Audio: Is there a better kind of efficiency?

Is there a new kind of efficiency emerging? That was the question before a packed audience at the Royal Society of Arts last week in a debate between myself, NESTA’s Halima Khan and the pioneering system thinker John Seddon – and chaired by nef social policy head Anna Coote.

“People mess things up,” I said, setting out the thesis of The Human Element. 

“They get ill, have tantrums, make the most humungous mistakes. We replace them with IT systems wherever we can. Preferably IT systems that provide information to the bosses before they help the customers.

“What we’ve forgotten, it seems to me, is that – especially in public services – human beings are also the only real source of success. The only source of genuine change.

“Things that succeed have a personality behind them. We know that from personal experience, but we fly from the implications.

“It means that, if you employ imaginative and effective people, especially on the frontline, and give them the freedom to innovate, they’ll succeed. If you don’t, they will fail.  Because conventional efficiency destroys human contact and human relationships.”

Now you can hear the whole debate online at:

http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2011/is-there-a-better-kind-of-efficiency