Creative Public Governance

Is Kevin Rudd Ready for Creative Governance?

The people of Australia have spoken and they have voted for change. Kevin Rudd, the incoming Prime Minister has unveiled his team of change leaders. They have the historic opportunity to establish the best government the world has ever seen to leave behind an enduring legacy. Best government is about providing creative solutions in support of the fulfillment of our people’s needs and aspirations rather than stamping out social problems. This is where the concept of creative public governance lies.

Public governance is concerned with the conduct of governments at all levels to bring the best possible benefits to their citizens and to fulfill their responsibilities as members of the global community. I coined the term Creative Public Governance to define a system of government administration that embraces and introduces innovations to enhance the quality of life of the people using minimum resources for maximum lasting impact. It focuses on what to achieve rather than what to prevent. Fulfillment leads to joy and contentment whereas frustrations breed violence, crime and emotional turmoil. It is about changing mindsets and it starts with the leaders. Creativity begins by asking the right questions to identify the core issues and not taking the easy path to a temporary feel-good factor by addressing the symptoms. It is about exploiting limitations to drive breakthrough action. Creative Governance demands exploiting limits not ignoring them.

For Creative Governance to happen, strong and courageous leadership is required. Where consensus is required, leadership dies! Consensus is great when trying to determine which restaurant to go to for a meal not when charting a new course for the government. A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough. A great leader seeks wise counsel and listens carefully. The leader projects the vision of the new course and acts decisively. When success is achieved, the leader says, "We did it!" If mistakes are made, the leader says, "I made a mistake. Let’s learn from it and move on."

Creative Governance minimizes mistakes and risks by adapting successful innovations in the public arena and not by creating new ideas. Creativity is used in imitating something good to make it even better. Experimentation is risky, costly, time-consuming with no guarantee of success. The Rudd’s government which already hit the ground running can ill-afford this highly uncertain experimental approach.

I have collated many examples from all over the world on what I consider to be creative governance and would like to highlight some of them here to enable you to understand, appreciate and relate them to the context of their possible implementation in Australia.

Creative Governance with Helmet Mounted Police Cameras

Police in UK had found a very effective and innovative way in tackling anti social behavior and violent crime. They found that digital cameras attached to police officers' helmets to be excellent evidence gathering tool and a visible crime deterrent. A camera about the size of a marker pen is fitted to the police helmets and officers can immediately hit a record button and tape what's happening in front of them.

The images are digitally encrypted onto a recording device attached to the officers' belt line. An essential feature of the cameras is that images cannot be deleted or edited in any way so that they could be used as evidence in courts. The indisputable evidence recorded by the helmet camera means that offenders have less opportunity to deny their involvement, leading to less paperwork for the police, earlier guilty pleas, less time spent in court and an increase in convictions. An unexpected additional benefit is that complaints on police brutality stopped since the police behavior is also captured on the camera.

Preliminary results show that the cameras are highly effective in crime convictions and prevention. Due to these cameras, arrests for violent crime have increased by 85 per cent in one area whilst at the same time the incidence of violent crimes has also fallen by between eight per cent to 18 per cent.

Isn’t time that the Australian police adapt this system for implementation?

Creative Governance for Drunken Rampage

A small town in the U.K had a problem with unruly young men after a drinking session at a local pub. In their drunk condition, they went on a rampage in the surrounding areas smashing cars and damaging public property. Many were hauled to jail to sober them up. However, the number of offences shot up instead of being reduced.

The police chief was in a fix. Through his discreet investigations, he discovered that the reason for the increase in drunk-related offences was the youth's perception of a 'macho image'. Those who went to jail actually boasted about achieving true manhood!

By understanding the problem, the police chief came out with an ingenious solution. He treated the jailed offenders like babies. They were fed baby food, given milk in baby milk bottles and spoken to by the wardens in the baby language. In a small community, news of this "baby treatment" spread like wildfire. Guess what? The offences disappeared as quickly as they had appeared! Perhaps this treatment could be meted out to the football hooligans as well.

This could be a valuable idea for the Australian police to consider mitigating drunken rampage especially among who just reached the drinking age of 18.

Creative Governance in Education

Education reform should focus on soft-wares and not hard-wares. It is about equipping your young people with knowledge and creative thinking skills. Unlike the older generations, they are born into the computer and internet generation. The education reform needs to reflect this.

I have selected an excellent example of Creative Governance in Education from Australia’s own backyard. In Adelaide, a small company eLabtronics has recently won the Electronics Industry Association’s inaugural award Support of Electronics Education for its contribution to Robotics Peer Mentoring program, for High School students. The company’s software Corechart has been described as a revolutionary technology breakthrough likened to Windows for microchip programming. The Anthill Australian business magazine termed it as a disruptive technology.

The students love and take to it like fish take to water. There is no programming language to learn. Since practically every electronic gadget or equipment contains microchips, the software has unlimited applicability. In fact, the students have used it to solve some of the pressing social problems in Australia such as water conservation, prolonging dry cell battery life by more than 10 times, more efficient usage of electricity, etc. So far, it has successfully stimulated interest in science and technology. Best of all, Corechart has been offered as technology sponsorship for interested parties, many foreign countries have already indicated interest. Surprising in Australia, despite it winning many awards and proven effectiveness, it has yet to find traction with the education authorities.

Perhaps the Education Minister Julia Gillard should take up the sponsorship offered by eLabtronics to create instant microchip programming geniuses to spark the education revolution. After all, computers without the right software to excite the imagination of the users will not go very far. Take concrete action before it escapes from the Australian shores again, just like many great Australian inventions (the black –box flight recorder, for example) before it.

Creative Governance in Urban Development

The city of Curitiba in Brazil offers one of the best examples of Creative Governance in urban development, including public transportation.

In 1972, the new mayor of the city Jaime Lerner, an architect and urban planner ordered a 48 hours transformation of six blocks of the street into a pedestrian zone. The municipal authorities were able to accomplish it in three days.

The creation of the pedestrian zone inaugurated a series of programs by Lerner that made Curitiba a famous model for urban planning. In promoting industrial development Lerner decided to admit only non-polluters. Curitiba constructed an industrial district that reserved so much land for green space that it was derided as a “golf course” until it succeeded in filling up with major businesses. Through the creation of over 20 recreational parks, many with lakes to catch runoff in low-lying areas that flood periodically, Curitiba managed, at a time of explosive population growth, to increase its green areas from 5 square feet per inhabitant to an astounding 560 square feet. The city promoted “green” policies before they were fashionable and called itself “the ecological capital of Brazil” in the 1980s.

Another of its famous innovations is the introduction of glass tubes that are boarding platforms for the rapid-transit buses. A light rail system would have required 20 times the financial investment and a subway would have cost 100 times as much.

Sydney’s Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, is on the right track when she engaged Danish architect and planner Jan Gehl.to transform Sydney. Now that the plan is ready, let’s hope implementation will take place speedily. This is one aspect of creative governance where proven expertise is sourced externally. In effect, it doesn’t matter where the ideas come from. Just start with adapting proven concepts and do some experimentations along the way.

Recently, the problems in the public transportation system in Sydney involving its trains, ferry and buses has been highlighted in the press. Instead of looking each transport mode separately, why not take a integrated approach and incorporate some of the features of the Curitiba transportation system?

Creative Governance in Aged Care

Using ‘happiness’ is his working principle, Dr. Hans Becker, chairman of the Humanitas Rotterdam Foundation in Netherlands transformed the Aged Care industry from one of institutionalisation to that of a vibrant living environment. It provides a marvellous example on how creative governance can be introduced into aged care.

Through his innovations, Becker restored joy of living, pride and dignity to Humanitas apartment elderly residents. He established a system that supports the self-determination, self-reliance, fun and bonding among its residents, carers, employees as well as revitalizing its neighborhood community.

The design of Age-proof residential complexes specifically manifests the core values and concepts of Humanitas. The complexes have cheerful and roofed-in village squares, often atriums. To accentuate well-being, the cure and care activities (physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nursing homes, etc) are a little hidden, while the cheerful and activating well-being services (luxurious restaurants, internet cafes, bars, hairdressers salons, supermarkets, beauty parlors, music) are prominently located at the centre. Cuddly pets, art and alcoholic drinks (‘a bottle a day keeps the doctor away’) are also encouraged. These facilities are open to the neighbourhood community thereby contributing to its vibrancy. In particular, this openness contributes to ‘excitement’ to the residents - something more interesting to talk about instead of complaining about illnesses.

The Humanitas model is something that the Ministry of Health and Ageing should consider since its funding system is similar to that of the Australian age-care. In fact, Australia too has its own creative governance in aged-care. Disused warehouses and other suburban buildings are being transformed into workshops and social gathering places for older men to get together, helping them to maintain their physical and emotional health. It also fosters cross-generation communication as the seniors impart their tool using skills to the younger generation. This so-called Men's Shed movement receives government grants and help from local councils, voluntary groups and churches.

Recommendation

Peter Drucker, the top management guru says that creativity need not be about coming out with new ideas. It can also be just adapting a great idea creatively to a local situation . He calls it creative imitation. An important step that the Rudd Government should take is to set up a Creative Governance unit in every department coordinated by his office. The key function of this unit is to do world-wide search on successful innovations that have relevance to his Government’s plans. After all, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel. All that is required is to improve the model and find new uses for it.

Kevin Rudd’s Government will then have the distinction of being the first Government in the world to place Creative Governance as the foundation stone for the implementation of his policies. If he does, the Australian Government will be the best in the world and a model for the rest of the world to follow.

Conclusion

The above write-up only offers a glimpse of what creative governance can do for the incoming government of Kevin Rudd. It would not be possible to explore its full potentiality without a proper presentation followed by Questions and Answers. In any case the term “Creative Public Governance” is a termed I coined to describe a possible fresh approach for the new leadership.



The author, Dr.YKK is an international speaker, trainer and best-selling author on creativity. Dr.YKK is available for keynote speeches, in-house training and problem-solving & idea generation facilitation. He can be contacted at DrYKK@mindbloom.net
3 Dec 2007