Hello! I’m Ashley and I’m incredibly excited to be the newest addition on the Collective Results Team! My journey to this team has been an interesting one that started with working with youth. Their energy, wisdom, and hope was inspiring and started the fire of ‘the system’ in me. Too many times I saw systems that were intentioned to support youth fail them, and in turn, these failures became individualized to the youth themselves. One specific turning point for me was in a time of loss and grief. I turned my eyes to ‘the system’ and could see how this event was a direct result of how the system was designed. I felt frustrated, angry, and was left wanting more for all youth who were seeking support.
Fast forward 10 years, I was working in housing and homelessness and again, I was faced with ‘a system’ designed to get the results it’s getting, results that I would argue are not human-centered. Too many silos, wrong-door conversations with clients, and barriers to accessing the fundamental human right of housing. I jumped at the opportunity to continue working in a community-development space, both locally and across the country. Finding individuals, teams, and communities who were unapologetically calling out the system and working to improve it was like a homecoming. This part of my journey was focused on supporting communities and groups to re-think how their homelessness response systems were designed, starting with what they wanted that end-state to look like and working back. We routinely went through iterative planning cycles that embedded real-time data, quality improvement cycles, and ongoing community-engagement. Working with teams that were not afraid to step out of the status quo and try a new way was incredibly motivating and inspiring!
This energy for systems improvement now often collides into my personal life, much to my family’s dismay, I’m sure, as we parent our two young children, or as my partner talks about challenges he faces at work. I’ve been known to send a few PDSA cycle sheets to him so he can test small scale process changes or to try my own tests of change in parenting. What can I say, when I find a process that pushes for improvement in the way we do things, why not embrace it fully!
It feels like another breath of fresh air as I join the Collective Results team, a group that is focused on supporting you to do the incredible work you do, better! A team that is living its values of building relationships, learning, happiness, and equity in all facets, and that strives to improve systems.
A favourite quote of mine in this space is:
“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets” – W.E. Deming
I am privileged to be joining the Collective Results team and am excited to work with you as you re-think and re-vision how your system is designed to ultimately change the results it’s getting!