Continuous, systemic learning is crucial to organisational survival

Citation

James, V. (2013), "Continuous, systemic learning is crucial to organisational survival", International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Vol. 9 No. 3/4. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLPS-10-2013-0027

Continuous, systemic learning is crucial to organisational survival

Article Type: Editorial From: The International Journal of Leadership in Public Services, Volume 9, Issue 3/4.

The collection of papers in this edition all speak to the need for leaders to become increasing conscious of the whole system, from a strategic overview to their own interactions. An ability to learn, consciously learn, is critical. We must operate on multiple levels in a complex, political system. This edition offers several grounded articles on why and how.

Valerie Iles thought piece on the dissatisfaction with existing healthcare leadership is both cogent and confronting. She creates an historical and systemic critique of the limitations of a predominant model in the UK: one that is increasingly market and technically driven, audit and measurement driven, with limited political judgements that constrain creativity and increase litigation. Iles agrees with Mintzberg's (Vickers, 2008) analysis of Managerialism and calls for leadership that involves us all, understands rather than blames, increases our capacity for appropriate tolerance of and creative responses to uncertainty. In short, Iles argues that leadership is a collective responsibility and all staff must participate in creating the shared covenants needed. Why, Iles asks, should healthcare staff not still feel excited, purposeful, satisfied, valued and good about what they deliver? Technology continues to improve, budgets are still large and evidence of effectiveness is better than ever. How we perceive problems, organisations and systems can determine our capacity to think and relate and change.

There are so many change initiatives and yet reflective critical analyses of these are rare the public sector thrives on action without necessarily knowing the strengths and weaknesses of chosen initiatives. We therefore very much welcome Mark White's systematic review of the two major quality improvement methods in healthcare of the Lean Methodology and the Productive Ward, both of which are approaches borrowed from industry and millions have been spent on them. Of course, organisations cannot wait until the evidence of effectiveness exists before making improvements but being able to reflect critically at various points from existing learning helps inform subsequent investments. This analysis posits that leaders need to develop the cultural change required to support a continuous improvement of mind-sets, indeed, to move beyond tools like Lean into the deeper learning of improvement. The complexity of socio-technical dynamics must be centre stage in a leader's awareness if cultural change is truly to happen. There are no shortcuts, White argues. The leadership challenge for the UK's National Health Service is to go well beyond conventional leadership competencies and face the political challenges inherent in improving the quality of care.

Peter Hyson thought piece is framed in the literature on multiple intelligences, focusing on spiritual intelligence, the one that Stephen Covey (2004) makes his eighth leadership discipline. This is the intelligence that Peter Senge et al. (2001) says is vital if organisational cultures are to value and encourage staff to use all dimensions of themselves at work, not only a few capabilities. Hyson provides concrete explanations of the attributes of the spiritually intelligent leader and expands on how these are key antidotes to dealing with the most frequently reported leadership dilemma: demoralisation and loss of meaning.

Mark Jenner, June Barnes and Stephen James offer us a case study of transformational change in a housing association where leadership development is integral to, not separate from, the act of leading. They argue that the values and behaviour needed to drive and sustain change must be at the heart of the participants problem-solving approach to their own real issues. Personal and organisational awareness were viewed as vital to transformational cultural change. The authors provide a narrative analysis of the leader on a hero's journey, in the mythological sense, and therefore one can predict some of the wicked economic and cultural challenges to be faced. Their leadership development programme, like the intended cultural change, followed an evolving process so that continual experiment and evolution of interventions informed the next stage. Unhelpful organisational boundaries were revealed, but contained and supported, and reflection was central to the design. Similarly to Iles, the integration of systems and culture was also an important design feature. Locally created metaphor, narrative and actions to close the persistent gaps between aspiration and reality were seen as crucial and the focus was on achieving the outcome of how we do things around here, not on the leadership programme.

The messages are clear: all variables in our organisations are inter-related and leading change is increasingly complex and unpredictable. What we do know is that deepening awareness and the humility to learn continually is vital. And quite who we consider to be the leaders is perhaps an assumption requiring rather deeper reflection!

Valerie James

References

Covey, S.R. (2004), The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness, Free Press, New York, NY
Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts C., Ross, R., Roth G. and Smith, B. (2001), The Dance of Change the challenges of sustaining momentum in learning organizations, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London
Vickers, D. (2008), Beyond the hegemonic narrative a study of managers, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 21 No. 5, pp. 560-573