Spotlight on Charlotte
Charlotte has been a consultant for five years. In that time she’s worked with a wide range of charities including the Scouts, Climate Outreach, Home-Start and the Association of Charitable Foundations. Charlotte previously worked in policy roles at the Department for Education, National Lottery Community Fund and NCVO.
We sat down with Charlotte to learn more about her work with Lucent.
What is it about your work with Lucent that you find most rewarding?
I love it when we ask teams for their lightbulb moments. It is so revealing to hear teams talking about their strengths and assets. It really helps them understand the distinctive contribution they make. In our Strategy Ship framework we call that answering the ‘Why Us?’ question. It’s always an energising conversation.
What are the key trends that you are seeing with clients as we emerge from this period?
The top one is more collaboration. I’ve enjoyed facilitating online calls between organisations that in some cases didn’t even know each other before, but have pulled together during the crisis. Many of our clients have found working together online to be more inclusive and conducive to co-production than they first expected.
I hope that the instinct towards greater collaboration will continue. If it wasn’t obvious already, the pandemic has been a reminder that big societal challenges can’t be solved by individual organisations. For anyone who’s not seen it, the Sheila McKechnie Social Change Grid gives a great illustration of that.
What has kept you going through Covid personally and professionally?
It’s been such a tough year and I think each of us has been through it in different ways. Personally, I haven’t reached the point of being able to reflect on it all yet. Professionally, I have found the monthly Lucent campfires a nice way to simply connect with others and hear how we’re each getting on. I’ve really appreciated the small kindnesses that people have shown, in offering a listening ear or a word of encouragement to each other.
And… it’s Sunday morning: describe your best day – what do you have planned?
Whenever we can, we go to the beach in Essex where we live. Our kids are always super-excited and just getting to the age where they can play by themselves a bit while we enjoy a Thermos of coffee. I hear from colleagues that teenagers aren’t so enthused about sandcastles, so we’ll just enjoy this stage while we can.
Meet the rest of the Lucent team here.