Interview: Professor Andrew Kakabadse
Leading Smart Transformation
Steve Macaulay
Hello, I am Steve Macaulay and I am interviewing Professor
Andrew Kakabadse about his new book that he has co-authored
called Leading Smart Transformation.
Now Andrew, this about government; lots of people say do we
really need to change government? Plenty more say we certainly
need to transform government; now tell me some more, why do
we need to transform government?
Andrew Kakabadse
The reason for that is essentially a market based reason in that the
markets are now far more dynamic, we have global finance and
capital can be moved to any part of the world in a milli-second and
that means now, the need and demand of the citizen and the
ability to pay for that demand is very different to before. In fact it
is not so much need to change government – that is taken for
granted; it is do we need the nation state in the way it is currently?
And there is a very good argument that in fact the current nation
structures that exist are too small to handle the demands that
citizens will have and we will need now regional governments. So
on that basis, South America may have to be one country, and on
this basis, Europe should be one country.
So in the absence of that, and with the rapid movement of capital,
the need for government to be responsive is now ever greater,
hence the need for transformation and change.
Steve Macaulay
Now some people say, look, transformation of something as
difficult as government is out of the question; wouldn’t we be
much better with a gradualist approach of slow and steady change?
Andrew Kakabadse
You are going to have both, because you have both in the private
sector: you could equally say that transformation at BP is almost
impossible, or any of the major global organisations like Microsoft
are almost impossible. And you will see some of these global
organisations are slowly and slowly becoming more bureaucratic
requiring transformation and yet it doesn’t happen.
It is the same for government; government is complex, it is big, it
has got large budgets and it has got one thing in addition to all the
challenges that private sector faces and that is government has
Parliament – it has elected members. And those elected members
are there to represent the citizen and there is no cohesion coming
out of Parliament – and why should it? We are supposed to be
electing the people that we want to represent us to provide us with
the services that we want. It doesn’t mean to say that we all
Andrew Kakabadse
agree.
So yes, there is complexity in change for government, but that does
not alter the question of the need to provide services in a very fast
moving world.
Steve Macaulay
Now you have titled the book Smart Transformation – what exactly
is smart transformation?
Andrew Kakabadse
There seem to be three levels of power; there is me forcing you to
do what I want, there is me creating a situation where you have no
option – so levels one and two. Level three is where you want to
do something, that I in a sense have put the idea to you, but you
have taken ownership of it. And really the big question today with
any transformation is the question of ownership and engagement.
So many change programmes fail, not because of their intent, nor
because of their planning. It is because of the communication and
engagement that did not take place while the change programme
was ongoing, as opposed to planning the change programme
before it started.
And that was the reason that here, in this book, the idea of smart
transformation was introduced in trying to portray the message
that part of the problem is good planning and good thinking, but
most of the problem is how you do the change on the day, as it
happens.
Steve Macaulay
One of the things when I read your book that struck me was that
this is a model that could be applied almost to a business – the idea
of setting a vision, putting a strategy together, engaging
stakeholders, putting an execution plan, having a project office and
so on. They sound very business terms, almost like a business
consultancy that I know has done profitable work with many
governments. Can you give me some feel of how that is different,
what you are proposing?
Andrew Kakabadse
In one sense it is not, you will find in government ranging from the
American government to the Australian – even the Chinese
government – the terminology is what is your business model?
That is the question that government is asking. And you could ask,
why use that question? You will find equally in government that
the term citizen is being used less and business priorities being used
more. The term customer being used more.
So there is little doubt that the world is slowly being enveloped by
the market principles and by managementisation and so, no
surprise, this book had a business model that examined how one
takes a policy, translates that into strategy and then cascades that
down into action, implementation and bedding down so that
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Andrew Kakabadse
people feel part of the change process.
All these model came from business, so what we found was in our
own research, that a business model emerged as to how to make
change work in government.
Steve Macaulay
A lot of people in government will say it is nigh impossible to
actually make it happen – people are surrounded by critics, I think,
for instance, the UK’s National Health Service that has gone
through innumerable transformations and yet many people say the
model still doesn’t work. What is going on there and what do we
do about that?
Andrew Kakabadse
Well first of all there are substantial changes taking place in
government. Whether you as the citizen like those changes is, of
course, another matter. The British Civil Service probably is one of
the most stretched in the world and I have come to the conclusion
that the British public servant is probably one of the most capable
in the world. What I note here in the UK, is that there are four core
competencies required of most of the delivery departments – policy
advice to the minister, that hasn’t gone away; service delivery
excellence – we need good doctors from the Health Service;
contracting, outsourcing – that is now a major skill. And now with
Cameron’s Big Society, the strategic facilitation of communities.
Now if you look at those four core competencies, I do not know of
another organisation that is simultaneously running with four core
competencies that contradict each other. If you go to an oil
company – oil extraction, oil development, by products into
different areas, but we are still around oil. Policy advice to
government is not of the same competence as oil. Can you tell me
which organisation that has four, that have to run altogether and all
of them have to be as good as each other?
Now you could ask the question are we asking too much of our
British public service? Now I think that is a relevant question, but
the changes that are taking place are enormous and one of the key
questions is are we spending too much time on sourcing and
contracting and too much time on creating policy application as
opposed to the professional skills of service delivery? So do we
have enough policemen on the streets? Do we have enough
doctors doing X, Y and Z? Do we have enough lawyers and courts
to deal with the problems that we have got now? Do we have
enough prisons?
But if you look at the background, which is what are the constraints
that Parliament placed and the government placed on our civil
service departments, and how well those departments have
responded across a number of fronts? You would be surprised as to
how good we are.
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Andrew Kakabadse
Certain departments right now are being tasked with a 40%
reduction of their operating budget and at the same time to
maintain standards. Now you can see that something is going to
give there and that is why we have a need now to transform
government, be smart about it and recognise that one of the key
levers is no longer public administration or policy, it is now the
quality of the leadership to make it happen.
Steve Macaulay
Well let’s pick that up because one of the things that I was
intrigued about was what you describe as X-factor leadership – can
you say a bit more about that?
Andrew Kakabadse
The X-factor leadership is fundamentally focusing on contextualism;
in other words, there is no assumption that because you are a good
leader over here, you are going to be a good leader elsewhere.
And what in fact we are finding from research is that each situation
is so unique and different until you have understood it, whatever
you are trying to do is probably going to fail.
So I would treat Whitehall departments, each one as separate. I
would ask the question of Whitehall – the Treasury, the Cabinet
Office at Number Ten – where is your joined up governance that
will provide for joined up government in the delivery departments?
And I suspect that you will find that there isn’t joined up
governance. So you are going to look at leadership at different
levels, you are going to look at it at the centre of the government
and how that influences the qualities that we would need in
delivery. Then you are going to go to the centre of each
department and ask how are the policies being created that will
provide the services that we want? Only one of the services,
funnily enough, is the civilian – is the ultimate customer – others
are working together with different delivery bodies called ‘arm’s
length’ bodies that will provide that service for you.
So that is the X-factor: do you first of all know which context you
are referring to? Secondly, when those contexts conflict, how are
you going to handle those very sensitive interfaces? And thirdly,
when you are in a position which is not your fault, that you are
giving in a sense mixed messages because you have so many
different stakeholders to satisfy, how do you still win people over?
Win over the hearts and minds and get the engagement that you
want that will bring the actions that you need?
Steve Macaulay
So lastly, Andrew, can you leave me with a clear message from the
book about government and the future of government?
Andrew Kakabadse
The future of government is going to be absolutely vital. The major
question is can we call our population customers or do we have to
treat them both as civilians and customers? They have rights and
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they have decisions to make about purchasing habits. Smart
government is one that will address both issues – what do we need
for good health for our elderly people and at the same time, given
the choices that they can make, even at their advanced age.
Steve Macaulay
Andrew, thank you very much.
Andrew Kakabadse
My pleasure.
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