How to ensure transformation and reform in the public sector sustains and grows using the three horizons framework

Using the three horizons framework to ensure we sustain and grow transformation in the public sector

Improving the public sector is an important subject because we like to use the terms transformation and reform, but what exactly do they mean? It is not simply about going to an organisation and changing things, doing that tends not to work well. I will use the 3 Horizons framework, which provides very useful concepts, to  look at the reasons why reform is so difficult, and what we can do to successfully sustain and grow real change.

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 We often see change as an unwelcome distraction in the task of leading and managing an organisation. Our business world is defined by the way we think about work, reducing cost, getting the right people, being flexible, manage demand, improving the numbers. We have to keep ontop of society and their needs today, and how that will change tomorrow. One thing we do know is that this complexity pushing change is increasing.

What we tend to do today to change elements of the organisation, to reduce all of these drivers for change down to their individual parts, and create separate change initiatives. This often creates silos of change, which are often uncoordinated. Sometimes this change is simply a reaction to one aspect of what we want to do. We know that this piecemeal approach is not suited to how an organisation really works.  

What can take us forward is to do the opposite of what we have been doing. Instead of looking at each part separately,  we stand back and look at the whole of what is going on. Look at this complexity as a whole system in itself.

In simplistic terms, this is the underlying message of this article:
We have our current organisation, its way of working, its people, its thinking, rules and procedures. If we change things in the organisation, we often simply place new ways of working ontop of what we already do. The current system reacts negatively to this change, Any innovation in this change simply gets swallowed up in the current ways of thinking and working. The real change gets watered down - often slowly sinking into oblivion over time. We are now going to see why this happens, and how to avoid it.
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Understanding the three horizons

In the diagram below, we start by asking ourselves What is the dominant pattern or focus in an organisation at a particular time. (Y axis)
Let’s start with where we are now, and project that forward . (X axis)
Horizon 1. Business as usual - we work like this every day. It is static. But this way of working erodes over time because of changes and pressures that open up that force an organisation to change.
Horizon 3.  Let’s put in our organisation and our place in the future. It does not exist yet, and we often do not know what the detail is in here, as this emerges over time.

Horizon 2. The area of change and transformation. It is when the current pattern of Horizon 1  gives way, and we begin to move to the future organisation. Horizon 2  enables the shift, it is entrepreneurial and innovative, - Instead of pushing H3 onto H1, we consciously separate the two from each other, to allow H3 to emerge.

Each horizon can be seen as three different qualities that, if we don’t want to knee-jerk into the future, all three should be understood and designed for in the leadership of an organisation.  

There comes a point when we begin the transformation from H1 to H3,  and we can ask the questions:  

1. What would be true and what would need to occur to uncover H3?
2. And what would we need to do to horizon 1 to begin to move to H3. 

These questions are a provocation to us to begin that shift.  We need to allow for experimentation and design to emerge as we find out what works in H3. ​

How horizon 2 gives us the focus we need

To successfully move with H2,  learn, develop new ideas, we have to  be able to disconnect from our current ways of working. If we don’t, then whatever we try and come up with will simply be absorbed into the current H1 constraints and thinking. H2 is not about doing what we do better, but about how we can we do different things. It is about transformation. It is about seeing our organisation through a new lens rather than our current paradigm. 

Most importantly, H2 is about the process of how we take ourselves through this - by what path do we move to the future state, by what method? When we ask these questions, we generally don’t know the answer because this mode of working isn't what we normally do. 

The public sector and reform 
The 3 Horizons concept  is a helpful way to highlight systemic change. And in helping us to recognise the difficulty and so many failures we have in change and reforming the public sector over the past decades.  ​​

The car and the aeroplane

Let us use a metaphor to describe how the three horizon concept can be so helpful. 
If we have a small car and we wanted to fly, one way we could do this is to take the car and begin to modify it - adding wings, making the engine lighter, modifying most of the car over time. Perhaps after lots of time and effort, we might just come up with something that might leave the ground. But it will never fly well, and the modification time would be huge. 
Alternatively, we could simply start designing a small aeroplane from scratch. This would take far less time and effort, and result in a machine that would fly well.
Modifying the car to make a plane is in fact like taking H1 and modifying that.
​Hoping to create H3 from H1. Attempting to change what we have today, is what much of the public sector has been doing for decades. This is the change that is like walking in treacle. Pushing to make things happen, and then realising that not much has actually improved

This demonstrates the failure of transformation as we have not managed to leave behind the legacy ways of working so it dominates H2

​Alternatively, starting with a new design for a plane is like focusing on H3, and then applying a method of change focused on new principles, that are separate from H1. This is very different, as we don't bring with us all the restrictions and thinking from H1.
We then have the opportunity to undertake transformation - moving from one state to the next. This movement is the definition of reform. ​

Let us summarise where we are:
When using the 3 horizons concept we find it has three helpful properties:
1st. Helps us to makes sense of complexity, and the emergence of possibilities of looking at the future.
2. We can see our own roles in this, design the patterns that are forming, who and how people can be a part of this change.
3.It helps to visualise and understand the shift that we need to leave behind our legacy thinking and approaches.

Let’s get back to today. Taking an example from the NHS, they recently attempted to implement approaches like Buurtzorg and Toyota - both that worked well in other health services. But in the UK they did not work. Why? Because they were implemented ontop of the current H1 system. And therefore the thinking, policies, rules, and approaches of the current system simply overwhelmed the new initiatives.  
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A method for horizon 2

One useful and successful method to do H2, is when we set a small group of people to work together, dis-connected from H1, with permission to experiment, focused by the missions of H3. We might call this an innovation team, but it is much more than that, as it links to all parts of the organisation together - it must be rooted in reality.  The teams primary activity is to learn what is possible and practical, and that learning has to be shared with those that need to lead into H3. 
This approach is well known in the private sector and systemic change, and by bringing in this thinking to the public sector, we might have an opportunity to highlight how real reform can happen.
Other names for this approach are the liberated method, test and learn, safe to fail experiments. 

making horizon 2 work with a method

An example
In one example in health, this is how they worked in H2. They got 8 front line people in a room, they were given permission to do what they needed to do to achieve purpose - and they were not bound by the current organisation policies, rules and procedures.  They experimented with different ways that they could help people with their health needs. After some weeks, they had worked with 35 people in need. ​​They had learned new approaches, some of which were very different to what they had ever experienced before. hey learned was not what was wrong with people, but what really matters to people and how to best help. They moved from simply learning to creating a prototype new way of working.  

Based on this, the team achieved more, at 14% less cost, face to face time increased 15%, and administration was slashed. 

Concluding
The 3 Horizon framework points to the fact that we need to be clear how to separate ourselves from our legacy thinking and doing. We also need to apply well defined and proven methods of change, and that change is a competence that is not simply another way of doing change. But It is a specialised and expert driven discipline that involves leadership, systemic change, and understanding how to deal with complexity.

I hope this yes of the three horizons framework helps to introduce effective systemic transformation and reform. There is of course much more to this, I have further materials and case studies on my website.
https://www.improconsult.co.uk/systemic-design-portfolio.html
If you would like to explore this, please get in touch. And thanks for watching.