Sharing and building power: challenging abuses of power
The topic discussed was how to challenge abuses of power.
The first opening speaker was Jill Baker from the Lloyds Bank Foundation, who spoke about her experience in a range of public and voluntary sector roles across her career. You can listen to what she said here.
The second speaker was Kristian Tomblin who works as Principal Commissioning Manager in a local authority, who told us about his experience in relation to domestic violence services, which he writes about here.
Here are some of the key points made by speakers and in discussion:
we need to understand power, which is often complex, to challenge it.
Faced with the enormity of change in a sector or system it can all seem too big, but we can try to do what we can. Everyone has power and it is their responsibility to give it away, practising ‘servant leadership’ in which you see your power as underpinning of other people.
You should start with the assumption that most people want to make a positive difference. Everyone in the public sector, for example, wants to do a good job but too often services aren’t working for the people served and, even though the professionals know this, they keep on with the current system, partly because of fear, inertia, of being blamed if something went wrong. You have to work hard to create a sense of power to do things differently.
We need to call it out when you see something wrong and sometimes humility and humour work best.
We need to move away from old to new forms of power, for example moving from managerialism and specialism to networked governance and radical transparency and listening deeply to people to understand what is really needed. Power begets more power and often in the public sector the symbols of power can themselves be very offputting, from the grand buildings to the fixed policies.
It can be incredibly hard to ‘turn the ship around’ even with the best will in the world. Just having the right policies is not enough because so many structures and policies and regulations stand in the way.
Networks of practitioners who support and learn from each other is one way to strengthen the forces of change and exercise new forms of power. A Better Way is itself an example.
There are very few models of this form of power. It helps to make change real to show that it is possible.
Those with power need to learn to listen deeply and create space and time to do so. Empathy is important.
Giving away power in itself won’t always work. You need to equip people, and build relationships with them. ‘Power sharing’ is in danger of becoming a buzz word.
We really need to up our game with people experiencing distress. Things can easily fall into a negative spiral, with those with power stamping down and consolidating their power over people who are perceived not to be behaving properly eg behaviour management of ‘disruptive’ children in schools. This relates to deep-seated social norms. We need to be able to sit comfortably with people in distress.
Creating this new form of power takes time, it’s a long journey, and the model is not suited to modern Britain where the corporate model is uppermost.