It is true that I trained and worked as a Social Worker, back in the day when social work was still considered a legitimate training for Probation Officers. Yes, I did that too. In fact I spent 10 years in different roles in social work and probation and what a fantastic grounding it gave me in how to build effective relationships that can be vehicles for transformation.
For the last 13 years, I have been working as a consultant and coach and still I consider my work to be social work, though perhaps for slightly different reasons. Clearly my work is all about change, personal and collective, and the relationship is frankly the only vehicle for that. But as someone passionate about creating more human organisational cultures where people and performance flourish, I feel strongly that the key lies in the “social” aspect of this work.
Margaret Hefferman in her persuasive Ted Talk on “Why it’s time to forget the pecking order at work” talks about social capital which she describes as “the reliance and interdependency that builds trust….and (that) gives companies momentum”. She talks about how helpfulness is more important than individual intelligence and about the advantage held by those organisations that value social cohesion and know how to foster it. I see it again and again as I work to create more human connection in teams and organisations and as I help leaders give themselves and their people more permission to be human and to build that web of interconnectedness in the workplace. It is here, in this “social” dimension, in my view, that the magic happens.
Relationship, not transaction, is integral to our success in the workplace. Collective, not individual intelligence is what will get us to where we want to be. Creating cultures where this ethos is central, is the work of all leaders, wherever they sit in the hierarchy. And it is for that reason that I would describe the work we all have to do, as social work.