Better to be a dog?

There’s a Chinese proverb to the effect that “it’s better to be a dog in peaceful times than a man in chaotic times.” If there’s any wisdom in it, then this would be a good time to be canine.

The Bank of England’s Quarterly Inflation report today gave full expression to current economic uncertainty. Although Governor Mervyn King seems reasonably confident that we are not in for double dip recession, he has warned us that we can expect above-target inflation and weaker economic growth than forecast.

The Governor suggests that most of us will share the pain of a rate of inflation beyond the 2% target for at least another year as a result of rising commodity prices and higher taxes.

Reductions in domestic spending will mean that the UK’s economy will “depend heavily on developments in the world” and these developments, of course, are beyond the control or influence of the Bank or even the government, although we can expect at least some attempt to influence the global economy in the next G20 meeting.

Possibly even more disconcerting is the revelation that the experts who make up the august Monetary Policy Committee are finding it hard to agree among themselves about the prospects for 2011.

In the words of the Governor: “That underlines the uncertainty faced by the Committee. We cannot be sure which of the big risks to the outlook will materialise.” And they have all the data, the biggest brains and the most impressive predictive models!

Although this is all very disconcerting, we can at least plan and organise for uncertainty.

That’s arguably a better position to be than the one which we lived through until a couple of years ago when consumers, politicians and businesses had been working on the assumption of continuous growth fuelled by buoyant markets and credit without limit.

The fact is that we have always lived and worked through changing times and the future has always been unpredictable. Now that we know it beyond doubt, we can change the way we think, the way we work and the way we inspire innovation and rapid response in our organisations.

Change within the community

Attorney General Dominic Grieve is a persuasive advocate for the Big Society. He's also a committed constituency MP with impressive levels of local engagement, as this Change Agent discovered at a meeting for local voluntary and community organisations last week.
The minister understands the risk that the public at large may well conflate the Big Society with spending cuts but argued that the concept of the Big Society has been around for a very long time and that there is nothing in Europe quite like the charitable system in this country.
He suggested that, as charities have become more reliant on the state for funding, they have become the dependent servants of government and consequently less willing or able to take risks.
Grieve believes that we now have a society where state dependency is the norm and in which people now look to the state for services which it is not particularly good at providing.
He suggests three immediate courses of action: decentralisation, re-empowering people to get involved in their communities, and reinvigorating what has always been there.
While we are sceptical as to how well the voluntary sector can survive the sudden and steep decline in state funding following the comprehensive spending review, we welcome the possible return of the sector to a greater level of independence from the state.
The underpinning ideas of the Big Society, as the Attorney General expresses them, are consistent with Change Agency's core belief that effective change is best generated within organisations rather than imposed from outside or above.
It's easy to see how communities can achieve more if liberated from the excessive levels of government control that they have experienced in recent years through over-regulation, zealous vetting and barring, and disproportionate health and safety requirements.
In our work, we often find that good people don't always deliver of their best because the corporate system to which they conform is limiting rather than expanding their ability to innovate. So perhaps even government is now buying into our idea that Change Comes From Within.