The Stanton Marris Blog

• 3 simple questions to improve collaboration

  How many businesses do you know with the word ‘collaboration’ in their set of values? In my experience, there are dozens.

  And yet, it’s one of those organisational goals that sometimes seems to run counter to human instincts. As we often say, ‘easy to understand – hard to do’. While everyone signs up to collaboration in principle, it’s certainly not easy to achieve in practice. There are always a thousand reasons why it comes more naturally to work with the people in your immediate team than the team on the next floor, or on another site.

  At the most basic level, managers are busy, and talking to people who aren’t in your immediate loop takes time. It might achieve more for the success of the business than keeping your head down in the tunnel of yet another task, but it can be hard to keep that wider perspective.

  What could this mean for your business? Improve your businesses collaboration efforts by asking these 3 questions:

  • Do you all have a shared vision of the strategy? Go round the table and ask people to describe it in their own words. You could be surprised how much the visions differ.
  • What is pulling you away from the shared commitment you have all made to the success of the business? An honest answer to this question from each key individual could form the basis of a fundamental re-think about how to re-energise the business and make it work for everyone.
  • Has everyone bought into the vision and the strategy? How do you know?  Engaging everyone from the ground up in the development of the way forward is the best way to make sure that, even when times are tough, people retain commitment to the business they have helped to shape.

  Advancing your own agenda might win you a few battles. But it won’t win the campaign. And success in today’s economic climate means that focus on the wider campaign, and being willing to let go of any personal priorities that don’t serve the shared goals of the enterprise, could make the critical difference for your business.

  Read the full article "3 simple questions to improve collaboration"

  Published June 1, 2010
  Written by Beatrice Hollyer. This article is filed under: collaboration, communication, partnership
  1 Comment

• You can spend less and benefit local place

  George Osborne announced this week that he intends to immediately tackle the £163bn economic deficit with a proposed £6bn worth of cost cutting in public services. Although ministers promise not to damage front line services, this news is bound to strike a note of fear.

  Now, I don’t know whether this level of cost cutting is possible – but somehow it has to be because this is just the tip of the iceberg – what I do know is, it is possible to spend less whilst benefitting local places. If all those accountable for public outcomes at a local level could establish the needs of local people, and look at the money that is currently being spent, it is entirely possible for them to organise themselves in such a way as to deliver the best value for money.

  So what do you need to make this work?

  • Be outcomes driven by looking at local needs and targeting the approach that gives real results
  • Empower people at the local level, engage them around issues in their area
  • Have a co-ordinated, customer centric approach where all parties involved work together, removing traditionally segmented silo-working
  • Ensure excellent communication channels exist between parties at both the local and national level, to remove duplication, for example
  • Engage in mature dialogue that enables the identification and discussion about the trade-offs between organisations, to stop doing things and realise benefits across the system.

  This is not a quick fix scenario. It will be hard work and the prizes won’t be felt immediately. It will be a challenge getting all parties to work together and, at times, it might be uncomfortable – it will require a level of trust, a clear framework and a commitment to make it work.

  But put these measures in place and it is entirely possible to make savings in a way that’s purposeful and meaningful. It not only mitigates a lot of the pain and risk of cost cutting, but it genuinely enhances the outcome, making local places better. Total Place has shown us that it can be done. From our work on Total Place with the London Borough of Lewisham we have seen that the possibilities are considerable and there for the taking.

  Let’s just hope that when George Osborne outlines his plans for the cuts next Monday he doesn’t pull the plug on manifesto pledges and bin localism. Getting spending decisions to be taken in the round at a local level looks like one of the best options the Government has, indeed, I’m not really sure they have another viable option.

  Read the full article "You can spend less and benefit local place"

  Published May 19, 2010
  Written by Lynn Fabes. This article is filed under: cost cutting, localism, partnership
  1 Comment

• Partnership working and a coalition government

  We’re suddenly faced with the prospect of a coalition government.    That seems a rather scary and unbritish thing.  It doesn’t exactly smack of strong government (remember back to Margaret Thatcher ticking off one of her wet colleagues, Francis Pym, for venturing to suggest that a rather smaller conservative majority might make for better government and stronger Parliament).

  But need we be so scared?

  Look at the corporate world.  It is full of examples of alliances and partnerships.  Few companies exist completely as their own island.  They depend on suppliers, retailers and the myriad of others who make up their value chain.  They may be in consortia, for example in large civil engineering or building projects, or they may be in formal alliances as in the airline industry.  All these arrangements require strong agreement about that the deal is and what the expectations are of different partners.  And they require what we consultants call ‘partnership behaviour’.

  Look also at the political world – close to home in Scotland, and further away in New Zealand.  In both countries coalition government has forced clearer agreement about policies and given their parliaments a stronger hand.

  Just now our politicians could do worse than a quick refresher read of the Institute for Government/Constitution Unit publication on Making Minority Government Work.   There Professor Robert Hazell and colleagues set out a really clear headed analysis of the difference between coalition government and minority government and a very practical set of steps for all the interested parties (not excluding the monarchy) to play.

  Read the full article "Partnership working and a coalition government"

  Published May 7, 2010
  Written by Andrew Jackson. This article is filed under: leadership, partnership
  4 Comments