[N]ow it is impossible to have missed the series of high-profile scandals which have hit the public sector in recent times. And what is so notable about the latest round of front-page offerings is the worrying number which are large and systemic in scale and which, ultimately, stem from issues relating to integrity.
The NHS has been left reeling from the scandal of substandard care within the Staffordshire NHS Trust which press reports suggest led to the deaths of hundreds of patients. The recent public enquiry made 290 separate recommendations including the controversial suggestion that a new duty of openness, transparency and candor among NHS staff is legally enforced.
Policing has been facing similar public trial throughout Operation Elveden; the large-scale investigation into allegations of inappropriate payments being made to officers, primarily from national news outlets. Reports suggest that 60 people have now been arrested in connection with the investigation.
In fact the issue of systemic failing linked to issues of integrity has penetrated the very heart of Central Government where the Deputy Prime Minister has admitted that his party ‘let people down’ in its handling of a series of allegations against Liberal Democrat Chief Executive, Lord Rennard, which spanned nearly a decade.
These events are different in so many ways, and yet there is a striking similarity. Each of these so-called ‘scandals’ is marked by the failure of a system to regulate itself.
While one individual can easily make choices which are misguided or lacking in integrity, his findings indicate that a whole system failure of this nature stems from a lack of communicative competency.
Something started to happen in each of these organisations which people are likely to have noticed, commented upon and perhaps even have tried to confront but the system wasn’t capable of extracting this information or using it to change the pattern. Instead an environment was fostered in which it was not only possible for undesirable behaviours to continue, but to spread and to do so over prolonged periods of time. But why?
Dr David Kantor is an American systems psychologist who has spent decades studying the structure of face-to-face communications in human systems – investigating how communication works and why it breaks down when it matters most. While one individual can easily make choices which are misguided or lacking in integrity, his findings indicate that a whole system failure of this nature stems from a lack of communicative competency.
Having studied teams, families and couples in low, medium and high stakes situations, Kantor derived a theory of face-to-face communication applicable in all human systems, based on evidence and tested over a 45-year period in clinical contexts. This theory of ‘Structural Dynamics’ gives a name to speech acts so that individuals can not only read what is happening in a room and make conscious choices about how best to engage but also make interventions to change the nature of the discourse.
One of the common features of policing, the NHS and Central Government is the strong top-down power dynamic. These systems were organised hierarchically and exist, to varying extents, within an environment of tradition, structure, command and control; not consensus. Within Kantor’s model this is known as a Closed Operating System. This dynamic is vital for the efficiency of the system – particularly in policing and healthcare – where it is often necessary to respond quickly, and to instruction, but it becomes self-defeating when power at the top of the system, either intentionally or otherwise, stifles voices further down; those voices being a vital part of what helps to regulate that system.
Integrating Kantor’s theory of Structural Dynamics with Generative Dialogue guards against a whole system reaching unintended and often catastrophic outcomes. Using this methodology, teams and individuals can become acutely aware of stuck patterns of behaviour and are able to make choices, which release them. This creates an environment in which decisions are made consciously and transparently and where stuck patterns that don’t serve an organisation or team so well are identified early and transformed.
Often the dominant way of working becomes so engrained that those who hold different views are ignored or rejected and eventually either leave that system or feel compelled to collude with it. Healthy systems not only understand difference but encourage it; using it to fuel powerful, productive dialogue which capitalises on the collective intelligence of a team, an organisation and even a whole system.
Healthy systems not only understand difference but encourage it; using it to fuel powerful, productive dialogue which capitalises on the collective intelligence of a team.
Take, for example, the case of the Southwark Sapphire Unit; a specialist rape-investigation team based in South London, which was found to have encouraged victims to withdraw allegations in order to improve their detection rates over a year-long period. The IPCC’s investigation found that the unit was, during this period, underperforming and over-stretched and had begun the practice because they felt under pressure to meet targets. The system was demanding that a performance measure be improved and the power of that system compelled officers to adopt the practice of attempting to take a retraction statement wherever possible. This contravened the first principle of the Metropolitan Police Service standard operating procedure; to believe the victim until evidence demonstrated otherwise; but it became the unit’s standard operating procedure and was authorised by senior officers. It was a practice officers of all ranks had become familiar with; the collusion was complete; it was a systemic failure.
Following the case, IPCC Deputy Chair Deborah Glass said that ‘an external reference group’ had been reconstituted and if the Metropolitan Police Service were to use it properly it would ‘provide them with an early warning system against potential future problems before they become headlines’. That may be true, but perhaps of even greater reassurance, using a combination of Dialogue and Structural Dynamics would ensure that the first warning call would come from within the organisation.
In each of the examples we mentioned at the start of this article, the issue came to public attention because a voice somewhere was heard. Eventually a voice will find a way to break through the power dynamic and, in Closed Systems, tends to be labelled as a ‘leak’ or a ‘whistleblower’. But often, by then, it is too late – in these cases it took too long and affected too many people for it not to be recognised as a whole-system failure.
And as with the aftermath of most events of this nature, once public, the search for culpability begins in the belief that, once blame can be attributed, structures, actions and policies can be put in place to prevent it ever happening again. It is a well-rehearsed repetitive pattern and it has some merit, but it ignores the reality that, over time, physical barriers lapse or human instinct finds its way around them. It is, perhaps, no coincidence that the investigation into the working practices of the Sapphire Unit was the fifth IPCC investigation involving Southwark borough and the ninth investigation into the Metropolitan Police Service’s response to the victims of sexual violence.
What really addresses an issue in the long term is a change in behaviour within that system. It is this behavioural dimension, which is so often ignored in organisations; perhaps because of its complexity and a belief that it is intangible and therefore impossible to measure or successfully change. The theory of Structural Dynamics makes those behaviours tangible and therefore possible to change in a way, which is quantifiable. The organisations that take time to do this work begin to set new cultural norms which regulate that system far more effectively. These are the organisations that don’t revisit or re-enact the mistakes of the past.
This methodology is becoming increasingly popular and reaping significant rewards within the public sector; across parts of the police service, NHS, Local Government and the Prison Service – all within organisations that are keen to lead the way in creating highly effective teams which work within an environment that places integrity at its core.