I wrote last week about change being a process of unlearning and learning and that’s exactly what TLG is about. But we don’t have time for us all to do this in our organisational silos, not when the issues are complex and cut across organisational boundaries.
This is something that local government lives with every day as we try to make sense of the lack of connectivity inside Whitehall. TLG have been consistently clear that they see their role to be about changing that and for that to happen and if we are going to see something different happen in the future then we need to be that difference.
If we want to think differently together then we need to create new feedback loops and the chance to gain confidence in new approaches. Many of the professional networks that we have grown up with are reinforcing old behaviours, this is a chance to change that. This is why I am so pleased to be asked to be a TLG convenor and be part of creating those new feedback loops. I also want to make sure that the importance of place never gets lost in this work and I also want to scratch the itch that has never gone away about the need for is to gather around whole system design and create our fantasy system.
So – come along and take part – and if you are in the South West look out for an invite as I want to actually convene people not just talk about it.
Social movement catalyse when different groups come together with shared purpose. In this case I can’t think of a better purpose than the reshaping of the state and local government needs to be front and centre of that. Its time to organise and I am very glad to see it happening.
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