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Dodging the flak

Governance | Robert Ashton | 22 Oct 2012

Robert Ashton provides a motivational message to all those facing adversity in the approach to new ideas.

Growing up in East Anglia meant I was never far away from a wartime airfield. They were great places to play. I learned to drive a car on the runway of Leiston airfield, just 25 years after the Second World War ended.

Leiston airfield was the closest to the North Sea. It was the first place that flak-damaged planes returning to Britain from the continent could safely land. Older people, in the area where I grew up, all have stories to share of burning planes limping home and landing safely just beyond the town.

When I look at the work I do today, challenging the status quo and encouraging people to see what could be rather than what was, I sometimes feel a little like one of those flak-damaged bombers. I set my sights on a hard-to-reach goal. I set off only to find it well defended by people resistant to change.

That resistance often manifests itself as a barrage of paper flak. The real stuff of course consisted of exploding shells fired from German anti-aircraft guns. While not life-threatening, today’s version can be almost as successful at keeping you from your target destination.

Weighty documents, which you are told must be read and understood, are thrown in your direction. "You can’t possibly understand this health/education/regeneration landscape until you have fully absorbed this, that or the other strategy document," people tell you.

Once you have fought your way through the document barrage you encounter the second line of defence. The closer you get to your target the more you find people speak a language you do not fully understand. I guess it was the same for people working behind the lines in the Second World War. My grasp of acronyms is certainly no better than my understanding of the German language. Both confuse me; both can mislead me; both can tempt me to give up and return to where I started from. Although of course I don’t!

But experience tells me, just as it told the Second World War pilots, that once you are through the flak your target suddenly comes clearly into view. Moreover in the latter-day battle for change, once you are through the flak cloud the people who until now have opposed you, suddenly become supporters of your idea. And it is converting the defenders of tradition to the champions of change that makes what I’m trying to do sustainable.

And of course we all learn by experience. The more times we passed through that flak cloud of resistance, the more confident we are that we will pass through safely next time. You have to ignore all but the closest resistance to what you’re trying to achieve.

So my message to you today is to welcome resistance. Because the more resistance you encounter to what you deep down know to be the right solution, the better you know you are flying in the right direction.

Who's Who: Robert Ashton