‘This partnership
could have achieved so much more.’
‘We did what we
set out to do, but with hindsight it was never really going to be enough.’
‘I just feel that
somehow we have missed an opportunity to make a real, positive difference’
I frequently hear
the above comments and ones like them when listening to those who have had (or
are having) very frustrating experiences of working in partnership.
Why are these
comments so common? Why, when large amounts of time and effort, not to mention
money, are put into encouraging, forming and running partnerships, are they so
often perceived as falling short of their initial promise and potential?
This post will
explore why many people involved in partnership working find the experience frustrating
and consider it an opportunity missed. It will show how Charles Handy’s
Doughnut Principle can be used to help partnerships focus not just on those
things basic to its existence, but also on those things that will help it
achieve its full potential and so make the maximum positive difference within
its field of endeavour.
Why do partnerships frequently fall short of
their potential?
As anyone who has
worked in partnerships will know, there can be many reasons why partnerships
fall short of their full potential (which of course makes it all the more
likely that it will happen). Some of these are:
· The
urgent demands for quick wins, which force partnerships to take short cuts and
go for the obvious but not always the best payoffs.
· The
legal and budgetary conditions and constraints that accompany many partnership
projects, which can force them to go down the expected, orthodox routes on the
way to achieving the expected, pre – ordained goals. In essence doing what has
always been done – creating re – inventions of past solutions that perhaps did
not work then and certainly will not work now.
· The
conflicting goals and agendas of the partners, which can give rise to political
manoeuvrings and the associated wasted time and effort.
· The
perception of partnership working as not being core to the partner
organisations’ activities, which leads to it being given less attention and a
lower priority.
The above are not
inconsiderable barriers to successful partnership working, but on top of all this
is one other key issue. People working in partnerships (especially for the
first time, or as is often the case on an occasional basis only) can frequently
feel very uncertain, even intimidated, when faced with the unfamiliar climate,
settings and ways of working associated with them. This usually leads to a lack
of confidence, which in turn leads to a tendency to play far too safe, to look
at what must be done and no further. When this happens, new and innovative
ideas and insights are ignored or simply pass by unseen and the opportunity to
make real, positive improvements lost.
Charles Handy’s Doughnut Principle
How can the above
lack of confidence and accompanying tendency to play safe be effectively
addressed? One way is to encourage partnerships to widen their focus to include
not only what is purely core and mandatory, but also what is discretionary. To
help them search out, identify and evaluate the usefulness and practicality of
those things lying in their area of choice, those things which they can but do
not have to do. Charles Handy’s Doughnut Principle can help.
In his book ‘The
Empty Rain Coat’ Charles Handy explains his Doughnut principle:
‘The doughnut in
question is an American doughnut, the kind with a whole in the middle, rather
than the British version, which has jam instead of a hole. The doughnut
principle, however, requires an inside out doughnut, one with the hole on the
outside and the dough in the middle. It can only, therefore, be an imaginary
doughnut, a conceptual doughnut, one for thinking with not eating.’
When applied to
partnerships, the middle of the doughnut represents their core activities –
those things that are not negotiable and must be done. It is these things that
partnerships, when intimidated by the tasks in front of them, can easily assume
to be the beginning and end of everything, so making their first and perhaps
most significant errors. These are lack of ambition and avoidance of risk,
which all too often stop partnerships from ever achieving anything like their
true potential.
The space around
the outside of the core comprises those activities that are discretionary, that
partnerships could do if they so choose, but do not have to do. It is through
doing some of these activities that partnerships can add greatly to their
effectiveness. This is because something that is discretionary is not
automatically insignificant or unimportant. Indeed, and especially in the case
of partnership working, discretionary activities can turn out to be very
significant and very important.
Why the use of choice and discretion is so
important for effective partnership working
To understand why
the area of discretion is so important for partnership working we need to ask
the fundamental question “Why do partnerships form?” Two of the most important
reasons are to do something new and to do something that each organisation
could not do by itself. In order to do this, partners need to think and act in
new, co-operative and creative ways.
To find these
creative, new approaches partnerships need to explore previously undiscovered
pathways and ideas and find new ways to use and combine their resources. These
are most likely to lie hidden somewhere within the discretionary area of
Charles Handy’s doughnut.
To illustrate,
think about climbing a mountain. The physical starting point of any such
expedition is the base camp. This is a safe, secure place, stocked with
everything that, from experience, it is known a climbing expedition will need.
The expedition will also have a plan, outlining roles and responsibilities and
what the expedition needs to achieve at specific stages of the ascent in order
to reach the summit. As with the base camp stocks, this plan will be based on
experience of what has been effective for previous climbing expeditions.
In a similar way,
those setting up a partnership will consider what their experiences tell them
about the likely challenges it will face. They will then put together a plan
designed to meet these challenges, and provide the resources they think most
likely to be needed. In doing this they
hope the partnership will be able to climb to the top of its own particular
mountain – achieve its goals to the best of its ability and potential.
Thinking further
about goals, the initial ones set for the partnership will also be based on
experiences and other previous information about what it is worthwhile to
achieve, for which summit it is best to aim. These goals may or may not prove
to be the most appropriate, depending on the actual experiences of the new
partnership and the consequences of the unique situations it is likely to
confront.
The above process
is a good, professional starting point that will very likely get the
partnership climbing (perhaps even in the right direction if the correct summit
has been chosen; the right set of goals). However, any exploration of new
terrain will, sooner or later, present unexpected circumstances and problems.
It is during these times that the partnership will need to tap into its area of
discretion, to think and act for its self. It will need to explore its new
terrain both more widely and more closely, and with fresh eyes. It will need to
re – examine its resources and the uses to which they are put. It will need to
discover new pathways towards its goals and use and combine its resources in
innovative ways in order to reach them.
Finding these new
pathways and innovative approaches will make the ultimate difference between
success and failure. Will the partnership struggle halfway to the summit of its
true potential with the traditional maps and techniques that it began with? Or
will it make it all the way to the top armed and fortified with new maps of the
terrain and novel ways to combine and use its tools and resources? Will it
struggle onwards to achieve the goals originally set for it, even if they prove
to be the wrong ones? Or will it redefine its purpose and the goals that fall
out of it, so that what it finally achieves makes a real, positive difference
to those affected by its efforts?
The true
situation for partnerships is, of course, even more difficult and complex,
because the mountains they have to climb are not physical but conceptual and
therefore invisible. Partnerships may in fact have no idea as to whether they
have reached the summit of their potential, got halfway up, managed to climb
only the equivalent of a few hundred metres from their perceptual base camp, or
not actually moved on at all due to unseen obstacles. This makes it very
important that partnerships immediately form the habit of exploring and
utilising their areas of discretion, so they can overcome the unexpected,
invisible crevices and sheer cliff walls they will respectively and inevitably
fall into or collide with during their climb.
So essentially,
helping partnerships explore their areas of discretion makes what was
previously unknowable knowable. It helps partnerships reach new, previously
unknown, out of reach destinations by encouraging them to think for themselves,
map out their own best routes and identify how best to combine and use their
available resources in order to get where they need to go. These new destinations
are where originality is most likely to reside, and therefore where
partnerships are most likely to find the genuinely new solutions to the
problems they have been created and tasked to find.
How to use the doughnut principle with your
partners
To get maximum
benefit from the doughnut principle use it early, at the beginning of the life
of the partnership when all the partners first get together. There is usually a lot of optimism and energy
around at the very beginning of a partnership project (or at the very least a
willingness to give things a chance). Make use of this window of opportunity.
Get people to acknowledge and value what is core, but also explicitly focus on
the space around the core, the discretionary area, those things that, now that
the partnership has come together and exists, it is obvious the partnership
could and perhaps should address.
But also notice
there is an outer boundary around the discretionary area, which suggests there
must be a realistic and acceptable limit to what the partnership can and should
do.
Using the
doughnut principle in this way immediately widens the partnership’s perception
of what can be achieved, rather than immediately limiting and diminishing it
into the mandatory core of activities. It also balances the partnership’s
perceptions by reminding it of the limits to its activities and the fact that
core activities must be done.
During this
initial phase it is useful to use the doughnut principle in a clearly defined
and structured way. Try the following:
1. Present the above diagram to the partners and
allow them to board storm all the things they can think of that the partnership
could do under each of the headings. Start with what is core (non-negotiable
criteria, outputs, deadlines etc.) and then move into the discretionary area
and work around the rest of the doughnut.
Consider each
segment in turn:
·
What
is clearly possible within the partnership’s area of discretion (perhaps
searching out and setting up meetings with possible future stakeholders and partners)?
·
What
is just possible (perhaps making the case and lobbying for more funds and
resources)?
·
What
is barely possible (perhaps questioning, challenging and changing the
assumptions underpinning some of the sacred cows of the project – those ideas and
views that have until now seemed sacrosanct)?
·
What
seems way out or not possible (perhaps wiping the slate clean and rebuilding
the rationale for the partnership’s existence from its core outwards)?
Remember that the
usual rules of board storming apply and that the only goal at this stage is to
generate a large quantity of ideas.
2. Once there are a decent number of items in
each discretionary segment of the doughnut move onto the next phase of the
process. Look at each item and decide:
·
Whether
it can stay within the area of discretion. (Is it in fact something the
partnership can and should do?)
·
Whether
with hindsight it needs to become part of the core. (Is it something that the
partnership must, rather than just should or could, do?)
·
Whether
it needs to be moved outside of the doughnut altogether (because it is
something the partnership cannot or should not do).
The danger at
this stage is that all those items in the ‘Way Out’ segment will be immediately
moved to the outside of the doughnut. Resist this temptation. Ensure that each
item within this segment is given due consideration.
If any item from
any discretionary segment looks like it is going to be moved outside of the
doughnut be sure to challenge each other’s thinking constructively. Ask the
following types of questions:
·
What
assumptions or fears is its removal based on? Are they valid?
·
If
the item or idea cannot be utilised what can we do that is similar to it but
more possible or acceptable?
·
What
are the perceived risks and consequences and what are the actual risks and
consequences?
·
If
we broke the item or idea down into chunks are there any chunks we could keep
within the doughnut?
·
If
the partnership itself cannot do any of the items are there any stakeholders or
other interested parties that could? What can the partnership do to get them on
board? Could they become partners?
·
If
the item was kept within the area of discretion what would the positives be?
Are they really outweighed by the negatives?
3. Once the partners have completed the above
process to their satisfaction, agree specific action points to ensure those
discretionary activities identified as important to the effectiveness of the
partnership are implemented.
Given that core
tasks will inevitably demand the partnership’s attention, agree one or two
action points for implementing discretionary activities immediately.
Remember that the
purpose of this process is to widen and balance the partnership’s perception of
what it must do and what it could do if it so wished. Core activities must be
addressed, but any action planning associated with them needs to be done
separately. This is in order to avoid the perceived importance of the core
growing to such an extent that it fills the partnership’s entire view of the
doughnut, so smothering the opportunities for creativity and innovation
associated with the area of discretion.
Summary
Many people have
had frustrating experiences when working in partnership with other
organisations.
This is because
many partnership projects fall short of achieving their potential and are
therefore less effective than they should be.
There are many
reasons why partnerships fall short of their potential. Key are the feelings of
uncertainty, even intimidation, some people feel when faced with the unfamiliar
climate, settings and ways of working associated with partnership projects.
This can lead to an overall lack of confidence.
This lack of
confidence leads to partnerships playing safe, concentrating purely on what is
core and mandatory and ignoring what lies in their areas of discretion – the
activities that are not required but that could be undertaken if partnerships
so wished.
Playing safe and
concentrating purely on core activities leads to new ideas, insights and
opportunities being ignored or passed by. This is because new ideas and
insights usually emerge from within the area of discretion, not from within the
pre – set core activities.
One way of
encouraging partnerships to widen their focus to include their areas of
discretion is to use Charles Handy’s Doughnut Principle in the systematic way
described above.
This principle
and the accompanying process encourages partnerships to both widen and balance
their perceptions of what is core and discretionary. It draws attention to the
area of discretion and encourages its careful analysis. It also reminds
partnerships that there are limits to their areas of discretion and that
decisions need to be made about what stays within them and what is put outside.
These decisions need to be made carefully so as to avoid unnecessarily losing
opportunities to maximise potential and increase effectiveness.
Specific action
points need to be agreed at the end of the process described above. This is to
ensure that partnerships undertake the discretionary activities identified as
important to their effectiveness.
