captured for the room. This is not intended as an empirical study and the results are of course not scientific. But working with the model and the methodology for many years, the answers that are generated in the room will always be “close enough for jazz” as an old friend described approximate processes.
All community consultation processes are flawed, this process has many flaws and can be attacked from many perspectives but it does some important things: it delivers a rapid, highly visible, inclusive and optimistic vision, supported by an immediate assessment of how far from that vision we currently are. The four-point measurement scale for each element is usefully represented as being red for terrible, orange for bad, yellow for good and green for great. The process highlights the systemic nature of the intended outcomes. Once all elements have been scored, three key intervention areas are identified; the first is the cluster of elements that scores lowest – if we don’t intervene here, the weakness of this cluster can collapse the whole system. The second is the cluster that scores highest; this identifies the area in which we might leverage existing successes and optimism. Everyone is encouraged to put themselves at the centre of the model and find the elements that match their mandates, responsibilities, objectives, performance indicators, goals and the third area of intervention is in the cluster of elements where there is greatest stakeholder interest – as this is where we can build useful partnerships and collaborations. Action plans follow, focused on shifting the status of the elements – and thus the model as a whole, towards green, great – fixed.
I’m sure there is no shortage of advisors knocking at your door today, Mr Cameron. I hope for all our sakes that at least some of them offer innovative, human and optimistic options – and I hope you listen with your heart as well as your head. Don’t be
persuaded that shutting down social media, confining young people to specific places, arresting and making examples of offenders, putting more police or more cameras on the street will blow warm winds of change. Only a shift in our vision can do that.
Some recommendations:
1. We really should stop thinking about un- safety in policing terms. It’s a losing game – the worse the respect for the rule of law, the more order we attempt, the more alienated young people become from the notion of the respect for rule of law. There is too much to be done, we can’t keep putting all our eggs in a fragile policing, criminal justice basket. We surely don’t want to be able to
cope efficiently with this level of unrest and unlawfulness, we want less unlawfulness. Let’s behave as though that’s our objective.
2. We must stop talking about moral decay and societies that are sick. This talk is judgmental and creates a very clear sense of them and us. The problem is with all of us, not with some. There are not some who behave perfectly and others who don’t. A festering wound on your knee is a symptom of something wrong in your body as a whole. Morality is not a fixed concept that can be taught by one sector to another. We learn to love by being loved. We learn to respect others by being respected. We learn discipline by understanding positive consequences of self- restricting behaviours (we eat our vegetables because if we don’t we won’t get any pudding). We treat others the way we are treated. These things are obvious, yet whenever
there is a problem with a sector of the population, we begin to preach about moral degeneration. Arguably those who should be encouraged to rethink their moral compass are the most powerful, not the most disaffected. Big brands are more powerful than political parties, families are communities; they have the wherewithal to reach even the most hidden away youth and they use it ruthlessly.
September 2011 | Management Today 31
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