The first steps and leaps of One Team Gov Sweden

Text: Adrian Solitander

Since January I have been working actively to take small steps with a forerunner group of change agents to bring and establish One Team Gov in Sweden.

These small steps have been leading up to what I consider a big leap for the Swedish chapter of this global grass roots movement of the renewal of the public sector: One Team Gov Sweden’s unconference with 80 participants from different backgrounds, sectors and professions that took place on 1 September.

I want to share a few reflections on what I’ve learnt about building a movement and what we are planning to do to sustain the traction One Team Gov Sweden has got now.

To state the obvious building a movement is about engaging people and taking action together. I am humbled by all the people who have volunteered to take the small steps to set up One Team Gov in Sweden. Some have taken very many small and big steps, a whole trekking tour perhaps, all in our spare time. I am not sure why others have decided to take the walk, but I can speak for myself:

Initially it was about believing intensively in the cause of renewal of public sector and in the chosen method of renewing it from the bottom up. The way One Team Gov packages this message in principles and branding is in my opinion a key success factor for appealing to the feeling of believing in the cause.

In the next step what motivated me to continue to walk the One Team Gov talk, was to find that there were some very competent, kind and interesting people that strongly signalled they too believed in the cause and were ready to take steps along with me. Soon enough a feeling of belonging to a group started to develop. Meeting physically or in online meetings regularly was a success factor for finding a core team of forerunners — people with a common concrete goal, in our case the arranging of the unconference.

When I later have met people who, unlike me, have experience of starting grass roots movements, it has dawned on me that sustaining and growing the movement requires community management. The unconference in all its brilliance certainly was community management by bringing One Team Gov’ers together in a physical space to get to know each other and to co-create the change we desire.

But more is needed, and more will come. A community needs meaningful activity and appealing communication very regularly. And the community needs to co-create this activity and communication together.

A lot of meaningful activity was co-created during the unconference and is being taken further by groups that formed around these activities. But we also need to package other activities, tools and communication in formats that are in line with the One Team Gov’s concept and that are simple to use for anyone who is interested in doing so. That is what I will be doing this autumn: I invite anyone who is interested to join the hike together with many others of us who already are actively engaging in One Team Gov!

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