Economics with People
Volume 4: Chapter 10: Securing buy-in from system leaders
How can you get buy-in from system leaders to change the conditions?
Creating the environment for change
In this series, we have shared our experiences with co-production, collaborating with local communities and anchor institutions, and detailing the practical developments over the past two years. Our journey has been influenced by various elements, both enabling and impeding our progress in different ways.
Creating an environment receptive to community wealth building and economic change was essential. Securing buy-in from system leaders and decision-makers was a key task. In this chapter, we delve into how we achieved this buy-in and the enablers and barriers we encountered along the way.
As discussed previously in Chapter 6, building relationships and effectively framing your message and vision are crucial. These elements remain relevant beyond just setting up for success at the beginning. The relationships you establish will foster trust and integrity, forming a positive foundation for your initiatives.
Based on our experience, we have listed below our 5 key strategies to securing senior leadership buy-in:
1. Identify leaders & reasons for participation
Having the right people involved matters. Identifying leaders who may already understand and align with your work can be particularly helpful. In Salford, we did this by using existing networks and relationships and speaking with people who had professional responsibility around public health and inclusive economy. Once we had designated leaders involved, securing buy-in from others was an easier task.
We also shared previous examples of our work to demonstrate our approach and why this organisation or leader would want to engage and work with us. Having an evidence base of successful cases will increase likelihood of participation.
2. A clear and compelling ambition
Communicating a clear and compelling concept and ambition, along with explaining why their contribution matters, is vital. It will provide the necessary direction and purpose of your work. This approach not only secures initial support but also aids in refining your message for others who may be more challenging to convince.
A convincing message, that is tailored to each particular person or group can also serve to motivate and resonate more deeply with them. It also provides reassurance that it is a well-planned and confident idea.
3. Understand their barriers
Understanding what challenges this leader faces and what might inhibit their buy-in and full engagement in your plans. An open and honest discussion can facilitate measures to overcome these blockers and help to manage expectations around realistic activity and engagement.
In Salford, some of these blockers looked like a lack of time, resources or knowledge in specific areas or newer ideas. Providing resources or capacity to any of the barriers, where possible, can also help create an environment open to new ideas and change. Often, people are constrained by time and capacity may hesitate to support an idea that requires more resources than they can provide. We offered to create resources, meet with teams, answer any questions or share experiences or outcomes from other organisations who are working with us.
4. Understand their priorities
As well as understanding barriers, having knowledge of priorities for this leader or organisation will assist in providing solutions that align with their key drivers. This knowledge can also help to build the case and will be useful to include in your communication of the ambition.
By understanding each individual or organisations motivations and drivers, we were able to align the work to these by using similar framing or language, highlighting similarities or potential solutions and aim for timeframes that fitted their needs.
5. Be clear on benefits of participation & commitment expectations
To gain the necessary buy-in from a system you aim to change, it is critical to articulate the benefits for the system and its stakeholders.
Understanding and reflecting these clearly will help to secure the buy-in. Does your vision align with their priorities, or does it address a significant challenge they face? Be specific with these benefits.
An example on our project was that we identified around £10m worth of existing expenditure between the key anchor institutions supply chains in Salford that could be shifted to have a more positive impact in the city in regards to tackling inequality. This was highlighted to the leaders as a significant change they could make at no additional cost to their organisation with us assisting them at every step.
Clearly outlining the commitment involved, who will take on which roles, the assistance you can offer, or if it’s simply their support and backing you need, can make your request more feasible.
We have created an infographic for your convenience with the points above. You can access it here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/vs52uQwdBceHphhu6
Aligning and liaison with policy makers
Systems can often create barriers to community-led innovation (including community wealth building), limiting its impact and even bringing it to a standstill.
If community wealth building is to flourish, we need to name those barriers, and tackle them together. For example, in our leadership and governance arrangements, in how people work together, and in how money and other resources are distributed.
Source: GoodLives GM - https://goodlivesgm.co.uk/
Barriers like these can be shifted. Systems can be enablers. An example of this is the use of co-production between local people and agencies. Often local people are not included in decision making and therefore feel as though they have no control over the place they live or what happens there. Valuing the experience of local people can provide new or creative ideas and help everyone to feel accountable for their area by sharing decision making and ensuring everyone has a reason to see it thrive. Using co-production, we have seen great work in areas such as housing, the economy and employment and poverty and inequality. Our chapters on co-production may help you use this approach in your work.
Stronger links between economic development and public health professionals has also helped us see success in the work we are doing. Embedding health into plans and strategies can ensure this is a long term feature. We recommend carving out time to build these relationships and think about how work can be shared between these two areas.
With focus and collective action, we can change our systems so they work better for people and communities.
Learning about system change in Greater Manchester is captured in the GoodLives GM Compass. The Compass points the way towards the new systems we need to nurture community-led innovation, such as community wealth building. The Compass is grown out of years of learning about social innovation and system change in Greater Manchester.
The Compass provides starting points for turning system barriers into system enablers. Use the compass below to identify the areas which you are finding challenge in and focus on the most prominent one for your place. Do your teams have shared missions or are your leaders willing to share power to find a solution to long standing challenges?
Source: GoodLives GM - https://goodlivesgm.co.uk/
To align this approach with policy makers in our case, we started with Salford’s policy described in the Salford Way. We adopted the stated vision for an inclusive and green economy: “A fairer and more inclusive local economy that delivers greater social and environmental justice, where wealth is shared more widely across all our communities. An economy where every Salford citizen has the opportunity to participate and feel empowered to make a difference through their communities, workplaces and local democratic institutions.”
We focused on two key aspects of the city’s inclusive and green economy strategy: building local community wealth; and growing the social economy.
As we have developed Economies for Healthier Lives in Salford from this basis, we have been able to explore and test new ideas while staying true to the City’s vision. While working with local anchor institutions on community wealth building, we have also worked with local people with a view to create new social and co-operative businesses.
While working autonomously, we have liaised closely with policy makers at Salford City Council in both economic development and public health, including regular discussions, presentations and sessions at both formal and informal meetings. This has enabled us to continuously test our evolving thinking, as well as to influence thinking within ‘the system’.
As a result, the learning and thinking from Economies for Healthier Lives is starting to be incorporated into mainstream policy and strategy for the future. This is happening due successful partnership work, identifying those in the system who will work with you and are looking for new solutions to existing challenges in inequality and aligning with existing. In doing this, we recognise that some of our innovations will be absorbed into existing systems to improve them and to prolong their life, while some will pave the way for the radically different third horizon systems to emerge. The Salford local anchors network features in the recently refreshed Corporate Plan by Salford City Council and is recognised as a key tool to achieving a more fairer, healthier city with a more inclusive economy.
Engaging politicians
Our adoption of the Salford Way’s stated vision, of an inclusive and green economy, created an opportunity to cement Economies for Healthier Lives as the vehicle for delivering a more inclusive economy in Salford. The city of Salford has a Labour administration and is led by its' directly elected City Mayor, Paul Dennett. Paul is a trustee at the Centre for Local Economics and describes himself as a 'sensible socialist'. Our approach of community wealth building through community ownership and local procurement of good and services from anchor institutions sits exactly on Salford's political ethos.
We reviewed who Economies for Healthier Lives needed to engage within the political system to be successful. We met with lead members in Salford City Council’s cabinet, and planned in detail how to pitch the project differently to different politicians, appealing to their particular portfolio and how the success of the project could translate to meaningful change for the residents they represent to gain their support. We explored how lead members could make a meaningful difference to ensure the success of the project, we framed our meetings about what actions they could take; thus building allies and creating the environment for nudges in the direction of the third horizon.
Relationships have been central to our ability to make progress on our project objectives. Our ability to create a new kind of economy in Salford, is reinforced by our framing alignment of Economies for Healthier Lives with the wider policy agenda, as well as the relationships we have with system leaders. Those things combined inspired confidence from politicians that our project is worth getting behind in way that unlocks the leverage, resources and influence of the City Council as the political centre of the city and an anchor institution in its’ own right.
The council’s chief executive Tom Stannard, happens to also be the chair of the Institute for Economic Development. Tom, in his role of supporting the implementation of the City Mayor’s political agenda, has been a key ally to the project. We meet with Paul and Tom on a regular basis, updating on project successes and barriers, identifying together, how Economies for Healthier Lives can achieve the third horizon. Salford’s Way is a city of ambition, with leaders who want innovation and see the soreness of inequality and the rampant poverty that it produces, we are their ally.
Next time: How can you start to shift a whole system?