GLF 2015 participant Dr Jan-Claire Wisdom reflects on Seminar 1 of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation (GLF) program, State of the Nation. Throughout the year various 2015 GLF participants will contribute to a series of blog posts about their experiences and insights of the GLF program.
‘State of the Nation’ 2015
Hello to all prospective GLFers! Let me tell you a bit about the first seminar of the 2015 GLF Program, introducing the ‘State of the Nation’. This seminar provided participants with a contemporary overview of key state and national issues including the Australian economy, society, environment, population and democracy, presented by an economist, environmentalist, community advocate and political scientist. We were asked beforehand to prepare ourselves by tackling some readings on climate change, welfare, social determinants of health, SA’s Strategic Plan and priority areas, and economic and political overviews including the new Federal Government’s 2015-2055 Intergenerational Report.
The first presenter opened a window onto a global outlook of economic indicators and then put Australia into this context indicating where sectors are suffering losses: manufacturing, resources and energy; and those experiencing gains: building approvals, retail sales; and showed that despite increasing net wealth household debt has doubled in less than 20 years. The second presenter took us on a journey through ‘big picture’ social issues to identify those people doing well and those who are not; how money relates to happiness; how wealth and income inequality are on the rise with skewed distribution and associated worsening health and social problems; and how 1 in 8 Australians now live in poverty. He challenged us to consider as leaders what is it we really want for our community. Our third presenter painted an overview picture of climate change, how Australia is tracking, key short and long-term challenges, SA’s position and future opportunities; and advocated for a people-centred approach to adaptive change always bearing in mind how our decisions now will impact our children and grandchildren. Our final presenter outlined the themes of political history, institutions, political parties, electoral matters, State politics, and Federal government. He outlined areas of dysfunction especially in party politics, problems with electoral outcomes, the lack of skills and experience of career politicians, and the public’s lack of trust in both politicians and political institutions. He challenged us to consider how we individually engage with the democratic process.
What did you experience in the last program event?
Listening to the seminars I felt there was great value to be had listening to everyday practitioners in the various sectors and the leadership challenges they threw out to us – the GLF participants. It became obvious that technical solutions alone are not enough to solve ‘wicked problems’, and that adaptive challenges will require behavioral change. It was also encouraging to see the enthusiasm and energy of speakers who are, in their own ways, ‘trying to be the change they want to see’. Other aspects that emerged included the importance of looking at issues through the complexity of a number of lenses – historical, geographical, social, cultural and political. This reveals a contemporary world of complex systems to be analysed, with no obvious answers, and which is going to require experimental leadership.
What was a highlight for you and why?
One highlight for me was the connection made between complex systems analysis and state of the nation ‘discourse’. This requires listening for the ‘song beneath the words’ and asks us to consider what is not being said and why it’s not being said. We constantly need to ask ourselves the powerful questions: ‘what is really going on here?’ and is this ‘what we really want for our communities?’
What was surprising?
A surprising and alarming aspect for me was some of the factual data presented, in particular, the speed of the wealth inequality distribution or ‘wealth gap’. Australia’s position with the UK at the top of the table is deeply problematic given that I don’t hear this as a major concern in current political debate. Another alarming aspect was being presented with an Intergenerational Report aiming to outline the key challenges facing Australia for the next 40 years, but with little mention of climate change. In my view it presented Australia’s future simplistically and often negatively. It demonstrated the ethical dilemma presented when the reporting of long-term projections is done by agencies with short-term agendas and possible conflicts of interest.
What was the biggest learning?
The biggest learning point for me was the insight that adaptive challenges and leadership are going to require a reframing of the traditional strategic thinking and planning processes as the way forward. I already understand that leadership flexibility and a willingness to experiment (including failures) will be key to future progress. However, this insight immediately exposes the challenges that will be faced with introducing that new mindset into sectors, individual organisations, and local communities that are traditionally risk averse and conservative (including in my own context of local government). It confirms the importance of the ‘hearts and mind campaigns’ so necessary for moving beyond the technical solutions, and that these campaigns will need to be enacted both within an organisation’s culture and also outside it with its stakeholders since people are more likely to support systems they helped to create.
What was a real ‘aha!’ moment for you?
A revelatory moment for me involved trying to understand each of the issues being presented to us from differing analytical perspectives (or ‘quadrants’) – the individual, communal, factual, and systemic. Accommodating these possibly opposing views could produce similar or quite different outcomes – none of which will be ‘right’ for everyone. Therefore, what we need to attempt as leaders, is to navigate a way forward that at least makes sense to the majority of people, even though it may not be everyone’s preferred outcome, and which represents progress when solutions remain elusive.
How do these experiences and/or insights relate to your work, family and/or community?
So how can I relate the insights of this first seminar series to my work as a local government elected Councillor? I’m already positioned in the community engagement and political space but am now even more conscious of how much room there is for improvement. I will be asking myself: how can we better establish what our communities really want; how can we engage the community more in the democratic process (citizen juries, deliberative democracy?); how can we be more experimental in a very conservative environment; how can we better balance short and long-term objectives? I will also be tasking myself to look beyond technical to adaptive solutions, to communicate in a way that makes sense to the majority, and to aim for progress when solutions are not always obvious or forthcoming. And I’m definitely going to need to be resilient if I am to tackle that list!
Dr Jan-Claire Wisdom,
Councillor, Adelaide Hills Council
April 2015
Here’s a link to great introduction from a recent article on The Conversation website to what Australian’s currently want from their political leaders (It also contains some interesting forward links):
WISER LEADERS 