Cross Collaborate

For a diverse group to reach consensus, at least some of the participants – perhaps all of them – have to change their minds. They come into the room with differing, often fundamentally conflicting ideas about the challenges they face. They likely disagree on how to define problems, technical methods that should be used to explore potential solutions and the options that might meet their needs for an acceptable solution.

Most also arrive fearful that change will mean loss for them – of property, influence or benefits they now possess. That fear often comes through as deep suspicion of the motives of those who propose changes while also promising to protect the interests of other stakeholders. That suspicion may have been supported by the experience of past conflict and has thus become well entrenched.

Fear and suspicion typify one dimension of resistance as a powerful non-rational factor. But there are many other types of resistance. Experts may resist because an apparently sound rational analysis isn’t supported by scientific evidence that meets their standards. Others may miss a way to relate technical conclusions to their everyday experience and won’t accept a new concept until it “clicks” in terms of their own work or community life.

There is often a tension between rational problem-solving methods and the many non-rational factors that can be just as powerful in influencing decisions. Mediators need to address both levels in order to facilitate agreement, but it is not enough to work one-on-one with resistant participants.

The group members have to face this challenge jointly and find ways to examine and present ideas that encourage a willingness to change. It’s not a matter of one side “selling” a proposal to the others. That’s the hallmark of a more adversarial negotiation in which competing proposals or offers of settlement are debated.

In a collaborative setting, all the stakeholders must respond not only to one another’s interests but also to the particular cognitive demands of each participant. To do that, the group needs some understanding of the varied ways in which people become convinced that it is safe to change their minds and adopt an approach they had never before been willing to consider.

In Changing Minds, the psychologist Howard Gardner has provided a useful outline of the different types of evidence and presentation people need before they come to a moment when thinking can change.

He identifies seven factors that influence people to adopt new ideas and beliefs. Since change comes with great difficulty, he includes resistance as one of these factors. The ability to overcome resistance usually depends on the effect of the other six, all of which should reinforce each other and make it possible for a diverse group to achieve consensus. Here is a a quick overview of Gardner’s seven factors. Read more »

Deadlines are fast approaching for federal agencies to complete the initial tasks under the Open Government Directive. Publishing new data sets, opening websites, completing longer-term Open Government Plans, and dozens of others.

But notably missing is any deadline or deliverable addressing changes in agency cultures and processes. Yet every day those basic dimensions of government life influence managers and staff to resist new levels of openness. Nevertheless, staff are soon expected to:

• take initiative in sharing information and creating more extensive opportunities for public involvement “throughout the decision-making process” and especially in relation to “core mission activities;”

• embrace and experiment with new and unfamiliar internet technologies to open access to information, elicit public feedback and increase accountability to the public;

• regularly collaborate and partner with people and organizations outside of government; and

• generally “strive to incorporate the values of transparency, participation, and collaboration into the ongoing work of their agency.“

Like many bloggers, I’ve been emphasizing the need for changes in federal agency culture in order to achieve the broad goals of the OGD. Pointing to the need for culture change, however, shouldn’t imply that it’s all up to federal employees to act differently and think in more collaborative terms.

This level of change has to start with the whole system. Federal staff now live with agency cultures that often encourage them to look first at the risks of change rather than its opportunities and to choose the safety of established procedure rather than the uncertainty of innovation. Are those values changing under the influence of the Open Government Initiative, even without guidance from the OGD?

At a recent workshop on implementing the Directive, a group of federal officials brought up important cultural change issues. Despite their awareness of these problems, though, much of what they said reflected familiar assumptions about how to get things done. They seemed to convey a double message, urging innovation based in new values while imposing restrictions rooted in the old. That reflects the problem of the Open Government Initiative as a whole – trying to create a new collaborative culture by relying on current procedures and values that work against such change. Read more »