On Leadership: Tom Bell

The Language of Confusion
Tom Bell

On a mild, sunny day in late March I attended a meeting of the CELP at which we discussed the changed role of the SRP, the CSP, the CLAA, the CLIP, the SIP and the evolution of the CEDE from the original LSP and its role within the LAA, naturally this led us to discuss the removal of RDA’s, the demise of BL’s, the emergence of LEP’s, the CLEP, the EBP, the role of the CEBP and CBEC; they were members of BCCI.  The meeting was chaired by a representative from a local B&E school who remembered the time of EFAC, which was funded by RRC and WLR (or URC as it was sometimes known).  The chair was supported by a regional SSA who was familiar with the work of CLEAN and the NFEA, she also discussed BIS, CLG (formerly DCLG of course!) and DOE (not DOA) and she referred to funding from the NWDA.  The meeting finished with a discussion about the role of RGF and RDPE.  There was some confusion about the role of the CIA (Cumbria Inward Investment Agency of course!) and no ERDF was involved...get the picture?

Why does the world of economic development and regeneration do its level best to hide in an ever changing shroud of mystique by using another language that only we (sometimes) can understand?  The language we speak may as well be like the Klingon language of the aliens in Star Trek; it is utterly unintelligible to the vast majority of people on planet Earth.  “Indicators and Predictors of Beaconicity,” “Stakeholder Synergies,” “Market Making Facilitation,” “Cascading,” “Holistic Governance,” “Coterminous,” “Capacity Building,” “Downstream,” “Integrated Cascading Information Flows,” “Improvement Levers,” “Subsidiarity,” “Thinking Outside the Box,” “Transactional,” “Transformational” and last but not least, “Upstream Value Added Synergies.” 

Those of us who look in confusion upon polished collections of such phrases can identify with the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes: “No, I still can’t see them.” When I started my working life in a timber yard, neither I, nor the people who worked with me, nor the people who managed us, would use words like “facilitate” or “additionality”. Had anyone been tempted to say to a colleague in the wood yard, “Would you like me to facilitate the safe lifting of that large stack of nine-by-fours to leverage some additionality to our roles and create a synergistic partnership?” they would have quickly been exposed to an express programme of cultural alignment.

By translating activity into an alien language, the world of regeneration risks appearing to be a closed loop, which is counter-productive.  If a new era of enterprise and economic regeneration is really about innovation and finding new and more effective ways of doing things and genuinely engaging with the private sector then it needs to be exposed to as much new thinking and as many sources of ideas as possible. This won’t happen unless the language changes.

Right, I’m off to discuss a synergistic opportunity with a quasi autonomous stakeholder; speak soon!

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Tom works as a partner in innovation and support services. He is the recipient of an MBA with a focus on enterprise and has experience with providing enterprise support to a variety of businesses and people affected by social and geodemographic exclusion, specifically rural isolation, time poverty and disability. Tom’s other qualifications and achievements include an MSc in marketing and PRINCE2 qualification as well as being the first member of the CIM in Cumbria to become a chartered marketer.