Shake up your Thinking with Dr Ken Hudson

Dear Prime Minister & Professor Glyn Davis.

Good luck with the Australia 20:20 summit. It is a great idea and I hope it is a wonderful success. But as someone who helps create breakthrough ideas for a living, I cannot help but feel that you have made some fundamental mistakes. I list these only in the hope they are not repeated if such a summit is ever run again.

1. The Steering Committee

What were you thinking? Nearly all men—let’s agree now that if there is a next summit the steering committee is all women.

2. A week-end

This is a summit that aims to tackle the long term challenges confronting Australia’s future. This sounds important and worthwhile yet it has been relegated to the weekend. Symbolically this sends the wrong message because it is not considered worthy of a spot during the week and in a practical sense it is a poor decision because people are not fresh. Let’s not even think about the message it sends in terms of work-life balance.

3. The Participants

 Looking through the list, it indeed represents the best and brightest. But that is the point. It is made up of experts in their field. In the Long Term National Health Strategy section, for example, over one third of the participants are professors. On the surface this makes sense but where are the people represented by the failure of the health system? My suggestion is that one third of the participants should be people who have been negatively impacted by our health system. Just wander down to the local hospital and ask the people who have been waiting hours for treatment if they would like to attend the summit. This would certainly ground the discussion.

4. The Groupings

Again it seems logical that experts should be included in their specialist area. But breakthrough ideas emerge when there is a dynamic tension between the expert and the naïve. I would mix the actor with the doctor and the actor, the economist with the climate change scientist all in the one room. Then see what emerges. This would also ensure that the experts rather than defending their knowledge are placed in a situation where they can make unforeseen, new connections.

5. The Location

Canberra makes sense for the politicians but no-one else. Why not have day one at a venue which was relevant to the group. The health strategy group should convene at any hospital that is struggling, for example. Day two all the participants can reconvene in Canberra.

6. The Number of Topics

1000 people and ten topics—this is about seven too many. Why not focus on three this year and three next year. Could you imagine the power of the group that all were focusing on trying to address the imbalance in life expectancy between indigenous Australians and the rest of the community.

7. The Co-Chair

The government cannot have it both ways. It cannot position the summit as a vehicle to invite all ideas and yet have each summit area being co-chaired by a Federal Government Minister. What are the chances of a new idea being accepted if it does not fit with the government’s or minister’s agenda?

8. What does success look like?

There are some laudable objectives but what does success look like? How will we know whether this summit has been a success and should be repeated? The aim is to harness the best ideas from the group but how will these ideas be evaluated? I believe that if you create an idea it is only reasonable to know how the idea will be judged before the summit starts.

9. If it does work, run it every two years

This is a wonderful opportunity for the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader to agree that if this summit is a success, then it can be held every two years.

10. Future participation

My suggestion is that if you have been invited once then you are automatically barred from attending the following summit (the politicians excepted). This would ensure that new faces and ideas are constantly on show.

Good Luck with the summit—I genuinely hope it is a huge success. Australia desperately needs big thinking.

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