Thinking out loud…
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On being a systems entrepreneur
How do we move forward in an uncertain world? A systems entrepreneur recognises that whatever their interests and various areas of expertise, they are moving forward into an unknown world.… Read more
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On four perspectives of change
Picture the scene: your leadership team announces to the whole staff body of your purpose-driven organisation that they are going to introduce a performance related pay scheme to ensure that… Read more
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On conflicting incentives (stories from the frontline)
I wish I had collected these stories and vignettes over the years as I came across them. This most recent example came up in recent conversation. It’s a simple, yet… Read more
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On the devolution white paper: diamonds in the rough or fool’s gold?
What are we to make of the recent devolution white paper1? On the one hand there is bold ambition in the expansion of a sub-regional level of governance and a… Read more
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On making things worse while hoping for better.
Some things never change. Sometimes something you consider long gone resurfaces when you least expect it. It’s even worse when all the evidence suggests that its demise was a good… Read more
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On reorganising local government (questions of scale) – part 5
So the critical challenge remains: who gets to draw the lines on a map? Give the task to a bureaucrat and you might get standardised lines, under assumptions of effectiveness.… Read more
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On reorganising local government (questions of geography) – part 4
“Before considering what the Local Government areas actually are, we must ask what principles might reasonably be expected to underlie the geographical arrangement1.” When all is said and done this… Read more
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On reorganising local government (questions of process) – part 3
With no compelling vision for local government or motivating reason for change we will be left to curate a purely technocratic exercise of drawing arbitrary lines on a map. So… Read more
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On going against the grain
What if all public servants were equipped with the capacity and capability to be more entrepreneurial in their efforts to create change? For the City of Bogotá this question forms… Read more
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On reorganising local government (questions of purpose) – part 2
I believe that at their best, local authorities are custodians of places, anchor institutions of the areas they administer. They can take a long-term view as champion for and shaper… Read more
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On reorganising local government (why should we care?) – part 1
And so here we are again, back to a place I inhabited for three years of my life between 2007 and 2010. Local Government reorganisation. Not the most popular of… Read more
Categories:
- Autobiographical + Spiritual (22)
- Behaviour + Incentives (25)
- Change + Innovation (67)
- Collaboration + Teams (29)
- Geography+Community (60)
- Governance + Decisions (37)
- Outcomes + Evaluation (33)
- Performance + Productivity (29)
- Strategy + Foresight (45)
- Systems + Complexity (59)
Ian Burbidge. 