A world of good relationships
A public lecture as delivered by David Robinson at the LSE on 31/10/23
LECTURE TRANSCRIPT
Happy Halloween! Until we started to promote this event, I hadn’t realised that Halloween is now such a hot ticket. So particular thanks to those of you who’ve given up an opportunity to terrorise the neighbourhood tonight
Why is it popular? It's permission to be scary, it's fun. And it's something that friendship groups, and whole communities, do together. Isn’t that really the magic? We are social animals. Randomly spooking the neighbours on your own, would be much less fun.
Bob Waldinger leads the Harvard study of adult development, the largest and longest of its kind. He says “To say that human beings require warm relationships is no touchy-feely idea. It is hard fact. We need nutrition, we need exercise, we need purpose, and we need each other.”
So, I want to suggest to you this evening that if you want to change the world, start with relationships. They are the ground works in any society – the foundations on which all else is built –effective education, just policing, stable childhoods, thriving communities, compassionate care, a fair economy, responsible government, flourishing businesses … even longer lives. Waldinger again …. “Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.”
I know that embracing this huge sweep from the intimate to the global, invites scepticism but there is no task in adult life, public or personal, which is not done better with an enhanced understanding of the relational skills - how to collaborate, how to manage bias and power and parity of esteem, how to forgive, negotiate difference and resolve conflict.
Everything works better when we do these things well.
This is why in the age of Zoom, world leaders still cross the globe for face to face summits.
Why, decades later, adults still remember their best teachers
And why a study of 2835 cancer patients found that those with a network of good relationships were four times more likely to survive than those without. Everything works better.
Of course, the opposite is also true: US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy attracted headlines earlier this year when he said "Loneliness increases the risk of premature death by almost 30%” .
This shouldn’t be news: 12 years ago, Julianne Holt-Lunstad looked at 148 studies examining mortality rates across all age groups, genders, and ethnicities. Strong connection, she concluded, increased the likelihood of surviving in any given year by more than 50 percent.
Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told the Labour party conference last month that “there can be no solution to the crisis in the NHS without a plan for social care”. He is right of course, but there can be no effective plan for either without understanding these numbers. 6% of UK adults are chronically lonely – That’s 2.5m people who are more likely to get sick than the rest of the population and less likely to have the support they need to recover at home. It is good relationships, relationships in the community, that can reduce admissions, speed up discharge and support sustainable social care
And in small projects, outside the mainstream, that future has already arrived. In Frome for instance, targeted work on building social networks has reduced hospital admissions by 14% at a time when numbers elsewhere were increasing, and cut costs.
We can’t afford an approach to public policy that continues to marginalise the evidence and is blind to human nature. Relationships matter in every corner of our lives.
But if putting them first is common sense, it isn’t common practice. Practitioners who do it, like the team in Frome, organisations that work at it like Barking and Dagenham Council, politicians who get it like Jacinda Ardern who told the UN “If I could distil down what I really want, it is simple and it is this: kindness” … these are still the exceptions in their field. Largely one place or one term wonders who for all the good that they do have yet to change the soul of the systems they inhabit. Their work is often transitory, fragile, adjacent, even maverick.
Meanwhile mainstream currents from the local to the global, still flow very largely in a different direction:
We see systems, services, becoming less human, bigger, more remote.
Organisational protocols and management structures redesigned to customise not to humanise,. Every interaction driven online. High streets, neighbourhoods and public services hollowed out with cash points and self service checkouts and appointments on Zoom.
None of these things are individually life changing, but taken together and without offset, they chip away at our points of connection and shrink us into insularity.
This is not the inevitable consequence of the technology. Machines enable the behaviours that we choose for ourselves or for others, but they don’t make the choices
We work with a lot with people in big organisations who tell us about the management controls, the compliance regimes, the leaders with an almost visceral resistance to words like kindness and love.
I think of the doctor telling us that her hospital training included the advice “you are not a person here, you’re a professional”.
In the week of the global summit on artificial intelligence ,… I am as worried about humans made to behave like machines, as I am about machines made to behave like human beings
I think there is a pattern in all this. A pattern shaped for the last several decades by strict adherence to the narrow logic of the market. Fashioning the political discourse. Bleeding into the ways in which we think about ourselves and one another. And setting an approach to our shared lives that is increasingly mechanical, individualistic and impersonal.
And my point is this: That pattern, that mind set underpins not only the 100s of 1000s of local decisions, but also our approach to the biggest global questions … to how we care for the displaced, how we trade fairly and effectively across the globe, how we respect and share the natural world…
These questions too, and many more, are all about relationships. About how we live together. Whilst we address them with a mindset that is deeply unrelational, we won’t meet the challenges of Monday morning, let alone of the next generation.
“We are not machines.” Wrote the late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs in 2020 “ We are people and people survive by caring for one another. Market economics and liberal politics will fail if they are not undergirded by a moral sense that puts our shared humanity first. Economic inequalities will grow. Politics will continue to disappoint. . There will be a rising tide of anger and resentment… and of loneliness, depression and drug abuse.. all these things are related. When we see this, we will already have taken the first step to a solution”.
If you want to change the world, start with relationships.
Now, I understand those who say, “I get this for the little things but for the big stuff?” The Middle East for instance. Others are better qualified to talk about that than me. Here’s John Alderdice: He was speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly at the time of the Good Friday Agreement and is also consultant psychiatrist. He says
The biggest step for us was in understanding that resolving our problem was about dealing with historic, distressed relationships (not rules or constitutions) …we know in our personal lives that the law can set down limits but doesn’t make good relationships… It is understanding… regret, responsibility and remedy … “changing relationships, that makes for new possibilities”
Professor Neil Denton, our Relationships Project colleague and community mediator tells me about time spent with Zoughbi Al Zoughbi. He runs Wi’am - the Palestinian Conflict Transformation Centre in Bethlehem. The centre supports communities to build relationships that are, says Zoughbi “the roots that support the branches of future peace, justice and change.” It is he says “ the only thing that we can do, AND it is the only thing that will work"
These words may sound hollow in the middle east tonight “Changing relationships to make for new possibilities”…..”, “roots that support the branches…”. But equipping ourselves, and especially our children, to understand one another better, and challenging the paradigms that under value or ignore these relational skills surely, is “the thing we can do” in every dimension of our lives
Relating well is a learned skill. I imagine ……..an education system where relational literacy is the fourth R, thoroughly and systematically taught from nursery to university. …….. A world where no professional training is complete without the relational component, from basic proficiency to depth and excellence………… and a time when our leaders at every level put relationships first, systematically, and our organisations, large and small, are institutionally relational.
5 years ago the Relationships Project took its first steps towards this world of good relationships endeavouring to balance the big picture vision with practical constructive work on the ground
Large-scale problems don’t always require large-scale solutions” wrote David Fleming, “they require small-scale solutions within a large-scale framework.”
We’ve been building a body of knowledge about those “small scale solutions”, gathering stories and data. We’ve developed the language of relationship centred practice, of relational offset, bumping places, relational poverty … because until we conceptualise relational behaviours clearly and consistently there can be neither shared understanding nor collective action.
We’ve made tools and led training. We ran the Relationships Observatory studying shifts in relational behaviour, particularly during the pandemic. And working with others we made the Relationships Heat Map, the Kit for Councils, the Relationship Makers Guide, the Active Neighbours Field Guide, the Bridge Builders Handbook and other practical tools used by organisations across the UK and further afield.
And we’ve started to join the dots, to build a field of practice. We're mapping the many brilliant organisations and individuals who are putting relationships first. We set up the Relationships Collective learning from and with the servant leaders who represent just some of the pioneers. We convene communities of practice and run the Relational Councils , and now the Learning Networks
Over the last 5 years, we have worked with many 100s of organisations, large and small, voluntary and statutory. A mutually supportive, still small but rapidly growing and ultimately regenerative movement is gathering strength. But it is also facing obstacles. Two in particular
First, the frilly fallacy.. The leaders who say “ I get that relationships are important but my top priority is … “ Exam results or school attendance rates or something else. With respect, NO. because you won’t get any of these outcomes unless relationships are good – child to child, child to teacher, teacher to family. The order is everything. Putting relationships first is everything. An approach that we see repeatedly vindicated, even in the toughest circumstances, perhaps especially in the toughest circumstances.
Daniel Aldridge studies the impact of disasters. Following the Japanese tsunami in 2011 he found the strength of social capital was more significant in determining the level of fatalities than the height of the seawall - the social infrastructure even more important than the physical. A startling finding at first glance but then… these are communities who notice one another, who know who is least likely to hear an alarm, who needs help to leave home, who has transport or shelter on high ground. It's obvious really.
Just as it is obvious that it would be those same communities that recovered and rebuilt first and most effectively. Both findings emerge repeatedly from disasters around the world.
Writing most recently about the August fires in Hawaii Aldrich concludes “these consistent findings should drive home to policy makers everywhere the critical importance of close ties.” Relationships first. The fundamentals, not the frillies
Second obstacle, The Capacity crunch, “I just don’t have time”, people say. Repeatedly we hear of systems and practitioners petrified by well intentioned, often piece meal additions to their day demanding more time on something other than personal connection. Dr Gillian Sandstrom, director of the Sussex University Centre on kindness, says we want from our services, and those who provide them, “ competence and warmth”. What we get says Alex Fox, CEO of the Mayday Trust is “Hostages to a system”. “We need to declutter”, says Dr Clare Gerada, President of the Royal College of GPs “to empower staff to remove the clutter that has accumulated in the space between the doctor and the patient”
There is recent precedent for doing this in many fields : In our Relationships Observatory we found countless examples in Lockdown where rules were trimmed and relationships trusted. Trusted. That, too often, is the missing piece .
Paul Morrison led the government Homes for Ukraine programme. He told our community of practice that this swift and effective response to the crisis was built on trust. Trust in councils and community partners. Real, strong reciprocal relationships. Not as Paul acknowledged, the usual approach for government but the only one that could work. Just as it had done repeatedly in the pandemic.
Trusting, decluttering, focusing on relationships with all the messy differences is not without risk but how much better would it be to get the most effective behaviours wrong every now and then, than to get the least effective behaviours right, over and over again
Learning from all our work over the last 5 years, the Relationships Project is now embarking on a new 5 year programme with three intentions
First, to continue to develop our collective understanding: We are developing the interdisciplinary Learning Network with, so far, over 100 academics and researchers from more than 40 academic institutions. The Network will help to build confidence within the academic world, share learning, develop collaborative lines of inquiry and establish the wider credibility that comes from rigorous study. Ultimately we envisage university hubs driving up the breadth , depth and profile of relational practice
Our second intention, to unlock connections: We’re building a patchwork of practitioner communities serving and connecting the people who are putting relationships first. Some are subject specific, our Relational Councils Network, for example. Others cut across specialisms and topic areas. All are igniting and connecting in the Fleming phrase, “small scale solutions within a large scale framework”
Our third intention, to embed relational practice: Margaret Thatcher changed Britain with a vision of a property-owning democracy saying “economics is the means, the end is to change the soul”. Focusing on relationships between people, rather than between people and the state, or people and the market is a big, soul changing idea – effectively a third era in post war Britain- but whilst practice may be growing, too much is below the radar. Changing the soul of systems and organisations, embedding these approaches is our long term goal.
We’re setting out plans for the Relationships Academy working initially with five cohorts from different fields, supporting future leaders as they develop the mindsets, the skills and the processes to become exponents and enablers of relationship centred practice. One cohort, for example, will be prospective MPs. Working not just with next term government, but next generation government
To provide content for the Academy, and access to all our resources for the wider field, we are also building a “pattern library” weaving together all our tools and resources.
Our mission across these three intentions is not to invent but …. To understand – establishing the Relationships Learning Network. To connect - building the patchwork of practitioner communities. And to embed - developing the Relationships Academy for future leaders.
Our method, of course, is relational. We have a tiny team and work largely with associates and partners. If you would like to play a part, we would love to talk to you..
These are enticing developments. My 3am question to self, is are they realistic? I can only answer it like this:
I’ve spent my life working with people in difficult circumstances. I've seen how many problems are caused or exacerbated by broken or inadequate relationships and also how repairing relationships or building new ones has the power to change lives. I look at other organisations, other people, doing transformational work. Almost always relational practice is at the heart of the model.
So I come here with people in my head. Lives that were changed. And lives that weren’t. And I have no time for pretty ideas without utility. But I am also impatient with counsels of despair, and the politics of low expectations. “Hope is a discipline, a practice “ wrote Marianne Keba.
And practice makes progress: During the pandemic we practised and we progressed– noticing one another, connecting differently. 9m people voluntarily caring for others. Almost 40% having done little or nothing before. At the Relationships Project we called it “the moment we noticed” .
“The better angels of our nature were suddenly flapping everywhere” wrote historian Peter Hennesy ``The banging of the pots and pans were the sounds of a people rediscovering themselves”. We moved, in Professor Putnam’s phrase, “from a me, to a we, society.”
None of us were untouched by the pandemic. The only question is whether we are open to the learning and willing to embrace the behavioural evolution that it prefigured, or whether we retreat to the old ways knowing them to be inadequate. The opportunity is, says Professor Hennesy “still there for the taking”. I think so too.
And I also agree with Dr Michael Little who says, “A small group of activists with the right idea delivered at the right moment can change the mindset and behaviours of millions of people.” He cites the development of Wikipedia as an example: “Two moral agents, Jimmy Wales and Larry Senger, had 2 ideas and 2 principles. They now have 115,000 active editors, producing 6.5m articles, accessed more than 250m times every day”. Micheal calls this “social contagion”.
We too have the moral agents and an expanding base. Also proof of concept, many exemplars, and pressing crises – all the seeds of a positive contagion and the conditions for spread. Together with others, led by many, this journey has begun
And I am almost done for this evening but I want to end with a memory from the start of my career. I was trying to build support for Community Links, the organisation I mentioned in the first lecture and that was to be my mother ship for decades to come.
I worked in a children’s home where I met Patrick – a particularly troubled 14 year old. We established a rapport he didn’t have with older members of staff.
Towards the end of my time there we were sitting at the end of the garden late on a hot summer night. It was almost dark. The younger children had all gone to bed. I told him what I was doing, where I was going at the end of the week. I was full of enthusiasm and careless insensitivity.
I can see him now. He stands, walk slowly up the garden, stops at the backdoor, silhouetted against the bright lights of kitchen and shouts down…….“I wish I’d never met you Dave, Then I’d have never have to fucking say goodbye”. And he never did. He ignored me for the rest of the week and whenever I returned.
Some years later I bumped into the family social worker on Stratford station. She told me that Patrick took his own life 3 days before his 17th birthday.
I’m not suggesting he took those pills because of me. I was far too insignificant for that, but if I wasn’t part of the problem nor was I, as I once imagined, part of the solution. I was just one of the many passing ships in Patricks short dark night. None of us laid anchor.
I’ve made many mistakes since then, but I didn’t repeat that one. I stayed at Community Links for 40 odd years. I’d learnt about the importance of real, reciprocal, sustained relationships.
About what we can do, as individuals and as parts of a system. And also about what, maybe inadvertently, we do do.
And I’d learnt we can’t change anything, anything of substance, without attention to one another. Without noticing. What philosopher Simone Weil called the “rarest and purest form of generosity”.
But if we do put relationships first …
We can improve lives
We can start to move the way people feel and think. Rewrite those deep codes
We can embed the shift in way systems and institutions behave. The little things and the big stuff
And we will change…… how we live together.
If you want to change the world, start with relationships.