What do you think of when you hear the word mutual? Mutual friends? mutual interests? It means things we have in common with others that we can use to our advantage, right? The problem is that although such links are enthusiastically utilised in our day to day lives, they are often not exploited to their full potential in industry.
If a pilot scheme recently coined by the government goes ahead, we could begin to see a brand new use of the concept of mutuality in our public services. It will involve talented public sector employees across organisational divisions, collaborating into central groups designed to tackle overarching issues. In other words, calling on their mutual interests and expertise to solve big problems.
Pilot Initiatives in Swindon and Leicester for example are combining employees from the health and social services sector to tackle issues such as the needs of the homeless and a whole host of other ‘broad’ societal problems. And what do you think these new teams of common interests might be called? Well it seems quite obvious when you think about it: mutuals.
‘Big society’ and ‘power to the people’ jargon aside; there is a serious message here about corporate organisation and productivity. Integration is an innovative way forward for complex, stratified organisations. Bureaucracy is a problem and organisations struggle to unpick it.
At Ignite we believe that the best way to really find a solution is to think about a problem in a completely different way. Yes, integrated services are bold and yes, it’s totally out of the comfort zone, but it is only by stretching expectations and attempting the outrageous that real change can be achieved.
We say think big; both in terms of goals and a conception of your industry. Mildly tweaking respective sections of a business is not enough. It is only by thinking in macro terms that each sector can really exploit its expertise and potential. It’s time to start breaking down barriers and creating a new type of public service – a public service without frontiers!
