Turning the Ship: Mary Ann Clement's episode

By Sandy Glanfield

One sentence from Mary Ann Clements's episode niggled at me this week, that it's amazing how sometimes systems work against the very relationships we're so keen to build.

So much starts with great heart and intention. But as the work begins, the systems we've built take over, our course feels set, and somewhere along the way we lose the very connection we meant to create in the first place.

Because almost nobody sets out to build a cold system. We start with a big idea and good intentions, a real desire to help. But somewhere along the way, the how quietly takes over from the why. We forge a path because it works, and then we keep to it because it works, and slowly the original purpose slips out of view.

What ADD International did under Mary Ann's leadership was notice they'd drifted, and then turn the ship around. And anyone who's tried knows how hard that is. A large organisation moving well is like a ship at full steam. Turning it means admitting the adventure you set out on isn't the one you're on anymore. That's disheartening to face. It's also, I think, one of the most important things any of us can do.

So why does the drift happen? Rarely because anyone chooses it. More that a hundred small currents pull the same way. We focus, we commit, and pressing on without stopping to listen starts to feel like the efficient thing, like a captain who won't slow the ship to check the map. Then there's fear, the weather of it, systems bearing down, the worry of doing the wrong thing, the litigious edge to everything, a constant weather-front of information telling us this is the right course, so why would we steer off it? And now there's the pull of the algorithms, a tide all of their own, shaping how we're told to share and be seen. But a tide only moves what's already floating. Algorithms reward the familiar, never the new, never the singular. And the people Mary Ann walks alongside are the very opposite of familiar data. Their lived experience is theirs alone, and no research paper or dataset can tell them it's anything less than real. That's exactly why we have to listen, to learn, to stay empathetic, and to take risks.

Mary Ann tells a story of how Add worked with disabled women at risk of violence. What strikes me most is their willingness to stop partway and say, this isn't working, or the need has shifted, and change course. That nimbleness is the thing. And it's so often what we lose as we grow. We build frameworks and big navigation models, and we forget to keep the map in front of us, charting what's actually there, including the new things we couldn't have planned for.

I've had this image in my head ever since. Sailors didn't only read the waters, they looked up and steered by the stars. Mary Ann talks about working in new ways as change came, about composting the old while growing the new, about looking back and looking now and looking forward all at once. There's something in that of weaving the star chart back in. Not just navigating what's beneath us, but lifting our eyes to reimagine where we could go.

And underneath all of it sits something simple, the golden rule. Treating others as we'd wish to be treated. A plan negotiated together rather than handed down. Trust that the people living a reality know best what it needs. It sounds obvious, almost too obvious to say. And yet, as Mary Ann reminds us, the systems we build can quietly work against the very thing we built them for. The work, then, is to keep noticing, and to be brave enough to turn the ship when we've drifted.