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Theone Coleman

@theonecoleman

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Building Better Routes Forward
• Working across people, performance and systems.
• Grounded in lived experience.
• Focused on practical change.

POSTS STORIES REELS

… something is coming.

#FlagFootball #TheLivedExperienceProject #TLEP #UK #London by @theonecoleman

The results disappointed. What did you change?

Writing “lessons learned” is easy. But if the actual work doesn’t change, the next person who comes for help gets the same thing that disappointed last time.

So start with what the evidence showed, and say which decision it supports. Maybe it points to a fix. Maybe the method was too weak to tell you what happened. Maybe the honest answer is to stop, or try something different.

A disappointing result doesn’t have to mean closing it down. An uncertain one might need better evidence first. That’s still a decision. Own it.

Then write down the action, who owns it and when you’ll check again. Keep the original result visible, so the story doesn’t get better just because the report got rewritten.

And test the change, because changing something isn’t proof it works. A lesson is most convincing when the next person gets a better service because of it.

On why a weak method can’t tell you what a service achieved: Magenta Book, Quality in policy impact evaluation (GOV.UK)

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#WhoBenefits #EvidenceMatters #PeopleFirst by @theonecoleman

Update from the project: we’ve been accepted onto the Fish Audio startup programme. 🎉

Fish Audio is a voice AI company. You type text, it speaks it back in natural, expressive voices, in lots of languages. It can also clone a voice from a short sample, so a voice can be used again and again, with permission.

For us that’s a big deal. TLEP is about making room for young people to try real briefs, and good tools help them make better work.

More soon. We’re building this in public.

#FishAudio #StartupProgramme #LivedExperience #TLEP #BuiltInPublic by @theonecoleman

What happens to an idea after you say thank you?

People suggest a change. You thank them for their time. Then, nothing. Was the idea considered? Used? Rejected? To them, that looks like a consultation that changed nothing.

That silence can make the next invitation feel less worth answering. Don’t assume you know how people feel about it. Ask them.

Start by replying: what happened to each idea and why, without identifying anyone or promising what you can’t deliver.

You don’t have to say yes to every idea. Good consultation can surface real disagreement: some people want you in the town centre, others rely on the bus route to where you are now. You can’t do both. Say which way you went, and why. Then check whether the reply was useful and whether the change helped in practice.

Not every idea gets a yes. Every idea gets an answer.

On feeding back to the people who contribute, SCIE’s own co-production charter commits it to giving participants feedback on the results of their input within agreed times. It’s a practice standard, not a legal duty:

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#WhoBenefits #PeopleFirst #RightToBeHeard by @theonecoleman

What we build, and who we build it for.

Websites, apps and creative work, straight from the Work with us section of the new TLEP site. Click any piece of work and it opens: East Kent Mavericks, CCF, Coastal Studio, theonecoleman.co.uk, KONTROL, Vindx, TR[1]BE, Publish Studio, Echo Espresso and Wear Evelyn.

Got something that needs solving? Bring a real brief: a monthly retainer or a one-off job. We’ll scope the work, agree a price and show what it contributes.

info@tleproject.org

#WebDesign #AppDevelopment #CreativeStudio #SocialEnterprise #TLEP by @theonecoleman

If you don’t use it, why ask for it?

Someone sits down to apply for help and hits another page of questions. Some are necessary. Some they’ve already answered somewhere else. And some ask about their life, with no word on why.

They shouldn’t have to guess why you want to know.

So before a question goes on the form, ask four things. What decision does the answer support? Who reads it? What happens if it’s missing? Does it need collecting now, or only once someone is approved?

Careful, though. Some checks are essential. A safeguarding question can look like red tape. Cut one you don’t understand and you can push the risk onto the people the funding should protect.

Sit down with the people who fill the form in. Keep the necessary questions and tell them why they’re there. Remove what nobody can justify. And check your privacy and safeguarding duties before you change what you collect.

More information isn’t the same as better understanding. Look at your own form: which question couldn’t you explain to the person filling it in?

On funders asking only for what a funding decision needs: IVAR’s Open and Trusting commitments, including “Ask relevant questions”

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#WhoBenefits #CharityFunding #FairAccess by @theonecoleman

Some people take, then act like they’re the one who got wronged. Oldest move in the book, and too often it works.

Psychologist Jennifer Freyd named it DARVO: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. You raise it, they deny it, they go for you, and somehow you’re the bad guy now.

Think about it like the game. You both play fair. Then they take. You respond, like you should. Now they feel wronged, because their story starts at your response, not at their take. So they take again, can’t let it go, and nobody can play fair anymore.

Let it slide forever and they’ll keep taking. That’s where abuse gets room. So respond straight away, then forgive. Forgiving checks people back in. And if you’re the one who took first? Check yourself. “Maybe that was me. Cool, how do we fix it?” Everyone does better from there.

Some people get stuck in victim mode, where looking right matters more than being right. Then they build a bubble of people who agree, and more people saying it starts to feel like proof. It isn’t.

Hurt people hurt people. A lot of people who keep taking are carrying hurt they never dealt with. That explains it. It doesn’t excuse it. And real harm is real: none of this means everyone who speaks up is lying.

Playing the victim is easy. Owning your shit takes character. Watch for it in anyone meant to be teaching others. People learn from them.

Marcus Aurelius said it nearly 2,000 years ago: “The best way of avenge going thyself is not to become like the wrong-doer”

DON’T. BECOME. THEM.
1. Start fair.
2. Don’t let harm pass.
3. Forgive when they play fair again.
4. Be clear.

Four rules. One test.

Sources on each card: Freyd (1997), Baumeister et al. (1990), Axelrod (1984), Nowak & Sigmund (1992), Gabay et al. (2020), Nguyen (2020), Ok et al. (2021), Widom (1989), Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.6.

#Accountability #BeClear #GameTheory #LivedExperience TLEP by @theonecoleman

You fund “small” organisations. Small by what?

Annual income? Staff numbers? The local branch, or the whole organisation? Which year counts? And what if income jumped last year because of a one-off grant?

Take a made-up group. Its latest accounts show £140,000, including a one-off £60,000 grant. Averaged over three years, it’s about £92,000. It has four staff. Set the cut-off at £100,000 of last year’s income and it isn’t small. Use the three-year average, or a 10-staff limit, and it is.

A simple threshold can make things clearer, and there can be good reasons to pick one measure. Then say which one, before people put the effort in. Otherwise a group can spend days on a bid and only then find out the money was never meant for them.

So put the definition right next to the invitation: the measure, whose figures (branch or whole organisation), the period, the cut-off, which records you use and how you treat unusual cases. Then check it actually reaches the groups the scheme was meant for.

A size rule can’t tell you everything about need or quality. But an unexplained one can decide who never gets a chance.

For context, the Charity Commission’s analysis of 2024 annual returns (England and Wales) sorts charities into income bands, from under £10,000 to over £5 million. Income is one way to measure size. It isn’t the only one.

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#WhoBenefits #CharityFunding #FairAccess by @theonecoleman

Most of us were taught to keep our heads down and take it.

In 1980, experts sent their best strategies into a computer tournament to find out what actually works when people keep meeting each other.

The winner wasn’t the toughest or the cleverest.

It was the fairest.

1. Start fair.
2. Don’t let harm pass.
3. Forgive.
4. Be clear.

That’s the test we’re building TLEP around: a social enterprise in London, built in public, run on those four rules.

Which one do you find hardest: responding, or forgiving?

Play the game yourself (Soon) at tleproject.org

#GameTheory #Cooperation #TitForTat #SocialEnterprise #TLEP by @theonecoleman

You gave them a seat. Did you give them a say?

Someone in the meeting has real experience of the problem. That can improve the conversation. It doesn’t tell us how much influence they had.

Could they set the agenda? See the information? Question an assumption? Change the decision? Or were they mainly there to make the meeting look inclusive?

A person can sit through every item in that meeting and still have no influence over decisions that shape their life.

One seat can’t represent everyone’s experience, so ask whose voices are missing too. And before you praise the invitation, check what came with the seat. Explain their role before you invite them, including what they can actually change. Give them accessible information, time to prepare and fair payment where appropriate. Then record how their contribution affected the decision, where it didn’t, and how they can challenge that.

Next meeting, check the minutes. Can anyone point to what their seat changed, or explain why it couldn’t? If not, what was the seat for?

On sharing power with the people a service is for, and paying and reporting back to them: SCIE’s own co-production charter

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#WhoBenefits #PeopleFirst #RightToBeHeard by @theonecoleman

The person who spots a flaw early can help the whole team avoid a costly mistake.

But only if they feel able to say it.

I’m interested in building spaces where experience counts even when it complicates the plan. Where a quieter person’s idea gets a fair hearing. Where changing your mind doesn’t cost you your credibility.

That takes practice. It means explaining decisions, sharing credit and following through when somebody raises a concern.

That’s part of what I want to build through TLEP. It’s an ambition I’ll need to keep checking against how I actually work with people.

What’s one thing a team has done that made you feel your contribution mattered?

#Leadership #Cooperation #TeamCulture #CommunityBuilding #TLEP by @theonecoleman

If bad results cost you funding, who will report them?

The numbers came back weaker than hoped, and the report is due Friday. Does telling the truth start a conversation about what to fix, or put the funding on the line?

If it’s the second, the softer version looks safer. Nobody has to lie. The good news goes first, the problem further down. While the problem stays hidden, people keep getting help that isn’t working.

That’s a hypothesis, not a finding. Plenty of glowing reports are true. And if a funder already treats a disappointing result as something to learn from, good: write that down, so teams know before the report is due. A weak result can also come from thin resources or a method that couldn’t tell you much, not only from weak work. Honesty earns a fair hearing, not the same grant forever.

So, funders: say what happens before the results arrive. Keep honest learning separate from unsupported claims or serious poor practice, and give honest learning a route: agree what changes, check on a set date, then decide.

If you want useful evidence, make honesty useful.

On why one disappointing number may not tell you the work failed: HM Treasury and Evaluation Task Force, Quality in policy impact evaluation

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#WhoBenefits #Grantmaking #EvidenceMatters by @theonecoleman