Knowledge and the Cardinal: Changing Organizations One Conversation At a Time

Organizations are all looking to transition from being hierarchal, with a focus on accountability and control, to being agile, high engagement, participatory, and innovative. That change can’t happen top down, because it is too much of a paradox. It begs the question; shouldn’t we be able to participate in the decision about whether to be participative?

The City Government of Utrecht found a way around that conundrum – involve the people that are supposed to change in designing the change. In 2014 it was clear that the internal departments of the city government were too siloed to serve the citizens of Utrecht effectively. Internal problems were taking too long to solve, and the same problems kept reoccurring year after year. A transformation was in order. The newly hired City Manager, Maarten Schurink, spoke of the transition as “via B.” But, he refrained from identifying what “B” was, saying employees themselves would invent the new organization. And he noted that “B” would probably continue to move as employees in conversation discovered new ways to improve their effectiveness. To support these efforts, he made available coaches and facilitators, as well as providing opportunities for employees to come together to participate in organizational issues, but with no requirement to do so. The following story, about one of many such conversations, illustrates the approach.

The city employees who operate the street cleaning machines – the ones that have those large scrub brushes – came together to talk about how they might be more effective and efficient in their work. Traditionally, each employee had been assigned a weekly route, for example, on Monday Peter would clean streets A through F, on Tuesday clean G through K, and so on. But when the street cleaners got into a conversation about their work, they said, “Well, some streets need to be cleaned every 2-3 days because there are of lots of leaves or kids dropping trash in the streets. But other streets really don’t need to be cleaned very often, so driving the machines over those streets every week is a waste of time and energy.” Out of that conversation, the street cleaners created a plan that made each employee responsible for keeping a specific area clean but leaving it to that employee to establish the schedule of when and how often each street was cleaned. They took pictures of clean streets so everyone would understand what the standard was for “clean.” The employees are now able to use their knowledge of what is happening and changing within their area to establish their schedule. It worked because the street cleaners had local knowledge that the city planners, who developed the original schedule, lacked.

Research* overwhelmingly shows that employees are more willing to support a change when they have a voice in deciding about that change. That is true, not just for a system-wide change, but for change at the division, department and team level as well. It is not only research that supports employee involvement, it is also the deep-seated human desire to be responsible for our own actions - self-efficacy as it is called in psychological terms. As Weisbord wrote:

Democracy is a tough way to live. With all its flaws, I think it beats the alternatives. I do not wish to have someone else, no matter how educated, well intentioned, wealthy, or wise, decide unilaterally what is best for me. Unless we are deeply involved in our work, we cannot feel good about ourselves. Unless we work with others toward valued goals, we cannot infuse hope and aspiration into our lives. Unless we treat one another as equals, we cannot find dignity, meaning, and community in work. Unless we make our own mistakes, and learn to forgive ourselves, we cannot learn at all. Unless we cooperate we cannot survive.

From my work with the City of Utrecht as well as with many other organizations, I have found that the way to bring about change is to create conversations within an organization about what needs to change and how to do it. And in this time of rapid technological advances and increased complexity, where change is continuous, those conversations need to be on-going to course correct and respond to new demands. But not all organizational issues require conversation. A useful rule of thumb is that employees need to be involved in the conversations about issues that impact them directly.

To change an organization you have to change the conversation, that is, what is talked about, who is invited into those conversations, how frequently those conversations occur and even the space in where those conversations take place.

In studying organizations that have made such a change I have identified a core set of propositions that guide the change. They include:

Employees come to work wanting to do a good job.
Employees possess the collective knowledge to solve the difficult problems they face in their work.
Problems/issues get solved through conversations. It is where we discover what we know, share it with our colleagues, and in the process, create new answers and insights.
Employees are more committed to change when they have a voice in planning that change.
The deepest and most generative conversations occur in groups where members feel psychologically safe. To feel psychologically safe members need to have a strong enough relationship with each other to learn each other’s strengths, weaknesses, expertise and abilities.
A scaffold is needed to support organizational conversation, but it requires a light scaffold, not one that is completely filled in. Whether that scaffold is based on Agile, Appreciative Inquiry, Theory U, the Toyota Production System, or Via B, it must be flexible enough to adjust and improve as the organization learns.

The City Government of Utrecht started with this set of propositions and over the next four years changed the organization one conversation at a time.

* Anderson & Adams, 2016; Turco, 2016; Pentland, 2014; Argyris 2012; Block, 1993; Ackoff, 1981;