When the spark ignites

Sometimes a nation or a people feel such humiliation and anger about the way they are being treated that it takes only one incident to spark off a protest which makes the prevailing regime crumble. It’s said that one picture is worth (variously) a thousand or ten thousand words - although, these days, I would put the equation at more like a billion words and I would focus on dramatic actions - rather than pictures.  

Last month I discussed a neglected classic which explored the question of how people such as Jesus Christ and Mahatmi Gandhi came to inspire the world….Emile Zola’s famous J’Accuse letter may have been more than a hundred years ago but inspired one of the western world’s first social movements – which split France in half.
Saul Alinsky’s writings set in motion several generations of community activists. A black woman refused in December 1955 to obey racist instructions to move to the back of a bus…- thereby starting what became the US Civil Rights movement…….Police brutality has often been the cause of riots eg the Watts Riots of August 1965 in Los Angeles.

But it was probably Jan Palach’s act of setting himself on fire on 16 January 1969 in the centre of Prague (in protest against people’s indifference to the Russian invasion in the summer) which made the greatest impact. His memory stayed alive for the 20 years it took for the country to liberate itself……

 93-year old Stephane Hessel was so offended by the world’s treatment of Palestine (amongst other things) that in 2010 he published Time for Outrage (2010) which quickly climbed to the top of the best sellers….
Later that same year Mohamed Bouazizi - a Tunisian street vendor – also set himself alight in response to the confiscation of his wares by a municipal official and her aides. The subsequent riots led the then-president of Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to step down on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power – and became a catalyst for the wider Arab Spring.

For every such defining moment, however, there are probably a million protests which lead nowhere….. The focus of protests have been variously industrial, racial, environmental, gender, housing, invasion. What, I have to wonder, makes the difference?

In all humility I wonder whether those Romanians who have taken to the street in the past couple of years - or even those such as Dorel Sandor and Alina Mungiu-Pippidi - should perhaps not be using that experience and literature to explore more deeply that basic question…..

Romania may have had blood on the streets in December 1989 but – unlike Poland and Czechoslovakia - its intellectuals were fairly passive until then (with the honourable exception of people like Ana Blandiana and Mircea Dinescu).

Social change, after all, doesn’t come from writing, consultancy or television appearances – but from a willingness to sacrifice…… Please understand that I’m not denigrating the writers when I say that – they are necessary but not sufficient. That’s clearly one of the messages which comes from the books I’ve selected for the important reading list I’ve developed below….

How, sub-consciously, we compartmentalise the world

It’s interesting what happened as I was developing this reading list……I knew that what I wanted to do was list some of books I had found useful in what is a massive literature on the experience and tactics of social struggle….ie a grassroots movement…..But I found references slipping in which I quickly realised didn’t fit……..which dealt what we might call “reform efforts from within the system of power”…..eg the World Bank titles and the Guide to Change management….. This blog has noticed repeated instances of people writing about the same issue but doing so with totally different language, concepts and “frames of reference” and – most importantly – without realising that there were “parallel universes” in which the same conversations were being conducted….

Having noticed this, I remembered the post I had done a year ago - Is it people who change systems - or systems which change people? – in which I had recounted the “pincer movement of change” I had developed in the 1970s. This argued that significant and lasting policy change required both “push and pull” – ie a combination of grassroots pressure with insiders sympathetic to change….Twenty five years later and in a different continent I developed what I called the “opportunistic” or “windows of opportunity” theory of change which I would expound to bewildered central Asian  bureaucrats…. 

“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.

- 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”.

 Reading list on social change

The selection is a very personal one and ranges from the passionate to the technical – with a  smattering of books that are more descriptive…..Temperamentally I go (at least these days) for the more analytical (and generic) works and the development literature is therefore probably a bit overrepresented (and the feminist underrepresented). Readers should also be aware that I was a strong community activist in my early days….

The first 8 titles can be read in full – as can the last 4. Strange that none of the books is written by a political scientist (with the possible exception of Gene Sharp). Machiavelli would be turning in his grave

Key Books for “social change” activists

Title	Focus	Notes
How Change Happens Duncan Green (2016)	Community groups and officials	Great overview – if from only a development experience perspective
A Guide to Change and Change Management for Rule of Law Practitioners (2015)	Transition countries Political culture	Very rare attempt to bring the insights of change management to those trying to build “rule of law” in transition and developing countries
People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011)	Change agents in government	One of the best – straddling the various worlds of action, academia and officialdom – with the focus on fashioning an appropriate message and constituency for change
Finding Frames – new ways to engage the UK public in global poverty (2011)	Charities	A great example of frame analysis – showing the importance of trying to identify the link between social values and politics
Indignez-vous; Stephane Hessel (2010)	Social justice	Inspiring pamphlet from the Frenchman whose whole life has been an inspiration to us all
Common Cause – the case for working with our cultural values (2010)	Activists for global concerns	One of the most important 100 pages any social activist could read….it’s simply tragic that 8 years later, it would now be seen as revolutionary
Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions – citizens, stakeholders and Voice (World Bank 2008)	Change agents in government	A decade on, it’s still offers one of the clearest frameworks for making government systems work for people
Wicked Problems and clumsy solutions – the role of leadership; Keith Grint (2008)	leaders	A must-read analysis which introduced many people to frame analysis - helps us adopt a more holistic approach
Live Working, Die Fighting – how the working class went global; Paul Mason (2007)	trade unionists	A story that needed telling in a media and political world which is now so hostile to working people organising to improve their lot
Blessed Unrest – how the largest movement in the world came into being and why no one saw it coming; Paul Hawken (2007)	Environment	This is the field which has probably seen the most action – but the least results!
Change the World; Robert Quinn (2000)	Eclectic	A tragically neglected book
From Dictatorship to Democracy – a conceptual framework for liberation; Gene Sharp (1993)	Regime change	The handbook for a lot of soi-disant revolutionaries….its provenance is a bit suspect….
Putting the Last First; Robert Chambers (1983)	Donors	A morally powerful book which challenged (to little avail) the “imperialist” assumptions of most technical assistance programmes
Rules for Radicals; Saul Alinsky (1971)	Community action	THE handbook for generations of activists… the follow-up apparently to Reveille for Radicals which he published in 1946!

Occupy theory; is the first volume of a 3 vol series written by Michel Albert to mark the Occupy movement, the others being Occupy Vision and Occupy Strategy

When I googled “reading lists on social protest” I got this interesting selection https://c4aa.org/2017/02/reading-list-activism/

Revisiting a neglected management classic

Just before this blog went silent in early August, I had written an important post distinguishing 5 very different “theories of change” ....wondering why so few mutual links had been made by the practitioners of the 5 "schools". I now realise I may have missed the most important school of all – that of “managing change”
Whenever the issue of change comes up, I rarely miss the chance to plug a book which was published in 2000 - Change the World by a management theorist Robert Quinn.

It stood out from the huge mass of books about managing change I had been reading in the late 1990s for its explanation of why so many change efforts fail – offering a typology (and critique) of four different strategies – “telling”, “selling”, “participating” and “transforming” – and daring to pose the challenging question of how individuals such as Gandhi, Luther King, Jesus Christ came to inspire millions…..

Virtually all books on managing change until then were (and most remain) what I would call “mechanistic” – offering apparently neutral tools of the sort consultants claiming objectivity can use. Quinn dares to introduce a moral tone – which both management writers and practitioners find a bit embarrassing. Their very legitimacy, after all, rests on the claims they make to scientific authority…..

This is perhaps why most of his writing passes under our radar. The same fate overtook Robert Greenleaf whose books on “stewardship” are so valuable……

A European audience does recoil a bit when they see the sub-title of Quinn’s Change the World, “how ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary results” – even if such hyping is a well-known US habit….His book then proceeds to offer 8 injunctions for those who aspire to be change-agents, some of which may offer challenges to the translator – the summary I offer in the middle column is from my memory of a book which is almost 20 years old. Since then, our view of the world has been hugely upset – not least by the social movements since then; by the 2008 global financial crisis; and by more recent books such as Reinventing Organisations by Frederic Laloux - my final column offers some preliminary and terse comments on how the injunctions have withstood the test of time ….

Quinn’s 8 Injunctions for changing the world (2000 )

Quinn Injunction	What one reader thinks he means	Fit with mainstream and newer literature
“Envisage the Productive Community”	Imagine how the system would work if we treated one another generously - Don’t be satisfied with second-best	Laloux has a lot to say about this
“First Look Within”	Set your own standards of excellence – don’t go with the mob	The self is very much back in fashion
“Embrace the Hypocritical Self”	Be aware of your own double standards	Still worthwhile
“Transcend Fear”	We always feel a pressure to conform and fear the consequences of appearing different	Ditto
“embody a Vision of the Common Good”	Don’t be afraid to demonstrate behavior consistent with what your ethical sense tells you	Laloux and the whole solidarity ethic much stronger these days
Disturb the system		20 years on, we probably have too much of this now!
“Surrender to the Emergent Process	Events can never be controlled – so let go	Chaos theory also back in fashion
“Entice Through Moral Power”	As above	See Laloux

“Change the World” is actually one of a trilogy Quinn has written – the first being “Deep change” – and the final one “Building the Bridge as you Walk on it – a guide for leading change” (2004) an outline of whose basic argument can be found here. 

Although I often reference Quinn, this is the first time I have written at length about him and notice a tinge of defensiveness as I reflect on his message……which perhaps sometimes smacks of “motherhood and apple pie”. He writes here about how the responses he received from his first book were the inspiration for the third - 

They defied what is written in almost all textbooks on management and leadership… common understanding and practice….. suggesting that every one of us has the capacity to transform our organizations into more positive, productive communities. Yet it is a painful answer that almost no one wants to hear. That is why it is not in the books on management and leadership. Painful answers have no market. The man states: “I know it all happened because I confronted my own insecurity, selfishness, and lack of courage.”

In the early 1990s I would look for copies of Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of really effective People which had been translated into the language of the country I was working in – partly to ensure that we had a common frame of reference but mainly because of its encouragement of what I considered to be useful ethical practices….. 

  Robert Quinn is still writing - not least on a blog the positive organization - although I suspect he has fallen prey to what happens to most gurus……they end up as egocentrics on egotrips……

I wold hope to update the July table in a future post.....

More reading on social and organisational change

Supporting small steps – a rough guide for developmental professionals (Manning; OECD 2015)

A Governance Practitioner’s Notebook – alternative ideas and approaches (Whaites et al OECD 2015)

People, Politics and Change - building communications strategy for governance reform (World Bank 2011)

Governance Reform under Real-World Conditions – citizens, stakeholders and Voice (World Bank 2008)

Change Here! Managing change to improve local services (Audit Commission 2001)

chapter 6 of In Transit – notes on good governance (1999) 

https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2018/07/i-have-little-list_10.html

a Robert Quinn resource

http://business.unr.edu/faculty/simmonsb/badm720/actchange.pdf
https://keithdwalker.ca/wp-content/summaries/1-c/ChangeTheWorld.Quinn.EBS.pdf

https://learningforward.org/docs/jsd-fall-2001/quinn224.pdf?sfvrsn=2 

Building the Bridge as you walk on it – a guide for leading change; Robert Quinn (2004) With “Change the World”, one of my all-time favourites. Before attempting the entire book, you might find this summary useful; as well as this excerpt from the first chapter

Opportunistic theory of change

I left the mid-October discussion about public sector reform in transition countries rather hanging in the air. It was triggered by a review of Tom Gallagher’s recent book about Romania and its accession to the EU – reminding us all how skilfully, for 20 years, the political class has been able to resist external reform exhortations, drawing on the collective skills the country’s elites have developed over the generations in minimising external efforts at control or influence - whether from Moscow or Constantinople. And, of the other countries I know well, a recent report on Azerbaijan and article on Uzbekistan remind us how many traditional power structures have been able to maintain themselves.
I left the discussion with three draft questions -
• what advice would I give anyone looking to undertake real reform of such kleptocracies as Romania or Azerbaizan?
• How can such people be encouraged - what examples can we offer of government reform programmes actually making a difference?
• How can the effort to ensure good government be sustained in such countries – given the strength of financial and commercial systems and the iron law of oligrachy?

We have to face the possibility that technical assistance in these countries does little more than give the younger political elite a different political vocabulary to use in their grab for power. An interesting book I was able to download recently from the World Bank site Governance Reforms under real world conditions is written around the sorts of questions we consultants deal with on a daily basis -
1. How do we build broad coalitions of influentials in favour of change? What do we do about powerful vested interests?
2. How do we help reformers transform indifferent, or even hostile, public opinion into support for reform objectives?
3. How do we instigate citizen demand for good governance and accountability to sustain governance reform?
The paper by Matthew Andrews which starts part 2 of the book weaves a very good theory around 3 words – acceptance, authority and ability.

Is there acceptance of the need for change and reform?
• of the specific reform idea?
• of the monetary costs for reform?
• of the social costs for reformers?
• within the incentive fabric of the organization (not just with individuals)?

Is there authority:
• does legislation allow people to challenge the status quo and initiate reform?
• do formal organizational structures and rules allow reformers to do what is needed?
• do informal organizational norms allow reformers to do what needs to be done?

Is there ability: are there enough people, with appropriate skills,
• to conceptualize and implement the reform?
• is technology sufficient?
• are there appropriate information sources to help conceptualize, plan, implement, and institutionalize the reform?

A diagram shows that each of these plays a different role at the 4 stages of conceptualisation, initiation, transition and institutionalisation and that it is the space of overlapping circles that the opportunity for change occurs. “Reform space”, at the intersection of acceptance, authority, and ability, determines how much can be achieved. However the short para headed - Individual champions matter less than networks – was the one that hit nerves.

The individual who connects nodes is the key to the network but is often not the one who has the technical idea or who is called the reform champion. His or her skill lies in the ability to bridge relational boundaries and to bring people together. Development is fostered in the presence of robust networks with skilled connectors acting at their heart.

My mind was taken back almost 30 years when, as the guy in charge of Strathclyde Region’s strategy to combat deprivation but using my academic role, I established what I called the urban change network and brought together once a month a diverse collection of officials and councillors of different councils in the West of Scotland, academics and NGO people to explore how we could extend our understanding of what we were dealing with – and how our policies might make more impact. It was, I think, the single most effective thing I ever did. I still have the tapes of some of the discussions – one, for example, led by Professor Lewis Gunn on issues of implementation!
A few years back, I developed for the lectures I gave to middle managers in these kleptomanic states what I called an “opportunistic” theory of change –

• “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
Laws, regulations and other policy tools will work if there are enough people who want them to succeed. And such people do exist. They can be found in Parliaments (even in tame and fixed parliaments, there are individual respected MPs impatient for reform); Ministries of Finance; have an interest in policy coherence; NGOs; Younger generation – particularly in academia, policy shops and the media
The question is how they can become a catalytic force for change – and what is the legitimate role in this of donors?”
I have the weekend to see if I have anything to offer the next NISPAcee Conference which takes place in may just down the road - at Varna on the Black Sea. Since delivering the critical paper on TA in 2006, they have actually set up a working group on this issue and I really should do a follow up paper. But what?