Jon Harvey
http://www.jonharveyassociates
Change facilitator and organisational development practitioner with 20 years experience across the public services and commercial world. My passions are: • Designing and facilitating ‘big’ meetings / whole system processes to shape the future & handle the present • Coaching & helping people to lead change & innovation • Creating away-days where lunch is not the highlight • And questioning - where I have a reputation for challenging people and organisations in ways that I hope makes them ‘wriggle but not squirm’
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Comments (10)
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Comment on: Head-to-head
I would support what David Griffiths says - if the previous articles proved so popular - think what a regular column would do! I would add that this would beneficial so long as the broad church of system thinkers can continue to have their say as well. John Seddon is an impressive advocate of a different way of thinking about performance and results - but his is not the only way. Indeed, perhaps even the Audit Commission will rise to the challenge and engage in the debate also. I would also be very interested to read what the leading politicians on all sides have to say about this matter. The Opposition are saying that they want to remove central / top down (target led) control - but given that they introduced the concept in the first place when they were last in power... can we trust them now? Moreover has the Government begun to hear these points - or do they still believe that the whole edifice and philosophy that 'command and control' thinking represents is still a good thing? And for the LibDems - Nick Clegg has set up a website to gather together ideas for improvement from the public services (http://www.nickclegg.com/2009/08/intheknow/) - is this evidence of a new way of thinking for them or just populist campaigning? I and other readers would be very interested to know - I think. Oh - and why not hire Simon Caulkin as well - the Observer were daft enough to let him go - I am sure he could write a very useful column for you too!
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Comment on: Clegg seeks ideas for savings
I have always wondered if the one remaining Chartist demand that has not been implemented - that of annual general elections - would actually lead to more longer term thinking (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartism)... Would this help the Government - whoever is in power - 'let go' of target based dictats and actually spend their time assisting / leading public services (local and national) do their real job...?
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Comment on: Clegg seeks ideas for savings
Great initiative which I support - although my blog started first! http://smallcreativeideas.blogspot.com/ A news blog to collect ideas from around the world - of where small changes have been made to the public & third sector services that have resulted in big benefits. I am looking for ‘bite sized’ ideas that have helped your organisation deliver more to your local communities, or helped make work even more efficient, or just saved some money or staff/officer time. And the idea could be applied elsewhere reasonably easily and is probably not widely known elsewhere. (First post: 26/2/09 !!) Jon
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Comment on: Walker v Seddon - the debate goes on
Regarding the debate above - I would say that John Seddon and Vanguard have their methods (or is it method?) which I understand owes much to the work of Ohno and the philosophy of Toyota. Evidently, John has been successfully prodding this government into thinking about the wisdom of targets and how government 'controls' the delivery of the services to the citizens. I commend what he has done. I do believe that his iconclasm is helping deliver an end ineffective management models. That said, he is not the only person doing this. There are many other (less high profile) people who in a wide number of ways have been chipping away at these models too. The Vanguard methodology is (I understand - although I am happy to be corrected) a fairly prescriptive model whereby an organisation is helped to think about performance in very different ways. Perhaps to 'break' command and control thinking a bit of inflexibility is required - use a thief to catch a thief as it were... But Geoff and others above are right, the Vanguard methodology is not the only solution in town. There are many other approaches to take. Personally I favour whole system working - especially using Open Space which fosters transparency, democracy and accountability - with a focus on creativity, complexity and commitment (see http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/2009/05/improving-whole-systems-with-creativity.html)
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Comment on: Walker v Seddon - the debate goes on
The nail machine - a story of pain & learning... Many years ago I was doing some work with a nail factory in Cardiff. The company, along with its sister steel companies, have, sadly, long since gone to the wall. I met and got to know some great people. This assignment was one of my first as a consultant - working then on Total Quality Management. In the course of my work I talked about improvement and learning with a wide range of people in the firm. One man I worked with was the shop steward who had a wisdom and gentleness that I remember to this day. He once told me story about the six inch nail machine. There was only one and it was a big machine, not surprisingly. Indeed the operator had a small raised platform on which to stand and keep the machine going. The task involved ensuring that the feed of steel rods into one end of machine was kept going smoothly while nails emerged from the other end. (My engineering knowledge is limited!) At various points during this process a button had to pressed near the hopper where the nails emerged and were collected. This button could not be reached from the raised platform. So several times each shift (perhaps even 50 to 60 times), the operator had to walk down the steps from his platform, walk around the machine and press the button. He then returned to his platform. It was a tedious part of the job. The man who operated the machine was a friend of the shop steward and had worked on that machine for over 20 years. He knew it well. There was an occasion for the shop steward to work the night shift - something he very rarely did. On this occasion he happened to walk past the six inch nail machine and observed the night operator making it work. Everything was the same except at the point when the button needed to be pressed. Instead of walking down the steps and around the machine, the night operator picked a slighly odd shaped pole and used it to hit the button and the machine carried on operating. The shop steward looked on intrigued. When he was next on the day shift, he went over to see his friend operating the six inch nail machine. He saw him working as normal. There came a moment when the button needed to be pressed and he said "stop" to his friend. The shop steward climbed the steps and asked his friend what the pole was for. His friend said something like: "I don't know - it came with the machine when they delivered it way back" and shrugged his shoulders. The shop steward showed him what the pole could be used for, having seen this on the night shift. At this point, the shop steward observed (so he told me later) a dawning and excruciating realisation pass across the face of his friend as he mentally counted the times he had walked up and down the steps over the last 20 years or so. The learning was painful... There are many lessons in here for me including communication, assured systems of work, induction & training etc etc. But what I want to focus upon is the idea that learning can yield huge amounts of pain. If we learn something new - that upsets what we thought was reliable & true - there can be pain to be experienced. I am left wondering if we sometimes know this (perhaps subconsciously) and so we avoid learning - despite all the evidence and arguments to the contrary. We resolutely hold onto the past, because even though we know that there is a better way, it would mean experiencing such excruciating pain, that we would rather live in ignorance. Letting go of old ideas & practises can be very, very difficult. Perhaps letting go of targets, command & control, a belief that the world can be partitioned and atomised - is a big thing to let go... What do you think Mr Walker?
