Universities are victim to the same paralysis inflicting wider society which operate in an outdated industrial model. Centralised decision making, operating in silos, competition over collaboration, all working contrary to the goals and values of the institutions they serve. A way of working entrenched through habit, and an institutionalised inability to envisage other alternatives.

However, there is another way…

In his book 'Upheaval - how nations cope with crisis and change', Jared Diamond applies a personal crisis framework to nation states to analyse the likelihood of succeeding in resolving a crisis. As I delved into the book, I couldn't help but think there is opportunity to reflect and apply these factors to all types of organisations crippled by crisis. This could be reacting to external crises (financial crash, pandemics), internal crises (breakdown in leadership/operating model), or even localised crises (competition, labour demands).

improving the ‘service user group’ to encourage better, more meaningful participation with the people who benefit from the support. Changing the name to better reflect the collaborative intention.

I introduce to you the E-I-O model for fan empowerment. The steps to embedding democratic models into the football ecosystem.

Engage - Institute - Ownership

Shadow Boards can help companies harness creativity, engage their workforce, and stay ahead of the curve. It also offers an extension of the commonly used model and proposes one selected by sortition and empowered by deliberation.

The advent of AI has offered up opportunities for innovation across the change management sector. Technology that can play a critical role in streamlining and enhancing the overall process. One such opportunity, often underestimated, is how to expand and optimise stakeholder input.

A change that resonates and perpetuates, isn’t birthed from top-down mandates but one that is woven from the collective wisdom of all employees.

There is a significant case to be made that the appropriate use of sortition can help all types of organisations make better decisions better. The key concept that this relies on is ‘cognitive diversity’.

There is an opportunity here, not yet taken, to build on this synergy of purpose. For corporations to unleash their agile potential beyond the confines of product delivery. And for democracy advocates to use agile’s corporate credibility to advance the case for a move towards a better, distributed democracy.

Competitive selections do not necessarily favour competence, in fact they can reward traits contrary to the interests of the organisation.

Although much energy goes into reclaiming power from politics and politicians, it is the places we work, and the services we interact with that often do the most to empower and disempower in our day to day lives.

Using this as a guide, we embarked on the next stage of the workshop: to come up with ideas on how we could better empower people to be involved in decision making in organisations