A common misconception about organisations that successfully apply self-management principles is that they have neither a power hierarchy nor central control processes. It’s an understandable error, but a fundamental one. Take Buurtzorg Nederland, among the best known such companies, having grown from a single neighbourhood care team 20 years ago into a €400 million turnover […]
Though happy enough to be an immigrant to Britain, as a citizen of the Republic of Ireland I can’t help taking particular pride and pleasure in helping to grow a community of strengths-based relational services there as well in the UK. So I’m delighted Public World has confirmed new learning and development programmes with two […]
The global tennis circus has decamped from London for another year, leaving behind not only the usual dramatic memories but also an artificial intelligence (AI) controversy with relevance far beyond Wimbledon. After 147 years, those traditionalists at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) dispensed with line judges at their Championships this year, […]
I first came across Maff Potts via a presentation in which he was dressed up as a chicken, or it might have been a duck. A lot of yellow anyway. (Watch it here.) His slides kept going wrong, which I assumed was part of the schtick. He assured me later it wasn’t, although it was […]
2025 marks 10 years since Public World began our first ‘test & learn’ project inspired by the success in the Netherlands of the neighbourhood care model developed there by Buurtzorg. Buurtzorg’s founder, Jos de Blok, joined us for our first workshop with Guy’s & St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) and spoke at a seminar […]
Sometimes the politics of British health and social care drives a response to their problems that makes actually tackling them even harder. In fact, let’s correct that. That happens all the time, but sometimes it is more obvious than others, and this week has been one of those weeks. In a speech on Wednesday, Wes […]
Lately I have been thinking a lot about craft. I often do, but recently it’s been a particular pre-occupation because a couple of weeks ago, in the company of fellow admirers, I raised a celebratory glass to the memory of Norman Ackroyd, who died last month. This post is illustrated with a photograph of a […]
At the Oval cricket ground in south London this weekend the England cricket team have a chance to make it six victories out of six in this summer’s Test Matches against West Indies and Sri Lanka. They seem to be enjoying themselves, certainly a lot more than when fear of failure seemed to be crushing […]
Judging by my social media feed, I am one of many whose abiding image of 5 July 2024 will be the warmly smiling face of James Timpson in the government announcement of his appointment as Minister of State for Prisons, Parole and Probation. As chair of the Prison Reform Trust and a CEO who makes […]
A week today the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will have a new government, but already its leadership is under fire for not saying exactly how it will fix social care. To which I say: be careful what you wish for. Remember when Boris Johnson stood outside 10 Downing Street on the […]