Unlocking the door to transformation
What is the purpose of your organisation or team? Why does it exist? What value does it create for the people you serve, the society you operate in, and the planet you inhabit?
Our Cambridge is not just about improving processes, systems or structures. It is about changing mindsets, behaviours and cultures. It is about creating a shared vision of excellence, collaboration and innovation that inspires and empowers everyone to contribute to the common good. And it all starts with purpose.
Purpose is the key that unlocks the door to transformation. It helps us to focus on the outcomes that matter, rather than the activities that keep us busy. It enables us to think creatively and collaboratively about how we can achieve our goals, rather than following rigid rules or procedures. It motivates us to learn, grow and adapt, rather than settle for the status quo.
Let me give you an example of how purpose can enable transformation.
If you take an organisation, like a local authority, that has been operating for years and has, over time, developed a long series of activities that it does. These have become the norms of the organisation and doing them is simply expected as it’s always been done. When you then ask the organisation to transform and become something different, it becomes incredibly hard to do very much at all, as you’re wedded to things that have been promised years ago or you try to salami slice efficiencies where you can. More often than not, what ends up happening is that employees just do more.
However, if you don’t start with what you’ve always done, and instead take a blank piece of paper and start with “why” — you free yourself from starting in a box of “but we can’t”. You are free to focus as to why you exist and what the most important things are — whether that is creating a sense of place, protecting residents, or simply enabling equality.
That's where it gets fun (or at least, where I start to have tons of fun).
Once you have the why and it’s simple and clear, you can really start to think about what you would focus your time and energy on that furthers that objective most. Would you help residents maintain financial solvency by combining delivery of your personal housing grants, benefits processing and debt recovery advice into one team who does it all? Or maybe you take a housing first approach to those at risk and then commission local VCS organisations to take on paid volunteers? Neither of these are necessarily the answers, but they are different ways to deliver a similar purpose.The other advantage is that looking at purpose makes saying “no” a lot easier. Have you ever written a report that takes ages and, in your opinion, adds no value? Same. If you focus on purpose and use that to drive what you do, these types of reports are naturally stopped or, in many cases, shifted into something that has an impact and genuinely adds value.
Of course, after you design from a blank sheet of paper, you need to make sure that you’re still doing all the things that legislation requires and that you can afford it. I take a look at the relationship between savings and purpose in my third article in the series, but for now let’s focus on legislation.
Legislation, regulation and policy are important aspects that we have to comply with and respect. However, they are not, as so often depicted, barriers to transformation. In fact, they can often be enablers or drivers of change, if we understand their rationale and intent.
For instance, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is not just a set of rules that we have to follow to avoid fines or penalties. It is a framework that protects the rights and interests of individuals in the digital age. By aligning our practices with the GDPR, we are not only fulfilling our legal obligations, but also enhancing our ethical standards, our trustworthiness and our social responsibility.
Legislation, regulation and policy should not stop us from being purposeful, creative and innovative. They should not limit our thinking or constrain our actions. They should encourage us to find better ways of doing things, while also ensuring that we do them right. They should be looked as mechanisms to support us to achieve our purpose, not prevent us from pursuing it.
I hope you have found this article useful and interesting, and I invite you to reflect on the following questions:
- What is the purpose of your organisation or team? Why does it exist? What value does it create?
- How does your purpose guide your work? How often do you think and talk about why you do work, as opposed to what the work is?
- How does your purpose inspire you to think creatively and collaboratively about how you can achieve your goals?
- How does your purpose motivate you to learn, grow and adapt?
- What should you stop doing, as it doesn’t align to your overall “why”?
I look forward to hearing your feedback and comments on this article, and to sharing more insights and lessons learned from Our Cambridge in the next articles in this series. Together, we can make a positive difference in our communities and in our world.
