‘If you do not include everyone who needs to be included at the beginning, you will have to start again when they join in’.
This is one of the truisms of intimate innovation – you cannot learn together through shared experience if you are not involved. And there is such a tendency in complex settings to think that success is linked to ‘leaving people out’ at the beginning – ‘we will work out what to do and then involve them.’ But this attitude leads to ‘involvement as a species of selling’ – those on the inside work out what needs to happen and then consult with those that have been excluded and expect them to join in.
Our view is that if you want to bring about lasting changes in complex settings, it is more efficient and less risky to involve all the parties from the outset.
There are various ways you can do this – and we can help you to develop the capacity to do them; and help you find new ways of working together, that work for you (and all your parties) in your particular context. So, let’s party all together. We all need a chance to narrate ourselves into the story….
Slingshot