Sharing experiences, forging stronger links and building trusting relationships that lead to more collaborative action
York
The York MCN is a network that exists for anyone in York who is interested in radically improving things for people who experience multiple difficulties at the same time, and for whom the system’s collective response is currently insufficient.
It is an unbounded group with a fluid membership of people from all parts of the system. We come together regularly, and there are different sub-groups taking action in different ways. Together we are exploring how to create the conditions for a healthy system in York. We know this includes challenging assumptions and grappling with power dynamics.
There is other interconnected work in York as well – a participatory grants fund (Deciding Together), a network of lived experience leaders, the Systems Changers programme and a children and young people’s inquiry.
The York MCN Enabling Team helps to weave some of this work together.
We hope you enjoy exploring it here.
Catherine.scott@yorkcvs.org.uk
Kelly.cunningham@changing-lives.org.uk
The York MCN Network is trying to influence change on a macro and micro level within the services across York.
These services provide support to people in the community who require help for all manner of issues. It’s incredibly stressful and confusing for anyone who stands back to look at the bigger picture. How is it possible to navigate these services and seek out the help required?
I’ve been staggered by every individual in the Network over the last year. Staggered in their passion, their resilience, their motivation, their energy, compassion, knowledge, honesty, courage, empathy, understanding and willingness to commit to what is (to be blunt) a challenge that is so big and so vast sometimes it seems unsurmountable.
When I sit here and reflect upon my own journey this year, I can see that I have felt swamped.
I’ve felt like this task is too great to overcome.
It’s felt at times that I’ve had no solutions, however large or small the problem. I’ve not had the answers despite countless nights, afternoons and evenings sat drawing endless mind maps and causal loops on old-fashioned lining wallpaper, my preferred method of problem solving.
When you’re sat on your own with it all in front of you, trying to make sense of how it all interlinks, it can all seem a bit overwhelming to say the least.
The thing is though, I was never really alone.
Collaboration is one of the most difficult (and at times mind-blowing) methods of working that I’ve encountered in the last decade of my life within the creative arts.
It can be exhausting.
It’s frustrating, it’s complex and it means learning to work together as a whole – a whole which is far greater and far more effective than its individual parts. It’s about trust, radical trust in the Network and its collective energy and knowledge.
When individuals continually come together and share learning it provides a ‘fluid permanence’ from which they can be liberated from the old methods of working separately and silently.
Collaboration is about…
- being committed to learning
- figuring out new ways of working together
- being more consistently open and honest
- getting rid of silos
- a coproduced approach
- a shared vision and values
Over the last 12 months, we took part in a ‘Cultural Values’ process tigether, and it’s really bonded people.
The idea of our shared values was a huge part of the process. The work generated its own gravity, its own synergy. It has had us thinking about what matters and what feels right. It’s also made us think about what behaviours we collectively want to encourage and how we want to progress.
It’s been a perfect example of how organic the Network’s endeavours are. It steered its own path, so to speak. One session would determine the next session, which was held in a state of permanent flux, ebbing and flowing in response to the conversations and exchanges of experiences that occurred.
A revolution on a societal level can only take place in our own minds first.
If we want to change the wider systems of working, it starts with us as individuals which is no small task. It’s hard to challenge your own thinking and address and adapt any long-held methods of working you may have.
We all need to think and work differently…
But the way we think and the way we work are two of the hardest things to think and work differently on if you’re still with me?
Thankfully, the amazing and inspiring conversations that take place across the Network really make you constantly review the lens through which you navigate the world around you.
From my perspective, it’s about inserting the ‘We’ in place of the ‘I’ and the ‘Can’ over the ‘Can’t’.
There’s a huge feel-good factor to sharing a space with people who have passion, heart and soul.
The Cultural Values work really confirmed for me that I am part of something so special, so novel and ground breaking… it’s like a breath of fresh air.
The MCN Network will continue in the next year to strive for change through a complete range of skills, learning, knowledge and a sense of camaraderie. This keeps me driven to play my part in making a difference in the work that I do.
It’s an honour and a privilege to be part of the MCN Network and this year that has been eventful, emotional, and inspiring.
Johny H, MCN member
Media Grid
Keeping the lights on and re-imagining the future at the same time…
Kelly Cunningham
Through York MCN we are continually working with people to think about the challenge of the now and the future we want to see, and it throws up lots of questions.
So, imagine you’re a busy operations manager working in the voluntary sector.
You may find yourself asking questions such as “Could this be easier? Who is this rule serving? Is this process creating barriers we just don’t need?”
You don’t have the immediate answers so you shift blame to your finance team who appear inflexible, your HR lead who starts every sentence with ‘can we just consider the risk to…’, or your rigid commissioning manager who’s driven by key performance indicator submissions.
So, what next?
You try to tweak things. You edit a process and re-train your team but still wonder why you need approval from your board of trustees for ‘that thing over there’.
You still feel like ‘this thing over here’ is culturally embedded and when you ask that simple question ‘Why?’ you hear something along the lines of: ‘Well, that’s just how we have always done it’.
Throw the frantic juggle of budget efficiencies into the mix, daily operational headaches and the mountain of emails from staff seeking approval and it begs the question – does this busy operations manager have the time to actually think of alternatives?
How do we carve out time, space, freedom and permission to dream big? And what does this require of an operations manager in terms of skills and mindset? Does stepping out of our comfort zone mean we lose control?
There is no blueprint or toolkit for this. But, on a positive note we are seeing greater resourcing for this work/breathing space.
Maybe it’s a call for bravery and a need for more disruption. Maybe it’s a call to stop fixating on fixing and to spend longer on the ‘why’ rather than jumping straight to the ‘how’.
We like to think about this in terms of the three horizons model (Bill Sharpe)
^ The three Horizons over time
Horizon 1 – the dominant system. It represents ‘business as usual’. ([Focus = the “what”?]
Horizon 2 – At some point the innovations become more effective than the original system – this is a point of disruption. [Focus = the “how”?]
Horizon 3 – It is the long term successor to business as usual – the radical innovation that introduces a completely new way of doing things. [Focus = the “why”?]
Through the York MCN network we have and shall continue exploring where the energy is and what governance structures we can collectively put in place to help build a scaffold rather than a cage for that busy operations manager to perhaps re-imagine a better way.
Check out some of the events coming up as part of our York week.
The York MCN Network will be celebrating the work they’ve done together over the past few years and looking ahead to what should come next! Join at 9.30am – 12.30pm. Register here:bit.ly/3Jmk5Lq
Kate McLaven (@kateemclovin) will be taking over our Twitter
She’ll be sharing more about the York MCN Network. Follow via @lankellychase #LCCommonGround
