Themes that must be tackled in the move towards a self-improving FE system: Human Relations

In this series of 10 short blogs – which will issue in rapid succession – I will consider in turn the top themes that have emerged from 50 interviews with teachers, leaders, policy-makers, academics and other from across and beyond the English FE system. Each blog will end with a question which I hope will generate debate on LinkedIn, where the blogs are signposted.

The core question considered has been “what might be the features of a self-improving FE system?” Interviewees have also considered the key features of the FE system as it stands, and what is holding it back from being self-improving.

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A theme many of my 50+ interviewees have mentioned as being vital to a Self-Improving System is human relations. Several who work at various levels in the English FE system expressed a set of views along the following lines:  

• Trust is only one aspect of a broader theme of human relations in the system
• When people don’t know each other genuine collaboration is difficult; and in a system that has a strong competitive dynamic it is even harder
• So there has to be closer human connection between players in the system at all levels, and they have to come together to do the hard work of addressing common challenges
• And this in turn means the system has be chunked up into smaller units where this is humanly feasible – those units could be based on geography, on statistical similarity or on commonality of interest.

This all seems to point to the importance of localism in the FE system. Politically, there is still a great deal of uncertainty whether the tentative trend towards devolution in post-16 education will stall or accelerate after the next election, whoever wins.

This strong pointer towards localism took me down a path of interviewing those well-placed to talk about its realities; interviewees in Local Authorities, Mayoral Combined Authorities and in smaller education jurisdictions than ours (Scotland, Wales and Jersey). What I found – again simplifying somewhat – was a strong note of caution against the notion of small being beautiful. I heard variously the following insights:

• Being able to all come together to solve a problem can also mean being able to close ranks to ignore a problem
• Intertwining of human relations over decades with professional roles can make difficult conversations very problematic
• Silo-thinking is not really a product of size, it’s more about power structures.

This all adds a very powerful new set of insights to the idea that simply getting to know each other will in and of itself create a self-improving system. 

Indeed one of my interviewees was of the view that self-organising systems specifically are not about conscious collaboration towards a commonly understood goal, but that they are characterized by simple rules and individual units focusing on a radically smaller field of concern; the self-regulation and self-improvement is instead an emergent property at system level. There are many parallels in the natural world that suggest this may be true – ant and bee colonies, for example, rainforests or even our whole planet (see blog two from July).

Question: What role do human relations play in a self-improving system?  Is self-improvement really about this, or is it an overall system effect that emerges when people within the system at all levels focus on something else closer to hand?  If so, what might that “something else” be?

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David Russell

Executive in Residence at Oxford Saïd Business School 
Education and Training Foundation      

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