If leaders want to come together to change a system, they can’t do it from a distance. They need to spend time immersing themselves in what is really going on, learning from individuals who experience the system at first hand, as Clare Wightman from Grapevine Coventry & Warwickshire explains.

Clare Wightman writes: ‘My thoughts have been running to leadership - in a time of crisis what kind of leadership emerges and what kind do we really need?…We have always been driven to work with and for those stranded on the margins – the ‘vulnerable’ and isolated - to find something new and nourishing beyond organised services - uncovering hope, identity and purpose in the process. Uncovering leadership too.’ Grapevine has been finding novel ways digitally in the coronavirus crisis to create open spaces for people to express and enjoy themselves and connect with others.

In May we held a roundtable on creating organisations ‘without walls’ - focused on communities and solutions, not institutional self-interest. Clare Wightman introduced the discussion by telling us about the inspirational work of her organisation, Grapevine Coventry and Warwickshire. ‘We’ve always thought that the thing people need in life when they’ve got problems isn’t so much services – services have their place – but good people around them. Services are few. Services have limits – walls if you like - around what they do. But there’s is no limit to what people will do for those they care about.’

In another essay from ‘Insights for a Better Way’, Clare Wightman tells a story which illustrates what it means to apply our Better Way principle, ‘Building on strengths is better than focusing on weaknesses’. I work in Spon End, in Coventry. Like people, neighbourhoods can get a reputation that stops you from seeing the good in them. People call Spon End the ‘Bronx of Coventry’ - people who’ve never been to the real Bronx. The story I am going to tell you now is about the good and the bad in my neighbourhood.