At a Turning Point?

This is a draft for discussion at the Better Way Annual Gathering on 1st December 2022

You can download the full document here.

Or scroll down to read the document here on the webpage.

Building a Bigger We

At the end of last year’s Gathering, we resolved to build a Bigger We, a very different kind of world in which:

  • Everyone is heard and believed in, given a fair opportunity to thrive, and the ability to influence the things that matter to them.

  • Every community comes together, looks out for each other, respects difference, and enables everyone to belong.

  • Society as a whole values and invests in everyone and in every community.

This is a transformation that needs to happen right across society, moving from a ‘them and us’ culture to one where we recognise our mutual interest in creating a world where everyone can thrive.

In a smaller way, we are also seeking to build a Bigger We through the Better Way network, sharing insights and ideas in our many discussions to make this way of working more widespread. And at the beginning of 2022, we published Building a Bigger We, a summary of key lessons from our events in 2021, illustrated by essays by our members which show what is already being achieved.

But we still have long way to go to make the Better Way the norm. We also know that people are feeling pressure from all sides, and some are experiencing burn out. By learning from and inspiring each other, we can re-energise and create greater momentum for the change we want to see. Individually we can lead the way. And by working together we can make the exceptional commonplace.

This is why networks like a Better Way are so important.

At a turning point?

The Better Way network is full of people who know that positive change is possible. But still we recognise that instability has grown over the last year, and eroded people’s sense of solidarity and financial and personal security, making the case for building a bigger we ever more urgent but also more challenging. The war in Ukraine and the turnover in our Westminster political leaders have led to economic as well as political instability. The cost of living has shot up, and at the same time we can no longer be confident that many basic services, from ambulances to trains, will be there when we need them. Frustration about the lack of action on the climate crisis is building. All of this comes on top of the immense loss and upheaval caused by Covid-19. 

While many in our society continue to prosper and thrive, others, even those who up to now have managed to keep afloat, are going under. Many communities, particularly those that already bear the scars of deprivation and inequality are feeling exhausted, fractured and fractious. Trust that our political and economic system will work is being lost and faith in leadership of all kinds is being eroded. Meanwhile, some politicians are fuelling a culture of ‘them and us’ where those who are different are portrayed as a threat, rather than seeking to find common cause.

At same time, we have heard within the network of so many good things happening, especially at local level, which are transforming lives. We are also seeing national institutions like the NHS seeking to form new partnerships with people and communities, for example through integrated care systems, and by the way, we are pleased that the NHS has reached out to the Better Way to ask us to help. And there remains a commitment to Levelling Up nationally and some local authorities and others, with their communities, are already trying their best to make it happen despite the challenges.

Indeed, we’ve heard from many public sector managers in our network that they are working hard to fundamentally shift away from the command-and-control mentality that remains widespread in our institutions, to share power, and to work with people and communities rather than imposing top-down solutions. They are finding imaginative ways to address needs, and to listen to rather than label people, resolving issues first time rather than passing people from pillar to post. There is no shortage of examples of people coming together, building a shared purpose, and doing the right thing - ‘holding the hope’ of a better way, whatever they are up against.

It feels like we could be at a turning point where, even though the challenges seem even greater, the old way of doing things is beginning to run out of road. In any case, to build momentum toward a different way of doing things, it’s not enough to do what we can to deliver a Better Way in our own spheres, important though that is. We also need to challenge leaders of all kinds, including politicians, to work in a new way - to listen to everyone, particularly those least heard; to reach out to build deep relationships and join forces with partners (especially those with their feet on the ground); to share and build new sources of power; and to be much bolder in their ambition for building a bigger we.

What we’ve learnt from our network in 2022

Over the year we have held over 40 online events, as well as many smaller meetings, trying to identify how to make positive change happen, and, taken together with our previous work, we now have a substantial body of practice and insight. We share a few highlights below.

Our principles and behavioural model

Our guiding principles and behavioural model were developed through discussion in the network in previous years, and over 2022 we continued to deepen our understanding of them.

Our behavioural model

Our latest survey shows that 100 per cent of those responding like the Better Way principles, 79 per cent very much. And 97 per cent said they like the Better Way behaviour model, 70 per cent very much.

 ‘They are clear and respond to the issues we face in creating a fairer, more sustainable and welcoming society for all.’

‘They are simple to understand but hard for many to apply, which makes them powerful.’

‘It is change from the inside which makes so much sense.’

‘I approach my work through the lens of Relationships, Joining Forces, Radical Listening and Sharing Power - almost as a check list.’

We’ve continued to hold ongoing cells looking at each of the four behaviours during 2022, as well as multiple meetings on some cross-cutting issues we agreed to explore further at the end of 2021. We also held a roundtable with the NHS on how they can work better with people and communities. Records of each meeting can be found here.

Above all, we’ve learnt about the power of community, the value of a different kind of leadership, the potential of collective imagination and finding a way through division and trauma.

The power of community

Across the year, we’ve constantly returned to the issue of the power of people and communities, including in the context of Levelling Up, integrated health and care, NHS England’s new statutory guidance on working with communities and Scotland’s Community Empowerment Act, and deepened our collective understanding of its potential and how to make more of it happen. 

We’ve heard that a shift in favour of more community power is needed, and that public and voluntary sector institutions can achieve far more if they re-set how they work with people and communities by applying the Better Way’s behavioural model, in the following ways:

Putting relationships first

Sharing and building power

Listening to each other

  • Take on people from the community as staff and volunteers, and develop the cultural competence to reach out to all communities.

  • Embrace digital technology where it would be a better way to engage with and listen to people and put them in charge of how it is used, where that makes sense.

  • Introduce formal community empowerment structures or practices, as in Scotland, but change institutional culture and behaviours too, as they can get in the way of listening.

  • Establish an active cycle of listen-act-listen with those you serve and, if you can’t act because change is needed more widely, engage with them in creative campaigning to bring this about.

Joining forces

The value of a different kind of leadership

We’ve heard that leaders can bring about transformative change if they:

The potential of collective imagination

We’ve heard that using our collective imagination to envisage the world we’d like to live in can be better than incremental changes to how things are now and learnt that we can:

  • Give people permission to exercise their imagination and the tools to do so.

  • Solve seemingly intractable problems like poverty by imagining together how to tackle the root causes and asking the question, ‘what if?’.

Finding a way through division and trauma

We’ve heard that there’s an urgent need to build ‘bridging capital’ between divided communities and address the trauma that some communities and first responders are feeling. We’ve learnt that we can:

About the network

Our network is growing more rapidly than before – we now have 1,100 members, from the voluntary, public and private sectors, with 300 joining this year.

We believe that what makes us special is that we are cross-sectoral, values-based and relational, creating a space to connect up people working at the grass roots, including those from small local charities, with voluntary and public sector leaders, to share ideas and inspiration, to make new connections and also to work with others to build momentum for wider change.  

More people are now coming to the network from the public sector, and our geographical spread is widening too, with people joining in from right across the country.

Our members are taking our thinking back into their own work and vice versa, including through national initiatives like the Relationships Project and the New Social Leaders programme, and we are also spreading our learning more widely through social media, for example through our 2,000 plus twitter followers, and our publications -  we had 1,600 visits to Building a Bigger We on our website and we had 40K twitter impressions when it was first publicised.

Our members say:

 ‘Conversations have been mature, informative and current.’

‘They are always very well run and very thoughtfully organised.’

‘The events are both supportive and challenging, in a good way.’

‘I've used the ideas to expand the way we work with others.’

‘We need this thinking space more than ever at the moment so we don't drown in crisis misery!’

Next year

Looking ahead, we plan to:

  • Further grow and diversify the network, while continuing to offer a broad programme of events, grounded in our core Better Way principles and behaviours, which help network members share learning and insights.

  • Seek to strengthen the network’s voice to get the message across more widely and become a catalyst for change, by increasing its influence, impact and reach through our meetings, website, social media and blogs, and through new publications if funding allows, and further developing our communications.

Diversifying the network

In terms of diversity of the network there are two areas especially where we think we should focus our attention:

  • Diversity is critical to our mission, and we will be taking on some specialist support to help us attract a more diverse membership, particularly but not exclusively in terms of ethnicity, and help us improve our data so we can monitor progress more effectively.

  • We want to enrich the blend of public sector and small and local groups in our network by seeking to engage more national and local public sector leaders, which we know are relatively under-represented in a Better Way, at the same time as increasing the involvement, engagement and profile of people working locally and in small organisations. Working together we can achieve so much more.

Suggestions and offers of help in both these areas would be very welcome.

Increasing our impact and reach

The topics on which we focus in our discussions during 2023 will also help us increase our influence impact and reach, and your suggestions for this are also welcome.

Just as in 2022 much of our discussion centred on how to unlock community power, so next year we think it might be helpful to focus on how a Better Way can help achieve systemic change in some key areas by joining up the dots of the amazing work already being done in our network.

Throughout, our focus will be on the how rather than the what, looking at the principles, behaviours and practices that will achieve a Better Way, sharing examples and ideas to make them happen. And we expect to continue with a mix of recurring events, or cells, on particular themes – as well as to hold roundtables and regular drop ins.

  • Health and well-being: one area we are hoping to delve into more deeply, using our unique Better Way lens, is how to create good health and well-being, a topic relevant to all aspects of our mission - improving services, building community and creating a fairer society.  We’re currently exploring this possibility with the NHS as a partner and have made a start with a roundtable on the NHS and community on 31 October.

  • Ending poverty: another topic which we’ve already started to explore is ending poverty (where we held an initial event on 18 November). Again, it is relevant to each dimension of better services, stronger communities and a fairer society.

  • Prevention: a related, more overarching topic to both health and well-being, might be to explore the Better Way principle that prevention is better than cure.  We know that we all need help throughout our lives, and benefit from ‘right first time’ support, sometimes at early stages, sometimes at moments of crisis or difficulty. We also need strong communities that build readiness, resilience and resourcefulness, and national systems and policies which help people to thrive, not undermine them.  But how do we make it happen?

  • A Better Way democracy: finally, it has been suggested that exploring how to apply a Better Way to our national and local democratic processes might help unlock the wider changes we want to see, and is at the heart of our Better Way principle that mass participation is better than centralised power.  We recognise that power is concentrated in the hands of too few people. More decisions should be made by larger groups of people with a shared interest or expertise in the subject, starting with those whose voices have not been heard: ‘no decisions about us without us’. Moreover, public agencies, charities and businesses achieve most when they move away from command and control by the few and stimulate the resourcefulness of the many. We have already started to explore this in terms of citizen engagement and participation in grant-making in 2022 but there is more to do to understand how this could transform our democracy nationally and locally.

Your thoughts and ideas on any of this would be very welcome.

Caroline Slocock and Steve Wyler

Co-convenors

A Better Way
to improve services, build community and create a fairer society
carolineslocock@civilexchange.org.uk
stevewyler@betterway.network
www.betterway.network
Twitter: @betterwaynetwrk

 November 2022