Observations and learning from four years of doing place-based working

Author: Habiba Nabatu, February 2020

It’s been four years since we started our journey on place-based working. What have I observed or learned? This is my first attempt to write it down, and I have divided it into three interconnected sections: learning about myself, my organisation and wider systems.

When we say systems, we mean ‘a set of things — people, cells, molecules or whatever — interconnected in such a way that they produce their own pattern of behaviour over time’ (Meadows, 2010)

I should say that while the learning sounds logical and rational, it was mainly experiential, reflective, back and forth, with dead ends and sometimes painful experiences. I was supported by a group of peers who created the space for me to name my fears, doubts, uncertainties and fragile hopes.

What have I learnt about myself?

I believe change starts with the individual. I had to change some habits, thinking and actions. I have used a range of tools to help me. These include reflective practice (individual and group reflection), deep democracy, ORSC, art of hosting, listening, Theory U, singing in a women’s circle and volunteering in a cooperative. There is no one tool or method.

I have become better at accepting other people’s views and learnt to let go of some of my own. For example, by committing to finding points of agreement in what any person says, I have become better at letting go of being attached to my position, and instead go where I am needed.

It’s been great sometimes to break the patterns of my interactions in relationships, enabling us to move on. This has meant taking responsibility for how I feel, how I react and acknowledging my rank and privileges. When I haven’t done this, it has created resistance in other people.

I have become more comfortable with uncertainty and in fact I work well with it. However, when I am feeling threatened, insecure and unsupported, I can see myself reverting back to some of my old habits.

I have also realised how naïve I sometimes was about bringing people together. I can now see that difference cannot be neatly integrated on the terms of those doing the including, without any social conflict or significant change in structure or power relations.

What have I learnt about my organisation?

My organisation offers me structure, safety and boundaries that help me manage all the complexity. Yet, structure, boundaries and safety also disguise interconnectedness within and beyond the organisation.

We have an evolving definition of severe and multiple disadvantage. We are increasingly seeing the interconnections between issues and forms of oppression. We can better articulate how marginalisation takes place in the context of powerful structural forces including inequality, oppression, poverty, race, gender and class.

When we are on the edge, we can’t always recognise it. When our organisation decided that we are shifting our work towards the six places where we work, it was an exciting time. I didn’t expect the level of resistance inside the organisation. In hindsight I can now see that any significant change is likely to produce resistance.

Most workplaces are not equipped to have the conversations that address conflict or hurt or resistance. What was the resistance about? What is going on for each person? How does rank manifest here? How is power wielded here?

As an organisation we had invested in tools, methods and training so that we could hear different perspectives, allow different people to lead, value different strengths and have difficult conversations. Yet our underlying organisational culture pulled us back. We soon reverted back to many of the old habits. Some new habits stayed of course and some new patterns of behaviour have emerged. This was a reminder that change is episodic, it’s not smooth, it goes in ‘fits and starts’.

I can now see that there was an assumption that disagreements can be addressed through rational dialogue that will lead to consensus. While this might be true, I now acknowledge that debate is skewed from the beginning by those who determine the terms of the conversation. Who gets to speak? When? What is spoken about? What is desirable? What is intelligible? It now seems important to me to find alternative tools and methods that disrupt these power structures. While accepting that the goal might not be even be consensus.

By trying to live the change we ask of others, we have learnt how hard it is. For example, if you get rid of one person (the one you all said was the problem), often someone else becomes the problem. Back to square one. Now we understand that roles are held in the context of systems and we are experimenting with working with roles much more.

It was the recognition in the organisation that it’s through relationships that things find definition that led us to value work that invests in building relationships.

Learning to focus on our organisation as a system has changed the way we work. If something is not working well, we have learnt to shift our focus from the individual to the entire team. This has helped us to move a bit away from linear cause-and-effect thinking (it’s that person’s fault!), to finding solutions (‘how do we all deal with this?’).

We are at our best when we hold tensions, contradictions and paradoxes. For example, by using yes/and, we are moving away from the dualism that is prevalent in so much of western thought. Them/us, frontline workers/managers, men/women, service users/staff etc. These pairings are often used to justify the exploitation of the ‘other’. They also leave out how entangled these things are — how they cut across each other.

We have asked ourselves, what is our theory of money? What will our funding get us? As a team, we don’t always agree. By using the Three Horizon framework, we are getting better at understanding that diagnosis of the present contains within it some vision for a preferred future, however implicit.

The System: What do my observations mean for wider systems?

What is present in our organisation is also present in other organisations and the wider system. This includes uncertainty, busyness, complexity, fear, conflict, compassion, othering — as well as the opposite of all that.

We need different types of skills not taught in the majority of schools, workplaces or universities. The skills of working with uncertainty and complexity. And skills are not enough. The challenge is also how to address our fear of loss as opposed to the challenge of how to divulge more knowledge. This can include loss of identity, privilege, status, income, security.

The mere addition of other ways of knowing will not change systems. This is because dominance is exercised through the conditioning of particular ways of being, that, in turn, prescribe particular ways of knowing. So, approaches of equity, representation, access, voice or redistribution are not enough.

The system behaviours are a guide, not to be held tightly as gospel. Values such as compassion, kindness and self-determination are missing, as well as questions of ethics.

Every sector has its irrational but reassuring assumptions, which are often invisible. The work of our partners is making these assumptions visible and helping us to name them. Some of these are:

• The assumption of control and certainty.
• The assumption that significant change can be commissioned based on predetermined outcomes.
• The assumption that services will address problems, if only we had more of them.
• The assumption that we can evaluate living, organic, interconnected, diverse and evolving systems.
• The assumption of the heroic leader who has the answers and will save us.
• The assumption of linear progress and continuous growth with scalable solutions.
• The assumption that we understand human diversity of thought, being and people.
• The assumption that it’s other people — not us — who stigmatise, exclude and disempower.
• The assumption that we are rational and logical and we make decisions based on this.
• The assumption that metric-based performance can address the reality of our complex world and the messiness of people’s lives.

In summary, I have had to look at my own practice, unlearning some habits and using different tools to be more open to different perspectives. I recognise that my organisation is important for giving me structure, boundaries and clarity, but I am also aware of how this can limit the interconnectedness within/beyond the organisation. I have learnt that introducing new organisational practices takes people to an edge, so we all need to be supported, and the changes will be in ‘fits and starts’.

For me, the implications for wider systems are that we need to learn new skills of working with uncertainty and complexity. But knowledge is not enough; the challenge is also to address our fear of loss and recognise that domination is exercised through particular ways of being.