"Not my Stakeholders"

Customer-centric enterprises excel.

My country, the United Kingdom in the midst of grief, a change of monarch, cost of living rises and the remnants of the terror of covid have decided to try an experiment.

Let me give some context. I chose to live in this Kingdom despite my deep and full knowledge of the history of the country. Unlike those born here, who had no choice, I decided that on balance the values, institutions and ancient charters like Magna Carta, that recognised the birth-right of every human to this earth outweighed any negatives of legacy or error. I think I made an excellent choice.

Citizen-centric countries thrive.

Yesterday a man holding up a blank placard was asked for his details by the police. A woman was arrested for holding up a placard that read "Not my King!" Elsewhere a young boy was tackled to the ground for shouting, in a crowd, his views on a widely publicised scandal that cost UK taxpayers many millions.

Recently both sides of government amended laws to make protest close to impossible. I understand why. In my TED talk I explain how so many respond with what they see as rational to a world they know and understand but that no longer exists.

...we spend our time responding rationally?to a world which we understand and recognize,?but which no longer exists.

As we moved from a world of certainty to our new world of complexity uncertainty, fast, digital pace all of us had two options to respond to the new world. We could either respond to uncertainty by insisting on more control, more planning, fewer options available and less freedom to try. Or we could decentralise to the activities of individuals and allow them to coordinate, collaborate and innovate their way to discover the best ways of thriving. Our government has chosen to dominate rather than to evolve. In my view, they have decided to abandon Magna Carta in exchange for the sense of control.

"...this is frankly pathetic."

Holding the reigns of a mad horse does not mean you have control. Adding more reigns and kicking the horse with sharp, pointy spurs will often make it madder and increase the chances of you being flung off. So, our police find themselves first in line for enforcing a government-centric set of laws. They will probably fail to achieve this consensually as there are more citizens than police, they may succeed by breaking the ancient compacts. But far worse a constitutional monarchy relies on the stakeholders, the subjects, to be mostly neutral or positive but not hostile. Andrew Marr the renowned BBC commentator remarked on the incidents I described above saying, "...this is frankly pathetic."

Stakeholder-centric projects become legends.

I've not been asked but if I was my advice would be to quote from the 12 new rules for OUR new world:

Unlearn Everything - Almost all the heuristics, assumptions and habits that drive strategy and policy today are probably obsolete. Reality always wins so if you make decisions on obsolete ideas they tend not to end well.

Stakeholders Rule OK! - Ditch acts and laws that are not citizen centric.

Change Dependence to Interdependence - Instead of control, planning and surveillance, energise social and enterprise interconnections.

Chunk it or Junk it - Learn as you implement. ensure all change is in bitesize steps of effort so that the stakeholders can confirm benefit before the next step. Universal and global-scale ideas in a complex world are bound to fail.

Don't 'change' anything - Change is not Improvement. Removing ancient compacts that have worked well is not Improvement.

Assume Fair =Different not Fair=Equal - Abandon participation in one size fit's all policies. It doesn't.

I was teaching last Saturday. A participant asked how to tell if someone was a stakeholder. "There are three ways to spot a stakeholder I say smiling. I'll use a play on words to explain so you'll remember."

"First there were those who have a stake in the outcomes of your activity. They would bet for or against you. Generally, it is best if people bet on your success. You need to give them reasons to do so. Second, imagine you need to put up a fence. Can't do it on your own so someone must hold a fencepost - a stake - for you to hit with a mallet. They must trust you or they won't hold the stake. And you must make damn sure you don't hit and cause injury. Last, have you ever seen a Dracula movie? It's best not to have any of those who can prevent your vision wanting to do so. Dracula is powerful so instead of setting up a voluntary blood donation charity to keep him fed, instead he flies out every night surprising and harassing people and biting them. Finally, they get fed up with that. One of them sharpens a stake, goes up to castle and plunges it through his heart as the finale to the movie. Always engage your stakeholders," I end, "it's good for you and it's good for them."

I'm certain my country, the United Kingdom in the midst of grief, a change of monarch, cost of living rises and the remnants of the terror of covid hopefully will decide that we are all stakeholders prove I made the right choice.

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