Digital Works Podcast
Talking about all the different things that 'digital' means in the arts, culture and heritage sectors. Tales of success and failure, interrogating the shiny new things and looking at what works (or not) and why, Interviews with digital folks working across the sector and beyond, in-house, consultants, funders, and more.
Digital Works Podcast
Tash Willcocks (TPX Impact) on navigating uncertainty, intellectual humility, leadership in turbulent times, why zebras don't get ulcers, the importance of structure in enabling agility, how to actually build psychological safety and more
A wide-ranging chat with Tash Willcocks (Head of Learning Design at TPX Impact) on organisational culture, leadership, and how to deal with change and uncertainty.
Tash mentioned a whole load of ideas, articles, books, and thinkers - a few of which I've linked to below:
Tash's Medium lives here:
https://medium.com/@tash-willcocks
This is the first post I read from Tash, which touches on Kotters Dual Operating System, and cheese toasties
https://tash-willcocks.medium.com/dont-micromanage-the-cheese-661eb056fca7
More on Kotters system
https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2014/05/14/leverage-john-kotters-dual-operating-system-to-accelerate-change-in-large-organizations/
VUCA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VUCA
Kevin Kruse on BANI
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2025/02/03/forget-vuca-bani-is-the-new-framework-world/
The virtue of intellectual humility with Dr. Tenelle Porter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4W3ENXbzgg
The SCARF model on motivation
https://neuroleadership.com/your-brain-at-work/scarf-model-motivate-your-employees
Thea Snow on "certainty artefacts: the constructs we create to make sense of the world" is linked via this post from Tash
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tashwillcocks_quotedumpday-design-drawing-activity-7299698981138280449-olTU/
Amy Edmondson on Psychological Safety
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fearless-Organization-Psychological-Workplace-Innovation/dp/1119477247
Edgar Shein on organisational culture
https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/5-enduring-management-ideas-mit-sloans-edgar-schein
Hello and welcome to the Digital Works podcast, the podcast about digital stuff in the cultural sector. I'm Ash, your host, and each episode we explore how people and organisations in the cultural world and beyond are using digital to create, connect and adapt. And if you need a hand with your own digital work, I'm also a consultant who helps cultural organizations make the most of all this stuff. Today's episode is a conversation with Tash Wilcox. Tash is Head of Learning Design at TPX Impact, and I first got in touch with Tash after I read a bunch of her blog posts about things like change, conflict, leadership and a host of other interesting things. The first post of hers that I came across, and one that we discuss in our conversation, was about John Kotter's dual operating system.
Ash:Now, kot Kotter's dual operating system is a relatively simple idea, but one that I think cultural organizations could find valuable. He says that successful organizations need two systems working side by side. One is the traditional hierarchy that keeps things running smoothly, responsible for business as usual. The other is a more flexible network of people from across the organization who drive change and innovation. It's like having one system for stability and the other for agility, both of which feel essential in an increasingly uncertain and fast-changing world. Anyway, here's my chat with Tash, enjoy, enjoy. Thank you so much for joining me this morning, tash, where it is sunny here in Gothenburg.
Tash:I don't know what the weather's looking like in Brighton. It was sunny in Brighton yesterday. It's overhanging, overclouded, cloudy, cloudy, with intermittent showers. I'll just say that.
Ash:So I'm really looking forward to our chat this morning and, you know, really enjoyed our planning conversations prior to hitting record today. But for people who maybe don't know who you are, what is the Tash Wilcox story? How have you got to where you are currently sitting in Brighton in front of a poster of a cat upside down?
Tash:this is not recorded, so they didn't see me laugh at the Tash story. So how did I end up here? I always feel the need to say so. I live in sunny Brighton now, which is a very lovely place to live, but I always feel the need to go. I did live in Manchester for 25 years to enable me to have a little bit of grit, so I used to live in Manchester, just getting that out there. I was born in Cornwall, which brings a mix in itself, so I'm like a odd mix of Northern and Southern all in one go.
Tash:Yeah, so I fell backwards into education. I'm not going to give you the whole spiel because that's far too much, but basically I used to run venues. I ran a place called Night and Day in Manchester. There was a live gig venue. That is relevant because I actually think I learned most of the stuff that then became really apparent working in a very loud, where people can't hear you, very drunk sort of environment where you have to understand how to work with people and they get temperamental, they act like children and they will argue and not listen to your feedback that you're nicely giving them from behind the bar. Yeah, so I learned a lot from that that later in my career became really handy.
Tash:I fell backwards into education. Like I said, I started lecturing when I was about 22, I think, which was quite young, and I've done my entire career backwards. So I was running the venue, I was working freelance as a graphic designer, I worked in the music industry, did backing, visuals, videos for bands, I did album covers, skateboards it was all very wonderful. I also worked at the university as well, so I never slept. I've never quite understood when I slept in that time. Then I kind of stopped doing design work for a little while and just did teaching, which is fine, I'm not knocking anyone that does that. But I think I hit that thing, that sort of weird bump, where I was like I'm not doing anymore, I'm just talking about it. So I decided to do a project where it was one drawing a day and I basically was sort of saying to the students who were just going oh, I'm thinking, I'm thinking about my final day. And I basically was sort of saying to the students who were just going oh, I'm thinking, I'm thinking about my final project, and I was like, wonderful, you need to start doing, and if you just do one small thing a day, it becomes this sort of huge portfolio, started doing that, I think, almost 15 years ago and it was meant to last for three months. I've done one drawing a day for the last 15 years and that's kind of grown into its own thing. It also sort of opened up doors and opportunities, because what I draw is a piece of lettering, but often it's like really complicated models about cotter that basically I'm thinking I have to draw to think it out, so I'm just thinking out loud and that's got its weird own little life of its own. So I get. I think that's how we've probably met, because you've seen one of the doodles and then the blog is me unfolding Cotter's model about cheese and toasties. Right, keep the short.
Tash:Then I ended up working at an amazing place called Hyper Island. They were an international creative business school. I was their director of Masters Europe. I ran the digital media management and the digital experience design masters Awesome, ran the digital media management and the digital experience design masters awesome. I learned a huge amount about that space, ucd but I also learned a huge amount about myself and it really shows you the mirror.
Tash:I was not good at giving or taking feedback. They give you so much feedback, it peels all your skin off and then they pour orange juice on you and go come on, we can do better. So that was again. It was that showing me the mirror and that's where that sort of like bar environment met the work environment and it was like ah, actually it's all about people. It's about that messy, complex, drunk we weren't drunk at work but sort of like that high sort of intensity, humanness that you get in the workspace which is awesome but really difficult to navigate.
Tash:And I did that, loved my job but suddenly went hey, why don't I just go and do something different? Threw myself off the work cliff, landed at a place called Snook it's kind of known for service design founded by Lauren Curry and Sarah Drummond, two awesome humans I really wanted to work with. Sarah Got a job there, head of learning design, loved it, learned an incredible amount in government and healthcare. And then again went oh, I've built something really interesting here. What's that over there? And now I'm working for an organization called TPX Impact, which is people powered transformation, and it's similar to snook but slightly different.
Tash:And I again I'm building academies. So basically I've built an internal academy which the idea was to bridge from the workspace for people, pivoters and university people you know from university, from sort of not being in design or user-centered design, into that space, because quite often I think you're trained in a certain way and the reality is very, very different. So it was like a 12-week boot camp into sort of, yeah, getting your feet in the water and learning how to swim. Really, I've done internal academies in central government, we've done stuff with the NHS, etc. And I am currently building some sort of external facing training. I'm going to leave that there. That was the longest explanation ever. There's other stuff that floats around the edges.
Ash:I do bits and bobs everywhere but, like all the best people, your career has absolutely been a very wiggly line and I think you know so. Many of the conversations I have on this podcast are with people whose careers are similarly shaped and they are. They're curious people and they sort of followed their nose into lots of seemingly unrelated areas. But, as you said, the reason I got in touch with you is I saw a blog that you had written and illustrated about Kotter's dual system, which we'll talk a bit more about later. That was my portal into the world of your brain, maybe, and so many of the things that you've written about around leadership and change and conflict and feedback felt like really useful ideas for people working in the cultural sector to think about. And that's sort of what we'll be talking about today and I think maybe where I'd like to start is with a recognition that the immediate context of the cultural sector, but also the wider societal context, is very turbulent.
Ash:I had a conversation with someone last week that said every conversation they've had with a cultural leader at the moment has been about this sense of unease that people are feeling and this sense that certainties are evaporating, melting away somewhat. You know, funding environments shifting audience expectations are shifting culture, wars are the background to everything. It seems like there's uncertainty everywhere we look. But when we spoke last week you said that that has been a part of many of the conversations you've been having for the last decade. So could you speak a bit more to that point? Because certainly from my perspective, it feels more recent.
Tash:It feels that COVID was maybe the start of this massive turbulence, but you think maybe it precedes that by a number of years yeah, it's funny because this is just my opinion, but I will fling my opinion out in the world and see what sticks and what doesn't stick. So, and again, it depends what day you talk to me sometimes. I run between sort of polls quite often and argue with myself and you will probably hear me do that during this conversation, which is not a bad thing. I think it's really good not to dig your heels in and go. This is my opinion, this is fixed, because nothing is fixed anymore. I actually don't think it was fixed in the first place. We just all thought it was fixed.
Tash:I read this amazing article and I've forgotten the name of the author, I'll send it over afterwards where they were talking about like human artifacts, everything's made up and like a calendar. A calendar and what you've put in that calendar is just made up, but we treat it like it's in stone and it's not. It's a man or human made thing. I read it and was like and all of a sudden it's just like yeah, everything is flexible, everything can change, and we were talking about this and sort of. I think the VUCA came up, which is volatile on certain complex and ambiguous spaces, and recently a lot of people are like, oh, the VUCA, and like VUCA is coming back into fashion, and like we were talking about the VUCA like 10 years ago and everyone was like, oh yeah, that's my workplace, like that's my day-to-day, and I think digital coming in has really disrupted. It's disrupted the way we've worked continually. So like when I was at university we were still typesetting, like I didn't have a computer, I went to the library to write my dissertation. So I've lived through that sort of odd. Suddenly digital's come in and we're constantly being disrupted. But I think the VUCA, basically, it's almost like oh well, you have the wave, but it's not one wave, it's this continuous wave and I think some people have been surfing that for a long time. They've seen the wave, they've been surfing it, they know there's always another one coming And're not going. Phew, that wave's gone. And if you can't see me, I'm sort of like looking into it, like and then there's a massive wave behind them about to floor them. And I think it's that behavior that and I this was very much through hyper island was sort of really digging up and surfacing, surfacing all the tensions, surfacing all the disruptions and not just going everything's okay and we're in Barbie land and it's all fantastic. It's going no, no, no. Okay, that wave has gone.
Tash:What did we learn from that? What was really valuable? But now you've got to turn around as quick as possible because there's another wave coming. So what are the things we've learned from that? But what are the things that are unprecedented, that are coming at us, that we don't know about? It's the Knevin model. It's like there's going to be some things that are really simple, but there's going to be some stuff that's complex and really complicated that we won't be able to know because of the last wave, but it's really just going okay, how do we take that that?
Tash:And yeah, it's been around for a long, long time. It's not new and there will be another wave. There's the big waves and there's the ripples between and it's how do you keep your sanity in this space and also, how do you look after yourself? Like that's the thing. It is really easy to burn out in this environment.
Tash:So if there are constant waves hitting you, there's an amazing book I think it's called why zebras don't get ulcers.
Tash:Honestly, it's brilliant. The guy who wrote it watched the videos. Just look up why zebras don't get ulcers and it'll come up and it's basically, you know, fight, flight, flop, fawn. So at the minute we are in a constant state of sort of like tension and sort of high alert, like the digital or whatever the VUCA line is about to come and attack us and we are in constant like like that and what it talks about is zebras go shit lion. They panic, they run around, then they get got the lion's got them, it's got them around the throat. It goes into freeze mode. It's still panicking. It sees its opportunity, it runs off, it survives.
Tash:That zebra doesn't spend the rest of the day going. Oh, I think I upset the lion, or oh no, you know, that was a really crazy day at work. I got bitten by a lion. It just goes back to grazing and just sort of like it forgets it. We don't. We have leveled up into this constant state of sort of how. We don't all have ulcers. It's beyond me. So it's like how do we find the people, our own sense of sort of equilibrium so that we can survive in this space? Because I'm going to say it's bonkers, we're in a bonkers space, that we shouldn't be like this, but we are and it's not going to go away. So if you're working in this space it's like, okay, how can I keep my sanity in such a disruptive space?
Tash:you mentioned banny earlier yes you brought a new acronym to the table. Sorry do you want to explain, banny?
Ash:sure, yeah, so when I was sort of reading about the vuca and I came across an article in forbes by kevin cruce and he proposes bannyI as basically an updating of VUCA, bani stands for Brittle, anxious, non-linear and Incomprehensible, and I think you know there may be useful words to use to sort of frame your understanding of the thinking, but I think even those words require a similar type of response, you know, a recognition that uncertainty is the only certainty, and being comfortable with change, and being comfortable with unpredictable change as well.
Ash:And I mean that maybe leads me neatly into sort of the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is, as you said, the sort of waves of disruption have been hammering against the walls of whatever castle, have been hammering against the walls of whatever castle this is a very extended metaphor whatever castle you happen to be occupying.
Ash:And it does feel that, you know, some people have probably felt and either become exhausted by or used to change and disruption for 10, 15, longer number of years, whereas for other people perhaps that disruption and that change feels much more recent and feels like it started in the pandemic, or feels like it started in the last couple of years, but actually in that context, regardless of when the change started to sort of cause the earthquake, it feels like it's essential now really for everyone, but particularly leaders, to be comfortable with that idea of uncertainty.
Ash:I'm really interested in your perspective on that. We talked a bit about this, about the importance of curiosity in leadership, because that's both going to help you sense where the next wave may be coming from, but also will give you a sense of what solutions or coping mechanisms might look like, and also, in that context, leaders being comfortable with not always having the answers and being sort of able to express that to the people or the teams that they're leading. And you sort of mentioned this idea of intellectual humility, which I would be fascinated to hear more about.
Tash:I've been reading loads and loads about. I read loads about feedback. A lot of the time. I'm putting together a workshop for an organisation in Norway, so I have this sort of like this stuff. But then I tend to sort of like dive back in and go like what's new out there, what's rattling the cage and feedback conflict and sort of that space. And while I was reading into this I found, yeah, intellectual humility, which number one? I was like that's a fancy couple of words put together and it felt good. And it's basically intellectual humility is kind of being okay with not having all the answers. That's making it really really simple. There's loads and loads of research into this, but I love that as a notion and it really pairs well with psychological safety.
Tash:And again, I'm going to go back to when I started lecturing. So I think my favorite moment where everything changed when I was lecturing was I was stood at the front. So I'm the lecturer, I own all of the sort of like intelligence in this room you must learn from me and we were sort of going through something and it phones had just come in, mobile phones so. So if the students had started bringing the phones into the room and I said something and one of them went no, that's not right. And I I was like, ok, why? And he went because I've just Googled it and I was like, awesome, let's unpick that. And all of a sudden I loved it. We broke the third wall, let's say, and we'd been doing that in crits, it's like in crits around the table. We always did that and I was always very open to being questioned, which I think at the time I didn't realize was a really important thing. That, like that student feeling psychologically safe enough to go TASH that's not right was actually quite incredible and I'm very proud of myself. I'm proud of myself that they felt that and I had created that space. And all of a sudden there's a conversation and it's not I own everything, I will lead, you follow me. And that, I feel like, has gone through all the sort of leadership spaces that I've been in. It's like, yeah, sometimes I have to make the tough decisions and that's the thing.
Tash:It's that cheese on toast thing with the sort of structure. For anyone that hasn't read my post, basically I talk about organizations and cotter's dual operating system. Basically like you have the bread, that's the structure, that's your sort of like, your hierarchies, you sort of like that structure that is in an organization, that is the thing that keeps it together, it's your HR, it's your policies and I am not against them. I used to be really like no, we don't need these. We need to be no, you need them. Like when cheers the fan. You need that structure. And then you've got the lovely gooey cheese in the middle and that's what makes the cheese toasty. That's the organic sort of oozyness of people. That sort of navigate between the sort of like the structure and you need that as well and the companies that fight the two don't win. The ones that understand that you need both is really really important. I've lost my train of thread. What was I talking about before?
Ash:We were talking about intellectual humility and I think you know just maybe to root that in the specifics of the cultural sector.
Ash:When we were talking last week I was reflecting that. You know, the traditional archetypal cultural organization typically seems to seek out and appoint leaders who have a very high degree of certainty. The organization would probably describe that as a clear vision and the leader, whoever that is, is expected to know a lot about a lot and very quickly be able to articulate their point of view and, by proxy, the organization's point of view about. You know a huge array of different subjects and it feels like that vibe, that sort of traditional dynamic which is how the cultural sector has on the whole operated and that is the type of dynamic that the cultural sector on the whole has rewarded and sort of positioned as important and correct, is almost diametrically opposed to the sort of intellectual humility that you've described, which instead would reward someone saying I don't know, let's have a conversation about that. I don't know, what do you think it feels like? Again, these are all sweeping statements I'm making, but traditionally that has not really been the type of conversation that has been happening inside most cultural organisations.
Tash:based on my experience and people that I've worked with, and it's also I think that's not just cultural institutions, I think it's across the board. You sort of see it in different spaces and my train of thought has come back. Thank you for that. So what I was saying was about structure. And so if it's that you need the structure, you need the people that make the hard decisions, like, at the end of the day, that's why they get paid, that's why they're at that position. And you know, if there's's redundancies, if there is a global pandemic and all of a sudden everybody has to go online, somebody needs to be that person who takes the rudder, and that's super, super important. But exactly what you've just said, it's sort of realizing that actually there's loads and loads of space where it's not me, it's us, it's we, we as an organization have the answer. I have a answer, but it's one of many. And if we open it up and understand that actually everybody employed in your organization there has been a choice to bring that person into that space and, like, usually it's a very smart choice. Why suffocate that brain that actually, if you crack it open and really sort of join it with other people, all of a sudden this beautiful thing happens that you're like, oh, I've never seen it from that angle, I've never thought about it in that way, so sort of getting those people together and having that collective intelligence, not group think, very different group think is like we all say yes, thumbs up. The leaders sort of kind of nodded to something, or we've heard them say and we all say yeah, yeah, that's great. That collective intelligence and intellectual humility is really just all sitting back and going. We might all be wrong, but together we might find a completely new way of looking at this, because it's not working the way it is at the minute and that's that cheese on toast.
Tash:You need that leader. You need really brilliant, strong leaders who will make the hard decisions. But you also need them vulnerable enough, and vulnerable is a weird word in leadership. It's come more and more into the fore and I think it's hard. You've had leaders who've been in positions for years and years and they're there because they've always been, that I've got the answers. I never show vulnerability and time and the workplace has changed around them and I think we need empathy for those leaders. Like, how do we sort of bring them with us? As you know, like you said it, if you've been rewarded all your life for that. Why are you going to change? But the world has. That's why you have to change.
Ash:Absolutely. And you know from the perspective of someone who has been in a leadership position. You know, through the pandemic, when you suddenly have everyone looking to you for the answers in a completely unique and unexpected scenario, you know as a leader you're sort of feeling that pressure from your people and you're probably also putting that pressure on yourself and that's a really hard position to be in and you can see it. You know, not just in the cultural sector but in many sectors, that leaders are burning out. You know there's been this what's the opposite of an influx, outflux, exodus of people that led organizations through the pandemic, because it was that dynamic amplified a thousandfold. And certainly you know this idea of being able to admit and being able to invite in other perspectives, when you're not sure of what the answer might be or you're looking to ensure that whatever you think the answer it might be is actually the best answer, feels like a really valuable shift to try and undergo yeah, do you know what I'm gonna do?
Tash:you said the castle earlier. If you've watched game of thrones I always use, there's the ice wall and unfortunately we don't have a massive dragon, like it's not going to happen. And I feel, like leaders, teams, organizations, at the minute we've got tiny pickaxes and we're going up to this. If you haven't seen it, it's just a huge, huge ice wall, like massive. We are going up with our tiny pickaxes and we are sort of chipping away and each time so as a leader, I'm like okay, I've made this a bit better. In fact, I quoted Barbie this morning on LinkedIn. You can't make it perfect, but you can make it a bit better. I watched Barbie yesterday but I loved that and it's that. So, if you make the pickaxe a little bit better, but you have to realize when you're exhausted and you're starting to dislike your role and you're starting to dislike the people around you as well, because then you become a toxic part of that organization. Some people don't. Some people really thrive and just keep going, but sometimes you just need to go. Do you know what? There's someone here and here's my pickaxe. You're going to make it even better and you need to go up to the wall because I cannot break this wall on my own and that's that collective we. How do we share that pickaxe? How do we sort of share out that real pressure?
Tash:Like I'm going to be honest, during the pandemic I was working at Hyper Island and I loved my job I still love Hyper Island like I was really passionate about what I was doing but because of that I was so invested in it it almost broke me, because I had in my brain I had to keep everything together and then I worked like that anyway and then all of a sudden there's this huge block of extra stuff on top. There was many reasons I left, but part of the reason I was exhausted and I could not be what they needed me to be anymore and I had to step away. I wanted to learn new stuff as well. They, you know I made the right decision for myself, but 100% for those students for that organization, because I feel like I would have toppled over and maybe bought some of them with me and it was not fair in that environment. So I went here's the pickaxe and handed it over to an incredible human and actually going into snook in a new environment with new people different pressures. It was like it was same but different, but different pressures actually allowed me to go.
Tash:Okay, I'm here now and, yeah, just reinvigorate. So it's that change is better than the rest. But I needed to do it and it's okay. And again, I've stepped back in my career sometimes and people are like, oh, are you not scared? You're stepping back in your career, and I'm like, no, like I've learned loads and it's catapulted me forward because my brain's in a new space now yeah, absolutely, and you know we sort of talked about the idea of intellectual humility, particularly for leaders.
Ash:But something else that you mentioned that I'd love to talk a bit more about is this idea of psychological safety, and this has been a concept that has been around for a while now.
Ash:You know there was that Google research which looked at high performing teams and sort of identified this as the constant across every high performing team that they have a high level of psychological safety.
Ash:But it feels like sometimes, particularly maybe in more hierarchical organizations or more traditional organizations, that the creation of culture and the nurturing of something like psychological safety feels beyond the control of an individual and it feels like something that needs to be created, perhaps from the top down.
Ash:And you know there needs to be a decision that, right, we're going to create psychological safety and my manager will do X, Y and Z and then things will be psychologically safe. And certainly, when we were talking last week, it felt like your perspective was maybe that actually individuals have a lot more agency in those scenarios and that it doesn't just happen, it isn't just a sort of top-down decision I'd love to hear a bit about. Well, firstly, what do you understand we're meaning when we say psychological safety, Because it sounds a bit wafty. And secondly, you know someone listening to this. They're an individual working in an organization. They maybe don't feel like they have a huge amount of power in that organization. What things can they maybe do to try and move the needle towards creating a greater level of psychological safety in their environment?
Tash:so amy edmondson I love amy edmondson, so this is not me knocking her, but basically everyone seems to think amy edmondson, google, it sort of like came out warren bennis and edgar sheen. Edgar sheen is incredible. Like there's so much stuff that came out the 60s. The 60s they might have been dancing and taking drugs, but my god, they came out with some amazing models and thinking in this space. So, actually, psychological safety bubbled up. Then there's lots of literature that comes out of that space and it's super interesting because I think you've got your Hari window and everything around that space was sort of coming into that.
Tash:Like looking at ourselves as humans, as humans, as psychological safety is basically, do I feel that I can take an interpersonal risk in my team? Like, will I stand up and say something and not think that everybody's going to have a go at me? Am I in a brave space? Am I in a space that it is trust? But it's not just trust. Trust would be between me and you. Psychological safety is bigger than that and it's it's like multiple things. It's really funny because psychological safety people talk about it. It's just like, oh, here you are, here's some psychological safety, and it's like boom done, like I was in a room the other day and this is nothing against the facilitator but they were like we're in a psychologically safe space and I was like are we Like nobody agreed that, like we've done nothing to build that?
Tash:I don't know some of the people in the room. It's this sort of like well, I've said it, I've said it now, so it's psychologically safe and it was. It was a nice experience. But I just think there's this presumption that it's not and it's something that you can lose quite quickly and it's something you have to keep chipping away at and working at. I do agree 100%. Leaders, leaders have to lead the way with this. You have to have those leaders from the top showing vulnerability, having intellectual humility, like I think that's super important, being like I you know I might be wrong, I like, but we, we can sort of have a look at this. It's about creating spaces where you give space for people to speak, you give that voice, you open up those spaces where you might get feedback. That hurts a little bit, but it's okay and sort of. It's also sort of opening up those spaces for people to say the stuff that you kind of don't want them to say in public as well. And that's a fine balance, because that can sort of turn into a toxic space because there's too much room for that voice. But also sometimes it's like squeezing a spot you have to squeeze it because else it just gets infected and horrible. It's like, no, allow that space. So there's layers and layers and layers of what psychological safety is. I could go on and on.
Tash:Say, impression management, it's another 60s theory. So impression management we apparently so from our teens. Now we sort of spend a lot of time going okay, this is how I want you to see me, we walk into the workspace and this is how I want you to see me. We walk into the workspace and this is how I want you to see me, and we don't want to look ignorant, incompetent, intrusive or negative, like those are all the things. So we sort of go oh, okay, we don't want to look ignorant, we won't ask questions. Incompetent, we won't admit weakness or mistakes. Intrusive we won't offer any ideas or negative, we won't critique the status quo.
Tash:And the thing is, these days we have to do all of those like we have to do all of those, and leaders have to be brave enough to swing open the doors for that, and that is not easy. That takes a leader who really understands themselves. So, like, there's that side of it. Leaders have to understand themselves. They have to really go out, get feedback. They need to understand their triggers. What's that thing that somebody will say to them? The inside will make them go, but they're like no, it's okay, because this is about my reaction, not about what that person said and understand. It's about the job, not about me as an individual, etc. Etc. Etc.
Tash:Flipping that the other way, I think it's super, super important. If the leaders have created that space that people have to step into it, we have to create our own sort of little psychologically safe bubbles. So I think it is on the individuals as well. We can't just be going well, the leader's not done this, the leader's not done that. We have to take responsibility and I think some of us we get lots and lots of freedom. I work from home, you know I could be sat outside with my feet up all day for all they know like. I think I get a lot of responsibility, sort of autonomy. It's wonderful, but with that comes accountability and with that accountability I feel we need to go. Okay, what's my role in psychological safety. What's my bit that I'm bringing to the party? How do I show my vulnerability and go? Do you know what? I actually don't know, because, especially in design and user-centered design, the creative sector we're all leaders in our tiny bit like, yes, they're at the top of the pile, let's say, but in sort of flatter hierarchies we're all responsible. There is somebody that's here looking at us and our behaviors and if we aren't doing it, they're not going to do it Like working in the open. It's very big in government, so working in the open is really, I think, really really important and funny enough. I think the drawing a day is me kind of doing my version of working in the open. It's, I think, in the open.
Tash:Okay, I had to put a blog post out the other day and it really hurt to write. Right, it was for tpx. I found it really hard. My leader went no, you're doing it, write it, put it out in the world, and actually it was quite cathartic, but it was about like this is what we learned. It went really really well.
Tash:But these are the things that were really hard and I made mistakes and it wasn't it's that I made it better, but it wasn't the perfect thing that I wanted and it destroyed me a bit. I wanted this perfect thing but loads of it was out of my control and again putting it out in the world is me sort of I'm gifting again. I'm so. I gifted that because somebody else can read it and go, ah, we're doing that and actually we need to not do X, we need to not do Y and Z is out of both of our controls. That you know, the A thing is going to come crashing down on us.
Tash:So, yeah, I am a huge, huge fan of psychological safety. I'm a huge fan of leaders leading the way. But I really think the people in the system, in the organization, need to think more about like, what's my role in this? Stop looking at that leader. If you're going, oh, this isn't fair, you create it, creating your team. Shine that light that the other teams are like, oh, what are they doing? That we're not. Why do they feel like that? So it's all our responsibility.
Tash:And also the other thing I will keep banging this drum psychological safety is not nice. It is not nice, it's hard. If you've got psychological safety right, you will have a person ask you a really hard question. You will have really hard conversations. You will have really tough feedback because that psychological safety, because I am like, bring it, bring it to me. Or I am like I care enough about you radical candor, I care personally, but I am gonna give you the real feedback, that psychological safety. Not boohoo, you've been mean to me because you gave me a piece of feedback. I'm gonna sound really awful now but like, yes, it hurts, it will hurt, but you will learn from it. There is always a seed of truth and like it might be covered in manure sometimes, but that piece of feedback will have a seed of truth in it. Go out and ask multiple people if it's echoing, there's something in there. And you have to sit back, serve and go okay, like what's my responsibility in this?
Ash:I feel like I've ranted, I'm gonna stop it was an excellent rant and I there are a bunch of things I want to pick up on before we talk about John Cotter's operating system. Firstly you know it was sort of a slight side point but it does feel important is you reference that idea of working in the open? You know that's such a big part of the practice. Digital practice in government came out of the sort of GDS team culture, I suppose, and you know now those people are working in lots of other sectors. You know I've done this piece of research recently looking at the reasons why digital projects in the cultural sector fail, and one of the things that really came through in almost every response that we gathered was that there isn't really this sort of honest culture of reflection in the cultural sector on the whole, and that's why so many of the challenges or the reasons for failure are repeated in lots of different organizations time and again.
Ash:I think that's one of the things, because there isn't really a conversation about learning. There isn't really a conversation about failure. Yes, absolutely, there's showcasing of success and we did this thing and it was great for all these reasons, but there's less of the hard stuff that you talked about in the blog post you published and sort of saying we tried this and it did not work and we learned this lesson, and if we were doing this again, we absolutely wouldn't spend money or time or attention here, here and here. And that does feel like something that the cultural sector should perhaps be doing more of, because it is a very collaborative sector and it's yeah, you know, like government. People aren't necessarily in competition and inverted commas with each other again.
Tash:You can't see me. I got very excited then. 100, because this is the beauty of working in government healthcare, the cultural sector yeah, there's some competition in there, so if there's always a bit of competition in there, but actually we are in a situation where we're not who's the lawnmower man? Dyson, hoover, tash, not lawnmower, we're not Dyson where you cannot leave the building with a sketchbook. You have to put it in a locker. We can put our stuff out in the world and what we should be doing is building, like we should always be going. Okay, that first layer of research should be what exists out there already, what has gone wrong, what has gone right. Go and speak, connect those dots. That will save you months of work. Like just go out and find that. But if we only post the shiny stuff, if we only talk about the lovely learnings and I do think we're slipping back into that a little bit there's been some really good posts recently. I noticed DWP put out a learnings deck, which I was like yes, that's really brave and I'm like that's what matters, those things. It's like where we went wrong, what did we learn, and you can put the shiny stuff in there as well, like pat yourself on the back, go like we did this, this was great, but this is the stuff. You know. We managed to get there. Because of that. We will save so much money in our sectors. Because we're not starting from, you know, ground zero. Again, right, I'm going to keep this short.
Tash:I think budgets, budgets and the way we're structured with money really doesn't help that, because sometimes there's loads and loads of work put into something and then the budget gets cut or like the money runs out. And then it's that organizational memory. Where does that go? Who has access to it? And if you've got a team, that goes right, okay, here's a deck's a deck, here's a folder, here's whatever, with all of those artifacts in all written up beautifully that I can, like a library, go in and pull that folder out and just go okay, this is what they did. So we're starting on top of that rather than from ground zero. Imagine where we'd be. But because it sort of gets archived and people leave, or it doesn't get archived very well, or you don't have access because it's on somebody's private drive, we're doomed to keep starting from zero rather than actually three, four. So imagine if we were just each one building sharing, building sharing. That is what we should be aiming for.
Tash:But I think it goes back to psychological safety, that vulnerability that I made a mistake. This did not go well and it was on me. The reason I've sort of done well in my career, which sounds odd to say out loud, is because I've done so badly in my career. I've done some terrible, terrible leadership. I've done some badly in my career. I have done some terrible, terrible leadership. I've done some terrible things and looked back and gone. Oh, I did that, but I owned it and I learned from it and I'm really sorry to those people but like, actually, if we don't talk about this, we're never gonna move forward. And some people do sweeping statement. I've seen some really beautiful like building and again, government very, very good defra. Very good at sharing those podcasts. The farming sector is very good at this.
Ash:There's a farming podcast that's really good and you know, I think there's lots of reasons why people, you know, not just in the cultural sector, you know, in the education system we have in the UK and most of the sort of Europe, it's a focus on having the right answer and, you know, it's less of an incremental. What did we learn from our mistakes? I read an interesting book from Tim Harford, who's an economist, and it's called Adapt why Success Always Starts With Failure, and in it he says success comes through rapidly fixing our mistakes rather than getting things right the first time. You know a huge number of examples that he then goes on to cite. But if you're just someone that is always succeeding, you're probably not learning very much or you're just extremely lucky and actually the things that you're doing and the ways you're doing aren't replicable or something else that anyone else could pick up and build on.
Ash:And it does feel that. You know, going back to what we were saying earlier, we're in this sort of time of great uncertainty and funding is difficult and audiences are difficult and relevance is a challenge for all cultural organizations. In that context, it feels like it's even more important for us to be working in the open and being honest about what isn't working or what is hard, because that's how we will, sort of collectively, get to better solutions without wasting a huge amount of time and money and effort and that does go back to that psychological safety, because you can only put things out in the open in organizations that the leadership say that you can put out in the open.
Tash:That's where this structure comes in and there is as much as you can go. Oh, we're a really flat structure. There's always hierarchy and there is somebody that can say no. But it's also that leaders can go, test and iterate, embrace mistakes. They can say all of the words, but if then, when somebody makes a mistake, when somebody doesn't do well, your reaction is to punish or your reaction is to be like you know, actually you're not going to get that raise, people will go back to their normal behavior, people will recede back to playing it safe and actually a lot of the time, you know, there's this real sort of like battle at the minute I think in government you're seeing it play out where it's test and learn. That's really the mantra at the minute and I'm 100% behind it.
Tash:But then you've got sort of systems, leaders, organizations and teams that aren't supporting those people to have that brave moment to go oh, I'm gonna press the button on that and go because they feel that they might get punished, and sometimes that is a like that David Gray thing. You've created that invisible bubble around yourself where you're like I will get punished, you won't, and everybody's going no, come on, come on, come on. But there's years and years of legacy and behavior that makes people feel like that. And again, that's that sort of like. How do you as individuals, how do you as individuals, how do you as teams and how do you as leaders keep going? No, no, no, we can do this, but you know, evidence it.
Tash:And that comes back to that, putting it out in that space and in show and tells, community of practice, in community hours, talking about the hard stuff. Like somebody needs to go first and it might not feel very psychologically saved. Like somebody needs to go first and it might not feel very psychologically saved, but somebody needs to go first and really sort of lead the way on that, because else why would anybody else? Why should I show my mistakes if nobody else is?
Ash:Absolutely, and all of the things that we've been talking about, I think, are shifts that I would love to see happening in the cultural sector.
Ash:They feel like they're things that the cultural sector is only going to benefit from become more resilient as a result of be a more enjoyable place for people to work, do better work, but maybe returning to where we started, with this sort of recognition that we're in this time of great uncertainty, time where sort of change seems to be the imperative.
Ash:You know the old models through whatever lens you're looking at a model, those models seem to not be valid.
Ash:You know, casting your mind forward 10 or 20 years, I don't think it's realistic to expect the cultural sector in particular to be structured and working and being funded and reaching audiences in the same way.
Ash:So, from my perspective at least, it feels like change is a necessary idea that people need to engage with. However, also, the culture sector has a whole load of business as usual that it needs to continue to deliver because of audience expectations, because of funding, because of the rhythm of the sector. There are things that need to keep happening, whilst the sector also tries to cast its collective imagination forward and work out the ways in which it might need to change and it feels like an idea like Kotter's dual operating system is maybe an approach that cultural organizations could take, because it recognizes that sort of hierarchy and structure is important, but also that you need different structures in order to be able to think about and experiment with change. Could you tell us a bit about what Jonathan Cotter is describing when he has this dual operating system and maybe your sort of personal experiences of places where a version of that has existed?
Tash:Yeah, it's a very big concept that I'm going to probably butcher, but let's go for it. So there's the efficiency and stability side. So that's the structure, that's the toast, that's the bread that keeps things going and that is. You know, it's a functional hierarchy. It's a really nice functional hierarchy and that's about managing the system. So, like quite often in organizations, we are a system, we are nodes in a very, very big system and it's not about us. Often it's about the connections between us. It's that little sort of like relational sort of things and they operate in two different ways. So you've got that functional hierarchy and that's plans and budgets, it's organizing and staffing, it's doing what the org does well. So business as usual, exactly what you just said. And it's about to continue reliable results, and it's really really important because if you don't do that you don't have a business. So you need that sort of business as usual. So that lovely, it's sort of that toast, the cheese bit, the lovely oozy, sexy bit. Structure is sexy as well. So the oozy bit in the middle is sort of like that cross-functional teams. That is like innovation. That's where the sort of like interesting stuff that's sometimes quite invisible happens.
Tash:I would say that is really leading. The functional hierarchy is more about managing the other side. Is that leading? And that's where I was saying about everybody's a leader you have to think about. In your little space, you are leading and that's a real responsibility that you should take to heart. You don't need to be at the top to be a leader. You can be a leader at any sort of bit of it. That's about finding directions. It's about aligning and motivating people. It's about inspiration, exploring, creating. It's that sort of agile space that everybody speaks about, and I think that is like how do you sort of like allow the two to net together without disrupting each other? There's a really lovely I've forgotten who said it. Basically, it's like the trellis that you have to grow roses. The structure of the trellis allows the roses to grow, but it's the roses that are important, but like you can't have one without the other because else they can't grow up. And yeah, it's allowing the space for that organic, that system to sort of really really operate.
Tash:And, funny enough, I'm going to go back to where we started, where I said I do that one drawing a day, like what is the one thing, because business as usual takes time, like so a lot of time people are. I don't have time to innovate, I don't have time to this, but what's that? One small thing that you can do every day? It's tiny habits. Bj Fogg sort of behavior person that actually builds into that really big sort of like, makes that bigger difference by just doing that one small thing. And sometimes that can be as small as, like you know, when you check in in a meeting and I think this is super important now.
Tash:So we no longer have those spaces very often where, before the meeting starts, you're like, oh, and you're all chatting because you're in the same room or you've gone for a coffee together, or you've walked to the room together, and it's those little moments where I cease to just see you as a professional. I understand you're a person, you're a human as well and it's that humanity that enables us to build psychological safety, because we've had a little chat. I found a little bit out about you. You know it's that oh, we're similar and I'm not othering you anymore, I'm not going. Oh, you're a different person, we're in conflict. It's actually like nah, it's me and Ash having a conversation because we've had that.
Tash:So this is like one tiny thing. There's a million different things you could do, but sort of like do you, at the beginning of that meeting, make sure you have a bit of a nice check-in that's sort of appropriate to the meeting, that allows you to see each other as humans? Do you put something out in that meeting where you show vulnerability? You go, I did this. It didn't work, but hey, what we can do next time is da-da-da-da, and it's those small things that allow the cheese to really cheese within the structure of the bread. And that's where that cheese and toasty, it's the two working in beautiful unison so that you can eat your cheese and toasty. I'm going to leave that there.
Ash:And I think you've mentioned a version of that idea a few times that actually individuals have cumulatively, either as a group or over a period of time, a lot of power.
Ash:And I think that that feels like a really important idea because ultimately I think it's unrealistic for the culture sector or individual cultural organizations to expect there's going to be some grand pivot that they're all going to perform, because cultural sector collectively is oil tanker like in nature, in that it's slow moving and also any course correction takes a while between you turning the wheel and the change actually happening, because of a variety of sort of cultural and financial and historical reasons.
Ash:But if everyone thinks, thinks about, as you say, what is a new thing I can try once a week. Or how can we change this part of the meeting that we have every Tuesday? Or how can I start to change the way that I share what I'm doing with my team or with other people doing the job that I do. It does feel like from those small shoots that a new way forward sort of starts to emerge from the fog and starts to become tangible and starts to become not like this big scary existential dread but actually something that people are building towards together. But it does require change on that sort of molecular level because it just feels like the big pivot is not going to happen because reasons and also funders, individual institutional leaders, are probably not going to be the ones that are going to on their own come up with a completely new model for things. It's going to require a collective effort yeah, and I think that it is.
Tash:It's like what are those small things you can do? But also what are those small things you can do with other people as well? And like, if something isn't working and you're like sat there and you're frustrated, stop being frustrated, what can you do about it. What's that small thing that is within your privileges, within your sort of sphere of influence, that you can do? Stop worrying about the stuff that you can't do. Like we spend so much time and energy fighting the ice wall when actually there's something right next to us that sort of really needs our attention. It's like do that, focus on that.
Tash:There's a really lovely quote by margaret meet and she says never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has, and I I love that. I love that as a notion of like I think we forget our power as individuals, but when we get together, it's like if you watch ants just watch a documentary on ants like look at them, look what they do and look how tiny they are. And it's about remembering like most stuff is just human made, like those deadlines, that sort of calendar invite, that you know that person who is in power is only in power because you're allowing them to be there. Everything I'm saying is is hard, I'm making it sound like you just do this and tomorrow it all changes.
Tash:But what's that small thing that you can do to nudge the needle every single day? And who are your people like? How do you glow and get people to come towards you? Or who are the people that glow in a way that you're like you're interesting, be ruthlessly curious about everything. Go out and find them and find your people. Find those people that like, if you're bored at work, there is going to be someone that will excite you. Go and find them and they were probably waiting for you as well, and sort of like yeah, find that, group those people and together move that dial.
Tash:If the leader isn't doing it, how do you make it easy for them to go? Oh, yeah, haven't thought of that, and so I said it earlier have empathy, don't get angry at them. Get curious. Why are they behaving like this? There is usually something bigger. It will be money. You know. They might just be scared. Things are changing around them and actually, if you hold the leader all of a sudden and that doesn't feel like our responsibility if you hold the leader all of a sudden and that doesn't feel like our responsibility, but it is because we're a human collective of people in this sort of fake world, we should be out grazing looking for lions. Right, I'm going off subject. I'm going to leave that there.
Ash:Well, I think that is an absolutely brilliant note to end on. Thank you so much this morning, tash. It's Monday morning, but you have started my week off with an inspiring and invigorating conversation, so thanks so much for your time. Thank you, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this conversation and want to hear more, you can find all episodes of the podcast on thedigitalworks, and if your organization needs help making sense of digital, you can get in touch with me via my website at ashmanco. That's man with two N's. See you next time.
