Of course there are some reasons for all the guesswork, and the time the policy development process takes:

First, policy development is often a complex progress, where the positions of various stakeholders (such as political majorities and minorities, lobbyists, industrial organisations, etc.) need to be taken into account. And there are of course delicate matters of timing, which may mean that a wonderful piece of new policy can be put in the drawer for months until the time is ripe for launch.

Second, senior managers in government have very tight schedules. They must be available at all times for their own boss and particularly the minister. They simply can’t fit in the time and resources to engage systematically in collaborative dialogue, brainstorming and idea generation, just because some of their staff need it. At MindLab, where we regularly run workshops focusing on high-level policy development, it is a rarity that anyone above the level of Head of Division can spend more than an hour in a work session, if that much.

Finally, paper work takes time. The century-old tradition of drafting papers to go up the multiple rungs of hierarchy and back lives on. Sometimes the process can be extreme, with little benefit. Recently, a senior official told me that a case concerning just 5 mio kr. (less than USD 1 mio) had dragged on for more than two years during which several government departments had haggled over who was to foot the bill.

These all (somewhat) understandable reasons.  But still, it seems the process just isn’t good enough. How to rid ourselves of all the guessing going on, and how to conduct the policy innovation process more efficiently?

First, as I wrote in an earlier blog post, even though innovation is a terrible word, we do need a language of innovation. We need it because we need to be more conscious about creating more efficient and creative everyday working practices. As British professor Fiona Patterson, who studied everyday innovation practices across more than 800 companies has found, “(…) organisations that clearly articulate what is meant by ‘innovative working’ are more likely to be successful in their attempt to encourage innovative behaviours”. No  serious new discipline  has, I believe, ever taken root in modern organisations without having a distinct vocabulary.

Secondly, other than speaking in meaningful ways about innovation, we should simply start meeting in a different way.  Key public servants desperately need to meet with each other  in better prepared, more focused sessions to actually craft policy together, rather than to just let lowly minions guess their best in writing and then give them the thumbs up or down. Senior public servants, advisers, junior staff, and — even — external stakeholders such as citizens, businesses, academics, interest organisations  and ‘wild cards’ need to collaborate much more consciously and intensively, if we are to come up with the effective and intelligent solutions we need. Smarter collaboration would save tax payer money, not just because we’d save substantial time and frustration by reducing all the guessing. It would also save tax payer money because such forms of co-creation have a much higher chance of producing  outcomes that actually work.

Innovation is everywhere, and everyone is claiming it. From my phone maker to producers of washing detergent to space agencies and national governments, innovation is something many people agree is somehow important, but few can really express how. ‘Innovation’ becomes a panacea for any problem because, in essence, it expresses that whatever the challenge is, it is being dealt with successfully. But like a wet bar of soap, ‘innovation’ somehow eludes a firm grip. Paradoxically, we want it, but can’t really express it. That is why, when we at MindLab drafted our communication strategy three years ago, it stated that “‘Innovation’ is a terrible word. But there’s nothing wrong with its content”.

How does innovation become a terrible word? In organisations that are not used to working in new ways, which do not enthusiastically embrace new ideas, and which do not necessarily thrive on on-going change, innovation can become a diffuse, abstract and perhaps even dangerous term. Innovation may be perceived as  anything from wild creativity, ‘letting your hair down’, to a management fad, or to loosing control to risky experimentation. No wonder that some people, and in my experience in particular people in government, dislike the word.

However, if ‘innovation’ wasn’t part of our vocabulary, we’d have to invent it. Innovation is the only term we have that captures the notion of creating something new that works. It embodies the dialectic of inspiration (generating the new ideas we need to create the future we want) and execution (the practice of getting things done to create value).

As opposed to ‘creativity’ or ‘invention’, innovation is therefore, and perhaps surprising to some, highly practical. The best of  the (vast) literature on innovation not only offers extremely useful perspectives on strategy, leadership and organisation. It offers a set of professional approaches, tools and methods which can help make the process of creating the new solutions we need, whether it be a new product or a public service, conscious, strategic and systematic.

Because the concept and practice of innovation offers us something valuable, or even essential, we need to take very seriously those who dismiss it. Rather than just slapping the word on everything we, as scholars and practitioners, say or do, we must take care to give it the meaning and content needed for the sceptics to become curious and, eventually, embrace it.

But to place the practice of innovation more squarely at the heart of government, we need to continue to show what it is, and how it works in practice. That is why we at MindLab spend so much time documenting and sharing our cases with others within the ministries we are part of, and beyond — online and in person. To be convincing, innovation has to be concrete.

As for my phone? Well, it works OK. But honestly? There are more innovative models out there.

More often than not, project leaders at MindLab are struggling to justify methodological choices and ways of doing research. MindLab is researching the public sector qualitatively.  The problem is not the creation of new knowledge itself, but how to put it into legitimate use.

Drawing on John Dewey’s ‘The Public and its Problem’, Bruno Latour argues for a more realistic definition of “what it is to know something scientifically” (Latour 2007:2). The problem, says Latour, is that the cognitive abilities with which civil servants act are linked to science rather than research. This is far from the same thing. Science in this sense is linked to objectivity, an already finished ‘map’ from which political plans can be drawn out and followed. The notion of research takes the learning process seriously and links action and knowledge in a more fruitful way:

“Whatever has been planned, there are always unwanted consequences for a reason that has nothing to do with the quality of the research or with the precision of the plan, but with the very nature of action. It has never the case that you first know and then act. You first act tentatively and then begin to know a bit more before attempting again” (Latour 2007:4)

The state is therefore never allowed ‘to act like a state’, Latour writes. This means that civil servants are forced to put their knowledge into calculated forms that, in the name of governance, has to be ‘picture perfect’. But precisely because the public sector is changing constantly and every policy and political decision have unintended outcomes, they are bound not to stay that way. Observations of consequences of for example welfare services are subject to error and illusion, since the public welfare sector constantly is posing new contextual settings in the interaction between the state and the citizens.

The legitimate use of ‘research’ rather than ‘science’ in policy making would be an ideological shift that could create a much more fruitful space for innovation in the public sector. Since ‘the state always has to be rediscovered’ (Dewey 1927:23), the emphasis should be put on exploring and learning about the realities of the citizens and accepting that unintended outcomes comes with the premise of action itself. Not calculating what we already know. If you want to redraw the map, you cannot know the right thing to do in advance. Instead, you can accept that ‘the map’ needs constant redrawing since it will never fully fit the real landscape. This important ideological and scientific distinction is what MindLab in my view is contributing to illuminate.

References:

Bruno Latour (2007): ‘How to think like a State’

John Dewey (1927): ‘The Public and its Problem’

Quote in headline: Latour 2007:5

The occasion was that on March 15th, the Copenhagen-based think tank Monday Morning launched its ambitious “The Entrepreneurs of Welfare” report on how innovation happens in Danish government. More than 2400 people from government, business and the third sector (myself included) have contributed to the study, which emphasizes that what everyone wants in order to create change is ‘freedom’ and ‘responsibility’. OK…?

More interestingly, although the report shows that new welfare solutions are certainly bubbling up to the surface everywhere in Denmark’s public landscape, the depressing fact is that very few of the innovations are goundbreaking or transformative. Further, the solutions often happen randomly, carried through by a few lonely entrepreneurs and in spite of the multitude of barriers we all know characterise new thinking in government.  My answer: Seems like we need more systematic and strategic innovation.

What is then systematic innovation? ‘Systematic’ is about conscious, explicit, with purpose. And ‘innovation’ is about divergence and variance. Maybe even risk.  So… could we systematically, purposefully, stimulate the variance that drives innovation?

Does a homogenous welfare state like Denmark not need to strengthen the ability of institutions to experiment with their own unique models of service delivery — and arrive at what they believe is the best way of creating value to citizens? If yes, we might need to forget the ‘one size fits’ all model, and start accepting a greater divergence of delivery models. Should we encourage more privately-run day care institutions, schools and hospitals? Should we strengthen the opportunities for NGO (third sector) actors to contribute with their skills, expertise and commitment in care for handicapped or for tackling environmental challenges?

Should governments’ role be less of running the core operations of the welfare state in search of ever-higher homogeneity, but rather to encourage vastly different delivery models,  only measuring them on their results? What might be required of our systems,  organisations and (not least) funding if we were to accept that innovation is driven by variance,  not homogeneity? Could ’systematic’ innovation also be about government consciously encouraging and managing diversity? What might that mean to equality, and to what we define as the welfare state? And more importantly: What level of energy and passion might be released if we embraced diversity and rewarded success?

Thought I // inspired by David Mosse. What if all the clever plans and schemes that policy makers go about developing serves no other purpose than being creative obstacles to those whose job it is to translate the politicians’’ intentions into practice? Thought II // inspired by Tim Ingold. How might you rethink policy (understood as an attempt at a prescriptive design) when you take seriously that shape giving is a constant process resulting from people’s engagement with life, each other and their physical surroundings and not an execution of any grand plan?

Irrelevant detail I // green eyes. Her irises are at least twice as big as any I have seen until now. They stabbed me or no one in particular through the stench of urine. Two gigantic jewels hovering above the cardboard box. Oh! She was just a junkie.

Academic work II // field work. He holds out a plastic bag. I don’t understand what he is saying, only that he wants me to look inside the bag. Guesstimate; there is about 40 boxes of pills in this plastic bag that he has brought with him into the computer room. He brings coffee and tea for the employees and the participants who have been referred to ‘the ’sickness benefit package solution’. He hands me a cup of coffee with milk and asks me who I am? Praises the employees. And then; the plastic bag. He intents something but I have no idea what. I look into the bag at the pills. I think he tells me that he wants to talk to his caseworker about the pills. I know nothing about pills. Here is what I know: He holds a string of rejected job applications; if he doesn’’t get a job he wont be able to bring his wife to the country; the municipality has invested in a ’sickness benefit package solution’ to get him full time employment; they pay around 1000 kr a week for 25 hour that are meant to put him ‘the citizen’ at the center and bring him closer to the labor marked. Here is what he knows about me: Nothing. 0. Zero.

Lots of topics were discussed, drawing on insights from the practical work taking place at diverse organisations like NESTA Lab and the Innovation Unit of the UK, la 27e Region of France, and Medialab Prado of Spain. One of the most fascinating aspects of the conversation was the question whether innovation labs are value-driven? Because if a particularly strong sense of mission and purpose is crucial for labs to be effective, what does that mean for the potential of labs, and what are the implications for how to create, lead and grow them? To shape relevant future policy, might we first have to better understand how values are selected and cultivated in a ‘lab’ enviornment?

The discussion made me think back to early 2007, when we started on the journey towards the second generation of MindLab. One of the first things we did in our newly assembled core team was, in fact, to formulate a set of common values. Through a creative process, we arrived at the following five value statements, which have proven to be, in fact, central to our daily work:

Challenge. We challenge traditional thinking and bureaucracy

Communication. Our communication is inspiring and straitforward

Cooperation. We challenge each other’s thinking

Atmosphere. We drink black tea and green coffee

Results. We experiment with the objective in mind.

We often refer to these values when making key decisions: Who to join the team, which projects to take on, how to relate to the barriers we encounter, how to treat each other, who to collaborate with externally. (Ohh, and what kind of coffee to drink!).

Our values are, in many respects, of greater operational importance than our strategy.

So, yes, MindLab is value-driven. And perhaphs innovation labs have to be, in order to maintain a strong sense of purpose and direction in the midst of a chaotic, complex and difficult reality.

I would therefore like to extend an invitation to our fellow innovation labs around the globe to join the conversation here on MindBlog:

What are your values, and what do they do for you?

Because perhaps by understanding the role of values better, we can also learn how to create effective innovation labs that can help shape the future we desire.

See the video and the pictures below.

Copenhagen this week is dominated by design. On the beautiful Kgs. Nytorv square, world class designs are on display in transparent plastic bubbles. This Friday, a select few of them will win the prestigious biannual INDEX:Award in categories like body, home, work and play.

Now, that’s all very well. But there isn’t an INDEX: prize category for government.

What if there was? Could design also change the way government works? For INDEX: the slogan is “design to improve life”. Believe it or not, but most government agencies are created to improve how society works and how life in society is lived.

What if design thinking characterised the very way government develops new services and policies? At MindLab we are increasingly learning how design can dramatically improve the process of shaping future visions for society, both in the abstract and the very practical. From climate change strategies to how we meet individual citizens at a job centre, the design process offers us a new way of realising desirable outcomes.

What could be the contribution of design to government? Here are some suggestions:

See everything as an experiment.

Challenge the status quo.

Value the citizen.

Be concrete.

Co-create.

Visualise.

Iterate.

Could these seven principles transform how government works? Perhaps. When a network of 25 design experts and practitioners meet in Copenhagen this coming weekend for another design event, the Co’creation summit, to write a manifesto for the future of design, my guess is that some of these principles will be part of the package. For many of the participants, this will not be very surprising. But if public managers really, really took design to heart, it could be the beginning of a revolution.

MindLab presents at SIX Summer School

However, to most people in government, at least in Denmark, social innovation is still a broad and vague term that doesn’t elicit much enthusiasm or even recognition. In a welfare state where every third person in employment works for the government, there isn’t a lot of consideration of potential social solutions coming from outside government…

So why should government care? Following my conversations with fellow innovators at the Lisbon event, I would suggest at least three pressing reasons:

First, bureaucrats aren’t smarter than anyone else. So, to get the best ideas to tackle wicked social problems (or, in SIX terms, “Fixing the Future”), we need everyone to contribute — not least savvy social entrepreneurs.

Second, social innovators are close to the citizens. One of our key challenges here at MindLab is to get citizens and businesses involved directly in the public sector innovation process. To most social innovators, a deep understanding of the underlying, implicit or explicit needs of citizens is at the very heart of their work. For government to remain legitimate and relevant, it has to support those that make a difference in people’s lives at the local level.

Third, a critical challenge for any innovator, whether in government or beyond, is to not only get the ideas but turn them into practice. Social innovators possess the skills and dedication to get their visions implemented, and not only can government learn from that, government can benefit from creating mutually positive alliances and partnerships with organisations whose ideas have already stood the hard test of meeting reality — but who may need the power and scale of government to make the solutions available to many more.

Social innovators at work

Even if we succeed convincing our colleagues in government of these benefits, I still see a major challenge that must be overcome: How do we empower government to not just understand, but also to support and strengthen social innovators? Perhaps part of the solution is that government itself must become more innovative. That was at least MindLabs message at the SIX event. What do you think?