Innovation is a hot topic (again!) in management circles these days. How do companies reinvent themselves to beat back competition and grow in size and value? Innovation hinges on change and creativity, both of which are notoriously difficult to manage or lead on demand. The usual management consulting techniques, tinkering with the mechanics of organizational structures and business processes tend to produce little if any improvement in innovation, which ties to more organic (and intangible) factors such as organizational culture and strategy.
Kaihan Krippendorff’s new book “The Way of Innovation” provides an important contribution to the literature on innovation, primarily by harkening back to principles of ancient Eastern philosophies of Buddhism and Taoism. Specifically, he provides a holistic strategic framework for instigating business innovation, deploying it, and perhaps most importantly, protecting and sustaining market gains deriving from those innovations.
The first half of the book lays out this framework. The core of this framework is a model of the five phases of change, cast metaphorically in elemental terms as Metal (discontent), Water (imagination), Wood (formation, development); Fire (breakout, rapid growth), and Earth (consolidation, protection). Krippendorff also draws on other Eastern concepts such as dualism (material vs immaterial/conceptual realities, creation-destruction), Sun Tzu’s models for framing conflict situations, and the strategic patterns he assembled for responding effectively.
Krippendorff explains the five phases model of innovation in detail, albeit at a fairly high strategic level. For readers immersed in day-to-day tactical and operational concerns, this perspective may seem somewhat ethereal and uncomfortable, but I believe that it is an appropriate and necessary approach. Fortunately, Krippendorff supplies numerous business examples to illustrate and ground his points.
The next section of the book reviews the five phases briefly, but this time supplies a set of guidelines, exercises, and templates for applying the framework to the reader’s organization. Given the abstract nature of the framework, this rehearsal serves to reinforce the structure of the framework and add some welcome “how tos”. The final section of the book presents eight case studies of innovative businesses, highlighting how those organizations dealt with each of the five phases of Krippendorff’s framework.
My one disappointment is that Krippendorff’s few references to existing literature are generally oblique and anonymous – explicit footnotes naming key names and resources on innovation and competition (e.g., Geoffrey Moore, Clayton Christensen, Everett Rogers, Kim and Mauborgne, Gary Hamel, Michael Porter, would be very helpful to readers wanting to learn more.
The Way of Innovation is a cogent and well written book. The framework Krippendorff suggests is genuinely insightful and helpful to leaders searching for ways to promote innovation. By staying at a high strategic level, Krippendorff necessarily goes into less depth and detail than authors that focus on particular phases of the innovation lifecycle (e.g., Moore’s Crossing the Chasm and Christensen’s Innovator’s Dilemma).
The advantage he gains and delivers to the reader, however, is a broader (Eastern) appreciation for the organic and cyclic nature of innovation. His approach also highlights the fact that different strategies (and tactics) are required as you progress through the different phases. This is particularly valuable in Krippendorff’s discussions of balance, which emphasizes the necessity of mastering all five phases of change in order to succeed and to sustain organizational innovation and competitiveness.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
Political Change Part 4 Finale: Agenda Dynamics
Presidential candidates for the 2008 election continue to posture about political change. I started this series by suggesting that claims to be agents of significant change are overblown.
In order to justify this position, I have described a groundbreaking theory describing political change in the US by Dr. John Kingdon. In previous postings, I reviewed Kingdon’s description of relevant actors in the arena of public policies and his taxonomy of key process streams: (1) defining problems (or setting agendas); (2) developing policy solutions; and (3) politics. Omitting details, the processes that drive agenda formation and resolution of problems are lengthy and complex. All three streams feature elements that are largely unpredictable.
In this last posting, we review Kingdon’s celebrated “garbage can” model, which explains how the process streams interact with one another. Kingdon’s model makes it painfully clear just how difficult it is for “change agents” to drive, much less control, political processes to produce desired laws. His thesis, in a nutshell, is that timing is (nearly) everything. The “garbage can” moniker refers to Kingdon’s model of process stream dynamics. He writes:
“These three streams each have lives of their own. Problems are recognized and defined according to processes that are different from the ways policies are developed or political events unfold. Policy proposals are developed according to their own incentives and selection criteria, whether or not they are solutions to problems or responsive to political consideration. Political events flow along on their own schedule and according to their own rules, whether or not they are related to problems or proposals.
There comes a time when the three streams are joined. A pressing problem demands attention, for instance, and a policy proposal is coupled to the problem as it solution. Or an event in the political stream calls for different directions. At that point, proposals that fit with that political event (e.g. initiatives that match a new administration’s philosophy) come to the fore and are coupled with the ripe political climate. Similarly, problems that fit are highlighted and others are neglected.
… At points along the way there are partial couplings: solutions to problems, but without a receptive political climate; politics to proposals, but without a sense that a compelling problem is being solved; political and problems both calling for action, but without an available alternative to advocate. But the complete joining of all three streams dramatically enhances the odds that a subject will become firmly fixed on a decision agenda (ready for legislative enactment or presidential choice).”
Thus, Kingdon argues that political change is much more likely to take place in periods when “policy windows” open up due to brief alignments of the three streams; these are the times when leaders or policy champions can push attention to their problems or to their favored solutions. Problem and political windows may be unpredictable, opening up due to unforeseen events such as disasters or scandals, or anticipatable, for example, when programs come up for on schedule for renewal. These windows are brief and scarce. “Opportunities come but they also pass. Windows do not stay open for long. If a chance is missed, another must be awaited” because “the system” is loaded down with problems and proposals.
Clearly, other factors play roles in agenda dynamics. For example, do problems or solutions align with other items in other streams, so that they reinforce each other? Can solutions be applied to multiple problems? Numerous social and institutional constraints impose structure on how participants play their games in the three streams. These include the public mood; preferences (and intensity of opposition) of special interests and elected officials; rules (constitution, laws, procedures); and last but not least economics – what is the current budget, how tight or flexible is it, and how much do prospective solutions cost? Like the political stream, these factors are probabilistic, not absolute; they affect relative likelihood of attention and/or success.
Bottom line:
If you have stuck around this long (bless you!), you may well ask “what’s the point?” My answer is (relatively) brief.
First, Kingdon’s work is inherently interesting: it is well-grounded in field research and very creative. Academic theories often tend to reduce complex phenomena to a unitary explanation: the world is like X (or Y). For example, policy is driven by special interests and/or “great men”. In contrast, Kingdon’s model seems credible (to me at least) because it features a plausible mixture of structure (process) and random elements (timing, Darwinian selection of ideas). This hybrid model displays a level of complexity that matches the real (political) world.
Second, my original contention that talk of political change is cheap requires justification, or else I am guilty of the same kind of posturing as the presidential candidates. Kingdon’s theory explains why candidates’ claims to be agents of large scale policy changes should be viewed with great skepticism. It predicts what is likely to happen if and when they try. Their political capital, time in office, and potential windows to exploit are all limited.
Finally, Kingdon’s theory provides a defense against the unreasonable expectations that presidential candidates are raising about significant change and reform. Absent plans or some indication of what is required to bring about change, current claims are either disingenuous or naïve. In either case, they pave the way for broad disappointment, anger, and more cynicism in a newly energized voting population. Given the scale of the problems facing us both domestically and internationally, we can ill afford these types of disillusioned reactions. Caveat emptor.
In order to justify this position, I have described a groundbreaking theory describing political change in the US by Dr. John Kingdon. In previous postings, I reviewed Kingdon’s description of relevant actors in the arena of public policies and his taxonomy of key process streams: (1) defining problems (or setting agendas); (2) developing policy solutions; and (3) politics. Omitting details, the processes that drive agenda formation and resolution of problems are lengthy and complex. All three streams feature elements that are largely unpredictable.
In this last posting, we review Kingdon’s celebrated “garbage can” model, which explains how the process streams interact with one another. Kingdon’s model makes it painfully clear just how difficult it is for “change agents” to drive, much less control, political processes to produce desired laws. His thesis, in a nutshell, is that timing is (nearly) everything. The “garbage can” moniker refers to Kingdon’s model of process stream dynamics. He writes:
“These three streams each have lives of their own. Problems are recognized and defined according to processes that are different from the ways policies are developed or political events unfold. Policy proposals are developed according to their own incentives and selection criteria, whether or not they are solutions to problems or responsive to political consideration. Political events flow along on their own schedule and according to their own rules, whether or not they are related to problems or proposals.
There comes a time when the three streams are joined. A pressing problem demands attention, for instance, and a policy proposal is coupled to the problem as it solution. Or an event in the political stream calls for different directions. At that point, proposals that fit with that political event (e.g. initiatives that match a new administration’s philosophy) come to the fore and are coupled with the ripe political climate. Similarly, problems that fit are highlighted and others are neglected.
… At points along the way there are partial couplings: solutions to problems, but without a receptive political climate; politics to proposals, but without a sense that a compelling problem is being solved; political and problems both calling for action, but without an available alternative to advocate. But the complete joining of all three streams dramatically enhances the odds that a subject will become firmly fixed on a decision agenda (ready for legislative enactment or presidential choice).”
Thus, Kingdon argues that political change is much more likely to take place in periods when “policy windows” open up due to brief alignments of the three streams; these are the times when leaders or policy champions can push attention to their problems or to their favored solutions. Problem and political windows may be unpredictable, opening up due to unforeseen events such as disasters or scandals, or anticipatable, for example, when programs come up for on schedule for renewal. These windows are brief and scarce. “Opportunities come but they also pass. Windows do not stay open for long. If a chance is missed, another must be awaited” because “the system” is loaded down with problems and proposals.
Clearly, other factors play roles in agenda dynamics. For example, do problems or solutions align with other items in other streams, so that they reinforce each other? Can solutions be applied to multiple problems? Numerous social and institutional constraints impose structure on how participants play their games in the three streams. These include the public mood; preferences (and intensity of opposition) of special interests and elected officials; rules (constitution, laws, procedures); and last but not least economics – what is the current budget, how tight or flexible is it, and how much do prospective solutions cost? Like the political stream, these factors are probabilistic, not absolute; they affect relative likelihood of attention and/or success.
Bottom line:
If you have stuck around this long (bless you!), you may well ask “what’s the point?” My answer is (relatively) brief.
First, Kingdon’s work is inherently interesting: it is well-grounded in field research and very creative. Academic theories often tend to reduce complex phenomena to a unitary explanation: the world is like X (or Y). For example, policy is driven by special interests and/or “great men”. In contrast, Kingdon’s model seems credible (to me at least) because it features a plausible mixture of structure (process) and random elements (timing, Darwinian selection of ideas). This hybrid model displays a level of complexity that matches the real (political) world.
Second, my original contention that talk of political change is cheap requires justification, or else I am guilty of the same kind of posturing as the presidential candidates. Kingdon’s theory explains why candidates’ claims to be agents of large scale policy changes should be viewed with great skepticism. It predicts what is likely to happen if and when they try. Their political capital, time in office, and potential windows to exploit are all limited.
Finally, Kingdon’s theory provides a defense against the unreasonable expectations that presidential candidates are raising about significant change and reform. Absent plans or some indication of what is required to bring about change, current claims are either disingenuous or naïve. In either case, they pave the way for broad disappointment, anger, and more cynicism in a newly energized voting population. Given the scale of the problems facing us both domestically and internationally, we can ill afford these types of disillusioned reactions. Caveat emptor.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Political Change Part 3 Change Agenda Processes
Our last installment on Political Change introduced Dr. John Kingdon and his pioneering research on political agenda-setting in the United States (Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (first published 1984, updated second edition in 2003). Agenda-setting represents the first phase of carrying out change – convincing national constituencies that a problem (or opportunity) exists that deserves public and political attention and action.
In our last posting, we reviewed Kingdon’s taxonomy of visible and “hidden” agenda participants. Kingdon argued that visible actors such as candidates tend to influence the contents of agendas (i.e. the topics for focus), whereas the hidden actors (academics, lobbyists, career civil servants) affect the alternatives.
In this posting, we will discuss Kingdon’s contributions in defining the key processes involved in defining and responding to public policy agenda setting. At the highest level, Kingdon defined three distinct but interacting “streams” of processes, labeled problems, policies, and politics: people recognize problems; they generate proposals for public policy changes; and they engage in such political activities as election campaigns and pressure group lobbying.
He observes that: “Problem recognition is critical to agenda setting: The chances of a given proposal or subject rising on an agenda are markedly enhanced if it is connected to an important problem. Some problems are seen to be so pressing that they set agenda all by themselves. Once a particular problem is defined as pressing, whole classes of approaches are favored over others, and some alternatives are highlighted while others fall from view. So policy entrepreneurs invest considerable resources bringing their conception of problems to officials’ attention and trying to convince them to see problems their way. The recognition and definition of problems affect outcomes significantly.”
As to politics, Kingdon writes that “political events flow along according to their own dynamics and rules, independent of problem recognition or the development of policy proposals. Participants perceive swings in the national mood, elections bring new administrations to power and new partisan or ideological distributions to Congress, and interest groups of various descriptions press (or fail to press) their demands on government.”
Thirdly, the policy stream is where alternative responses to agenda problems are generated and narrowed. Based on his research, Kingdon argues that the policy stream is dominated by hidden participants such as analysts and lobbyists, who specialize in particular areas and issues.
This is a key point for our discussion of political change and campaign politics: presidents – and presidential candidates – have relatively little importance from a creative perspective in this area of public policy.
Kingdon writes: “The generation of policy alternatives is best seen as a selection process, analogous to biological natural selection.” He compares policy development with the kind of “primeval soup” of organic chemicals that preceded the appearance of life on earth: many ideas float around, bump into one another, and form new combinations and recombinations.
In short, the origins of policy “seem a bit obscure, hard to predict, understand and structure.”
However, selection – namely the policy options that emerge from the soup is not that mysterious. Specifically, selection criteria for accepting or discarding options include: technical feasibility, alignment with community values, and the anticipation of “future constraints” including budget realities, politicians’ receptivity, and acceptability to special interests and the general public.
Thus, proposals are evaluated in terms of political support and opposition, as well as logical criteria. In addition, proposals typically take a while to “cook”: Kingdon suggests that “recombination (the coupling of already familiar elements) is more important than mutation (the appearance of wholly new forms). Thus entrepreneurs, who broker people and ideas, are more important than inventors. A long softening-up process is critical to policy change.”
Finally, Kingdon points out the different process dynamics dominate these three streams. Specifically, when participants recognize problems or settle on certain policy alternatives, they do so primarily on the basis of persuasion: “they marshal indicators and argue that certain conditions ought to be defined as problems, or they argue that their proposals meet such tests as technical feasibility or value acceptability.” In contrast, in the political stream, “participants build consensus by bargaining – trading provisions for support adding elected officials to collations by giving them concessions that they demand, or compromising from ideal positions that will gain wider acceptance.”
To review what Kingdon has explained so far about political change:
* Presidents -and candidates- are but two types of actor in very crowded political environments
* These actors can exert significant influence, but primarily in setting problem agendas
* Developing solutions to problems and gaining acceptance for them is a lengthy, hard process
* Presidents are not likely to be key players here, much less expediters.
* The political stream is largely independent of agenda setting and solution development
Our next (and final!!) installment on this topic will add one final element of complexity to the mix, namely how the problem definition, solution development, and political streams interact with one another. I believe that this is Kingdon’s most important contribution to the theory of public policy. To give you a preview – as a reward for your patience – what dynamics adds to the complexities already raised is the brute fact that timing is everything.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Political Change Part 2 2008 Campaigning for Change
Our last entry on campaign rhetoric basically asserted that talk about (political) change is cheap: proposals for changing public policies generally mean little until they are actually enacted (Political Change Part 1 - 2008 Campaign Rhetoric).
Setting aside the thorny problem of identifying “good” proposals (broadly, those with predominantly positive social, political, and economic impacts), the key challenge for would-be political reformers is to make proposed policy changes actually happen. In the United States, this generally involves passing laws and putting them into effect.
Passing and implementing laws is an arduous process at best. Legislation must be drafted to embody the policy of interest, debated and voted through committees, and passed by both houses of Congress. Upon receiving the President’s signature, bills are relegated to relevant Departments in the Executive branch or other federal agencies, which assume responsibilities for implementing them.
Implementation involves some combination of disbursing government funds; procuring goods and services; drafting (and enforcing) supporting regulations and policies, and administrative actions (creating or modifying organizations, changing missions, hiring and/or training personnel, etc).
This complex process was clearly designed to promote deliberate rather than speedy action. (Of course, in emergency situations such as natural disasters, wars, or economic recessions, Congress seems to be capable of expediting action.) It should also be clear that this process is often transformative: a new law and, later, the regulations and procedures to implement it, often differ significantly from the original draft of the bill; ensuring integrity of the original intent requires significant political skill, effort, and luck.
What is much less obvious is how difficult it is to even reach the policy “starting gate.” This revelation comes courtesy of Dr. John Kingdon and his groundbreaking work Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (first published 1984, second edition 2003).
Kingdon was the first to focus carefully on the early stages of the policy making process, or agenda-setting. Kingdon frames the problem thusly:
“What makes an idea’s time come? That question is actually part of a larger puzzle. What makes people in and around government attend, at any given time, to some subjects, and not to others… We know more about how issues are disposed of [how legislation is enacted] than we know about how they came to be issues on the governmental agenda in the first place, how the alternatives from which decision makers chose were generated, and why some potential issues and some likely alternatives never came to be the focus of serious attention.”
Kingdon performed extensive field research to derive and validate his models of agenda setting and specification of alternative responses to agenda items. This research included repeated interviews with over two hundred government officials and other active participants in health and transportation policy in the late 1970s. This field work was combined with research on government documents on dozens of related case studies in these policy areas.
Kingdon wanted to understand not only why the agenda is composed as it is at any one point in time, but how and why it changes from one time to another. This is critical because public and government attention are both finite and dynamic. Issues arise (or re-surface) to extend the agenda. Other issues are removed from the agenda when they are addressed. Still other issues fade in (relative) importance, run into stalemates, or otherwise drop off the agenda without being resolved.
Kingdon categorized his subject matter into two sets of factors: the participants within and external to the US Government, and the processes through which agenda items and alternatives gain currency.
He divided policy actors into two “clusters” – visible and hidden. “Visible participants are actors who receive considerable press and public attention: including the President, his high-level appointees, prominent members of Congress, the media, and election-related actors such as political parties and campaigners [emphasis mine]. Hidden participants include academic specialists, researchers, consultants, career bureaucrats, congressional staffers, analysts who work for special interest groups, and lobbyists Their work is done in planning and evaluation or budget shops in the bureaucracy or in the staff agencies on the Hill.
Kingdon argues that the visible “cluster” of actors affects the agenda, while the hidden actors affect the alternatives. And with respect to agenda setting, elected officials and their appointees turn out to be more important than career civil servants or participants outside the government. I refer you to his book for the details of his position. The takeaways from Kingdon’s work for our topic of political change are these:
* Presidential candidates represent visible actors in Kingdon’s framework
* As such, they can exert some influence on setting agendas, but less on driving solutions
* Issues that candidates propose for the national agenda may not make it (or remain on the agenda), thanks to the extended durations of modern elections, the time it takes candidates, once elected to establish their administrations, and other intervening factors
Our next installment will review Kingdon’s “garbage can” model of agenda setting processes, which further highlights the limitations of candidates to drive change.
Setting aside the thorny problem of identifying “good” proposals (broadly, those with predominantly positive social, political, and economic impacts), the key challenge for would-be political reformers is to make proposed policy changes actually happen. In the United States, this generally involves passing laws and putting them into effect.
Passing and implementing laws is an arduous process at best. Legislation must be drafted to embody the policy of interest, debated and voted through committees, and passed by both houses of Congress. Upon receiving the President’s signature, bills are relegated to relevant Departments in the Executive branch or other federal agencies, which assume responsibilities for implementing them.
Implementation involves some combination of disbursing government funds; procuring goods and services; drafting (and enforcing) supporting regulations and policies, and administrative actions (creating or modifying organizations, changing missions, hiring and/or training personnel, etc).
This complex process was clearly designed to promote deliberate rather than speedy action. (Of course, in emergency situations such as natural disasters, wars, or economic recessions, Congress seems to be capable of expediting action.) It should also be clear that this process is often transformative: a new law and, later, the regulations and procedures to implement it, often differ significantly from the original draft of the bill; ensuring integrity of the original intent requires significant political skill, effort, and luck.
What is much less obvious is how difficult it is to even reach the policy “starting gate.” This revelation comes courtesy of Dr. John Kingdon and his groundbreaking work Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (first published 1984, second edition 2003).
Kingdon was the first to focus carefully on the early stages of the policy making process, or agenda-setting. Kingdon frames the problem thusly:
“What makes an idea’s time come? That question is actually part of a larger puzzle. What makes people in and around government attend, at any given time, to some subjects, and not to others… We know more about how issues are disposed of [how legislation is enacted] than we know about how they came to be issues on the governmental agenda in the first place, how the alternatives from which decision makers chose were generated, and why some potential issues and some likely alternatives never came to be the focus of serious attention.”
Kingdon performed extensive field research to derive and validate his models of agenda setting and specification of alternative responses to agenda items. This research included repeated interviews with over two hundred government officials and other active participants in health and transportation policy in the late 1970s. This field work was combined with research on government documents on dozens of related case studies in these policy areas.
Kingdon wanted to understand not only why the agenda is composed as it is at any one point in time, but how and why it changes from one time to another. This is critical because public and government attention are both finite and dynamic. Issues arise (or re-surface) to extend the agenda. Other issues are removed from the agenda when they are addressed. Still other issues fade in (relative) importance, run into stalemates, or otherwise drop off the agenda without being resolved.
Kingdon categorized his subject matter into two sets of factors: the participants within and external to the US Government, and the processes through which agenda items and alternatives gain currency.
He divided policy actors into two “clusters” – visible and hidden. “Visible participants are actors who receive considerable press and public attention: including the President, his high-level appointees, prominent members of Congress, the media, and election-related actors such as political parties and campaigners [emphasis mine]. Hidden participants include academic specialists, researchers, consultants, career bureaucrats, congressional staffers, analysts who work for special interest groups, and lobbyists Their work is done in planning and evaluation or budget shops in the bureaucracy or in the staff agencies on the Hill.
Kingdon argues that the visible “cluster” of actors affects the agenda, while the hidden actors affect the alternatives. And with respect to agenda setting, elected officials and their appointees turn out to be more important than career civil servants or participants outside the government. I refer you to his book for the details of his position. The takeaways from Kingdon’s work for our topic of political change are these:
* Presidential candidates represent visible actors in Kingdon’s framework
* As such, they can exert some influence on setting agendas, but less on driving solutions
* Issues that candidates propose for the national agenda may not make it (or remain on the agenda), thanks to the extended durations of modern elections, the time it takes candidates, once elected to establish their administrations, and other intervening factors
Our next installment will review Kingdon’s “garbage can” model of agenda setting processes, which further highlights the limitations of candidates to drive change.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Decisions and Consequences (Link to analyst Blog)
My company DecisionPath develops software for decision support, called ForeTell. ForeTell provides modeling, “what-if” simulation, and analysis capabilities. Organizations use ForeTell to explore how their situations are likely to evolve and how candidate strategies to better position themselves for those futures are likely to play out.
ForeTell is related to a category of software called Business Intelligence (BI). BI products offer important benefits, including the following:
- Aggregating data from diverse organizational sources (e.g., data warehouses)
- Summarizing and visualizing data for improved accessibility (e.g., reporting, executive dashboards and performance scorecards)
- Identifying interesting patterns or trends (e.g., data mining, predictive trending).
In essence, BI offers improved situational awareness, which amounts to visibility into current status and past performance. Or, in terms of this blog’s focus, BI highlights what has changed in the past and what seems to be changing today. (Some statistical tools enable predictive trending, but such BI projections are only reliable if situations are not changed very much, such as short-term projections of market demand.) Similarly, military command and control (C2) systems drive situational awareness in battlefield settings.
As financial prospectuses are fond of noting, past performance is no guarantee of future results (particularly over the long term). Good decision-making involves leveraging the products of situational awareness in a (structured!) process of analyzing likely changes in the future and anticipating the consequences of interventions to impact those changes. ForeTell addresses this need for decision support, which complements BI’s attention on improving situational awareness.
Fern Halper is a long-time observer of the BI market sector, covering end user needs, technology, companies and their products. Fern works at Hurwitz Associates, a well-known Information Technology analyst organization. I corresponded with Fern recently about an entry from her blog, and ended up briefing her on ForeTell. I invite you to read her assessment of ForeTell (http://fbhalper.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/decisions-and-consequences/) and her commentary on BI in general (http://fbhalper.wordpress.com/).
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Political Change Part 1 - 2008 Campaign Rhetoric
The country seems decidedly ready for change, or so the candidates for the 2008 presidential election tell us. This is not all that surprising: the public and the Administration grow tired (of one another) as any two-term presidency winds down. The Bush presidency, in particular, has been wearing: its results include a costly, unpopular, and, until very recently, poorly executed war in Iraq, a steady stream of financial and political scandals, aggressive assertions of executive power; a stumbling economy, and broad public anxiety over the country’s direction and well-being. A divided and ineffectual Congress has certainly not helped matters.
On the Democratic side of the presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama positions himself as the only credible agent of wholesale change - unifying a polarized country, restoring our battered moral standing in the global community, reforming Washington. As a new Senator, his actual legislative record at proposing and shepherding change is undistinguished. Senator John Edwards has staked out a populist position, declaring war on the special interests that govern Washington and the political process today. Senator Hilary Clinton asserts that only she has the experience, political skills, and will to carry out the hard work that is actually necessary to bring change about. In particular, she claims to have learned much from her failure to carry out radical healthcare change during her husband’s presidency.
The Republican candidates have also sensed the public mood and also espouse change - to the extent that they can within the constraints of party loyalty and ideological affinity with the waning Administration. Governor Romney, while generally aligning himself with President Bush, has parted ways on the divisive issue of immigration and is currently justifying his own status as change agent by referring to his consulting and Olympics turnaround credentials. He conveniently ignores his ineffectiveness at change and rapid disengagement from politics during his tenure in Massachusetts. Senator McCain can fairly lay claim to substantive credentials for political change (successful campaign spending reform, efforts on immigration reform), and has developed the widespread reputation for integrity and character to drive the trust and respect required by true change agents.
My concerns here center on a reality check on the torrent of change rhetoric. How much of it is sincere? How much is disingenuous posturing for political differentiation? Of the calls for policy change that are sincere, how many are naïve and unattainable? How much of the public genuinely wants change (in what areas)? And how ready are they to support the upheavals typically involved in achieving significant change? The venerable Chinese curse likely applies here: “May you get what you wish for.”
This note is the first in a series of reflections on political change. It explores the observation that is central to Senator Clinton’s pragmatic stance: change, however necessary or desirable it may be, requires experience and very hard work to bring about. In particular, I am troubled by Senator Obama’s idealistic, almost “spiritual” approach to change, which appears take the form: “If we propose it, the public will come and we will (somehow) make it happen”. In this connection, strong faith and optimism, however admirable, are generally insufficient to address the pragmatic obstacles standing in the way of effecting substantive change.
It is instructive to start by looking at recent history. Of particular relevance here is an article by Charles P. Pierce reviewing Governor Deval Patrick’s first year as the Governor of Massachusetts in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/01/13/the_mis_education_of_deval_patrick/).
Governor Patrick ran the same kind of idealistic outsider/underdog campaign that is being conducted by Senator Obama. Not surprisingly, Patrick has been an emphatic supporter and advocate for Obama on the campaign trail. Patrick took the Governor’s seat after many years of Republican predecessors and a State House perennially dominated by the Democratic Party. His background includes stints as a civil rights attorney, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration. He later worked as a corporate lawyer and counsel/executive at Texaco and Coca Cola. He was elected in 2006 with 56% in a four-way race, beating his Republican opponent by 20%. His election nominally provided a strong mandate for policy changes and a government more strongly aligned along shared political party lines.
And yet, as Pierce recounts, change - and the competence to bring it about - has been slow to come from the Patrick Administration. He began his tenure with a remarkably insensitive series of public relations missteps of gratuitous spending for a luxury car lease, costly office decorations, and a highly paid assistant for his wife. He inflicted a more serious political injury on himself by intervening with a major bank on behalf of a troubled mortgage company with which he had prior business ties. The cumulative effect was to damage his “outsider” image, public support and confidence. He managed to recover respectably by mid-year, largely by replacing his staff of former campaign team members and political novices with government veterans to guide operations.
On the political front, Governor Patrick was slow to cultivate relationships with State House leaders, which resulted in the Legislature’s rejection of his policy initiatives to close corporate tax loopholes and realign spending for education, the environment, and other social needs. Again, he was able to regroup and develop more collaborative relationships with legislative leaders. Policy achievements include funding to promote life science business development, defeat of an amendment to overturn gay marriage, and favorable consideration of his budget priorities. Patrick recently embarked on a controversial initiative to license multiple casinos in Massachusetts as a means to raise badly needed revenues to support critical infrastructure repairs and his social spending goals. Although financially attractive, his plans face considerable opposition within the State House and in many segments of the public. Positioning the benefits of casinos and establishing suitable alliances will be critical for succeeding in his strategy. The stakes are high: failure here will certainly impact his ability to pursue other ideas on his ambitious policy agenda.
It is obviously too soon to pass a verdict on Governor Patrick’s performance as an agent of change. The price that invariably seems due in exchange for outsider idealism, energy, and optimism is an education in the harsh realities of political processes and the amassing and application of political power. Patrick no doubt is drawing his own lessons, adapting his approach and priorities, and getting on with the business of winning and losing battles for change.
It is reasonable to expect that the next President will face considerably more daunting challenges than Governor Patrick faced in Massachusetts. He or she will need to come up to speed quickly and work with a sharply divided Congress to bring about national-level change to address urgent domestic and international problems. Barring an unexpectedly wide margin of victory and major shifts in Congressional seats, the new President is unlikely to have a mandate on par with Patrick to drive their agenda for change.
Returning to our theme, change is very difficult, even given political acuity and reservoirs of political capital. Many of the current presidential candidates are skilled at the rhetoric of change. A critical criterion for voters, it seems to me, is "Which candidates demonstrate a serious understanding of the mechanics of change?" Lacking this (and barring fast learning by outsiders), campaign proposals for change, however innovative, are little more than posturing. Our country can ill afford such distractions.
What, then, are the “mechanics of change”? My inclination to approaching this question is to model political change explicitly as a process. Models, if they can be confirmed, offer several valuable capabilities:
· Explaining the results of past efforts at change
· Predicting the likelihood of success for current and future initiatives
· Guiding change agents to increase their effectiveness
A process framework for political change needs to address a broad set of questions, including the following: Who and what motivates particular calls for change? Within a given society, what are the prescribed methods or procedures for effecting change? How do they work in practice? And lastly, how must change be implemented to ensure that it occurs as it was intended?
Fortunately, the heavy lifting for such a framework has already been done. My next installment will review a powerful process model of political change in the United States Government developed by Dr. John Kingdon. Supported by extensive field research on major US legislation, Dr Kingdon paints a plausible picture of the “sausage factory” of political change in this country. Please stay tuned.
On the Democratic side of the presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama positions himself as the only credible agent of wholesale change - unifying a polarized country, restoring our battered moral standing in the global community, reforming Washington. As a new Senator, his actual legislative record at proposing and shepherding change is undistinguished. Senator John Edwards has staked out a populist position, declaring war on the special interests that govern Washington and the political process today. Senator Hilary Clinton asserts that only she has the experience, political skills, and will to carry out the hard work that is actually necessary to bring change about. In particular, she claims to have learned much from her failure to carry out radical healthcare change during her husband’s presidency.
The Republican candidates have also sensed the public mood and also espouse change - to the extent that they can within the constraints of party loyalty and ideological affinity with the waning Administration. Governor Romney, while generally aligning himself with President Bush, has parted ways on the divisive issue of immigration and is currently justifying his own status as change agent by referring to his consulting and Olympics turnaround credentials. He conveniently ignores his ineffectiveness at change and rapid disengagement from politics during his tenure in Massachusetts. Senator McCain can fairly lay claim to substantive credentials for political change (successful campaign spending reform, efforts on immigration reform), and has developed the widespread reputation for integrity and character to drive the trust and respect required by true change agents.
My concerns here center on a reality check on the torrent of change rhetoric. How much of it is sincere? How much is disingenuous posturing for political differentiation? Of the calls for policy change that are sincere, how many are naïve and unattainable? How much of the public genuinely wants change (in what areas)? And how ready are they to support the upheavals typically involved in achieving significant change? The venerable Chinese curse likely applies here: “May you get what you wish for.”
This note is the first in a series of reflections on political change. It explores the observation that is central to Senator Clinton’s pragmatic stance: change, however necessary or desirable it may be, requires experience and very hard work to bring about. In particular, I am troubled by Senator Obama’s idealistic, almost “spiritual” approach to change, which appears take the form: “If we propose it, the public will come and we will (somehow) make it happen”. In this connection, strong faith and optimism, however admirable, are generally insufficient to address the pragmatic obstacles standing in the way of effecting substantive change.
It is instructive to start by looking at recent history. Of particular relevance here is an article by Charles P. Pierce reviewing Governor Deval Patrick’s first year as the Governor of Massachusetts in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/01/13/the_mis_education_of_deval_patrick/).
Governor Patrick ran the same kind of idealistic outsider/underdog campaign that is being conducted by Senator Obama. Not surprisingly, Patrick has been an emphatic supporter and advocate for Obama on the campaign trail. Patrick took the Governor’s seat after many years of Republican predecessors and a State House perennially dominated by the Democratic Party. His background includes stints as a civil rights attorney, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights in the Clinton Administration. He later worked as a corporate lawyer and counsel/executive at Texaco and Coca Cola. He was elected in 2006 with 56% in a four-way race, beating his Republican opponent by 20%. His election nominally provided a strong mandate for policy changes and a government more strongly aligned along shared political party lines.
And yet, as Pierce recounts, change - and the competence to bring it about - has been slow to come from the Patrick Administration. He began his tenure with a remarkably insensitive series of public relations missteps of gratuitous spending for a luxury car lease, costly office decorations, and a highly paid assistant for his wife. He inflicted a more serious political injury on himself by intervening with a major bank on behalf of a troubled mortgage company with which he had prior business ties. The cumulative effect was to damage his “outsider” image, public support and confidence. He managed to recover respectably by mid-year, largely by replacing his staff of former campaign team members and political novices with government veterans to guide operations.
On the political front, Governor Patrick was slow to cultivate relationships with State House leaders, which resulted in the Legislature’s rejection of his policy initiatives to close corporate tax loopholes and realign spending for education, the environment, and other social needs. Again, he was able to regroup and develop more collaborative relationships with legislative leaders. Policy achievements include funding to promote life science business development, defeat of an amendment to overturn gay marriage, and favorable consideration of his budget priorities. Patrick recently embarked on a controversial initiative to license multiple casinos in Massachusetts as a means to raise badly needed revenues to support critical infrastructure repairs and his social spending goals. Although financially attractive, his plans face considerable opposition within the State House and in many segments of the public. Positioning the benefits of casinos and establishing suitable alliances will be critical for succeeding in his strategy. The stakes are high: failure here will certainly impact his ability to pursue other ideas on his ambitious policy agenda.
It is obviously too soon to pass a verdict on Governor Patrick’s performance as an agent of change. The price that invariably seems due in exchange for outsider idealism, energy, and optimism is an education in the harsh realities of political processes and the amassing and application of political power. Patrick no doubt is drawing his own lessons, adapting his approach and priorities, and getting on with the business of winning and losing battles for change.
It is reasonable to expect that the next President will face considerably more daunting challenges than Governor Patrick faced in Massachusetts. He or she will need to come up to speed quickly and work with a sharply divided Congress to bring about national-level change to address urgent domestic and international problems. Barring an unexpectedly wide margin of victory and major shifts in Congressional seats, the new President is unlikely to have a mandate on par with Patrick to drive their agenda for change.
Returning to our theme, change is very difficult, even given political acuity and reservoirs of political capital. Many of the current presidential candidates are skilled at the rhetoric of change. A critical criterion for voters, it seems to me, is "Which candidates demonstrate a serious understanding of the mechanics of change?" Lacking this (and barring fast learning by outsiders), campaign proposals for change, however innovative, are little more than posturing. Our country can ill afford such distractions.
What, then, are the “mechanics of change”? My inclination to approaching this question is to model political change explicitly as a process. Models, if they can be confirmed, offer several valuable capabilities:
· Explaining the results of past efforts at change
· Predicting the likelihood of success for current and future initiatives
· Guiding change agents to increase their effectiveness
A process framework for political change needs to address a broad set of questions, including the following: Who and what motivates particular calls for change? Within a given society, what are the prescribed methods or procedures for effecting change? How do they work in practice? And lastly, how must change be implemented to ensure that it occurs as it was intended?
Fortunately, the heavy lifting for such a framework has already been done. My next installment will review a powerful process model of political change in the United States Government developed by Dr. John Kingdon. Supported by extensive field research on major US legislation, Dr Kingdon paints a plausible picture of the “sausage factory” of political change in this country. Please stay tuned.
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