Learning Festival 2020: Session #5, November 12th, 2020
Scaling in
Principle
How can people working within a system find new ways to do their jobs while also trying to fundamentally change that system?
How can promising innovations stay true to their philosophy while they scale, and avoid being pulled back in to serve the very system they set out to change?
Anna Fjeldsted and Jennie Winhall tackle these questions as they guide us through a discussion on what it means to take a “principles-based” approach to scale, in which frontline teams, by acting from a core set of these operating principles, can transform systems from within. Anna has a background in theatre and is the ROCKWOOL Foundation’s chief psychologist, and Jennie is a designer and the foundation’s director of social innovation.
Interview with Anna Fjeldsted made available prior to the festival week.
Many difficulties can arise when trying to scale. Countless innovative solutions fail to have the impact they should because they can't change the mindsets and structures that shape how systems operate. As they scale, their radical edge is blunted. Anna and Jennie share their acute understanding of these difficulties, as well as some innovative ideas for how to overcome them.
Working on the frontline of systems can be a frustrating and difficult position to be in, trying to deliver different solutions while ensuring one meets the systems’ demands and targets. Anna and Jennie will share their experience of growing a new youth employment programme in Denmark, which taps into the creativity of frontline teams, supporting them not to deliver a service according to a prescribed manual, but instead to act from a small set of “system-shifting” principles, claim ownership over the new approach, and take advantage of their resourcefulness.
Anna and Jennie’s initial efforts to scale the initiative using a programme blueprint failed, so they turned to narrative psychology and theatre for inspiration. They came up with a novel method, which involved sharing a core set of principles with municipalities that could be adapted to their individual context and challenges. In this way, frontline teams can continue to unlock their creativity to overcome the barriers they come up against, without compromising the radical elements that are making the real difference to the disadvantaged young people they set out to serve.
Speakers:
Anna Fjeldsted
Chief Psychologist at the ROCKWOOL Foundation
Jennie Winhall
Director of Social Innovation for the ROCKWOOL Foundation
Helene Bækmark
Manager, Randers Municipality
Tim Draimin
Former Executive Director of Social Innovation Generation (SiG)
About NExTWORK
Denmark faces a persistent social challenge: year after year a small but significant minority of young people remain outside the world of education or work. Despite great investment in employment services, that number has stayed the same for 20 years, which points to a more systemic challenge.
At NExTWORK, Anna, Jennie and their team have been working with an inspiring group of municipal leaders, young people and employers to develop a radically different approach, which shifts the power to groups of young people, who build relationships with a network of companies, choosing who to work with and in doing so forming a new identity as working people together. Supporting this network involves frontline teams working in a fundamentally different way and, in effect, also forming a different professional identity themselves.