Leading the work of public service has always required a flexible and creative mindset. Designing and delivering transformational change – the only way councils can now fulfil core functions given the profound jeopardy they face – requires an entrepreneurial mindset.
First, to discard the stereotypes. Entrepreneurial does not equal wheeler-dealer, only-in-it-for-the money, egotists. You don’t have to be a twenty-something tech kid either. Those of us who have been entrepreneurs for more than a decade understand the word is far more about being nimble, problem solving, collaborating and delivering.
At the recent Solace Summit, I was party to several discussions on how we might reignite the agile, cross-departmental ways of working that helped save lives and deliver excellent services during the pandemic. It sparked memories of growing my start-up, our rapid forming and re-forming of teams, and our laser-like focus on a key number of outcomes. Driving council business like you’re leading a start-up can change the dynamic dramatically, and deliver what councils need right now. Here are my top three tips to do that:
First – start-ups thrive on mission and focus. As an ally for years now to local government, I know how driven leaders are by the vision of public service. But, the mission – that is, the roadmap to the world we wish to see – can get lost in the daily work of crisis response, or feel too strewn with obstacles as funding dries up. An entrepreneurial mindset helps leaders and their teams ally a strong sense of purpose to a small number of outcomes. A whole council will necessarily focus on a far wider range of outcomes, but there are many projects and programmes within the whole. Can we fit laser-like focus and purpose to these? Can we build cross-departmental teams that wake up each morning and set about delivering their mission like a start-up? Absolutely.
Secondly - starts-ups build, measure and learn. They don’t build finished products or services and sell them to mass markets. That would be commercially catastrophic. Instead, they develop a strong understanding of what’s needed, then build something lean and develop it with a small customer cohort. In the case of councils that might mean a specific user group or local partners. Once the service is fully up and running, start-ups measure the impact, honing it to be the best it can be via the brutal truth of customer responses and relentless team debriefs on what’s working and what’s not. This feeds a positive cycle of adapting the service – and treats your customers with dignity and a sense that you have their best interests at heart. The layers of practice involved here might seem like an expensive and stressful way to build something but in fact this approach mitigates risk. The start-up approach avoids large investments and big product launches or announcements that require U-turns. And it’s faster, more flexible and productive than pilots, which are cumbersome and often don’t process learning and adaption fast enough.
Thirdly – start-ups don’t have boundaries, they collaborate. In the early days founders work as finance directors, chief marketing officers and product developers - sometimes all during the same day. It gives them an immersive understanding of all parts of the business and where the risks and opportunities lie. It builds and accelerates understanding and, as the business grows, supports deep, empathetic collaboration across multiple roles. Not enough staff get this breadth of experience fast enough in councils. Councils can do this by building staff around outcomes-based units, that don't need fixed headcounts or posts but clear missions. These units should bring together experienced and skilled people from all departments and local institutions and plan a two-year collaborative model with fixed outcomes and two-month points to review and adapt.
All of these skills and approaches are vital in a constantly changing world. They are not just useful for crisis management, but for building a modern and relevant organisation, attracting and retaining the best talent and providing the professional security to experiment, create and invent. Under those circumstances, we might just deliver the profound reform our sector needs and deserves – and thereby reconnect civic institutions with the people they serve to build trust and a sense of progress.
Jamie Ounan is co-founder of Inner Circle
