What is up in our culture? To me it seems that in the US we are continually inundated with change, and yet somehow still manage to resist change and maintain rigidity.
Is this you?
In many of my conversations the theme of “reeling from all the change” shows up. The depth and breadth of change in our workplaces, communities, families, towns, and ways of relating to each other grows at such a pace that adapting has become a survival tool. The speed with which one needs to adapt likely has never come close to what many of us now are forced to manage.
What is particularly amazing to me is the resistance to significant change in the health care industry. What I don’t understand is why people get out on the streets in support of the status quo when overwhelming evidence tells us of the critical need to reform. Is fear simply the only answer, or is basic resistance to change that plays such a significant role?
And if resistance to the unknown is more powerful than the overwhelming need for improvement in the way health care is delivered and to whom, what does that say about our culture?
My perspective on this goes beyond what might be reduced to fear, whipped up by those opposing the change (the insurance and pharmaceutical industry, primarily). I see the situation lacking in any change management strategy that can then manifest in a successful change effort.
How might this work?
If one accepts the premise that government entities are more like a corporation than different, moving policy ideas to implementation can benefit from following proven corporate change principles. Why wouldn’t government leaders look to best practices from the corporate world to influence the process in such a way as to achieve its goal?
One could certainly argue the point that government is significantly different from a corporation so as to render the change methodology useless. Government can’t fire the people and certainly our quasi-democratic form won’t tolerate a(nother) dictator (especially in the post George W. Bush era).
But if we review principles and concepts of the change methodology used in corporate change efforts, might there be nuggets of wisdom that can transfer to the government arena?
Let’s look at the hypothetical methodology that might be employed if a state wanted to adopt a new methodology to provide child care services for all of its needy citizens.
This is an exploration of the question of whether or not there is transferability of corporate change management techniques when attempting to improve the community we share.
Imagine state government leaders convening to put forward a radical proposal to guarantee that all children will receive high quality care when parents are working. Through years of study and data collection, comparison with other similarly sized regions of the world and their means of providing such vital care, the leaders are prepared to present a new approach that they believe will solve this social problem.
A corporation has the luxury of a smaller group of leaders who wrestle with policy decisions to arrive at change that comes in the form of new services or products. The government, in contrast, must wrestle with elected officials seeking the limelight and openly debating potential policy changes that could impact millions of people.
In this hypothetical example, state leaders have an agreed upon a solution to a public problem and now must “sell” the idea to various levels of leadership throughout the state. Taking this approach would be mimicking the corporate technique of developing leadership “champions” to drive the change through lower level management with the goal of preparing those most impacted by the approaching change.
Here’s how the leaders in the child care initiative might approach attaining their goal:
1. Start with clearly articulating a vision for the change. Paint a picture of what will be the result of this improvement in child care services for the citizens of the state. What will society look like as a result of this investment of time and effort to make the change happen? What will be the result for people, business, communities? What specific direction are the leaders bringing the state and, most importantly, what’s in it for me?
2. Pull in leaders from communities throughout the state to introduce the vision and the specific changes that, when implemented, would achieve the vision. Set the expectation with them for becoming citizen champions of the change.
3. Frame the message as one of economic equality. In the truest sense, the proposal for change must have significant benefits for the majority, and the case for change must be strongly and regularly articulated.
4. Debate the solution through the legislative process, continually taking the high ground of demonstrating how the proposed change will benefit the majority and strengthen the resilience, health, and well-being of the community and its citizens. This is the key piece of the work because leaders need to inspire champions at all levels of society to push the same vision within their communities.
5. Use the opportunity of legislative debate to continue to influence the thinking of those who will ultimately need to do something different to implement the new legislative mandates. Building support for legislation and its passage needs to come from the grassroots as the effort only begins with the passage of the new policy.
Comparison with software implementation at the corporate level
In software implementation we talk of the difference between installation of the system and implementation. Certainly designing and building the software, and the preparation for installation, is much less challenging than the process of getting new users to learn and master the intended benefits of the system. Implementation is getting new users to readily adopt the system, learn its nuances, and begin to draw out the return on investment.
So, too, must legislators and other leaders not only pass legislation to improve the community, they must prepare those impacted by the new law for implementation. Involving interested parties who have championed the change activity in any plans for implementation will be the key to move from installation to implementation.
Now it’s your turn. From your perspective, how might change management principles be incorporated into public policy development and implementation?
