Thank you for sharing this! I think we are missing a shared reality commons: institutional memory that is visible and challengeable. We struggle to solve cross-cutting problems not only because no one owns them, but because evidence, assumptions, trade-offs, authority, uncertainty, incentives and review conditions are not agreed and held together across departments in a form that can be inspected later. And it’s important to understand what we incentivise since incentives shape behaviour… so shared accountability requires more than coordination. It requires a shared understanding of what is true, what should change, and what objective function (Zielfunktion) public institutions are actually optimising for. I think the accountability trap you are describing is not only solved by better attribution, but we also need to be able to make collective decisions reconstructable.
I agree with your comments but would add that the learning process means recognising the views and needs of a variety of interest groups and adapting policies and practices to meet these needs.Often in complex environments these cannot be specified until you.do the work of listening to people and appreciating both their similarities and their differences. Accountability depends on good conversations both vertically and horizontally and having the skills and emotional maturity to identify concerns and the capability and power to deal with them.
Yes, agreed. The learning process has to include the views and needs of different groups, and these often only become visible through the work itself: listening, testing, comparing situations, and recognising both common needs and real differences. But that learning also needs somewhere to go. Good conversations, vertically and horizontally, are necessary; they are not sufficient unless concerns, trade-offs, authority, incentives and revisions are held in a form that can change future decisions. Otherwise listening remains episodic rather than institutional. A shared reality commons is not a fixed record. It is institutional memory that grows, adapts and changes over time: visible, challengeable, reconstructable, revisable, and capable of enabling learning from collective decisions.
Yes You do need decisions. These come out as commitments to do things differently by people who recognise they have the power and the influence to make the change happen , either in strategy or service delivery. A key issue here is whether people feel they have such power or influence to make any significant change. This can depend on whether there is a culture of innovation on the organisation.
Thank you for sharing this! I think we are missing a shared reality commons: institutional memory that is visible and challengeable. We struggle to solve cross-cutting problems not only because no one owns them, but because evidence, assumptions, trade-offs, authority, uncertainty, incentives and review conditions are not agreed and held together across departments in a form that can be inspected later. And it’s important to understand what we incentivise since incentives shape behaviour… so shared accountability requires more than coordination. It requires a shared understanding of what is true, what should change, and what objective function (Zielfunktion) public institutions are actually optimising for. I think the accountability trap you are describing is not only solved by better attribution, but we also need to be able to make collective decisions reconstructable.
I agree with your comments but would add that the learning process means recognising the views and needs of a variety of interest groups and adapting policies and practices to meet these needs.Often in complex environments these cannot be specified until you.do the work of listening to people and appreciating both their similarities and their differences. Accountability depends on good conversations both vertically and horizontally and having the skills and emotional maturity to identify concerns and the capability and power to deal with them.
Yes, agreed. The learning process has to include the views and needs of different groups, and these often only become visible through the work itself: listening, testing, comparing situations, and recognising both common needs and real differences. But that learning also needs somewhere to go. Good conversations, vertically and horizontally, are necessary; they are not sufficient unless concerns, trade-offs, authority, incentives and revisions are held in a form that can change future decisions. Otherwise listening remains episodic rather than institutional. A shared reality commons is not a fixed record. It is institutional memory that grows, adapts and changes over time: visible, challengeable, reconstructable, revisable, and capable of enabling learning from collective decisions.
Yes You do need decisions. These come out as commitments to do things differently by people who recognise they have the power and the influence to make the change happen , either in strategy or service delivery. A key issue here is whether people feel they have such power or influence to make any significant change. This can depend on whether there is a culture of innovation on the organisation.