This pivotal need for systemic change is highlighted by a crucial tension: the “end user as customer culture now appears to eclipse a belief in the role of end user as participant”. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Aj8dB

"We can no longer afford to let the most pressing, immediate problems be ignored because the solutions crafted by the community are too small, too localised, or too legally inconvenient for our massive, centralised institutions." https://lttr.ai/AjebK

Why We Must Pivot to Community Enabling ▸ https://lttr.ai/Ajrw3

The public sector, instead of operating as a coherent system, often functions as a collection of isolated silos, with departments and agencies failing to connect their work on complex, cross-cutting issues. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ajrw2

How Can We Create Systems Where Knowledge Becomes Contagious?: https://lttr.ai/Ajcla

How can we move to focus on building local capacity, deep collaboration, and systemic change rather than delivering isolated, time-limited initiatives? 📅 Friday 24th October 2025 🕛 12:00 - 12:45 📍Watch online - We're on Zoom Register for free through the link t.co/eoFtQJ4G14

Whilst there is nothing wrong with looking to the private sector for inspiration, the problem arose when this became blind imitation. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ajjpk

Systemic Effects: How Red Tape Kills Innovation https://lttr.ai/AjebF

The origins of public service league tables are a direct result of the belief that governments should be run like businesses. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AjeED

Despite unprecedented access to data and technology the number one self stated problem in organisations is always and only ever one thing: communication The system we need to rebuild must be founded on principles of collective intelligence and self organisation ptaylor.substack.com/p/how-can-we...

"Today, as many of us seek to explore a more human-centered approach, exemplified by concepts like citizen-centric focus, or place-based working, the time has come to challenge the belief that metrics drive performance." https://lttr.ai/Aictk

We enabled small, dedicated teams – often just a handful of people – to literally embed themselves within specific communities with a belief, and gave them some power. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AisgQ

Post pandemic, when our ways of working are completely changed, the traditional innovation lab is dead. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AjQNA

Our Obsession With League Tables, And The Performance Paradox: https://lttr.ai/AjOtO

Our shift to a place-based approach requires a shift to a place centric innovation model. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AisgL

“Why do senior politicians (from all parties) still think that public sector targets and league tables are a good idea?” Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ai8s1

How do institutions prove their identity to citizens is more interesting question? (as I deal with yet another email scam of my mum that uses that organisational power of authority and brand identity against her)

The problem of organisations creating space for innovation and creative thinking, whilst prioritising business as usual, is anything but new. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AisgO

The digital by default model was largely driven by a cost-saving agenda, where the high expense of in-person interactions was the primary justification for pushing services online Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AjA2o

This is our classic paradox: the metrics and targets that are intended to drive improvement can create a powerful set of incentives that actually work against the very innovation and risk-taking we need to strive for. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ai9Uy

"Interactions can be complex, multi-faceted, and emotionally charged. In these scenarios, a digital-first approach becomes a barrier rather than a convenience" paulitaylor.com/2025/09/05/d... < Helpfully challenging post from @paulitaylor.bsky.social on why one size doesn't fit all

New post inspired by a thread from @samrethinking.bsky.social asking why people (still) think league tables are a good idea ptaylor.substack.com/p/our-obsess...

"There is no single public record that totals what has been spent on digital transformations across the public and non profit sectors in the past decade. We know it is in the tens of billions but we don't know how many tens. " https://lttr.ai/AisgK

How To (Re)Build An Innovation Lab ▸ https://lttr.ai/AisgM

How To (Re)Build An Innovation Lab New post reflecting on the genesis of corporate innovation labs, the beginning and eventual end of @bromfordlab.bsky.social , and the evolution into a place-based future. 77 Labs. One Hive Mind. open.substack.com/pub/ptaylor/...

When faced with vast issues like global warming or national debt, we feel a deep lack of control and efficacy. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Aictl

The public sector swallowed a dangerous pill disguised as progress – the digital by default hype. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Aictm

Citizen-centric, place-based working seeks to reimagine public sector performance beyond a metric-obsessed culture Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AiesO

Digital Transformation and Our Failure To Learn From Past Mistakes ▸ https://lttr.ai/AieLi

The Continuous Improvement Delusion: "Continuous improvement teaches organisations that they have no power to actually solve their problems—only to marginally reduce their severity over time." flowchainsensei.wordpress.com/2025/09/04/t...

Strategy Versus Plans open.substack.com/pub/ptaylor/...

The distinctions between public and private sectors reveal an inherent mismatch between the tools (private sector metrics) and the context (public sector realities). Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AiOjZ

Marking one year of place-based working "Improved customer satisfaction, faster repairs, and stronger community relationships" www.bromford.co.uk/news/bristol...

In a legacy system companies find themselves wrestling with redundant internal IT systems that refuse to communicate, leading to data silos where information is duplicated, inconsistent, or simply lost. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AiEWL

Citizen-centric, place-based working seeks to reimagine public sector performance beyond a metric-obsessed culture Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/Ah7oZ

Only a couple of days left to sign up to our next place webinar, 'One Year Of Staple Hill' 🚀 📅 Friday 22nd August 2025 🕛 12:00 - 12:45 📍Watch online - We're now on Zoom Sign up using the link below: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

It's one year since we launched the first test of a decentralised #agile #placebased team In a free webinar this Friday August 22nd 12pm-12:45pm BST we'll check in on the progress. Can empowered teams adopting #agile achieve things other can't? Sign up via Zoom us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

For too long, the public sector has been riddled with legacy practices that have inadvertently (or sometimes, quite deliberately) built disconnected empires Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AhofC

The OKR Racket "Great Bosses build great companies. Bad bosses build great spreadsheets" flowchainsensei.wordpress.com/2025/08/10/t...

The Abilene paradox: A group of people agree to do something they all secretly dislike because they assume everyone else wants to. It's a failure of communication where a group makes a collective decision that no individual member actually wants.

"If we want to get serious about transformative place-based public services, we need to treat England's chronic case of ‘pilotitis'' www.themj.co.uk/knitting

"Most agile “transformations” are really just process makeovers." Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AgdRA

Our session was a bit of moonshot – what if agile places could save the public sector? Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AgdRN

Community-level efforts are so powerful – as they tap into our innate need to feel that we can genuinely make a difference. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AgdQ8

What if we stopped thinking of individual sectors and started thinking about of them as ‘products' that require interoperability? Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AgdRL

Perpetually rising NHS costs are not inevitable: they are a product of an organisation that prefers to invest in shiny new stuff rather than process improvement: www.hsj.co.uk/daily-insigh...

Transparency as a Weapon Against Obscurity: Agile place champions radical transparency – visible progress, open communication, and shared understanding. Read more 👉 https://lttr.ai/AgdRJ

Bad management and a big lack of management capacity often leaves the public sector with rotten efficiency AND rotten efficacy, like today's NHS. In blaming management for focussing on efficiency, she reinforces the problem leading to less capacity to do efficacy...

Mazzucato seems to confuse generally bad management with the idea that NPM is all about the pursuit of efficiency while disregarding quality and outcomes. That's just bad management, not some evil philosophy...

New Post: Organisations talk a lot about efficiency but very little about efficacy. Efficiency: Doing things 'right'. Efficacy (or Effectiveness): Doing the 'right things'. Being efficient is not half as effective as conventional management would like to think. open.substack.com/pub/ptaylor/...