The Iron law of business-as-usual: What is it and can we escape it?

Delivered to the Communities in Control conference in 2020  Why is it that new agendas in policy arrive, hold the stage for a few years and, when they are swept away by the next fad, have next to nothing to show for themselves?  New Zealand has garnered world attention for its ‘Wellbeing Budget’. 

But Australia’s Treasury had a wellbeing framework a decade ago. It was quietly scrapped a few years ago and no one noticed the difference. It looks like New Zealand is heading down a similar path.  Likewise, governments around the world — including Australia’s — pitch the idea that NGOs will innovate and governments will fund the successful programs so they can scale. But it almost never happens. 

That’s because there’s a catch 22 for would-be innovators, unacknowledged even by those who’d like to help them.  In this talk, Nicholas Gruen explains the problem and how we can overcome it.

Here's a link to the video of the presentation — together with slides shown during the presentation.