Diversity

Diverse ownership

If making housing affordable means buying property together, the long-term picture also means living together. And your average median-priced house isn’t going to work out for a group of people all moving through the same stages of life at the same time.

The system requires diversity to work.

To start with, this is going to mean housing that can accomodate different types of people.

Multiple generations under the same roof (or at least with the same letterbox) it’s almost like we’ve been here before…

When the houses all look the same

Richness in life comes from relationships with a range of people. Which means, people not like you.

When we buy a new house in a subdivision where the houses look the same, cost the same, and are sold at around the same time, it's no wonder that our neighbours look like us.

Let's build for diversity of people, diversity of connection, for a rich life.

Organising for good, better.

There are many ways to work together. McKinsey & Company identified four organisational 'recipes'. Interestingly, their research found that focussing on a single recipe was more likely to be successful than attempting to delivery on multiple fronts.

If we wanted to build a system together that delivered better outcomes for all people through property, which recipe would we pick?

I suspect one of the following two could be a valid approach, and aligns with an emphasis on people working together to solve wicked problems.

The "Leadership Factory".

This approach would rely on developing leaders, entrusting them to do work, and wrapping them in support systems to sustain and grow their leadership and impact. Leadership is necessary when we're trying to move in a new direction, and a coordinated group of embedded, aligned and supported leaders could move us all a long way.

The "Continuous Improvement Engine".

We'd embed and maintain systems that promote continuous learning, knowledge sharing, diverse involvement and high engagement among every person involved. As we're trying to solve and unsolved problem, we know we'll need to learn as we go along. "Build it as we fly it" as the saying goes. And we also know that the more diverse the group of people involved in the learning, sharing and design process, the better the outcomes.

Perhaps, if I may, I'll deviate from McKinsey's conclusion that success requires focus on a single approach and theorise on a hybrid model:

Continually Improving Leaders who Continuously Improve the World

What would happen if we developed leaders who lead in a manner that promotes continuous learning, and who themselves are embedded in a leadership network that encourages knowledge sharing and learning around getting the most from others.

We could solve some wicked problems. Together.