Claire Haigh - Partner profile

An interview with Noddlepod partner Claire Haigh

The theme that runs right through Claire Haigh’s work is how to leverage collaboration to provide a different kind of public services. It was what she did for 10 years when she worked firstly in local government and then regionally across the north west and it’s what she does now that she runs her own business, doing what she loves to do best – exploring, shaping and connecting future collaborative and inclusive public services.  Claire wants to demonstrate how by working at the edges of public services she can have impact and demonstrate a different type of working between sectors and ‘consultants’. 

“My work is all around working with public services,” she says. “Not necessarily working just in the public sector, but across the public, social and commercial sectors as well as with citizens and communities. It’s about how we can work together collaboratively and with trust.”

Claire's previous regional role was challenging and great fun in many ways but didn’t give her the freedom she craved to truly explore and innovate in her own way. “That role was all about collaboration, innovation and improvement – how could we help organisations work together and it gave me a great grounding to move on to work from the outside in.” 

That’s the future of public services, she says – collaboration and connections. “It’s the shift that we need to make and to do this we need to build trust across boundaries.” 

Collaboration and connectivity are buzz words that are bandied about a lot – we hear these words all the time now. But, how many organisations are truly collaborative and truly connected? Claire thinks a lot of organisations do much talking about it and have intentions to do it but not all are truly collaborating with depth and meaning. They often believe they are though as people have many definitions of collaboration. “There is a real challenge around how you actually collaborate, not just say you are doing it. Lots of people say they are working collaboratively but often aren’t when you dig beneath the surface.”

Even a group of people who have been working together for a long time and get good results may not be truly collaborative when working outside of their usual team. “You have to help change behaviour and build trust. You have to help people to let go. It’s about making more open and democratic workplaces that enable collaboration.”

A lot of Claire’s collaboration work involves focusing on those that we refer to as leaders. She believes that leaders can be found at all levels but those that are in a position of responsibility are crucial to creating the conditions that we need for collaboration to thrive and for communities to ultimately thrive. Claire is keen to help people to see that leaders are often leading without realising it and that leaders can be found in many places and at all levels.  Leadership isn’t about a level or title - it’s about a mindset and approach. It's about how someone feels after being with you and what they are enabled to do when you are not there. She helps organisations think about what collaboration means in leadership terms, how to get organisations ready to collaborate and embrace different ways of working. 

Coaching is something Claire often draws upon. Claire spends a lot of time utilising her coaching skills, usually coaching teams in areas such as innovation and collaboration. “How do you spread innovation and ideas in a social age? I am interested in the power of social and digital and how they can be used effectively so that they are not just an echo chamber.” Claire thinks they can be so powerful if used alongside a mix of other engagement approaches. 

A big fan of Julian Stodd, Claire says that he says about society having gone past the digital age and now operating in the social age has really influenced her work a lot recently.

Claire’s whole focus is very social (it is actually very digital too). She has embraced the whole concept of working out loud. Her and Kevin Wyke, founder and director of Leap Further, and another Noddlepod partner, co-founded Collaborate Out Loud which started as a community of people interested in learning about collaboration in the spaces between public services. Claire and Kev are now in the process of working with their colleague Julia Wolfendale to establish collaborate Out Loud as a Community interest Company to scale their work. Watch this space…

Collaborate Out Loud is all about demonstrating and delivering a surprisingly different approach to exploring, shaping and connecting future collaborative public service. Claire, Kev and Julia work across unusual boundaries in an inclusive, transparent and democratic way. The focus is on delivering ideas and practical solutions that can be tested in the real world to help to create change with and for communities. 

Social media is, of course, a great place for learning, for sharing and collaborating. “There is lots of generosity and sharing. People share, rather than being competitive. There is lots of learning and collaborating going on in social media.” The question is how can we spread this generosity from social media to everything we do? 

That’s what Claire wants to see in those people she works with. And when she sees it happening, properly happening, it is really inspiring. “I really enjoy it when people have those breakthrough moments and make progress on something that they have worked on for a while. I really enjoy it when you see people truly collaborating and genuinely wanting to do things differently.”

Public services need to be connected and aligned, with different teams, different organisations and different types of providers working collaboratively together. In order for that to happen, Claire says organisations need to find a common ground. They need to create shared capacity. “Collaborate Out Loud is helping to build capacity and connections, but without controlling it. I’m not afraid to connect things together and see what happens. I’m not afraid to explore and see what happens and chase ideas. That’s where innovation comes from, for me.”

One of the main things that drew Claire to Noddlepod is the way that it enables people to connect and learn together. She uses Noddepod with her projects, typically with groups of 10-20 people. “It makes it easy for people to define and pull together knowledge. It’s very accessible, it’s sophisticated and it’s a very social tool.” Critically for Claire and the work that she does, it’s a private space where individuals feel safe and comfortable about sharing.

You can read more about Claire Haigh here 

You can also connect with her on twitter or linkedin  

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