Where’s the evidence?

It is a political requirement to state that policy decisions should be ‘evidence-based’, yet ‘policy-based evidence’ is what politicians actually want. Professor Nutt claimed that his views on drug classification were evidence-based, but the Home Secretary rightly argued that scientific evidence was just one factor. Building large prisons isn’t evidence-based, while ‘restorative justice’ methods of rehabilitation are, yet are not politically acceptable. What is politically acceptable plays a big part, as does what is affordable. Intuition and common-sense have a rightful role. Myths are powerful but may mislead, as in belief in ‘economies of scale’, where the evidence runs contrary.

Any organisation’s management likes to believe it manages rationally. But there is a more powerful, non-rational side, as the above shows. This includes prejudices, envy, departmental rivalries, networks, groupthink, etc – all more powerful than edicts, rules, codes, databases, targets, budgets, etc. In The Search for Leadership I identify 35 rational components and 40 non-rational ones.

There is scientific evidence that evidence itself is socially constructed. We see what suits our purpose. The banks have evidence that supporting arms manufacturers is profitable, but is that the right question to ask? George Bush ‘saw’ that Saddam Hussein was a friend of Al Qaeda; his ‘evidence’ supported the need for the US to have a strong commander-in-chief – himself.

By all means try to seek out evidence, but please consign the language of ‘evidence-based policy’ to the dustbin of history – or should that be hypocrisy?

No expense spared

Today sees the official publication of Sir Christopher Kelly’s proposals for getting out of the MPs’ expenses quagmire. As further evidence that this sorry mess is as much a system problem as it is one of personal morality, Baroness Shirley Williams spoke out on last Friday’s BBC Radio 4 Any Questions programme, saying “… governments have been completely complicit in this, by refusing to raise MPs’ salaries, by asking them, telling them, to claim the maximum expenses they could, which was, in fact, an invitation to behave in a dodgy manner … Government has to stand up and take part of the blame for all this."

Returning to the story in yesterday's post concerning Professor David Nutt’s views on drugs, I had a chance to read selective extracts from his paper. I must say that it was a model of measured professionalism. I could find no overt criticism of government policy, double dealing or hurt feeling. While most people take a strong view either for or against Alan Johnson’s sacking of Professor Nutt, one wise soul simply advised ‘I think he [Johnson] could have let this one go’. That’s how it seems to me. Keep your powder dry for the most egregious cases of reprehensible behaviour.

How to have your Nutt roasted

Following the subject of yesterday’s post is the continuing story of the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, sacking Professor David Nutt from the Government’s Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs, of which Nutt was chairman. The spat has polarised around Nutt’s rights (‘freedom of speech’) to continue to speak out against the Government’s drugs policy, especially upgrading cannabis (it had earlier been downgraded by Caroline Flint, another government minister), after the then Home Secretary had rejected Nutt’s advice. Nutt had gone on to publish his views that tobacco and alcohol – and even horse-riding – are more dangerous than many drugs, including ecstacy, LSD and cannabis.

There are several issues here, including whether it is reasonable to require the scientific panel to ‘support’ the government. But a question facing dissenters (in any organisation) is how, when and where you go about voicing it. Is it a responsible dissenter’s place, indeed duty, to voice criticism vigorously but only up to the point when a decision is taken? Should the criticism be voiced in a formal but private setting with colleagues present, but not shared publicly in the national press? Is it acceptable and possible to continue to express one’s viewpoint without at the same time saying that one’s employers/masters are stupid for disagreeing? Is the argument more about method and style than constitution?

Stephen Fry gets the message

Tweeting a million followers ‘Hurray, curry’ is boring, some said. The medium has become the message, as Marshall McLuhan foretold. Never mind the quality, feel the celebrity. But stopping might be difficult for Fry. He needs to tell, and his musings range from the ridiculous to the sublime. Take this from his book Paperweight (Quality Paperbacks Direct, 1992) “Education means freedom, it means truth. Training is what you do to a pear tree when you pleach it and prune it to grow against a wall. Training is what you give to an airline pilot or a computer operator or a barrister or a radio producer. Education is what you give to children to enable them to be free from the prejudices and moral bankruptcies of their elders. And freedom is no part of the programme of today's legislators. Freedom to buy shares, medical treatment or council houses certainly, freedom to buy anything you please. But freedom to think, to challenge, to change. Heavens no. The day a child of mine comes home from school and reveals that he or she has been taught something I agree with is the day I take that child away from school.”

I remember attending a conference at Henley Management College in the 1980s. The Head of Management Development at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), made a presentation. At that time DEC was one of the mainframe computer giants, but it was struggling against its competitors (not least because its boss, Ken Olsen, had said ‘People won’t want a personal computer on their desks’). The presenter stated the aim of the MD programme: ‘To ensure that the board is supported’. I stood up and asked pointedly: ‘Isn’t that the exact opposite of what it should be?’ Stephen Fry would have been proud of me! The choice facing organisations between education- and training-led approaches to management development is discussed in The Search for Leadership.

But what is responsible followership in an organisation? Is Professor David Nutt (the UK Government's former drugs tsar) showing how or how not to do it?

How will the system treat Sharon Shoesmith?

Many readers will know that Sharon Shoesmith was summarily dismissed without compensation from her job as Director of Children and Young Person’s Services in the London Borough of Haringey following the death of Baby Peter. She has taken her case to court, which is expected to announce its judgement any day now. Just remember the precedent: not only did Victoria Climbié’s death happen only a few streets from that of Baby Peter, but the disgraced social worker in that case, Lisa Arthurworrey, also took her case to court. She won: Haringey’s system had failed her, and not the other way round.

PS: A follow-up to yesterday’s post: on BBC TV’s Question Time, when asked about the Parliamentary expenses scandal, an MP on the panel said that staff in the Fees Office were unclear what their role was when presented with a claim by an MP.

MPs’ noses in the trough or sniffing at the system?

Excessive expenses claims by UK members of parliament is a major political scandal. But was the problem that they were simply greedy and had failed in the public’s eyes as leaders? Or should we also blame the system? While each MP shares some responsibility for the expenses system’s collapse, the MPs are a product of the system that surrounds them. Research shows the powerful effect of social influences (relational and environmental) on individuals’ decisions; so the system (built by Parliament over time) shaped the MPs’ behaviour today.

To find a sustainable solution to a problem like this requires an understanding of the system dynamics. What grievances exist about politically restricted past pay increases? What is the so-called “tea-room effect” that occurs when one outlandish claim rapidly leads to a flurry of similar claims as word spreads? What should we make of the errant personal examples set by those who should have known better? What is the status and nature of the relationships in and with the Fees Office, and how is power played out? How does the Fees Office get rid of its unexpected budget surplus at the end of the year? And, yes, what are the published rules, the ones that should have been well-known and stringently followed, but were deliberately left vague?

Both rational elements (e.g. the rules) and non-rational ones (e.g. the tea-room effect) need to be understood. As you begin to assemble a picture, you start to generate ideas about some levers in the system that are amenable to being pulled on to bring about improvement and change. The deeper one digs, the less the problem appears to be one of individual morality and personal leadership — and the less likely the solutions are to be found by trying to elect more honest MPs. If the MPs failed the Parliamentary employment system, then that system failed them, too.

Cornwall in childish scrap with Ofsted

Cornwall’s Children Services were condemned as ‘inadequate’ when recently subject to an unannounced inspection by the regulator Ofsted. Among other things, the Council was criticised for ‘ineffective leadership’ and ‘poor supervision by management’. It has a ten-year poor record. Government intervention was deemed necessary in 2006, but the expected improvement did not materialise. So again leaders are being replaced. So what assumptions are driving attempted improvement?

When a system fails, is the problem translated into ‘the leaders have failed’ (think Sharon Shoesmith)? Is it assumed that better new leaders can remedy a flawed system? Do the managers sufficiently understand the nature and dynamics of the system and its resistance?

I remember a new chairman arriving at British Airways many years ago. He was quickly flummoxed. He confessed ‘When I say what I want, nothing happens’. He didn’t understand the system and how to make it work.

Ironically, in a tit-for-tat public scrap, Ofsted is widely criticised for its own performance. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?