Category: Vignettes

“We’re moving George to a different school…”
“Oh, where to?”
“The Steiner school – John’s company has joined the Elysia Commons”
“Oh, yes – I’ve heard of that – so what’s it mean? Tea?”
“Yes” she said smiling and continued “well there are bursaries available to co-workers to help them send their children to schools that are also in the Commons, and we applied a while ago and just heard that we have been successful!”
“Was it because George is, you know, mmmm…”
“Struggling? A bit? Well yes, I suppose, school doesn’t seem to suit him… We sent him for some trial days at the Steiner school a while ago and they have a different emphasis – the child’s development rather than competition. He loved it anyway, and it feels right to us…”
“Good luck! Here’s your tea , so what do you mean ‘development over competition?’”
…

Alan is waiting for his day’s meeting to start. He is part of the Elysia Commons on-boarding team and is reflecting on life as he waits to meet the Board of a company just brought into the Commons
Another day, another Board room and another set of Directors. It usually flowed easier these days. Probably shifted after that big FT feature on the “Commons Phenomenon” Alan reflected. Quite a view though, high up… London – spread out…was this really a phenomenon? It felt good – better than the old days felt. Alan could smell fear, he’d smelt it often enough, sometimes masked by a testosterone musk of bravado. Corporate takeovers. Then one day he’d snapped – a year off work. Thinking about it afterwards he realised that he’d experienced those mini-deaths far more personally than he ever thought… His bravado had crumbled too. What a crazy system he had realised eventually and wondered what to do next.
Saw an advert: recruiting acquisitions team, old dogs wanting to learn new tricks were sought. So he applied and got the job. It didn’t make sense at first, not completely, but it felt right so he kept his doubts to himself, a bit of the old bravado still lingering perhaps. In the end he understood. It’s simple. All he had to do was let go of the old logic – although not the skills – and the new logic came flooding in.
“So guys, good morning. I’m Alan James from the Elysia Commons on-boarding team and I’m here to welcome you to your new world. There’s so much to look forward to, I think you’re going to remember today as a really good day! So… first up, let’s run through the events that brought us all here and then we can introduce ourselves.” Another couple of hours and the smell of fear would have started to dissipate, replaced by a growing sense of wonder and surprise at the new world they had just entered, entered when Loake Templar was bought into the Elysia Commons.

“What’s that you’re reading?” Kate asked as she came in from getting the children to bed and settled down on the sofa.
“Oh, this? It’s the Elysia Magazine”
“I can see that! I wanted to know what exactly you are reading so avidly in it!”
“Well I’ll tell you when I’ve read it , but I can’t stop now….” and he didn’t, he read it all through twice and then he looked up to see if she was still there and said “there is a new clinic joined the Commons near us and there is a new scheme. The doctors want to know they are helping their patients and the Commons wants to know if the clinic is working too – we’re used to the transparency thing at work these days, but here it is being implemented in the health sector too.”
“Oh, you’re telling me now are you?” she said as she laid down her book on the seat beside her “so, you think I should stop what I am doing and listen to you now, do you?”
“Well you don’t have to” he said looking a bit baffled but she said
“It’s ok, I’m teasing, go on”
“Well the new system is that we get a lot of the service, including a lot of the complimentary medicines, for free, which is pretty amazing, but we have to tell them how we’re doing.”
“But we will tell them how we’re doing when we go in to see them anyway, so what’s funny about that?” she said.
“No, online, we have to make regular reports online about our health, particularly when we have been to the medical centre.”
“That is a bit funny” she said worried.
“Um, but it’s the same co-worker IT system I am already used to at work. It’s completely confidential and there are no adverts or anything, no commercial gain, it’s just how we know about things – the famous transparency of the Commons Corporation.”
“Anyway, it says here that the data is pooled, and our names aren’t stored with it. It’s so that the doctors and the centre can tell what’s working. It’s accountability.”
“Do the doctors like it?”
“There is a doctor here who says ‘all we want is to be able to heal people and to know that we are effective. Of course we might find out that we aren’t, but it would be better to find that out than to go on for years making no difference.’ which makes sense, although it’s brave isn’t it?”
“Well yes, I suppose so.”
“Interestingly though, it says here that the doctors see their own summarised results and the Health Foundation at Elysia CC sees the whole of the Centre’s results summarised.”
“So do you mean that the Foundation can’t see the individual doctors?”
“That’s what is says, it means that the accountability is therefore self-accountability – the results become an opportunity for a conversation, an opportunity to learn and improve that the doctors as individuals can take up if they want.”
“It’s funny, it’s different, but if you think about the way your work is managed… and that magazine. It’s the same idea isn’t it?”
“Yes, that we are all in it for the best we can do?”
“Yes, exactly, more information and more trust – and your life is completely different now, actually, isn’t it?”
He sat back reflecting. It was a year since his company had joined Elysia CC and he could see now, from the distance of a year, that a profound change had happened. She was right too, it was funny, but he shared a bigger picture now and he did put much more in, and yes, got much more out. “I wonder why nobody ever just did the whole trust and grow thing before? It’s so obvious, if feels so right. One of the managers told us it feels like being let our of prison – I mean that’s not a small thing to say.”
“No it’s not a small thing to say” she agreed, and the conversation lapsed as they both drifted off into thought. “Funnily enough” she continued quietly a while later “I want to take Joe to see a new doctor about his eczema, so maybe this is an opportunity… and we can find out what’s it’s all about directly then… too” she faded off and after a moment or two more sitting in silence got up and went through to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.