There are two types of challenges in the world today. The first are those which happen unannounced, which take us by surprise. I’m sure you won’t have missed the fact that there’s a fairly substantial global financial crisis on the go at the moment and I’m confident that you’ll remember the sharp increases in energy costs that we suffered just less than a year ago. You’ll no doubt be aware of the ‘Baby P’ case and some of the other disturbing incidents which have shook the country recently. Five years ago, it would have been difficult, nigh on impossible, to predict such events. In response, we look for the reasons why and for someone to blame. Then there’s the second type – those which present themselves, but have yet to reveal their true enormity – challenges such as climate change and peak oil. What will our reaction be to these? In the future, who will we blame when these challenges present themselves in the most ferocious of ways? Successive governments? Bank Managers? Social Workers?
It’s been just under three months now since my colleagues and I hung up our hats at the end of the ‘Communities on the Edge’ project. Since then, I’ve been pondering what it is that people will remember of our work and what impact it had on me and the rest of the world. Did we, in our own small way, help to mitigate the effects of any of the challenges mentioned above? A lasting memory of the project for me will be our fantastic event for the landowning sector held at Floors Castle, but what will those who attended recall in the weeks and months to come? The answers to those questions will never fully be known, but I’m confident that our impact was significant and that the relationships which formed between people across some of the most inhospitable barriers have the potential, given time and investment, to grow and last well into the future.
Positive and productive relationships – the kind which lead to action – are built around common interest and shared agenda. These kinds of relationships are built between people who want to build them, not people who are paid to build them – people who thrive in spaces which feel safe and where the skills and talents of all are nurtured. Innovative relationships occur when people are able to meet the people they never thought they needed to meet. They occur across sectoral boundaries and those involved work together for the betterment of all in a culture where looking beyond our own needs is the only way to be able to secure them.
Relationships were key to everything in the COTE project. Without building and maintaining and managing relationships, we’d have achieved very little. I’d hazard a guess that if we’re to find solutions to the challenges I mention above, then the development of new relationships and the renewal of existing ones will go a long way to securing success. In that environment of new, creative and exciting relationships, where we’re presented with countless opportunities and where new solutions to age old problems are found, a culture of shared responsibility will ensure that the question ‘Who will we blame?’ will never be answered.
