Relational over transactional – Michael Goldsworthy calls out looming “catastrophe” and invites government to table of connection and trust

Michael Goldsworthy has worked in the corporate project-management realm for decades. He’s worked with Tennis Australia, with credit unions, public sector organisations and private, and he’s had a fair bit to do with aged care to boot. Working alongside people from various backgrounds, sectors and goals, not only has he become well acquainted with listening and connecting, he’s seen their results. And it is from that listening that prompted him to lend his voice to the lack-lustre management of aged care reforms on the sector, the fallout impact, macro and local, on the people at its centre. All his experience, professional and personal, led to him publicly call-out what he sees as a failure of robust, established project management principles and practices by government. From incompetency, with consequences on seniors, loved ones and families, to the wasteful time of additional work and resources for boards, CEOs, executives, staff and volunteers, Goldsworthy sees a place for experts outside of the aged care sector to support aged care and its deserving of better. No sector is in a silo he believes, there is room and opportunity for support from all quarters.   

Listening to the people who care

While not the “huge cattle station or sheep station” he envisioned while playing on the playground, Goldsworthy has tackled a few complicated projects in his professional career. Managing the mergers of fractious organisations into one national body, juggling competing and at-odds goals, he has committed to staying the course alongside people who know that the change is worth it. Across it all, when running projects and working alongside management authorities, he’s found that “listening to needs and requirements” and to “co-design within the process of change is what supports getting organisations and sectors to where they want to be.” For the many peers and professionals in aged care, Goldsworthy has seen people who have endured countless upheavals due to deeper conviction.

In bringing about effective change he says, “engaging and educating through the project management phase and delivering with a project working group or board” is paramount, and when it comes down to it, “you had better run a project with people who love, own the process and operate the entity. In order to land reform, changers have to “really get into the hearts and heads of those involved”. For the many professionals in aged care, this rings true, far from the salaries of other sectors, those that persevere in aged care remain for purpose of substance. It is in this discrepancy of distanced national reform to local reality consequences, that many in aged care have become exasperated.

The principles of the reform were largely welcomed within the aged care sector but as Goldsworthy affirms alongside industry leaders and clients, the government was not able to deliver the various reforms, changes in sequence, on time or within budget, forgoing as well, many of the agreed specifications. He has seen what it takes to bring about complicated change, and it is in listening directly to the men and women that show up daily to try and bring the best for an organisation, the sector and its people. Leaders, experts and advocates in aged care have not felt listened to by government. Goldsworthy highlights has contributed to what the sector is grappling with now, “a national crisis heading towards a national catastrophe”.

Balance

In navigating large organisational change, Goldsworthy sees that balance is integral. He notes that “you have to balance and integrate all the business objectives and outcomes with all the service objectives and outcomes”. Advocates and industry leaders know this balance, for aged care, the operational business must cover costs, it is imperative that profit is being made and redirected into the business. And equally as important, seniors being treated with dignity and as human beings. When navigating change, legislative theory must contend with pragmatic forces.

“When managing reform, questions must be asked, how do you achieve the vision, the purpose, the ethos within the strategy, in other words, how do we balance and integrate it at the heart”, he shares.

“Because head and heart have to come together.”

When it comes to the quality of reform and what’s involved, Goldsworthy is clear, “it’s a relational journey.” For the hundreds of aged care providers that have offered services to government to help guide the reform and its impact, having help refuted and refused is not only distancing but distressing when reform impacts have had damaging consequences.

For hundreds of aged care CEOs, the meteoric rise in paperwork and bureaucratic management, particularly with the Support at Home packages, frustrating is building that time is being redirected away from providing the best care, alongside rising administrative costs diverting resources.

Relationships

Decades ago, Goldsworthy remembers a Commonwealth government that was “highly engaged, they would come out and visit facilities with sincerity”.

“You could ring them about a project, and ask should we do this or should we do that, you had a fantastic relationship with local officers, your State Department, if I was in Hobart, I’d call in to the officers and we’d have a chin-wag, ‘how ya going? What’s happening, this is what I’m seeing, what are you seeing? Where’s the latest policy at? Where are you heading on X, Y, Z?’”

He names the catalyst for supporting reform and its impacts, and the project management quality needed to underpin the healthiest and most effective practice, relationship and earned trust.

“In the past, you had this highly engaged, highly relational approach, from Mr and Mrs government, to Fred and Mary in the local offices, everyone had relationships, there was communication and willingness to sincerely engage.”

What this has meant, he explains, is that we’ve lost the substance to not only shape good reform but guide it to ground. Goldsworthy highlights, “it’s moved [away] from this highly relational, engaging, educative approach, there was an absolute trust there.”

“I can remember middle level bureaucrats, I can think of Robert*, ex-Federal police, he’d moved into the Commonwealth and he’d ring me up, ‘this organisation is going down, if you don’t get there and help them out, we’ll have to close them’, and we’d been doing 60 per cent of our work in regional Australia so that would have been a disaster.”

He recalls, “so me and the team would go in there [to organisation], and we’d take the time to understand, where’s your past, where are you at the present and where should you be in the future, ok, major money problems, we’ll work through it.”

“It was the whole ability to have that conversation, that relationship was critical. Whereas now as a global and system shape, here we are in the present, and government in aged care and disability, is incredibly transactional.”

Trust

Echoing cross-sector lived experience, Goldsworthy champions that central to making aged care reform work is close relationships and the trust it supports. As seniors have noted fear at poor-performing providers, and government has lambasted providers at times, and providers continue to voice frustration at government, it is abundantly clear that trust has been eroded.

“The trust and connection and all the benefits that come from them are not there now.”

Goldsworthy sees that government and sector, “have moved from a relational approach to a transactional approach.”

Goldsworthy affirms what many sector leaders are feeling, “the attitudes and behaviours of bureaucrats, as well as work practices of public personnel, through policy and frameworks etcetera, has dramatically shifted.” When he initially spoke up, there was a visceral reaction from industry leaders. Naming what is happening is an integral part of recognising the environmental factors the sector is operating in and trying to provide quality care despite, and many argue, a start in pivoting away from the widening fault-lines. 

Rebels with a cause

Goldsworthy shares that he has known people in public service, who he has seen working to bring proximity and insight forward, inch by inch.

While he’s heard from contacts that current systems may distance government personnel and sincere provider heads wanting to improve the sector, there are those that have made an active choice to shape their days by “heading out.”

Goldsworthy good-naturedly laughs when recounting the conversations they’ve had, civil-servants saying, “‘no I’m not saying in, I’m going out’. They regularly get in their cars and go and visit different organisations. They’ve come and visited and listened to different consultants, including ourselves.”

Goldsworthy cherishes and champions what some people ‘on the inside’ are doing. “They’ve purposely gone out of their way to ask questions and gain insight, they ask, ‘what are you observing? What are you seeing? What’s happening? What do you think the issues are’”.

He says, “they ask what’s the latest news, they affirm that government strategy and practice is missing the point, ‘we can’t just be out there saying here’s all the rules, now we’re going to order you and now we’re going to sanction you’”.

“While there aren’t many, some in government know they’ve got to take a different approach.”

Hard conversations

Goldsworthy advocates for hard conversations to be had at all levels of government and aged care sector leadership, as well as leveraging outside professionals that want to help steer to health and sustainability.

“The question I’ve always got on my mind now is where is this all going?”

He advocates that all levels of government, and sector leadership must collaborate and sincerely listen to each other to, “look at this bigger picture of aged care.”

“There’s an absolute reality, there are consequences, we must ask, where is aged care really going to land?”

“The backdrop that aged care sits on today, the whole government relationship shift, it’s critical.”

“Legislation is one thing”, Goldsworthy notes, “but you have to turn that into policy, and then it has to be translated into projects, and then be deployed, and planned out, and all the rest, that’s a whole other thing.”

Relationships, respect by government to providers, embedding time to build connection and by extension earned trust is paramount to correcting the significant fault lines that Goldsworthy sees as underpinning the current, “disaster”. 

As old as the hills are the project management principles of relationship, trust, head and heart. The aged care sector doesn’t just need relational change to see it out of current straits, any Australian that becomes a senior deserves a sector that is thriving for decades to come. This is political, moral, and most importantly, deeply human.