Join us in Oxford to think together about what it takes to bring lived experience into organisations.

Most organisations value quantities over qualities, with a rhetorical claim to being more 'evidence-based'. In institutions grounded in natural science, like the NHS, the appeal to evidence can silence the particular, the personal, and the experiential. This is why lived experience testimony and narrative can present powerful challenges to orthodox ways of managing and making policy.

But bringing lived experience into an organisational setting is beset with difficulties. It is also a political act, and is likely to be resisted. This is not only about the individual responses of the powerful, but about habituated ways of seeing and practising in organisations. Advocates of lived experience can feel co-opted: invited in and then dismissed, or made tokens of taking experience seriously. It can be very bruising.

Running a human service organisation must depend on taking experience seriously, as a necessary but insufficient condition of managing. So what are the strengths and limitations of lived experience? What possibilities are there for developing the approach as method? How might we learn from one another?

The event

This ComplexitySalon is an event for anyone interested in lived experience, particularly lived experience practitioners in the public services: a day to share experience, to network, and to locate their practice in a broader discussion of method. There will be plenty of opportunity for reflection in small and large groups. The currency of the day is conversation.

If you'd like to find out more and would like to come along but are experiencing material difficulties in doing so - please get in touch. sophie or chris@complexitysalon.com

Sunday 15 November

🍷5:30pm - 7.30pm Inaugural evening (venue location to be announced via emails)

Monday 16 November

🥐 9:00 Coffee and greetings

🎙️ 9:30 Professor Les Back in conversation with Professor Chris Mowles, joined by four respondents who are lived experience practitioners

🍰 11:00 Coffee

💭 11:30 Reflection in small groups and plenary

🍽️ 12:45 Lunch

💬 1:45 Further reflection and summing up

🫖 3:00 Tea

👥 3:30 Experiential group (voluntary)

🍸 5:00 Socialising for any who remain

🎟️ Joining the experiential group is optional; please indicate when purchasing tickets. Numbers are limited.

Get to know us

Professor Les Back is a distinguished sociologist and Head of Sociology in the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Alongside his academic work, he is a journalist, broadcaster and musician. He is President of the British Sociological Association and a Trustee of the Sociological Review Foundation.

His published work spans the sociology of race and racism, ethnicity, multiculturalism, urban culture, music, and sport. Key publications include Academic Diary: Why Higher Education Still Matters (2016), Migrant City (2018), and The Unfinished Politics of Race (2022). A proponent of public, or "live," sociology using digital communication, he hosts the Recovering Community podcast and was previously Director of the Centre for Urban and Community Research at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Les's concept of Live Methods, and his call for a sensory, real-time, and deeply attentive approach, is explored particularly clearly in his earlier book The Art of Listening. In it, Les challenges the assumption that hearing is inherently superior to seeing or the other senses, and encourages us to think critically before accepting invitations to "trust our senses." Instead, he urges us to "re-tune our ears to society" and listen responsibly — with care, attentiveness, and a willingness to remain in doubt. Here's a podcast to explore this in more depth: https://thesociologicalreview.org/podcasts/uncommon-sense/listening-with-les-back/

Brought to you by ComplexitySalon.com

Chris Mowles Co-Founder of ComplexitySalon, Professor of Complexity & Management Director, University of Hertfordshire, is interested in exploring complex dynamics in organisations and society.

Sophie Wong Co-Founder of ComplexitySalon, producer, ethnographer, philanthropist, therapist.

Organised with the assistance of Dr Christopher Morton, Dr Nicholas Sarra and Dr Kevin Flinn

Respondents -

Dr Christopher Morton, Lived Experience (LE) Director at Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust, a role created in 2022 and first of its kind in UK. He leads the Trust’s coproduction and LE work, including Culture of Care, the peer workforce, personalising care planning, quality priorities, advocacy and patient safety. A registered social worker specialising in mental health in the NHS, he teaches on Newcastle University’s Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and has recently completed a Doctor of Management researching the politics of LE leadership.

Francesca Barker-Mills is a criminologist, educator and founder of the Coming Home Project, which supports women affected by the criminal justice system to rebuild their lives through digital skills, employment and advocacy. Drawing on both academic expertise and lived experience of imprisonment, her work focuses on rehabilitation, stigma, fair access to opportunity and the systems that shape who is trusted, excluded or given equal opportunities.

Two more respondents name TBA soon

ComplexitySalon hosts events to provide opportunities to better understand ourselves and the dilemmas we face.

Hope in Dark Times: The politics and practice of lived experience

Choose your tickets

Conference only ticket

Conference plus Sunday 15th inaugural evening with drinks and canapés ticket