Do we have Agency – or not?

I have never understood those who used the language of revolutionary change – they seemed to live on another planet. I was actually a young Fabian – even before I learned about Karl Popper’s falsification principle and read his “Open Society and its Enemies”.

My theory of change was once expressed as a simple “pincer” one – “get them from both above and below” but then moved to that of the “windows of opportunity” expressed initially thus -   

• “Windows of opportunity present themselves - from outside the organization, in crises, pressure from below
• reformers have to be technically prepared, inspire confidence – and able to seize and direct the opportunity
• Others have to have a reason to follow
• the new ways of behaving have to be formalized in new structures.

And then developed a more detailed formulation which put more emphasis on the individual, moral responsibility – 

“Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity arises. Those who care about the future of their society, prepare for these “windows of opportunity”. And the preparation is about analysis, mobilisation and trust.

·         It is about us caring enough about our organisation and society to speak out about the need for change.

·         It is about taking the trouble to think and read about ways to improve things – and

·         To help create and run networks of such change.

·         And it is about establishing a personal reputation for probity and good judgement 

·         that people will follow your lead when that window of opportunity arises”.

I am not a fan of Malcolm Gladwell but his popularisations have included the important notion of the Tipping Point -  where he suggested (in 2010) that there were three key factors which determine whether an idea or fashion will “tip” into wide-scale popularity - the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. The “Law of the Few” proposes that a few key types of people must champion an idea, concept, or product before it can reach the tipping point. Gladwell describes these key types as –

·         Connectors,

·         Mavens, and

·         Salesmen.

(And a maven – in case you didn’t know - is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. The word maven comes from the Hebrew, via Yiddish, and means one who understands, based on an accumulation of knowledge).

But I have never been able to get my head around complexity and systems theory – perhaps because it offended by sense of human agency. I have never been able to accept the fatalism that seems embedded in it. I certainly agree that effective change doesn’t come from the “ya-boo yo-yo” system of adversarial power blocs of the UK and USA – it comes from a combination of sustained dialogue; coalitions of change; and grassroots activism and protest.

And, often, it starts with an experiment – rather than a grand programme…Take, for example, what is now being called the Dutch model for neighbourhood care – started by Buurtzorg a few years back which is now inspiring people everywhere. That is a worker cooperative model… which, quite rightly, figures in Frederic Laloux’s  Reinventing Organisations.

I last wrote about this a couple of years ago – when I had pulled titles from my library (real and virtual) which appeared to deal with the issue. These, I emphasised, didn’t claim to represent anything except the vagaries of my purchases and interests. They do, however, seem to reflect important stages in the very slow understanding which has overtaken us in the past half century that we have allowed a perverse linear/mechanistic model of society to occupy our minds…….

The date of the first book is 1967……. That’s 50 years ago….a long time for an idea to gestate and develop….

 

Titles from 1967	Clarity Factor	Significance	full book?
The Costs of Economic Growth; EJ Mishan (1967)	2	The first time an economist warns of this – accessible here	yes
The Limits to Growth; Club of Rome (1972)	2	The book which made the warning global
The Sane Alternative – a choice of futures; James Robertson (1978)	1	“Small is Beautiful” (1973) was seen as partisan, if not extreme. James Robertson’s book put the case in more balanced terms	Yes
The Whale and the Reactor – the search for limits in an age of high technology; Langdon Winner (1986)	2	Amazingly prescient book -	Yes
The Fifth Discipline; the art and practice of the learning organisation; Peter Senge (1990)	3	Made the concepts of systems and of “the learning organisation” fashionable
The Development Dictionary – a guide to knowledge as power; ed W Sachs  (1992)	2	A powerful challenge to “the western view”	Yes
The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook; Peter Senge 1994	2	The sub-title says it all - strategies and tools for building a learning organisation
The Web of Life Fritjof Capra 1996	4	A well-intentioned presentation of systems thinking – but tough going
Deep Change; Robert Quinn 1996	2	Quinn’s first draft of what became the superb “Change the World”
Leadership and the new Science – discovering order in a chaotic world Margaret Wheatley 1999	2	An early classic in the attempt to present a new world of complexity
Dialogue and the art of thinking together; William Isaacs (1999)	3	One of many focusing on dialogue…
Change the World; Robert Quinn (2000)	1	I simply don’t understand why this book is so seldom mentioned….perhaps because it makes a moral case?
The Ingenuity Gap – how can we solve the problems of the future? Thomas Homer-Dixon (2001)	1	A fascinating book which focuses on the complexity of the contemporary world – with a powerful narrative
Towards Holistic Governance – the new reform agenda; Perri 6, Leat, Seltzer and Stoker (2002)	4	Cooperation in government is an important topic but is dealt with in an over-confident and technical manner by these academics
Systems thinking – creative holism for managers; Michael Jackson (2003)	4	Very comprehensive but – at 378 pages – not immediately user-friendly….	Yes
Critical Mass; Philip Ball (2004)	3	A popular attempt to look at systems issues which probably tries to cover too many areas
Building the Bridge as you walk on it – a guide for leading change; Robert Quinn (2004)	2	Note quite as good as his “Change the World”	yes
An End to Suffering – the Buddha in the World; Pankaj Mishra( 2004)	1	A delightful idea and easy read
Presence – exploring profound change in people, organisations and society; P Senge et al (2005)	3	A conversation between 4 friends which reflects their uncertainties. Just a bit too self-indulgent and self-referential
The Dictionary of Alternatives – utopianism and organisation; ed M Parker, V Fournier and P Reedy (2007)	3	A nice idea – which I have still to read Accessible here	yes
Thinking in Systems – a primer; Donella Meadows (2008)	2	the discussion about “leverage points” is an immensely important one. The early pages are a delight to read –	Yes
Exploring the Science of Complexity; Ben Ramalingam et al (ODI 2008)	5	Almost incoherent – but see “Aid on the edge of Chaos” below	Yes
The Master and His Emissary – the divided brain and the making of the Western World; Iain McGilchrist (2009)	4	Apparently a very important read but, with more than 500 pages, too big a challenge for me….
Deconstructing Development Buzzwords (2010)	3	Clever…	Yes
Power and Love; a theory and practice of social change; Adam Kahane (2010)	2	Most authors would avoid a title like this - but Kahane’s south African experience makes this a great story, read here	yes
The Dance on the Feet of Chance; Hooman Attar (2010)	4	A bit too technical – but honest
Mastery; Robert Greene (2012)	1	An important topic, nicely presented by a craftsman of his trade. Read here	yes
Aid on the Edge of Chaos; Ben Ramalingam (2013)	3	A very comprehensive treatment of the various strands but ultimately (at 450 pages) indigestible
Embracing Complexity – strategic perspectives for an age of turbulence; J Boulton, P Allen and C Bowman (2015)	1	At first glance, wonderfully clear
How Change Happens Duncan Green (2016)	1	With its focus on the marginalised of the world, this may not immediately attract but it’s one the best discussions of change…	Yes
Can We Know Better?; Robert Chambers (2017)	1	What could be final reflections from the development scholar who wrote “Whose Reality Counts? putting the Last First”…	Yes
Doughnut Economics – seven ways to think like a 21st century economist; K Raworth (2017)	1	Didn’t seem part of this discussion – but the clarity of her exposition of how certain ideas first came to be developed blows you away!!
Commanding hope – the power we have to renew a world in peril; Thomas- Homer-Dixon (2020)	1	One of the first books which takes the environmental crisis as a given and concentrates the discussion on the reasons why people resist the message – or don’t follow thro in actions	yes

 

Theories of Change - mine and other people's

For the past few years, people in the “development” field have been encouraged to have a “theory of change”. The global technocracy had at last been forced to recognise that its attempts to make political institutions in “developing” countries more open to economic development had not been working - and that a different more local, inclusive and incremental approach was needed if there were to be any prospects for improving the government systems under which so many citizens are yoked….. 

Practitioners of this curious field often use the phrase “Doing Development Differently” – there is a nice short powerpoint presentation here of the main ideas to complement the OECD paper which is the first hyperlink

I.ve had my own theories of organisational change – whether in Scotland in the 1970s and 80s or in central Asia in the 2000s – always (I have just realised) with the assumption that "we" were facing the implacable force of what the great organisational analyst Donald Schoen in 1970 called “dynamic conservatism”

When I was lucky enough to find myself in a position of strategic leadership in a new and large organisation in the mid 1970s, we used what I called the “pincer approach” to set up reform structures at both a political and community level. The organisational culture was, of course, one of classic bureaucracy – but, from its very start, some of us made sure that it had to contend with the unruly forces of political idealism and community power. The regional body concerned was responsible for such local government functions as education, social work, transport, water and strategic planning for two and half million people; and employed 100,000 staff but not has been written about it.

You’ll find the full story of the strategy here – and a short version here. 

Thirty years later. I was doing a lot of training sessions in the Presidential Academies of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan and developed there what I called the “opportunistic” or “windows of opportunity” theory of change against what I started to call “impervious regimes” ie so confident of the lack of challenge to their rule that they had become impervious to their citizens -

“Most of the time our systems seem impervious to change – but always (and suddenly) an opportunity arises. Those who care about the future of their society, prepare for these “windows of opportunity”. And the preparation is about analysis, mobilisation and trust.

·         It is about us caring enough about our organisation and society to speak out about the need for change.

·         It is about taking the trouble to think and read about ways to improve things – and helping create and run networks of such change.

·         And it is about establishing a personal reputation for probity and good judgement that people will follow your lead when that window of opportunity arises”.

I realised that it would be difficult to implement such an approach in Beijing when I arrived there in January 2010 to take up the role of Team Leader in a “Rule of Law” project and made a fast exit from a project that was supposed to last for 4 years – for reasons I tried to explain in a note called Lost in Beijing.

A year later, I tried to share some of my concerns about how the European Commission was dealing with capacity development in “transition countries” with participants at the annual NISPAcee Conference in Varna. But The Long Game – not the log-frame was met with indifference.

As it happens that was the year the World Bank published its quite excellent People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011). And it was 2015 before this guide on “change management for rule of law practitioners” saw the light of day    

I said earlier that I had always assumed that reformers were facing “implacable force” in their intervention but need now to question this..…not just because 1989 showed how easily certitudes and legitimacy can crumble….. but also because management writing has in the past 2 decades paid a lot more attention to chaos and uncertainty – even before the 2006 global crisis (eg Meadows and Wheatley).

As someone who has always felt compelled to try to intervene in social processes (ie of an “activist” mode) I readily admit that my initial responses to those who argued that every force attracts a counterforce and, most memorably, that “the flap of a butterfly’s wings can ultimately contribute to tornados”…has been one of impatience. Quite a lot of the writing on “chaos theory” and even “systems theory” seemed to me to run the risk of encouraging fatalism.

One of my favourite writers - AO Hirschmann – actually devoted a book (”The Rhetoric of Reaction”; 1991) to examining three arguments conservative writers use for dismissing the hopes of social reformers:

- the perversity thesis holds that any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy.

- The futility thesis argues that attempts at social transformation will be unavailing, that they will simply fail to “make a dent.”

- the jeopardy thesis argues that the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment.

He was right to call out those writers; but we perhaps need a similar framework these days to help us make sense of the world of chaos in which we live. I had been aware of systems thinking in the 1970s (particularly in the writing of Geoffrey Vickers and Stafford Beer) and again in 2010 and, finally, in a 2011 post which focused on complexity theory. My brief foray into the subject didn’t greatly enlighten me but I have a feeling I should return to the challenge….

I have therefore a little pile of books on my desk – including The Web of Life (Fritjof Capra 1996); Leadership and the new Science – discovering order in a chaotic world (Margaret Wheatley 1999); Thinking in Systems (Donella Meadows 2009) – as well as a virtual book Systems thinking – creative holism for managers; Michael Jackson (2003). 

So let’s see if my older self is capable of new insights……. 

Back to the serious stuff

I’ve been indulging myself during the past 2 weeks – both in my activities here in Sofia and the blogposts which have followed them. Time to get serious! I reproduced yesterday an example of a great blogpost – from one of the BBC correspondents. It was an extended brainstorm and produced high-level responses – unlike newspaper threads. I have another good example today – from the archdruid report – which raises the issue of systems thinking.
I’ve been trying to get my head around the implications of systems thinking for some time – I flagged the issue up here … and here. I can understand very well the implications for government policy-making – namely that it should have more respect for the natural order (Lovelock’s Gaia thesis is the logical extreme of that); and more reliance on community-level decision-making. Reliance on market mechanisms too - provided, however, that the basic preconditions of a market are present, namely free entry, free flow of information, multiple suppliers and proper costing of external costs. The word „market” is, in our times, has almost religious value – and is attached (by big business) to processes and operations which are utterly oligopolistic and which have nothing to do with the market. It is not so much socialism as big business which is the enemy of the market. I digress….but, methinks, it’s an important digression.
The implications for organisations of the systems approach is something which I have more difficulty with – even although there is a 500 page book which will spell out this for you which you can access at the bottom of the September 3 post.

I have in the next week to tryo to draft a paper which I have been putting off – for the next NISPAcee Conference (for institutes of public admin in east and central europe) which is being held this year in Varna, just down the road from here. I sent them this outline some months back -

I have spent 40 years of my life on various endeavours concerned to make public service systems more responsive to citizens.
The first 20 years was in Scotland – as an academic and political leader in municipal and regional government to which I helped introduce community development principles and practice. But, at the same time, I supported the various efforts at establishing a corporate management capacity – to ensure that the political leaders had some analysis at hand to allow them to deal with the power of the various specialised professions which dominated service delivery in those days. One of the important principles to me then was that of the pincer movement – achieving change from a combination of challenges from above and below.
These were the years when it was possible to believe that politics was an honourable profession and that (local) government could deliver results for its citizens.

My last 20 years has been spent living and working in central europe and central asia as a consultant to national state bodies in their various decentralisation and civil service reform efforts.
This period has coincided with a global enthusiasm for (and, much more recently, a certain reaction against) all things concerned with the private sector. The political system in most countries got too close to that sector – and is now, perhaps fatally, burned.
And the reform effort - which was initially driven by committed individuals - has become sanitised and castrated by technocrats and the project management from which earlier reform efforts might have benefited.
All of which has made it difficult for those working in transition countries to offer the expected models of good practice. Throughout the 40 years, I have tried to follow the relevant literature on improving government – and to share what lessons my own experience seemed to suggest with those interested. For example, at the 2006 NISPAcee Conference, I offered one of the critical papers on Technical Assistance which led to the establishment the following year of the working group on PA Reform. Its most important section was - Those of us who have got involved in these programmes of advising governments in these countries confront a real moral challenge. We are daring to advise these countries construct effective organisations; we are employed by organisations supposed to have the expertise in how to put systems together to ensure that appropriate intervention strategies emerge to deal with the organisational and social problems of these countries; we are supposed to have the knowledge and skills to help develop appropriate knowledge and skills in others! But how many of us can give positive answers to the following 5 questions? -
• Do the organisations which pay us practice what they and we preach on the ground about good organisational principles?
• Does the knowledge and experience we have as individual consultants actually help us identify and implement interventions which fit the context in which we are working?
• Do we have the skills to make that happen?
• What are the bodies which employ consultants doing to explore such questions – and to deal with the deficiencies which I dare to suggest would be revealed?
• Do any of us have a clue about how to turn kleptocratic regimes into systems that recognise the meaning of public service?
At Varna, I would like to take the gloves off – and suggest some unpalatable lessons from the last few decades – for both training institutes and the EC. But, above all, for us as individuals!

The graphic is another Tudor Banus - "sens de la vie"