Being a regular

Think of a stereotypical village pub, or American bar or coffee shop, just as we see on television in many popular programmes - Cheers, Friends, East Enders and so on. Brought to mind are places 'where everybody knows your name' (to quote the Cheers theme song). We're thinking of a place to which we can turn up uninvited, where it's comfortable for us to sit alone, where we'd normally expect to bump into someone who knows us – somewhere where we are 'a regular'.

But when we put our minds to it we can also think of being a regular in many other situations, such as collecting our children every day from the school gate, being one of the local dog-walkers, or always being among the group train spotting at the end of platform 12 on a Monday afternoon.

This is particularly interesting because by being a regular in this way we may have links to a great many acquaintances, making this a common way to meet new friends. In knowing so many people as a regular, the chances of meeting someone with whom we 'click' is much higher.

If our work is about the support of people who are excluded then we need to take notice. We need firstly to recognise that this happens, but then we also need to think more about how people move from being acquaintances to being friends.

This move might commonly start with an obvious and safe topic of conversation. At the school gate we can safely comment on the behaviour of our children. In the park we can ask about each other's dogs. On the train platform we can ask what trains the other person has seen. We expect that most often the person we approach will reciprocate, commenting on their own children, our dog, or our own train spotting.

We've dipped a toe in the relationship water. Sometimes we haven't found the exchange particularly encouraging, and we return to being complete strangers. Often we've established something friendly, but which is unlikely to grow any stronger. We might not even ask this person their name – but we expect that next time we see them we might exchange a wave, a nod, or a "hello".

Even if this is all we've established this can be enough to make us feel like we belong in a group or situation. And perhaps it also announces to other people that we belong, or that we're worth noticing - a change that makes it easier to make similar moves towards other people, allowing us to gradually develop a network of connections.

But then for some of these relationships either we or the other person might make an additional effort. We might exchange names, and perhaps speak about something slightly more personal. Or one of us might ask for an update on what was learned last time. Or perhaps we just exchange a bigger smile.

Obviously this process has further stages, with the potential each time that a proportion of those we know become closer - until some become friends in the true sense of the word.

The final steps towards establishing a solid friendship might simply require that this process continues over time - maybe even over years. Or it might rely on one of us taking a bigger step - asking for a phone number, suggesting we go for coffee, lending something, or asking for a favour.

In any case, the roots of these relationships – whether shallow and brief, or deep and long lasting – are in being a regular.

In the context of supporting a person who is excluded it seems worth noting the following:

• Making connections may depend on us turning up at the same place and time, or joining in with the same people on many occasions over an extended period (months or years).


• Making connections in this way relies on us being a regular in situations where there are other regulars.


• Not all places and activities have the same potential. We might be a regular at the supermarket, but that's less likely to be of value than our involvement in a club or society.


• We may be particularly likely to connect with people who share a passion, enthusiasm or hobby with us (in a situation where this is obvious).


• The process through which relationships develop is often an active one, requiring action from both parties. It can be helpful to have a good understanding of these processes.


• One particularly interesting way to strengthen a connection is to contribute something, even if this is something small like a photograph, the loan of a pen, or a lift home.


• People will be particularly welcome in situations where through their presence or activity they contribute something of particular use to the group.


• Support people can have profound effects on these social processes simply because of their presence.

"Planning" - not "the plan"

It's common to hear that people are struggling to implement the use of person-centred planning across their organisations. It's also common to hear claims that someone has found an easier way forwards – perhaps by introducing a style of planning that is easier to work with, or by adapting their existing systems.

This article discusses why such claims should be treated with care, and particularly warns against a search for paperwork based solutions.

The problem

The problem is that person-centred planning will never fit easily into a service-centred way of working. The task we face in encouraging its use in such a system will be difficult by definition. It doesn't matter how long we spend looking for a better strategy, it will remain difficult.

When faced with a very difficult path it is human nature to be tempted by alternatives that initially seem more attractive – and then later to avoid too many questions about our wisdom. With person-centred planning the situation is no different.

Often a false path starts with a simple shift in language. Instead of speaking about "person-centred planning" (which brings to mind a group of people working together) we speak about "a person-centred plan" (which suggests a written document).

Then there are the many attempts by people – who haven't fully understood why person-centred planning uses big sheets of paper – to come up with something that is easier to distribute, file or copy. These usually stem from the misunderstanding that producing the big sheet of paper is the purpose of the whole exercise.

The next step is to dispense with large sheets of paper entirely -– which in turn seems to lead inevitably to the loss of the challenging (powerful) meetings that sit at the heart of person-centred planning.

After taking these steps we can concentrate on producing 'the plan'.

The allure of 'The Plan'

There is something very attractive about the idea that the power of person-centred planning can be captured in 'a person-centred plan' – a bundle of paperwork, a booklet, a folder, or a file about a person.

• It is comparatively easy to produce a written document, allowing us to feel as though we are doing something constructive and material – and we can do it faster and more cheaply, reaching more people in a shorter time.
• The task is difficult enough to make us feel like we must be achieving something worthwhile.
• This work can be made to fit with our systems so the risks of upsetting people – particularly our colleagues – are lower.
• The new paperwork (and how it is used) may well represent a real improvement – so we receive good feedback.
• When lives don't change, we can blame someone else, or simply cite 'funding' as an issue.
• After a while we can convince people (and perhaps even ourselves) that person-centred planning doesn't work and that we weren't doing so badly working in the old way after all.

Real person-centred planning

Real person-centred planning will always be challenging (particularly when focused on people who don't currently have a good life). But this shouldn't be a surprise. Our task may be to help someone to build networks of friends, to become 'valued' (rather than 'devalued'), and to get 'unstuck' from seemingly unsolvable situations. This will never be easy.

The key element is usually at least one meeting bringing the focus person together with people who are important to them – and during which they are challenged to think imaginatively and listen intently. The point of this meeting, and of the process as a whole, is not to gather information. It's a facilitative process, designed for its effects on the participants (although a good deal of information may also be learned).

We recognise real person-centred planning by features such as the following:

• The result of the process is that people become motivated.
• After the process a focus person feels better about who they are.
• For the focus person the process has the potential to be life changing (in a good way).
• For someone who is socially excluded, the process leads towards their real inclusion.
• For someone who is devalued, the process genuinely changes how they are seen by others.

The value of some paperwork

None of this should be taken as an argument against the redesign of paperwork. Organisations that support people clearly do need paperwork – and it is good when this responds to person-centred planning.

Nor is this about being 'purist' – an accusation often levelled at those who argue for real change. If a way could be found to make real person-centred planning (or an equally effective alternative) fit easily into existing systems then few would argue with it.

As a final point it is important to say that there are actually some very useful and powerful pieces of paperwork associated with person-centred planning. These can:

• present a powerful capacity view of someone who has been known in terms of deficiency;
• lay out clearly what is important to a person in their daily life (this information may be best conveyed in writing);
• help people who are involved with a person to coordinate their actions (in line with the focus person's wishes).

However in really effective person-centred planning processes the creation of this paperwork is rarely the main focus of the work.

Conclusion

Person-centred planning isn't about creating better paperwork. But better paperwork can be useful alongside effective person-centred planning

Telling Stories

Perhaps you find yourself in the situation where stating the facts doesn't seem to work. Somehow the message doesn't get through. You can tell that people aren't 'getting it' even though they insist they are - they can relate words back to you, but you suspect they haven't quite grasped the sense in which you used them.

One simple but effective strategy can be to tell a story. This might sound obvious – and many people do use stories as examples when they write. But their value is often underestimated. With the right story we might:

• bypass common misunderstandings;
• connect with a person's emotions;
• get our idea lodged in the listener's mind;
• provide people with something to remember and refer back to for guidance in the future;
• help people to believe what we are saying;
• send our idea out to spread on its own (something like a virus).

An example may help to illustrate this. We'll start with some facts:

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Facts
Person-centred planning can have really positive effects in terms of how the focus person is viewed by those around them – including their family members. It can help people to re-frame their understanding. It can help people see that those things that have been perceived as negative may also have a positive side.

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The problem is that we can relate to these facts at a surface level – never really being confronted by their depth, or bending our interpretation to fit an existing belief. People do this unintentionally – not through malice (usually). They can completely miss the point, while being sure they haven't.

Now… if we can use a story:

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Alastair's story
Alastair is an energetic boy in his last year at primary school. From his dad and teachers one thing I learned was that he is very forward in approaching people. His dad spoke about it being embarrassing when Alastair talked to complete strangers as if they were already the best of friends. His teachers spoke about other children being scared of his approach and withdrawing from him. They said this frustrated him and that his subsequent behaviour was very difficult. Most of the teachers clearly believed that Alastair didn't belong in a mainstream school.

We brought people who really cared about Alastair together around him to carry out a 'person-centred planning' session. A key feature of this was its positive focus, and we took the group through a conversation in which only a positive viewpoint was discussed. This was a moving experience for everyone, and one that left Alastair feeling much more positive about himself. Instead of speaking about Alastair's 'lack of social skills' the group instead discussed his 'directness' and 'no nonsense approach' as assets.

The process helped Alastair and the group to think of some pictures of a positive long-term future built around these assets – and to plan how to work towards them. This has already paid off. With a little help Alastair organised a sponsored walk raising funds for new school play equipment. He took to the role with enthusiasm, approaching other children, businesses, parents, and the council without embarrassment. So much money was raised that the school put a small plaque on the new equipment to say thank you.

Alastair still has some difficulties in his relationships at school, but some of his new friends there have become good mediators. There is a strong sense that he belongs there.

His dad tells me that both he and the rest of the family see Alastair in a new light, and that they are feeling much more positive about the future.

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Being more long winded, stories aren't necessarily an efficient way of conveying information. But in many situations it isn't a lack of information or clarity that is the problem. When we are promoting a new way of thinking or working we face much more challenging issues.

For instance, a new idea may be implicitly critical of existing ways of working or thinking (indeed this may be explicit). We are asking people to take the difficult step of accepting that their current understanding or work isn't up to scratch.

Linked to this is the problem of peer pressure. For people to accept our idea, to believe in an alternative, or to adopt new practice, they must be prepared to upset their peers (who also see it as critical). And people who adopt the idea become vulnerable, because those who are challenged by it will be on the lookout for proof of its foolishness. When we remember that the new idea or practice probably involves a good deal of uncertainty, then an initial reluctance to listen to us becomes very understandable.

The right stories are useful because they can help people to see themselves as joining with other visionaries in a proven new practice – when in reality they are stepping out of line and walking in new territory.

What is The System?

Those involved in trying to support change in an organisation or society may find it useful to think about 'the system'. This short article explores why.

We can start somewhere simple – with what 'the system' isn't. It isn't the people in charge, men in grey suits, the government, capitalism, the director of the organisation, or the senior managers.

A better way to understand 'the system' is that it is 'the way things are done around here'.

An unrelated (hypothetical) example might be helpful: In the UK almost every parent tells their children about Father Christmas / Santa Claus. Imagine that you are the parent of a young child who is just being introduced to the concept of Father Christmas. Imagine you have come across research proving that children are psychologically damaged when they realise that their parents have lied to them (by the way if you don't know the truth about Father Christmas please look away now). Or perhaps you are rooted in a culture in which Father Christmas doesn't feature. You decide that Father Christmas will play no part in your life – and in fact that you will tell your child that he doesn't exist.

Surely this should be a simple matter? After all, as the parent you have a huge power over your children. No problem then?

There again, in most communities your friends and family are likely to see your action as cruel. Or they may decide you are "a politically correct fascist more interested in imposing your own ideas on your child than in their wellbeing." Teachers at your child's school will find it awkward to know how to handle them at Christmas. Other parents may not invite him/her to their house in case their own child gets upset. Other children may come to dislike your child when he/she marches around the school saying "only little babies believe in Santa".

Of course you may be part of a community of people who share your beliefs, and then the action of telling our child the truth won't be so difficult. You may have support from your friends and immediate contacts. However the whole thing will certainly emphasise a 'them and us' division between different parts of the community.

What does this tell us about what 'the system' is? (By the way before we go on let me assure you that my children very much look forward to Father Christmas's visits.)

The system is 'the way things are done around here', and telling the Father Christmas story to our children is 'the way things are done around here'. Not telling this story (or telling the truth) would be to step out of line. Stepping out of line has consequences – negative ones.

To understand this further it is helpful to ask who is in charge of the Father Christmas idea. Who should a concerned citizen write to? Could the government do something - or would that bring them down? What about the Queen or the President? What about a dictator? Surely even a dictator wouldn't hold the power required – 'Father Christmas' would simply go underground.

That's the nature of 'the system'. Most of what goes on in any network of human beings – for example an organisation, a company, or a country as a whole – isn't determined by rules and policy. Nobody is in charge – we just do things the way we do them because that's 'how things are done around here.'

This example provides an initial indication of why certain changes are difficult to implement, but the key to understanding more is to take note of one of the most surprising behaviours of any human system. Sometimes it seems that 'the system' is actively opposing our efforts. We can almost imagine that there is a conspiracy against us even though we know there isn't.

At first encounter we might put this thought aside as paranoia. However the study of human systems actually supports our conclusion. The idea of 'emergence' refers to the behaviours of a system that seem to make more sense at a system level than when looking at individual system elements. These are the behaviours that the system as a whole exhibits as a result of the huge number of interactions between individual parts of the system.

To give a real example: an ant colony when migrating may choose the best from a set of available nest sites. This doesn't sound like a particularly odd idea until we realise that it is a behaviour of the system of ants that we wouldn't necessarily expect to see if we study individual ants. The choice of site can take place despite no one ant knowing about the existence of more than one site, without any ant or ant committee taking a decision on behalf of the colony, and without any kind of 'conversation' between ants about there being more than one option. Of course this effect is nothing more than the result of the behaviours of many individual ants, and it is reasonably easy to explain how it takes place. Emergence isn't a mysterious effect – but its effects can be surprising.

Human systems work the same way. The system has behaviours that can more usefully be understood at the system level than by looking at the behaviour of individual people. An active opposition to certain types of change is one such behaviour.

Understanding 'the system' in this way isn't just an academic exercise. It helps us to think about more effective strategies for generating change, and to anticipate the nature of the difficulties we will encounter.

Why is this so difficult?

This article looks at why it is so hard for an organisation/agency either to maintain or to develop person-centred ways of working. Understanding the nature of the problem can lead to more effective strategies.

It is worth pointing out that one particular mistake is made repeatedly; the introduction of a person-centred approach is taken to be a 'technical' problem. The result is an unsuccessful attempt to implement change through simple training programmes, changes in policy, and alterations in procedures.

Of course, training can be a very powerful tool, good policies can have a real influence, and technical issues can certainly be worth solving. But why is it that an extensive training programme on its own seems to have such a limited effect? Why do changes in policy or structure seem not to make much real difference? And why is it that when one technical problem is solved another replaces it?

To properly understand this problem it can be helpful to start with the following statement:

Society thinks of many of the people we support as in some way:

• deficient,
• less valuable,
• fundamentally different from 'us', and
• like others who share the same label.

This is a set of assumptions that is very deeply rooted - so much so that our organisations or services cannot escape their influence (irrespective of the values of individual staff and managers, and however carefully policies are written). Indeed, when we look carefully we find that these assumptions are often more than just an influence – they may be the foundations on which our organisations and services are built (even when those working in them don't think this way).

The powerful and all pervasive nature of this set of assumptions has a profound effect, which is that the way we want to work is at odds with the culture of our organisations and society. Working in a person-centred way isn't what is expected. We are stepping out of line. We will be doing things in a way that isn't 'the way things are done around here'. We won't be fitting in, but standing out.

To behave in a way that isn't 'the way things are done around here' is difficult. Most of us prefer to fit in with friends and colleagues, not to stand out. This is a powerful factor working against the development of person-centred approaches.

Behaving in a way that isn't 'the way things are done around here' also generates opposition. The new way might lead to some people losing out, or it might be taken as a criticism of people using the old way. Working in a new way may well lead to us being disliked or criticised. This is a second powerful factor working against the development of person-centred approaches.

Of course these factors also work just as much at an organisational level as an individual one. Organisations working differently will stand out, and will be subject to opposition. And the pressure to go back to 'traditional' ways of working will be powerful.

The study of human systems provides us with an even deeper insight. We find that when we are working on certain types of change (such as is required here) opposition can be surprisingly subtle and effective because it is a behaviour of the system as a whole, not just the individuals within it.

Unfortunately further traps await the unwary. The first arises because we know that we should expect opposition to the changes we seek. It is easy to forget that the presence of opposition doesn't mean we are being successful. Irrelevant or unhelpful changes can be just as hard to implement.

On the other hand, an absence of opposition does probably indicate a problem. There are two main possibilities. Either our efforts are ineffective and therefore not worth opposing, or we just aren't wise enough to notice the danger. The most dangerous time can be when things seem to be going really well.

Watch out!