How can we co-produce with senior leadership?

Hi, I’m Sara Mae, I grew up as a sibling carer from the age of two and I have worked in a variety of services supporting people for thirty years; including adults and young people who have experienced trauma, mental illness, homelessness, domestic abuse and sexual harms. Over this time, I have delivered care and supervised teams, and I recently completed a degree in Psychology with Counselling and a Master of Research in Psychology. My research studies included neurodivergent participants, and as a neurodivergent woman I learnt about co-partnership in research. This led me to reflect on the ways I had been working with co-production throughout my career without having the language we use now. I supported a local co-production group for 8 months last year, and I am a passionate advocate for meaningful co-partnership and co-production.

In this blog I reflect on the working relationship between senior leadership and co-production groups by considering shared values and understanding challenges. As always in co-production, we aim to develop and improve with reflection, and this blog intends to support our community by opening discussions and exploring solutions.

Co-production is being encouraged from all directions, from people who receive services, those who deliver services, establishments who appreciate the value of co-production and a growing voice that promotes co-production across wider systems. As a result, co-production is being embraced by many organisations, welcoming the living or lived experiences of individuals, family members, community groups, members of staff and all interested people to work together in equal partnership.

Power, authority and traditional organisational structures

We understand that levels of authority exist in organisations and that paid positions at the ‘top’ of an organisation have traditionally held the power. Examples are likely to include a Boards of Trustees, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Directors, Area Managers, Team Leaders and Supervisors. When co-production is introduced, we enter a relationship with people who operate in positions of authority, with the aim of working together to redistribute power and share it equally amongst us. In a world where leadership positions have influenced direction, co-production could feel like it has its work cut out to succeed in a productive and meaningful way. For some, co-production has been established as a group of people sitting closely alongside an organisation, ideally in partnership. For others co-production has been brought in by experts in their field, to include living or lived experience advocates and champions. So how does the relationship between co-production and senior leadership work with the targets, timescales, processes, procedures, guidance and legislation that inform the way that organisations perform? And how do senior leaders respond to the targets, timescales, processes and procedures that people who represent co-production advocate for?

When aims, objectives and methods differ between senior leadership and those working in co-production, this could this result in obstacles towards reaching co-produced outcomes.

The positives: Shared values, enthusiasm and early wins

Overall, my experiences in co-production have been incredibly positive, working alongside people who are passionate about meaningful successes and keen to make progress.

Senior leadership teams have often identified the need for co-production to become established in the first place and recruited staff to facilitate the start of co-production. Policies have been discussed, financial remuneration has been considered, and progress has been made for work to commence. Senior leaders have been excited about co-production, welcoming updates and encouraging developments, so we could feel reassured that they are keen for co-production to prosper.

People working in co-production have been enthusiastic, committed and positive, attending regular meetings, contributing their voices and experiences, sharing information with wider communities and promoting co-production for greater representation, including populations who may commonly be overlooked and under-considered. This paints a positive picture of co-production being championed with aligned principles.  

The challenges: Funding, timescales and systems pressures

However, despite there being shared values and common goals there have been difficulties to overcome. For example, many co-production groups exist in organisations that rely on public funding including the NHS and Social Care where budgets are severely limited, which makes renumeration a national and organisation-wide challenge. All too often co-production happens without adequate remuneration, due to delays in developing policies through organisational procedures. As co-production grows, budgets need to expand and this sits in contrast to the drastic cuts and limitations our services are forced to contend with.

Similarly, the demands that all industries face by being scrutinised over outcomes places pressure on performance and evidencing success. Some people working in co-production have felt overstretched by senior leadership directives, for example deadlines with short timescales and finished products being created without consideration for the time and process that co-design requires. It is likely that senior leaders are also pressured by instructions from people in higher authority, who are more familiar with a rapid work rate that hasn’t involved full co-production or any co-production at all.

Recognising pressure on all sides

It is helpful to reflect that while the pressures of short timescales and poor remuneration are considerable challenges felt most significantly by those who have been subjected to the disadvantages of power imbalance, there is the possibility that these difficulties are acknowledged and understood by all. Co-production isn’t something that can be instantly achieved. But perhaps the timescale pressures imposed by senior leaders reveal their enthusiasm for co-production to become truly embedded in the organisation. Furthermore, this could suggest a buy-in from those in authority above senior leadership, as a sign that co-production is truly valued throughout.

So what are the solutions and how can we reach them in equal partnership?

Understanding the experiences that are shaping co-production projects.

Firstly, this picture identifies a difference between those in positions of authority, senior leadership and those working in co-production. However there are a growing number of staff members who are identifying and sharing their own living or lived experience identities. Many people working in public services are also unpaid carers, disabled people, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, people with diverse ethnic and cultural identities alongside many other areas of marginalised intersectionality. They are now using this experience to help inform co-production projects they are involved in.

Embedding lived experience at every level

For co-production to become more influential, meaningful and truly embedded it could be suggested that we need improved representation of living and lived experience throughout every paid layer of an organisation. The voices of people with living or lived experience should be at the forefront of all discussions, not as a side group or an external resource but deeply entrenched in positions, across teams and at every level. This will enable their voices to be continuously heard and validated, directing and developing the way ahead, with equitable wages as opposed to gestures of compensation for time and effort.

Preventing new power imbalances

It is important to recognise that people in co-production have quite rightly expressed that staff members with living and lived experience can still reflect a power-imbalance if their voices outweigh those who are not staff members with living or lived experience. So this would need to be actively monitored and reviewed to prevent an unequal distribution of power amongst those in co-production. However, the increase of representation and the positioning of people with living or lived experience across senior leadership and authority positions could assist in establishing a more cohesive co-production community with lived and living experience narratives leading discussions, developments, directions and decision-making.

Hopes for the future

When people with lived and living experience are staff members in senior leadership teams their involvement in internal conversations overcomes confidentiality limitations. This could facilitate shared power in co-production with much greater ease, for example by having access to data, recording systems, financial monitoring, quality assurance, organisational target-setting, recruitment processes and sign-off processes. This inclusion of people with living or lived experience could support the co-production groups attached to organisations or co-production experts brought in to facilitate change and present a more continuous co-production culture. My hopes are that co-production can go further with less obstacles for all when people and practice are both interwoven throughout all areas of an organisation.

Photo by Courtney Corlew on Unsplash