Managing the process of reform and transition

Working with norms, rules and the logic of behaviour

Why driving in a different city explains organisational behaviour

Why driving in a different city explains organisational behaviour

The difference between what the rules say and what the rules mean

• Driving depends less on the formal rules than on understanding the informal assumptions, local norms, know-how and tacit understandings between drivers.

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• Those norms have developed as a result of millions of repeated interactions between drivers.

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• A logic emerges, and the chaos starts to make sense. You get good at driving in that place through shortcuts, workarounds, bending of the formal rules.

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• None of it improves the traffic. And often makes it worse. But faced with a difficult journey, drivers opt for the quickest route to their destination that day.

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Political behaviour is always logical, but rarely rational

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“Never denigrate a behaviour until you’ve worked out what purpose it really serves.”

A behavioural approach to managing change:

Four principles

1. Individuals over institutions: All change is behavioural change.

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“change sticks when it becomes ‘the way we do things around here’”

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John Kotter

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• Organisational behaviour is shaped by norms, culture and working practices.

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• The purpose of procedural reform is to change behaviour.

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• Procedural change may be rational, but is not always logical.

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“Plans for reform almost always produce many winners and some losers while achieving an overall improvement. If the affected parties have any political influence, however, potential losers will be more active and determined than potential winners. “

Daniel Kahneman

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• ‘Loss aversion’ is central to understanding resistance to change
• The pain of losing is greater than the benefit of winning

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• Combine personal interest with principle
• Explain change in personal terms, and provide a principle to back it up

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2. Loss aversion, personal interest and political principle

• The universal rule of reciprocity
• Informal indebtedness, concession then retreat, trading upwards

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• All people are simultaneously reformers and opportunists
• Reform of the Kenyan Parliament “Why are you denying yourselves?”
• Lyndon Johnson and the US 1964 Civil Rights Act

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• The key principle of reform?
• “Make sure everybody gets something”

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3. “What’s in it for me?” Reform as reciprocal exchange

4. Radical incrementalism: Think big, act small

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“it is possible to make very significant progress against the biggest problems in the world through the accumulation of a set of small steps, each well thought out, carefully tested, and judiciously implemented.”

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Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Dufflo

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• Institution-building from inside
• Mētis as ‘myopic groping’
• Pockets of good practice and the ‘ripple effect’
• Modest and significant. The virtue of slow change

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“Good enough for a human institution”

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• People over process

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• Align principle with personal interest

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• Reform as reciprocal exchange

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• Get the small things right first

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Inside the Political Mind

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Oxford University Press (US publisher)

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Use code ADISTA5 for 30% off

Hurst

(UK publisher)

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Use code POWER25 for 25% off

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