Education Supper 2015

 
Change through Wisdom - Stand and Deliver

In mid-May, in the middle of a fabulous heat wave, we assembled on HQS Wellington (opposite Temple Station) on the one night when the heavens opened and it, frankly, chucked it down.....  This did not stop us having a 'whale of a time' listening to Ed Straw (yes the brother of the 'other' Straw, Jack) and each taking away a signed copy of his book "Stand & Deliver".

Check out the selection of photos on this page as a reminder of a wonderful evening.

And for those who have a fuzzy memory of the keynote speech, introduced by Benjamin Taylor the Education Committee Chair (whom we must also congratulate on being awarded the Wardens' Quaich for his focused work as Committee Chair), here are a few insights:

Ed Straw, a management consultant for over 30 years, who has spent a lifetime in and around government, becoming more and more frustrated by the political process, the bureaucracy, and by the performance of governments, woke up one day and started analysing government as an organisation – bigger, more complicated, and more important than most, but an organisation nonetheless.

Applying lessons learned from several business schools, a multitude of clients, and the wisdom of colleagues, he concluded that nothing will improve until we grasp that the present system as a whole is itself what stands in the way of successful government.

• What does root cause analysis say about the election of 2010?
• What does the culture of airline Qantas tell us about Health and Safety regimes?
• Should the method of investigating air crashes be applied to failures in government – from banking to deaths in custody?

He went on and concluded that the underlying reason why governments fail is that they have never been designed for their modern remit. Being a diligent consultant he then published a comprehensive solution: Stand and Deliver, a Design for Successful Government.

Our thanks to Mark Fox for these excellent photographs of the evening.