Conclusion
7.Conclusion to the step-by-step approach to Enabling Citizens
The cases cited in Part II all readily show how Citizen Enablement, and even Citizen Empowerment, is entirely possible for both academics (and other learning providers) and their citizen partners; all who can learn to work together in powerful and co-creative ways. Such processes can also be mutually beneficial and for some universities answer many academics desire for ‘excellence in diversity’. James believes it is important that outstanding, and dedicated, academic leaders are prepared to change their ways of education for Citizen Enablement; they, and their senior managers, need to return their Universities into systemic and systematic places of learning, places where citizens feel comfortable to explore their own futures in a constructive way. Our Case Studies also show that to be successful, Academic Leader Enablers, in such collaborations, must:
- be intensely professional, but have absolute personal humility
- learn how to harness their own ability to influence others (requisite power), being motivator and team builder, while be able to actively listen and respond to their needs
- ask challenging & penetrating questions of the status quo
- learn to live with risk because the organisation/project needs this as opportunities develop
- learn to lead yourself and then spread that leadership to other team members, so they too can help the team shine:
- deliver your practice, into everyone’s practice, which become the practice; and create contexts where the positive successes of any development can be seen by others providing separate motivation
- facilitate others and network building
- recognise leadership is place dependant and context responding
Normal citizens, who were once scared to try the new, can find a voice for their needs and wants, and many have become social entrepreneurs in their own right, with the right support. Some we have seen in the case studies have even begun to lead new projects for themselves, with others; they become, in effect, their own Citizen Enablers. The harmony of a great collaboration is shown in the car
In terms of overall achievement we show a table at the end of the cases showing what the developers of the projects collectively believed to be their achievements. Here using the same ‘Wordle’ summary of those achievements below, these are the most frequent word used by the Enablers to reveal the best results from their joint working with citizens.
It is good to see that high on the list of achievements are words like: Community; Development; People; Business; Learning; University; Local; Homes; Innovation; Support; Work and Support. Using the 15 most frequently used word only, an ideal type sentence empathising with these ‘What was Achieved’ would be as follows:
‘People and communities have been developed by local universities providing support
for citizens on their innovations at work, businesses or in their homes’.
So the general view is undoubtedly that this Citizen Enablement approach does fulfil it’s existing aspirations with respect to citizens and universities learning together to deliver.
This is very encouraging, But, it might also lead on to something we are suggesting overall; that is a new model of active welfare, in which, as Charley Leadbetter from DEMOS suggested in 1997, ‘citizens are encouraged to take more responsibility for their lives.’ In such new ways of working, ‘schemes of development will no longer be seen in terms of a sum of money or package of entitlements. Rather, they will embrace a philosophy where welfare and wellbeing become inseparable from self-control and self-confidence. It could become the new creative individualism, which is at odds with most citizen’s normal passive, recipient culture, provided in the Western world by most welfare states and ‘mass consumption capital’ appears to have the same stultifying effect in terms of dependency ‘culture’.
