Tag Archives: Steve Hilton

Why is it that large institutions dehumanise us?

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I was at an event on Monday, where I got some insights on the role of government and large institutions in defeating poverty.  I left with a strong sense that achieving this task is inhibited by the way large government and business institutions don’t work for people. This article sets out preliminary thoughts.  Answering the question will take longer than is possible here.

This was a Tory conference fringe event organised by Tim Montgomerie of The Good Right.  The event hashtag was #defeatingpoverty.  This featured four government ministers discussing their ideas on how to reduce poverty, increase social mobility and expand opportunity.  This may seem ironic to some, since Michael Gove, Sajid Javid, Ian Duncan Smith and Ruth Davidson are frequently attacked by the left for doing things that achieve the opposite of these aims.  

But I discerned a theme underlying all their ideas.  It is clear they do believe in #defeatingpoverty.  But these four ministers have a distinctive take on how to do it.  They each believe that it is not the government’s job to provide us with everything we need and give us the money to get out of poverty, but their job is to provide us with the tools we need to help ourselves.  The most valuable things the government can do is to provide education, an economy with jobs, healthcare, housing, public transport, infrastructure and essential utilities.

Now, that could easily have been said by many Labour politicians as well. 

Conservatives and Labour have similar goals but believe in very different means

It is interesting that if you listen closely to both left and right-wing politicians and dig into their remarks, the surprising thing is they both seem to want similar outcomes.  What they disagree about is, what is the best and fairest way to get there.

But the media prefer disagreements to agreement.  Agreement does not make good politics and does not make good media.  So what happens in the media debates and interviews is that this common aim is obscured and missed and the discussion concentrates on the means to get there.  These debates tend to focus on how each side has different means to get to the aim rather than revealing the common ground and purpose. 

Labour_1592957cLabour argue that the conservatives do not understand what it is like to be poor and disadvantaged.  The Conservatives just look after their rich friends and the tax and business policies are evidence of how the conservatives are nasty, self-interested and unfair.  Austerity targets the poorest and the rich thrive.

Conservative_logo_2006.svgConservatives argue that Labour ideas are too expensive, we cannot afford them, that they remove the incentive to work, they do not celebrate excellence and suppress individual initiative and enterprise.  Labour policies are prone to create higher tax and spend, reduce our competitiveness and depress growth which creates more poverty.

Now I know that the arguments from each side are more nuanced and go into greater depth than I have done here.  But if you dig deeper into the speeches from each side you will find that there is a commonality of aim but a disagreement about means. 

Because they favour different means, when describing aims, they each use different language.  The Conservatives talk about opportunity, family, jobs, growth, choice, excellence.  Whilst Labour discuss fairness, social justice, jobs, public ownership and control, growth.  Each side emphasises these because they each believe they are the most important means to reduce poverty, increase social mobility and expand opportunity for all not just a privileged few.

The_Good_Right_Cover2So whilst it seemed odd to some people that the Tories should hold an event titled #defeatingpoverty, for me it is not bizarre at all.  The Good Right within the Tories is a subgroup that champions this purpose.  It is great to see this as an aim expressed clearly within the party

But if the both Labour and Conservatives agree about the aim, who has the right answer on the means to achieve the aim?  The Conservatives or the left-wing alternatives?

The left argue that the market punishes the weak and the only way to fix this is through collective action by government and government taxation.  This is the best way to help the weakest and to lift them out of poverty.  The right argues that the dead hand of government suppresses initiative, creativity and enterprise and business is better suited to many tasks.  But in my view both of these arguments misunderstand the nature of large-scale institutions and the way they do and don’t work.

Large institutions are letting us down 

After Thatcher, it was generally accepted that government-run organisations and businesses are not efficient or effective at many tasks and they should leave many things to the private sector.  Business does it better goes the argument.

But in the 21st century we have increasingly seen that it is not just government run organisations that can fail but many badly run, inhuman organisations of all types from business, government and not for profit sectors.  In fact in many areas, the government do things better.  (There are great hospitals, schools and transport services that show this).

We have recently seen a number of dramatic examples of institutions that do not serve the people they exist to serve.  If we want to help people lift themselves out of poverty or help them get anything else done, then we need to address the way our larger institutions are not working for people or to help people.  I would highlight three areas of concern 

1. When people go to work in large institutions of business, government or charity they can lose their humanity and their talent to be people. 

1-compressed-300x200Steve Hilton wrote about this in More Human and analysed it in many different fields   

Something strange happens to people when they cross the portal of their workplace each day.  They lose some of the skills they naturally have at home and with their friends.

I frequently observe that people in their personal lives understand how to flourish and understand how to interact with people, so they connect with others, are active in their lives, take notice of what happens, keep learning and find ways to give.  But as they go to work they feel they are not allowed to do this and they stay within their job descriptions, are constrained by rules and remain in their silos at work.  At its worst they develop a sense of entitlement. 

This is manifest in all levels at work from the customer service handler who cannot help the person on the phone, to the executives at Volkswagen who thought they could cheat the government and the public for 10 years, to the bankers who have lost sight of their purpose to serve customers,  the charities who bamboozled older donors into giving more money.  There are news stories every week and we all have experiences of dealing with institutions and being frustrated, horrified and indignant.

2.  Large institutions and government favour single national solutions.  But single national solutions to do not encourage the development of creative, innovative ideas.  They tend to suppress initiative. 

Even though everyone loves the idea of it, the NHS is now a monster that we cannot control and most worryingly many staff are very disheartened, frustrated and just want to leave even though they love looking after people. 

The history of state-funded education since 1975 has been pretty disastrous under both Labour and Conservative governments.  And again we see that many teachers feel like the NHS staff.  They are disheartened, frustrated and just want to leave even though they love young people and love their subject. 

Large businesses very rarely create great innovation from within.  However, they have come up with a solution.  What they do is wait for smaller businesses to come up with stuff and then acquire the smaller business and apply their investment and systems to scale it and grow it.  But in this solution the innovation and fresh thinking happens elsewhere away from the larger business.  There are a few examples that contradict this, but they usually involve one extraordinary individual (e.g. Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Larry Page, Bill Gates) who operates like a small business owner but with big business money.

3.  The welfare state focuses on what people are not or don’t have rather than what they can do or might achieve.

Alex-SmithAlex Smith has written about how the welfare state has provided a safety net and done many great things, but there has been an unfortunate side effect.  It addresses what people have not got and what they cannot do.  It treats those it helps as dependents.  It has led many of those who depend on it to become disconnected, inactive, have narrowing horizons, and a sense of entitlement.  It is disempowering them and creating an environment that discourages initiative and self-help.  Whereas people flourish when they connect, are active, take notice, keep learning and find ways to give.

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So my title question was:  Why is it that institutions dehumanise us?

In this article, I have written about why I think this question is important. I have not answered it yet.  I will follow this up later.  I will also go on to discuss why this matters to business when they create products and services that aim to attract more customers.

What priorities were discussed at the event?

I was inspired to write about these issues due to the debate at the Good Right event on Monday.  It is not directly what was discussed, but it was implied in the ideas that we explored.  My takeaway from the event was that I feel that I side with the Good Right in believing it is more important to capture the human spirit and our capacity to innovate than to equalise the outcomes for everyone.  

Something that matters a lot to me is that all politicians should support the aim to defeat poverty, develop social mobility, build social justice and create opportunity

The team last night highlighted five areas that must be the priority for a government that wants to achieve these aims.  These are things that will help us to help ourselves.  These are the priorities for the government institutions

  • Build more houses
  • Provide better education
  • Have effective healthcare
  • Building national infrastructure
  • Have a growing economy

Tim MontgomerieThank you to Tim Montgomerie and the team at The Good Right and the Legatum Institute for provoking me to write about this and providing a lot of the stimulus material.  You can see more by clicking on the links

More Human … its amazing how many people disagree with the idea this is desirable.

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Steve Hilton, More HumanI have just finished reading More Human. This book written by Steve Hilton and published last week. Steve Hilton was an adviser to David Cameron from 2006 to 2012 (and was caricatured as special advisor Stewart Pearson in “The Thick of It”). It is not often I feel compelled to write a blog about a book I just read, so this book has clearly had a big impact. The last time I wrote a blog about a book was when I read Nassim Nicholas Taleb on The Black Swan.

So do get a copy and read it now.

 

Steve Hilton analyses and explains things that have frustrated me for many years about the way business, politics, government, schools, healthcare and many institutions operate against people rather than for people. He shows how institutions and bureaucracy frequently frustrate and damage the people that they set out to help. He discusses how leaders have the very best motives to help people (there is no conspiracy to harm people) but often feel trapped by the way things work and believe they are doing the right thing in the circumstances. He describes how staff in airlines, civil service, social services, schools and many places can end up behaving in ways that are not human, even though they are almost certainly caring and loving with their friends and family.

The central idea is that we have lost touch with what it means to be human. The institutions and bureaucracy we have created do not treat people as human. This has affected everything: the food we eat, the schools our children go to, the growing inequality, the lower engagement with politicians, the hospitals and healthcare services and we use, our inability to eliminate poverty and they ways we bring up our children.

Yet, the world is full of examples of how when people get together to make things happen at a human level, then great things do happen. How is it that we cannot harness this more effectively?

I cannot do his ideas justice in two paragraphs, you have to read it.  At first you may find some of it seems fanciful and impractical. But if you find yourself thinking that then I would urge you to read on. Steve Hilton diagnoses many things that are wrong and the fixes he suggests are radical. The ideas are not classically left-wing or right-wing. Many of the ideas require a change in what we find socially and culturally acceptable, not just a few short-term policy fixes.  It is amazing to me how many people disagree with the idea that being more human is the way forward.  (See tweet from Alan Duncan)

Steve Hilton concludes that to make something happen needs a large number of people who are committed to be being More Human actually in positions of power and leadership . He invites us to join in and have a go and run for office.

Is there anything we can do in business today?

Whilst much of this is in the political arena, this need to be “More Human” also affects business and there are things business can do within the current economy and politics.

I believe that when we set out to help customers solve a problem or satisfy a need rather than just focus on how to extract more money from customers, then we create a better business. And this will be a more human business. By that I mean we enjoy more growth, make more money, are a happier place to work, create more jobs and build sustainable long-term value.

This is the difference between being a value adder and a value extractor. Value adders want to help customers. Value extractors work out how to get the most money from them. The interesting thing is that all big innovations that really transformed industries and markets involved helping customers solve a problem, not just making more money from customers.

So EasyJet challenged the European Airlines like BA who were all value extractors. First Direct and MetroBank challenged the value extractor banks. AirBnB are challenging the hotel chains. All these game changing businesses focused on the people’s real needs and problems and enabling us to do things we wanted to do as people.

There is now a change happening in the food industry. The supermarkets were value adders who provided what people wanted, created wider availability and delivered better value. They have become value extractors driving prices up through pricing, confusing promotions and local dominance. But now they are looking vulnerable to many smaller businesses that help customers in more relevant ways from discounters to local food producers and retailers.

If you are working in a business with a value extractor mindset and you think there is a better way to get growth by helping customers, it is not easy to get people to see it. But there is a way. I explain the thinking and the approach in this paper.

Steve Hilton definitely fits my definition of being an attractive thinker (and doer). I filled out the form in the back of his website under the button “Run for Office”. Looking forward to see what I get back.