HUMBLING HUMOUR

One of the out-of-home care leaders who I mentor, recently introduced me to the Australian comedy Utopia (known outside Australia and New Zealand as Dreamland). Running to four series, it originally aired on terrestrial TV in Australia from 2014 to 2019. However, she’s in Canada and caught it on Netflix.

Utopia follows the working lives of staff at the fictional Nation Building Authority in Australia, a newly created government organisation. The Authority is responsible for overseeing major infrastructure projects ranging from new roads and rail lines to airports and high rise urban developments. 

However, the boss is constantly exasperated by his inability to achieve anything other than attend meetings, and commission studies and reports. The organisation’s grand projects are continuously frustrated by political and commercial self-interest, publicity stunts, incompetence, constant shifts in political priorities and bureaucracy (to those of you in government I say the latter lovingly as a former bureaucrat). I think that Utopia is hilarious. The scriptwriting and the actors’ performances are excellent. It’s definitely one of the funniest comedies that I have seen for a while. 

Yet, out of great comedy can come powerful truths. As such, Utopia can also be both humbling and thoroughly depressing as we inevitably apply a child welfare lens and observe more than a few kernels of truth. Whether in government agencies or indeed not-for-profit community organisations (who are not entirely immune), I would venture to suggest that we’ve all been in some of those meetings, and met such characters and situations.

Here for me are some of the recurring themes from this comedy:

  • Little or no value attributed to what has gone before, or undertaken by a predecessor

  • Being focused more on new project announcements than actually achieving anything

  • Any organisational strategy, positions, and priorities, being constantly undermined.

  • Projects getting abandoned and projects that are delivered coming with significant delays and cost blow-outs

  • Ideology trumping evidence, short term trumping long term, messaging and image trumping substance, policy trumping implementation, and organisations’ interests trumping outcomes

  • A lack of accountability

  • A distorted view of change and risk

  • Taxpayer money wasted

  • A preoccupation with fads

  • Confusing ‘technological disruption’ and innovation, with ‘chaos’

  • Privileging the interests of politicians and stakeholders over end-users

  • Organisations competing and not wanting, or unable, to collaborate 

  • Where the organisation does deliver any meaningful improvements some will be largely temporary. 

Have you or your organisation been guilty of any of these? Even just a little? I have.

OOHC LeadershipIain Mathesonstrategy, Utopia, humour, truth, reflection