5.4.9 Training And Scaling Up

What is Scaling Up?

Someone develops something new and uses it.  Other users adapt it (and adopt it) for their own situations, and then develop it further. 

This is relatively straightforward with new inventions and developments in technology but scaling up is particularly challenging for entities that have a cultural dimension as I will expand on a little more in the two posts, 5.4.9.2 and 5.4.9.3 below. Part of the reason for this is that the people – i.e. the culture – around the developer or inventor needs to be receptive to the innovation.

In a previous Chapter I discussed Cultural Matching at length.  I will revisit it here briefly in respect of the challenge to scale-up, or expand our practice and the implications that expanding has for training, supervision, courses etc.

The usual method of scaling up something is to train practitioners who will undertake whatever is to be scaled-up and then train trainers so that the trainers can train new practitioners and so on.

For example, if we discover a new way of doing open-heart surgery, and we want this to be replicated world-wide because it is superior to the old method, we train a small group of surgeons to do it.  They then do it in the field (or, in the operating theatres – in this case) until they are proficient in it.  Some of them (usually the more academically inclined ones) are then invited to be trainers.

The group of trainer surgeons are then educated to a high standard in all aspects of the new operating methods so they can train new trainee surgeons.  The number of surgeons with sufficient expertise grows and grows and this is how the new open-heart surgery method is scaled up.

This is true for skills in almost all areas of work throughout the world.

This post describes the challenges of scaling up a method of doing something that has more of a cultural dimension than the more technological challenge that I described in the previous post.

How do we scale up, for example, classical music?

The principal way of doing it is to do what has traditionally been done for centuries now.  That is, teach musicians how to read music – all in the exact same way throughout the world, and then set them strict and exacting examinations so that they can reach a certain grade or level of proficiency to enable them to play in an orchestra. 

These magnificent orchestras tour the world playing the music of the great composers.  Whether they play in Lucknow, Lesotho, or Lisdoonvarna the orchestra will sound – more or less – the same.  Young people who are musical will be encouraged by their parents and teachers to learn various instruments and touring orchestras will act as continual motivation and inspiration to populations to continue learning and playing.

This is one kind of cultural scaling up.

But how do we scale up pop music or folk music?  Is it the same process?  Well, not quite, in my opinion.

As I mentioned in the Chapter on Critical Mass, when I was young the Beatles were very successful.  They played pop music but it was also a kind of folk music – in that it sprung from the ground up.  Everyone acknowledged that they had a fresh new original sound – and look – in that they wore their hair a certain way (they were called mop-tops) and wore natty suits and pointy shoes.

Within two or three years of the Beatles’ success the entire English speaking world was flooded with four or five piece guitar and drum bands with mop-top hairstyles and natty suits and pointy shoes.  Some were better than others – naturally they rose to the top.  But many were bland, very average one-hit (or no-hit) wonders who faded away as quickly as a snowball in summer (well, a good summer) as the clever record companies saw the potential of the guitar-band-with-mop-top-hair phenomenon and scaled it up to make money for the company as fast as they could.

Of course many bands were very talented and were certainly original and unique – but the wise money-makers of the companies made sure that the bands sounded kind of the same because they knew that this is what people would want and therefore it stood the best chance of being commercially successful.  Some bands were actually manufactured to a formula.  And it worked!

Unlike the classical music which had been tried and tested over hundreds of years, and played to a top-class exacting standard, the pop music lasted about 10 years and then was replaced by disco where the same thing happened, and that was soon replaced by punk, where the same thing happened again.  (And so on).  The equivalent to this phenomenon in Ireland was the Showband which was popular in the 50’s – 60’s and faded away in the 70’s.

Now Planxty, a very successful Irish folk/traditional band – I was lucky enough to be present at their first public performance (boast-boast) – were also copied down through the years but not to the extent of the pop bands or the showbands.

I’m not sure why this is but I don’t think that it was because their music was too difficult to replicate, because showbands were playing very sophisticated music too. More likely it was because Irish traditional music wasn’t as wildly popular as the pop music hits that young people wanted to hear. However, they did act as inspiration for folk musicians in areas that already had a significant Celtic folk-music tradition (Scotland, Brittany, Galicia, Wales and parts of England, the Irish in other English speaking countries, and parts of Continental Europe where there were small pockets of enthusiasts) but not really too much beyond that.

This is because, in the places mentioned, a suitable environment for propagation already existed.

I am sure that finding four or five ordinary musicians (not musicians who might have a particular interest in learning Irish music) and then training them to play Irish traditional folk music in Uttar Pradesh or Ulan Bator would be an uphill battle. That is because the local people wouldn’t be naturally drawn to it.

No, if I was teaching folk type music in far off lands, I’d probably have a lot more success if I grafted my methods onto their indigenous culture – then I’d have half the work done already.  This would be different to teaching classical music – where, a bit like technology, I’d simply follow a formula (albeit very challenging, complicated and precise) to achieve competence.

I am focusing on this a bit because I am making the point that cultural up-scaling or expansion is not that straight-forward.

Taking the music example, it is either scaled up to a strict formula (classical music), to a kind of bland and short-lived burst (pop music, showbands and similar) or selective niche (folk, jazz, and traditional music).

But it is not only in music that we see this.

Take sport, for example. Hurling is confined to very specific parts of Ireland since 1884 despite the GAA making great efforts to popularise it over many decades in parts of the country where it was not traditionally played.  Rugby is similar – and there are many local sports (a bit like folk music) throughout the world that are particular to their locality that have never gained world-wide popularity.

To sum up, scaling up something that is unique and locally rooted, in a different environment, is usually very difficult, and when it is successfully scaled up (in terms of quantity that is) it often results in blandness, lower quality, and has lesser meaning.

(Meaning is important – as I’ll be discussing in the next post)

In respect of scaling up, rapid adaptation to different situations, circumstances and environments is very common with new inventions and developments.

When we invent something that is not really needed, like electricity, and it is rapidly scaled up, it quickly becomes so powerful that we begin to build our world around it and then it becomes vital – not just for comfort and convenience, but for our very survival.  In the words of Jared Diamond, ‘invention becomes the mother of necessity!’

But the world of helping people is, I believe, kind of different.

As we noted above, scaling up is particularly challenging for a development that has a cultural dimension – as an initiative to protect children and vulnerable families undoubtedly has.

In such cases meaning is very important.

In my experience many programmes that are scaled up (rolled out as we say) to assist families affected by imprisonment are designed by people within, and are deeply embedded in, the culture of the Pillars.  All too often, the amount of meaning that the programmes have for people that they are aimed at is limited to those who have some measure of formal education.

So – how do we scale up effective work with the Focus Group so that it will have a real impact on people’s lives and will not simply be a well-intentioned clone of something that works well in one culture but not in another?

I believe that despite the fact that the characteristics of the Focus Group are much the same all over the world, the response will need to be culturally sympathetic to where people grow up and live.

For example, urban Ireland might be different to rural Ireland, or large city might be different to small town etc. etc. The best place to address these differences is in training courses offered by the organisation, (or favoured by the organisation) and ongoing supervision.

Listening, with accompanying two-way knowledge flow is very necessary, where the root foundation fundamentals are enriched by feedback on what actually works in different environments.

This, of course, will probably result in a slower expansion, scaling up, or rolling out, but it will be a lot more sustainable, and will allow people choose what suits them and what doesn’t, what works and what doesn’t, and even what gets in the way of good work.

It will also be non-linear – allowing for the type of growth that is typically human. 

Symmetry and cultural matching as described in previous Chapters implies that we take the cultural dimension seriously. And talking about what, I believe that if we get how right, what will look after itself.

And yes – I believe that we can reinvent the wheel.  The wheel is a perfect circle that is used widely in mechanical devices, and perfection has not that much relevance for the cultural world – particularly the world of helping people.

Wheels in the world of helping people might best be eccentric, or may not – as the case may be.  If we’re not prepared to continually reinvent we will risk blandness.

And anyway, we’ll learn a lot reinventing.