{"id":12474,"date":"2016-08-05T14:51:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T14:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arliemediadesign.com\/?p=12474"},"modified":"2025-03-28T14:58:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T14:58:07","slug":"are-you-as-innovative-as-the-public-sector-henry-stewart-happy-ltd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/are-you-as-innovative-as-the-public-sector-henry-stewart-happy-ltd\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You as Innovative as the Public Sector? \u2013 Henry Stewart, Happy Ltd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Henry Stewart is founder and Chief Executive of Happy Ltd. Happy has been rated the best company in the UK for customer service by Management Today, one of the Top 20 Workplaces in the UK for 5 successive years (Financial TImes \/ Great Place to Work Institute), and is one of the world\u2019s most democratic workplaces. Happy now helps other organisations to create happy workplaces. You can talk to him on Twitter at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/happyhenry?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">@happyhenry.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Find out how GCHQ used pre-approval to encourage innovation and improve their workplace in this two minute video with Henry Stewart.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"blog-post-type":[36],"class_list":["post-12474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conference-videos-shorts","blog-post-type-blog-with-video"],"acf":{"read_or_watch_time":"Watch: 2 min watch","video_url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/UHwKhhyeYYY","transcripts":"I put that title in particular when I\u2019m talking at a private sector conference because you ask them \u201cAre you as innovative as the public sector?\u201d and they all go \u201cOh, of course we are!\u201d and then I tell them this story about how GCHQ has been using these kinds of principles.\r\n\r\nSomebody from GCHQ came to one of my talks and loved the idea of pre-approval. Everybody know pre-approval? The idea that you approve the solution before the person has thought of it.\r\n\r\nSo they started implementing that, but what I love is what they did with it next: they decided they needed more innovation \u2013 GCHQ needs to be at the forefront of innovation. So they persuaded their managers to give them a technology fund of a million pounds \u2013 it\u2019s a big organisation, they need a lot of innovation \u2013 and they then set up a crowdfunder site where people could say, I want \u00a3500, or \u00a3300, or \u00a35,000, or \u00a310,000, for this idea, or that idea, or another idea.\r\n\r\nSo that\u2019s quite innovative already, but what would normally happen with those ideas? They\u2019d go up to senior management to decide, wouldn\u2019t they?\r\n\r\nAt GCHQ what they did with them is they divided that million pounds into 100 batches of \u00a310,000 and gave it to the most junior members of staff to decide how to invest it. The rule was they had to have never managed a budget and never managed people and then they could have \u00a310,000 to allocate across whatever innovation they wanted.\r\n\r\nAnd imagine the effect of that; either you give innovation to the people that have been in their job for 40 years as senior managers, or you give it to the people at the front line who are probably in touch with all the latest social media thing \u2013 it\u2019s a completely different effect.\r\n\r\nNow you may not have a million pounds to invest in your organisation, but it\u2019s a principle that many people could use."},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.2 (Yoast SEO v26.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are You as Innovative as the Public Sector? \u2013 Henry Stewart, Happy Ltd - Happy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/are-you-as-innovative-as-the-public-sector-henry-stewart-happy-ltd\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are You as Innovative as the Public Sector? \u2013 Henry Stewart, Happy Ltd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Find out how GCHQ used pre-approval to encourage innovation and improve their workplace in this two minute video with Henry Stewart.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/are-you-as-innovative-as-the-public-sector-henry-stewart-happy-ltd\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Happy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HappyLtd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-08-05T14:51:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-03-28T14:58:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/henryhw16.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"240\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Claire Lickman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@happyltd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@happyltd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Claire Lickman\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/are-you-as-innovative-as-the-public-sector-henry-stewart-happy-ltd\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/blogs\/are-you-as-innovative-as-the-public-sector-henry-stewart-happy-ltd\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Claire Lickman\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.happy.co.uk\/#\/schema\/person\/f99ae649b38fd15938ba6a2f3ff56c06\"},\"headline\":\"Are You as Innovative as the Public Sector? 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