Preparing future leaders

I was wandering through the blogosphere and I bumped into Steven Schwartz (vice chancellor of Macquarie University) and his blog where he riffs on an article I did for the Times Higher Education a little while ago. The article is a discussion of the emergence of Masters in Public Policy in the UK, specifically at Oxford and Cambridge, asking how they need to prepare public leaders. 


In Steven's blog post he appears to not believe that such vocational training is useful, saying 

As with the study of medicine and most other professional degrees, it's highly likely that these new vocational political skills will be obsolete shortly after graduation. And then where will we be?

Obviously I'm biased - I have an MPP. But here are a few points that I think should be taken on board before we all go mad over this kind of thing. 


1. We want people with diverse backgrounds in public leadership, no one said an MPP or anything like it was a silver bullet or for everyone.
2. This is about more than politicians, many other folks from civil servants, to academics, business managers and on to trade union representatives all are part of public leadership and public change. 
3. Anything that helps future leaders prepare for complexity, speed and massively competing interests helps and if that is time spent in industry or doing an MPP that's fine by me. 


Just out of interest what does Steven's comment say about the many vocationally oriented courses offered at Macquarie? 


Best

Finbarr

Reinventing industrial policy in developed economies

The calls for rebalancing in the UK economy following the credit crisis and the recession opened a window of opportunity to have a realistic conversation about industrial policy again in developed economies. In some senses it is a proxy conversation for the role of the state and whether when the benefits of globalisation go to other countries our rhetoric around openess changes, but that's a longer post.

As a first brick in the wall, I recently had a piece in the Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade which looks at rationales for industrial policy based on industry maturity (click here for the article). The main argument is that industrial policy work has been contained within development economics for the past thirty years which has led to the assumption that industrial policy is all about catch up. However, if you consider an industry to have a lifecycle at the global level and within a country, when you compare the two you can see that a country could be leading or lagging in an industry. And crucially there may be strong reasons to intervene either to preference a transition or to hold on to a lead.

Here's hoping that a realistic conversation on industrial development can continue!

F

The return of making or local will win

I've been threatening to do a piece (hopefully blog and in a bona fide magazine) about how in the long run production cannot remain global. There's a lot of small points and large trends that all add up to that conclusion but I've not had the time to put it all together yet. Damn the world for being busy ...

But in the meantime small things that may be large things keep cropping up. Like this piece in the NY Times recently called the Kitchen Table Industrialists. There is a growing trend for people wanting to make things themselves, captured for example in Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft.The step to thinking of individual makers as industry is a really interesting one though. To see co-operatives coming together to share 3D printers is awesome.

And it makes me a little jealous and wistful for my time in Boston. It would be great to be close to that kind of energy as it doesn't seem to exist in the UK. If there is anyone out there that can prove me wrong do let me know, but my sense is the kinds of groups discussed in Anand just don't thrive in this country.

More than anything else though I need to get the larger article done!

F

Feels like the old days?

Yesterday LinkedIn floated on the NYSE and in the first day of trading their shares screamed upwards, doubling in value. According to the BBC

"LinkedIn sold 7.84 million shares at $45 each. At $100 a share the company is worth about $10bn."

It's one company, one float, but it does feel a little like the old days when internet companies took off at a million miles an hour. The Financial Times has already started reporting that there are fears of a return to the bubble saying 

"...it also drew warnings that a new internet bubble might be in the making, with investors rushing to pay prices far higher than a level that was considered extravagant only days before."

If there is significant demand for new internet floats there may be something in this. But I'm left feeling that we're about to go round the merry go round again having learnt nothing from the last ten years. 


This is a real failure of vision, we have not replaced old models of growth either at the company or the country level with anything meaningful. Without that the old models will hold and we'll be open to repeating our mistakes that led to the credit crisis and the recession again. 


Not that anyone in LinkedIn should be worried. They've pulled off a great flotation. Here's hoping that there is a real, long term business under the hood.


Finbarr 

I don't want choice

So the reforms proposed for the NHS rumble on with a listening exercise and much debate on whether this is the end or the saving of the NHS.

One small point that has bothered me for some time now is the chimera of choice. Much has been made of patient control and choice, that patients want choice and that choice will drive improvements in the system. My knee jerk reaction to this is that patients don't want choice, they want good healthcare. They want to be well. They don't want to be spending valuable time trying to figure out which provider might be slightly better for them.

This may be simplistic but real choice is not possible. Can I choose any provider at any time for any treatment? No and that's ok. I want to have faith in my doctors and ensure that they are the best trained, best resourced and given the support they need to focus on my care and nothing else. Not budgets, not distribution or anything else. Just care.

There is an interesting piece by Angela Coulter from the BMJ last November which tries to pull apart choice. As I read Coulter's piece there is a world of difference between choosing a provider and choosing or helping to choose a treatment plan. Here's the key quote -

Although only a small minority of people want to switch providers, patient surveys show a
large unmet demand for greater involvement in treatment decisions

So in the debate on reform at least on the issue of choice let's use our language properly and support patient engagement with their care, but let's not mislead people into thinking that they have full choice.

F

Process stories, process stories

As the results of the local elections across the UK start to come in the next wave of frustrating reporting has started. It is true that the Lib Dems are getting beaten up quite badly currently down 336 councilors in England alone according to the BBC. However, the process stories of what went wrong and the continuing characterisation as this being highly personal to Nick Clegg are frustrating.

Without access to internal polling or YouGov numbers, what appears to be happening? The Conservative vote is the same. They should not be so smug, they have a solid voting group but that's not increasing. The Lid Dem vote has shattered, with those who came to them from Labour in the last election going back, those who feel betrayed by the coalition move going to other parties such as the Greens, some Lib Dem voters who are almost Tory going over the line and a core group of Lib Dem's staying with them.

Would this carry over to a Parliamentary election? Given the mood of the country probably. Are the Lib Dems now a spent force in national politics? It is difficult to see how they might come back. Unless ...

One scenario for the Lib Dems to stop the bleeding might be a leadership challenge from Chris Huhne followed by a no confidence vote in the Commons and return to the polls. Would there be enough votes to bring down the coalition? Assuming all Tories vote to remain in power (305) and all others beyond the Lib Dems vote for a new parliament, the Tories would need 21 of 57 Lib Dems to stay the course. How likely is that right now?

Although having said that are Labour too comfortable in opposition? Would they want to take over right now? Probably not.

It seems we might be stuck here for a while ...

Best

Finbarr

Voting rubbish

Over the past couple of months there has more rubbish written on the UK voting referendum than I thought possible. Both sides have been at it and in the end it has become personalised, around Nick Clegg.

This is a really sad statement on the level of debate in this country. No chance of a grown up, engaged debate.

For what it is worth this is the wrong referendum. AV is a tweak. And is not some massively complex thing that simple people cannot get their heads around. It feels like the public have willingly been treated as idiots.

Apparently David Cameron has said a no vote would be a 'disaster'according to the Telegraph. The Lib Dem's have been posturing with clashes in Cabinet, reported by the BBC.

This is all rubbish. AV is a small change and will lead to very little difference in the outcome of elections. Unfortunately it has obscured any debate on the need for real constitutional reform.