Learning as the way we lead

Overview

What if learning, rather than control, were the way we managed complex public services? This module introduces Human Learning Systems, developed by Toby Lowe and colleagues, and its three principles of being human, learning and systems. It sets out a learning cycle with shared learning spaces, a commissioning spectrum from spot purchase to alliance, and reads the Plymouth Alliance for Complex Needs as relational commissioning in practice. What gets measured gets managed, but not always well. This module explores Goodhart's law and Campbell's law, Gwyn Bevan and Christopher Hood's three kinds of gaming, and Mark Friedman's Results-Based Accountability, including the distinction between contribution and attribution. It reads the Welsh ambulance Clinical Response Model as a system changing its measure because the measure was harming its purpose, and offers a process for designing measures for learning.

What you'll develop

In this Bitesize, you will develop the ability to:

1. 1Explain the three principles of Human Learning Systems and the familiar management habit each one replaces.
2. 2Compare commissioning models from spot purchase to alliance and assess which fits a complex problem such as multiple needs.
3. 3Plan how to hold a team or service to account for learning, relationships and results while keeping statutory duties in full.
4. 4Explain how targets change behaviour, using Goodhart's law, Campbell's law and Bevan and Hood's ratchet, threshold and output distortion effects.
5. 5Distinguish population accountability from performance accountability and use contribution rather than attribution where many partners shape a result.