The challenge of change

Published on 22 February 2023

If you have ever thought about attending a council meeting, next Tuesday’s extraordinary meeting is the one to see. At this meeting, the future of our aged care facility and the financial future of the council will be discussed.

Next week on 28 February 2023, councillors will use our influence and voices for change. Our job is to create a change so that we can leave things better than we’ve found them.

This meeting is important, and I invite the community to witness how this change takes place, either in person (registration is essential, see link below) or via our livestream on the council website. You’ll discover how we got here and how we’ll have to change to get back  on top.

The solutions of the past have really become the problems of the present. Change is hard to talk about because people may feel personally attacked. When we talk about the things we want to do better, we talk about the strategies that are no longer OK. These are strategies council has been actively engaging in, for decades, all with good intentions. With real change, it's hard not to feel like the proverbial bad guy, when we’ve been existing within, supporting and, in past times, benefiting from the status quo.

Looking at our current situation, I have sometimes felt the need to express my horror. I generally don't. Why? Because I know in the past those who developed and worked with those strategic matters were acting on the advice and wisdom available to them, doing their best. In the past, there were different systems of knowledge and understanding that informed how council operated in decades gone by. People had been doing their jobs, with the best of intentions, inside the policies, processes, knowledge and norms their environment required.

Things change, though. We now know better, and then we do better. We shift the dial as we learn. It's no longer OK to have all our financial eggs in the same accounting basket – it may have been convenient, but not OK and we understand that now. It's no longer OK for the council to be tied to an increasingly complex business that makes us vulnerable – not because it always was, but because now, that business is understood and managed differently.

I've been deepening my understanding of all aspects of aged care. This is something I'm really passionate about, but I often struggle to have conversations with others without becoming frustrated, feeling hopeless, or provoking defensiveness. It adds up to the need for change. Systemic change.

Everyone in the council is a leader - whether it's mowing our lawns, employing our people or deciding and determining policy. That means every one of us is responsible for seeking ways to know better and do better. We are responsible for creating systems and environments that enable change in others. It's easy to get caught up in pointing fingers, but that's slow, ineffective and unfair. It’s time to step up and move forward.

Hope to see you next week.