In this issue:
Hats off to the FCA
What’s my problem?
Wilful blindness
The economics of social care
The Cavendish Report
Systems leadership in people-centred services
Beyond Command and Control: a four-day programme
For Danish readers
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Hats off to the FCA
For the first time I have seen an approach to regulation that I like (very much) and believe will work; and I hope will be followed by all regulators. It’s Consumer Duty, published by the much maligned Financial Conduct Authority. The FCA has done its homework, it is open about the failures and scandals in financial services. I’m confident that if they stick to their plans financial services organisations will finally become customer-focused and those that don’t will fall foul. About time too.
What’s so good about Consumer Duty? How is it a profound change to the way regulation works? Read my submission here:
Here’s how it went down on Twitter: “Four pages! Don’t obsess that it is about regulation for ‘financial’ services but see simply and clearly how to ‘regulate’ and ‘run’ services in a way that actually works for the people who use them….”
Bang on.
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What’s my problem?
Why have I been so antagonistic towards regulation? In short because it drives compliance rather than innovation; compliance with bad ideas to boot. I explain how my antagonism was born in the days of ISO9000 and developed throughout my career in this Podcast:
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Wilful blindness
One of the consequences of our current method of regulation is that, for many leaders, reputation becomes the be all and end all. Compliance is, thus, the priority; at least being seen to comply. Anything that threatens reputation is unwelcome. It leads to denial, covering up, destroying evidence and creative ways to prevent evidence being available. I discuss willful blindness with Tom Bell in this video:
The economics of social care
The Mint Magazine (Fresh Thinking in Economics) interviewed me on the issues in social care. You can listen here:
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The Cavendish Report
Camilla Cavendish has published her independent report on social care. She shows a clear understanding of the problem (poor services and high costs). The report is a broad canvas: The divide between Health and Care, workforce planning, workforce management, inspection and regulation, the market and more.
If, and it’s a big if, as the report was commissioned by a long-gone secretary of state, policy-makers act on it I’d worry. While it may be instructive to map out a big system it becomes likely that acting on any part fails to improve the system. The way to reliably change any service system is to just focus on designing an effective service at the front end. (Pleased to note Cavendish included evidence from two of our clients.) When you’ve got that right it becomes easy to take a view on how other parts of the system need to change. And all changes from that point can be made with clear knowledge of how they’ll support the more effective design.
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Systems leadership in people-centred services
29th March 2022 until 13th October 2022
The need for systems leadership has never been greater. We face problems that can only be solved by leaders who can see the bigger picture and work across organisational boundaries.
Eight emerging and senior leaders will join this six -month online systems leadership programme in the UK, offering an experiential learning opportunity for those whose job it is to design truly person-centred systems across health, social care, housing and third sector services.
Places are limited so please apply early to avoid disappointment.
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Beyond Command and Control: a four-day programme
Our four-day course, designed to take organisational leaders who are systems thinking beginners straight into the work to learn about sub-optimisation in their organisation and how to remove it.
NEW DATES JUST RELEASED…
Day 1 – Tuesday 17th May 2022
Day 2 – Tuesday 24th May 2022
Day 3 – Tuesday 7th June 2022
Day 4 – Tuesday 14th June 2022
Distance learning – Subject to social distancing restrictions, this programme will be delivered and supported remotely by a Vanguard Consultant, via a video conferencing platform, such as Microsoft Teams. The course will be strictly limited to small groups to create value for each delegate and in manageable sessions with plenty of intervals to allow for comfort and refreshment breaks.
For other events visit our events page: https://beyondcommandandcontrol.com/events/
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For Danish readers
My Danish colleagues have published a book on the Vanguard Method. In Danish.
More here: www.rivservicefabrikkernened.dk
Thanks for reading!
John