Example: When Powerful Parties Want Change but the Path Is Not Clear and Risks are High
Situation/Issue
When many different change processes need to be initiated at the same time, and when the success of one will influence the success of another, it is of vital importance to have excellent communication, efficiency, and alignment. The World Bank’s principal institutional development specialist was faced with such a challenge as he advised the secretary to cabinet of Zambia about how the country could go about reforming the operations of all of its cabinet ministries or agencies.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund had insisted on important reductions in the cost of government operations as a precondition for loans that would help this new democracy gain fiscal stability. The newly elected leaders had run on a platform of better service and more accountability in government and agreed with the Bank’s objective, but the question was how to accomplish it without creating economic chaos and possibly civil unrest.
The stakes in managing the change process were high. Loss of confidence by aid agencies would cost the government needed financial resources, and loss of public support would increase the risk of labor union resistance, loss of momentum and potentially a coup attempt. The specialist and the secretary to cabinet discussed how to proceed and decided that the 50 top civil servants and a group of donor representatives and functional specialists would need to be brought together if a satisfactory plan was to be developed. They were certain that it would take a week to cover all the issues and that they would be lucky to succeed.
They were concerned about the:
- Need for a way to encourage government officials and donor agencies to understand the nature and depth of today’s problems
- Need to stimulate fresh thinking about how to change 20-year-old bureaucratic approaches
- Problems of managing a very large group of people with different cultural and national backgrounds and widely differing objectives and experiences
- Need to hold participants’ interest and enthusiasm through a long and complex analysis and avoid the deadening effect of speech after speech
Stakeholders
The stakeholders in this broad change process included:
- Permanent secretaries who run the various government agencies. In the previous government the incumbents were subject to regular change, apparently unrelated to performance. The new democratic government now told the permanent secretaries, “You are accountable to the people through the parliament. Reexamine your functions, improve the quality of service, and reduce costs.” The permanent secretaries knew this was an enormous challenge because policies and procedures were not in place and morale in their organizations was low.
- Local administrators were accountable to the local electorate, but controlled very few resources. They wanted the authority and means to fulfill their obligations.
- Labor unions were stakeholders because the government owned and operated a wide number of businesses due to the policies of the previous socialist government. They were not invited to the first strategy-setting session but would be invited to later ones. They had made it clear they would paralyze the country with strikes if their members were not treated fairly.
- Elected officials knew that success of this reform would bear heavily on whether the move to democracy would endure.
- World Bank representatives wanted the government to conceive a plan that could reduce government dominance of the economy without causing political disruption
- The British Overseas Development Administration had been working for years to help upgrade the quality of government administration, particularly in local communities. It understood the need for real commitment by government officials and hoped for a plan that would distribute power in a balanced manner.
<h3>A.The approach taken by the change agent</h3>
The institutional specialist was highly concerned that both a lack of creativity and personal concerns of people in powerful positions would slow if not block the identification of a change strategy. He engaged a change management specialist and they planned out an intensive four-day meeting. He knew each government agency needed to make its own unique changes but that all the agencies needed to agree on a number of common points.
- How the government would decentralize authority
- How planning, budgeting, and financial control would be improved
- How to improve personnel performance and redesign the reward system
- A layoff policy
The workshop was brought to order by the deputy secretary to the cabinet, who outlined the challenges facing the government. The group was broken into nine subgroups of five or six which focused on one of the four key processes of government listed previously. The subgroups built visual models of the processes, compared their views in plenary sessions, and reached full consensus on all consequent matters. Their sequence of analysis followed the proven quality improvement method of examining the current state, projecting an ideal vision, and creating a transition plan. In addition, they defined terms of reference for leaders of change in individual agencies and the overall program coordinator.
<h3>B.Results/Benefits</h3>
The workshop was highly participative and everyone had the opportunity to thoroughly voice opinions and help build the plan. The maps of the present state provided an opportunity for catharsis, where the government employees could air their grievances about the former government and pronounce their willingness to change.
While making the second maps, the group generated fresh ideas, most notably for the intractable problem of how to move thousands of people out of government jobs without creating disastrous unemployment. The transition maps gave participants the opportunity to make commitments to change actions. Because donor agencies came to more clearly understand the local political situation, they were able to see how they could contribute to the reform process.
Constructing the maps provided a springboard for mutual understanding, and teamwork reached unprecedented high levels. Donor agency people had the opportunity to solve problems with people whom they had once monitored and controlled and they were struck by their competency. Government officials got to know and respect the donors as people and respect the personal contributions they could make to thinking through and solving problems. The relationship paradigm between the international agencies and the government changed, at least for a time, from donor-recipient to partnership in problem solving. The results exceeded all the objectives the stakeholders had set and established a firm plan for reform. The President was privately briefed and supported the plan fully.