Putting relationships first: ‘liberating the method’
The topic for this meeting of our relationships cell on 22 September 2022 was freeing up staff to build relationships. Against a backdrop of ingrained command and control cultures and contacting practices in many organisations, we considered how can we ‘liberate the method’ to do things differently, a phrase used by Mark Smith in this essay from Building a Bigger We about how they are trying to achieve this in Gateshead council. Mark has identified four operating principles:
· Front-line authority to make decisions. No assessments.
· Instead, they should ask people ‘what can we do for you?’ and try to discover what a good life looks like to them.
· No referrals – because we know that this just leads to people going round and round in circles.
· Measure only to learn and improve, not to keep scores or to make a point. If we learn something’s working, that’s great, and if it isn’t, we adapt.
The topic was introduced by David Robinson from the Relationship Project, our thought leader for this cell, and by Mark Smith. Key points made by speakers and participants include:
good relationships at work lead to higher productivity, less burnout and staff are less likely to leave - ‘high performing teams don’t leave relationships to chance’ (attributed to the Harvard Business School).
At Community Links, David Robinson had chaired a Council on Social Action which promoted ‘deep value relationships’ in services, and Community Links had recently commissioned a report on deep value to update an earlier literature review. David said that the evidence showed that people using public services put great importance on the quality of relationships, and where these are effective it brings a range of valuable benefits.
Mark Smith described the transformation that had been achieved in Gateshead’s Council Tax Department by giving front-line staff autonomy and delegated authority to solve the problems of people who cannot pay their council tax . As an experiment, they set up a team, including people from the benefits agency and Citizen’s Advice and experts on housing, with its own budget to spend as they chose. They had only two rules - do no harm and don’t break the law - and a number of guiding principles - focus on what matters to the individual, rather than assess them, seek to understand what matters to them, build relationships, and don’t refer any case to others (which often leads to a revolving door) and if additional expertise is required bring it to the individual. Measurement of performance was used only to learn what works so they could adapt. Staff were given the gift of time to talk to people in depth, Mark explained. Teams had purchasing cards which enabled them, for example, to take a client for a coffee. Benefits claims could be resolved in an hour, not the typical 6 weeks.
Freeing up staff in this way worked, Mark told us. Of the first 40 people held, 32 ended up living a better life having spent years in difficulty, 7 had profound mental health difficulties and had a longer journey and 1 didn’t engage. Having tried this in one Department, they then did the same thing in homelessness which was successful and were now trying it in other areas, including adults with complex needs.
It requires a different relationship to risk - managers must create an environment in which staff have the license to get it wrong. Mark told us that he had to make it clear to staff that ‘I’ve got your back’ and that not everything works, and when that happens it’s an opportunity to learn. Moving to becoming a generalist, with no clear protocols, pathways and procedures was difficult for some. Some embraced freedom, some felt exposed if things didn’t work. But most involved felt purposeful and no-one in the original pilot wanted to go back to the old way of working.
The job of a manager is to remove the barriers so can staff can do what they want and need to do - help people, but it is a big cultural change. It involves ‘unlearning’ the old way of doing things and liberating the creativity and sense of purpose that everyone has.
New models of working are required that are tailored to people. The system defaults to specialists when the most important thing is being able to forge good relationships and have a person centred approach. The challenge is to make that normal and it starts with leadership.
Longer term funding is important for this approach, with commissioning that allows for the complexity of lives and for learning as you go along.
Principles are better than targets, one of our Better Way principles.
This approach requires continuity of staff and, most importantly, time.
Start anywhere - and you will see that this approach works.
We need to build the story of change, to give more people confidence to do this.