Sensemaking — what are we seeing, hearing and noticing in the UK
On Friday we had the first meeting of the Scanning and Sensemaking Network, a group of 30 colleagues from across the fund, in all four countries and working across different roles in the organisation. This Network has been established as part of our response to Covid-19. We want to make the space for listening, questioning and having greater awareness, in real time, of how communities are changing, and the emerging patterns that could point towards the way we’ll live our lives in the future.
This information will help us make better grants, be able to share insights about communities across the UK with the wider sector, as well as start to develop what role we should be playing in the longer term, in the recovery and renewal of civil society.
Staff members who are Scanners have started to have conversations with their contacts (applicants, grant holders and/or community champions) asking questions such as ‘what do you see happening that you hope could become the ‘new normal?’ and ‘what do you think is now possible that wasn’t before?’. These conversations are being documented and in addition staff are being asked to reflect on what else they have picked up over the week — from what they reading on social media, in the news etc, as well as what language they are hearing or anything else they are noticing.
On a Friday afternoon we then gather as a whole group to synthesise and interpret this information, most importantly attempting to spot patterns as they arise. We’re looking for three main things that make up the Three Horizons Framework which provides us with a way to understand what is changing, what is emerging, what important values we want to hold on to, and what might keep things stuck in a world where many things no longer work effectively. You can read more about the framework here.
- The first horizon (H1) is the dominant system at present. It represents ‘business as usual’. We rely on these systems being stable and reliable. But as the world changes, so aspects of business as usual begin to feel out of place or no longer fit for purpose. Covid-19 has accelerated this. Eventually ‘business as usual’ will always be superseded by new ways of doing things.
- The third horizon (H3) emerges as the long-term successor to business as usual. It grows from fringe activity in the present that introduces completely new ways of doing things but which turn out to be much better fitted to the world that is emerging than the dominant H1 systems. This activity is usually driven by values — people being the change they wish to see in the world.
- The second horizon (H2) is a pattern of transition activities and innovations, people trying things out in response to the ways in which the landscape is changing.
This first session was our opportunity to come together and start to test and explore how this could all work. It was a little messy and at times a bit confusing as people got to grips with it. The conversation became rich and interesting though, provoking us to think in a way we don’t often have time for and being able to share with and hear from colleagues too.
The conversation primarily focused around the first horizon — the immediate issues arising from the current crisis, such as — how to care for those around you, where people’s next meal was coming from and burn out. We also spoke about the negative consequences of the crisis, for example the cost of lives lost elsewhere while resource is diverted to the COVID response e.g. reduced cancer diagnosis, the upcoming wave of post-traumatic stress, and working conditions.
For the second horizon we predominately focused on digital tools being used to help people to work together in new ways and on the pace in which changes are happening — things taking only a month when they were planned for 2/3 years.
Insights into the third horizon hinted at what a future system could look like, including:
- Digital accessibility being essential
- The rise in neighbourliness — people giving time to one another
- We are clearer about what is vital and what is not
- Prioritising care for each other and the planet
- The ability to remove red tape and do innovation quickly
As a group I think it will take us a little while to move our conversations, thinking and discussions away from the immediate risks and concerns and to start focusing and pulling out the issues and solutions that we hope might be longer lasting. Our staff and the people we are gathering insights from don’t often have the time to reflect in this way, particularly when so much of our day job is responding to the immediate needs of communities, so we hope as we progress on this journey we will be able to carve out that space for ourselves and the communities we serve.
Written by Hannah Paterson and Cassie Robinson
