Crosby B.C., Bryson J.M. - Leadership for the Common Good (2005)(en)

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Getting Started

The first step is to use personal leadership exercises (two suitable examples are “Discovering Cares and Concerns,” Exercise 2.1, and “Exploring Personal Highs and Lows,” Exercise 2.5) to become clearer about your own commitment to the change process and about which leadership approaches seem to work well for you. You might also use Exercises 2.6 (“Assessing Additional Strengths and Weaknesses”) and 2.7 (on analyzing social group membership) to gain further insight as to the leadership skills and other resources you bring to the change effort.

The second step is to begin informal conversation to find out whether at least some other stakeholders share your concern about the problem. If there is enough shared concern, invite your contacts to participate in one or more joint conversations about the problem and a common-good approach to remedying it.

Remember: seeing and hearing is believing. You may need to foster shared concern by offering some compelling evidence of your own and if possible bringing others into direct contact with the human impact of the problem. For example, visiting patients struck by AIDS often galvanized health professionals’ commitment to get involved in the fight against the disease. At Minnesota’s 1998 Rural Summit, Jan Hively heard and saw for herself the predicted impact of an aging population in the state’s towns and cities. She listened to a talk by the seventy-five-year-old chairman of the Minnesota Association of Counties. His own leadership role exemplified the productivity of older adults, and he described the work of others like him in his hometown of Cottonwood. He noted that more than half of the residents are over sixty-five, “and many of us have kept on working. There aren’t enough younger people to fill the job openings being created through retirements.”

Third, as you look ahead to a joint conversation with your contact group, you may need to think about balancing the power of the participants (Winer, 2003). Unless you undertake some powerbalancing measures, a large power difference in the group might hamper the free exchange of ideas and prevent participants from building the requisite level of mutual trust. You should examine your own power position, and be prepared to bring in an outside facilitator if it might get in the way of others’ engagement. You may also have to resolve questions about whether people are coming to the conversation as representatives of a group or as individuals.

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Organizational consultant Michael Winer recommends balancing power by affirming specialization (acknowledging the special skills and resources each participant brings); appreciating contributions (noting how each specialization contributes to the work of the group); legitimizing involvement (having powerful figures endorse participants who may not have a formal position); protecting selfinterest (acknowledging the validity of self-interest and incorporating it in the work of the group); and managing displays of power (using nametags and ground rules to diminish use of titles, dress, other accoutrements such as cell phones to communicate status; Winer, 2003). Organizers of the VAN monthly meetings ask participants to introduce themselves by name only and then mention something about their experience or aspirations that relates to the meeting topic.

Fourth, you may also need to guard against coming to the conversation with a preferred general solution. You may have seen the solution work well on other problems, or come from a community or party that supports the solution. There are symbolic and tangible steps you can take to hold the solution at arm’s length. Stephan Schmidheiny and his colleagues, for example, were obviously attached to market solutions. Stakeholder consultation gave them a chance to listen to people who were not enamored of market operations.

Practice the Basics of Good Meeting Preparation and Facilitation

First, plan the meeting in advance. Establish a date, time, and place for the meeting. Clarify who the contact persons are. Be as clear as possible about the desired outcomes of the meeting. Identify participants and what their interests might be. Identify requisite material and equipment and who is responsible for it. Think carefully about the meeting agenda and the amount of time that should be devoted to each item. Plan a process for each topic. Do a sanity check: Can you do everything in the time allotted? Think about how meeting follow-up will be handled.

Second, make sure the room is arranged to serve the purpose of the meeting. For example, if the purpose is to transmit information, standard classroom seating in rows may be appropriate. If you want to promote conversation, arrange seating to make face- to-face interaction possible. If you are going to use a large-group interaction method, then find space that enables people to get up and move around easily (Bryson and Anderson, 2000).

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Third, make sure the meeting is managed well. Have an experienced person chair the meeting, make use of skilled facilitators when appropriate, and be prepared to alter the agenda when necessary.

Fourth, have adequate restroom facilities and refreshments, particularly if the meeting is to last a long time.

Fifth, make sure adequate records are kept of the meeting and its products. Assign someone to take minutes, shoot photographs, or make some other record of the meeting. Be sure to save any important products created by the groups in the meeting.

Sixth, evaluate the meeting. What worked well? What did not? What improvements might be made so that a meeting of this type might be more productive and satisfying in the future?

Seventh, make available a meeting summary in an appropriate format within a reasonable time after the meeting has ended.

Focusing on the Common Good

Begin the joint conversation with an opportunity for everyone to briefly state why he or she is interested in the problem. Go over the agenda: consideration of the common good, exploration of the problem context, and a basic stakeholder analysis to guide efforts to begin building a coalition for change.

Following this, ask the group to consider what the common good might be in this change effort. You may want to use Exercise 5.2.

Exploring the Context and Personal Leadership

First, explore the context of the problem. The exercises included in the leadership-in-context section of this book (see Chapter Two) should be helpful.

Next, use the personal leadership exercises previously referred to in this chapter to help group members develop an understanding about what each person might bring to an effort to remedy the problem.

Analyzing and Involving Stakeholders

To conduct the analyses described here, the group may begin with its own knowledge, but to obtain more extensive information it could use interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, or other forms of research, such as the multi-stakeholder dialogues organized by the World Business Council on Sustainable Development (2001). In the effort to find out more about the activities and aspirations of

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older adults, Hively conducted a survey of fifty-five- to eighty-four- year-olds in a four-county area of Minnesota. The survey was sponsored by the Mid-Minnesota Area Agency on Aging and the Regional Development Commission; it made clear that most of the area’s older adults were healthy and productive and interested in more opportunities for community service, employment, and education.

Sometimes members of the group can use stakeholder surveys that have been conducted by other groups.

Here are the steps we recommend:

1.Conduct a basic stakeholder analysis, using Exercise 6.1.

2.Construct a power-versus-interest grid (Exercise 4.2). You can skip the step of brainstorming a list of stakeholders; use the list generated in the basic stakeholder analysis of Exercise 6.1. (See the discussion in the communicative capability section, under visionary leadership, of Chapter Four.)

3.Construct a stakeholder influence diagram (Exercise 6.2). Understanding stakeholder influence diagrams should help policy entrepreneurs think about whom to involve in the initial-agree- ment phase and how to involve them (see next step).

4.Fill out a participation planning matrix (Exercise 6.3). By all means, list key stakeholders, and consider others as well. (Key

Exercise 6.1. The Basic Stakeholder

Analysis Technique for a Policy Change Effort.

Using the definition of stakeholder as any person, group, or organization affected by a public problem or possessing resources needed to resolve the problem, complete these steps.

1.Brainstorm the list of potential stakeholders. Along with groups and organizations, include individuals who represent those groups or who have significant resources that can be used to resolve (or exacerbate) the problem.

2.Prepare a separate flipchart sheet for each stakeholder.

3.Place a stakeholder’s name at the top of each sheet and divide it into three columns, labeled “Resources,” “Reasons for Involving,” and “Reasons for Postponing Involvement.”

4.Decide which stakeholders should be invited to the next conversation or planning meeting. Make sure the next forum is designed to ensure their participation.

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Exercise 6.2. Constructing a Stakeholder Influence Diagram.

Stakeholder influence diagrams indicate how the stakeholders on a power-versus-interest grid influence one another. The technique is taken from Eden and Ackermann (1998) and begins with a power- versus-interest grid. Here are the steps in developing such a diagram:

1.The planning team should start with a power-versus-interest grid and then for each stakeholder on the grid suggest lines of influence from one stakeholder to another.

2.A facilitator should draw in the lines with a soft-lead pencil.

3.Two-way influences are possible, but an attempt should be made to identify the primary direction in which influence flows between stakeholders.

4.Engage in a dialogue about which influence relationships exist, which are most important, and what the primary direction of influence is.

5.Once final agreement is reached, the pencil lines should be made permanent with a marking pen.

6.The results and implications of the resulting diagram should be discussed, including identifying the most influential or central stakeholders.

Source: Eden and Ackermann (1998), pp. 349–350; see also Finn (1996) and Bryson, Cunningham, and Lokkesmoe (2002).

Exercise 6.3. Participation Planning Matrix.

The matrix prompts planners to think about responding to or engaging stakeholders in different ways over the course of a policy or strategy change effort. As a result, the benefits of taking stakeholders seriously can be had while avoiding the perils of inappropriately responding to or engaging stakeholders. The level of participation ranges from a minimum of simply informing stakeholders to empowerment (in which the stakeholders or some subset of them are given final decision-making authority). Each level has its own goal and makes a kind of promise— implicitly if not explicitly. For example, informing carries with it the promise that “we will keep you informed.” At the other extreme, empowerment as a strategy carries with it the promise that “we will implement what you decide.”

Here is the process for filling out the matrix:

1.Begin using this matrix relatively early in any change effort.

2.Fill out the matrix with stakeholders’ names in the appropriate boxes, and then develop an action plan for how to follow through with each stakeholder.

3.Revise the matrix as the change effort unfolds.

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stakeholders are those most affected by the problem at hand, or those with critical resources for resolving it.) As you fill out the matrix, pay attention to the power-versus-interest grid constructed here in step two. Think about the need to balance power in a face- to-face forum. Powerful politicians, government administrators, chief executives, and mass media journalists undoubtedly need to be thoroughly involved at some point. These people can provide important links to their colleagues, constituents, and audiences, and they can inform change advocates about key decision points and strategies for influencing the decision. Policy makers can also furnish such critical resources as legitimacy, staff assignments, budgets, and a meeting place. On the other hand, their presence in an initial planning session may completely stifle the free exchange of views. Thus the planning matrix recognizes that the level of participation may vary with the phase of the policy change cycle.

5. If the group wants to proceed, plan one or more follow-up formal forums that include at least the stakeholders you listed in the “involve,” “collaborate,” and “empower” categories.

Follow-up Forum

This meeting can be viewed as the more public beginning of the change effort. You may want to hold the meeting in conjunction with a highly visible forum organized by some other group (for example, a U.N. conference) or simply organize a freestanding educational event that sets the background for the problem and highlights the reasons a change initiative should be undertaken. We recommend that the participants (that is, the meeting organizers and other invited stakeholders) also undertake a stakeholder analysis. This may be repetitious for several participants but necessary in order to build shared understanding and commitment.

1. The assembled group should be asked to brainstorm the list of stakeholders who might need to be involved in the change effort. (To reduce duplication of previous effort, bring the stakeholder list generated at the earlier meeting and ask the group to add to it.) Again, the basic-analysis technique, power-versus-interest grid, stakeholder influence diagram, or participation planning matrix might be used as a starting point for understanding and involving an array of stakeholders.

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2.After this analysis has been completed, the group should be encouraged to think carefully about who is not at this meeting but should be subsequently (Finn, 1996). The group should consider actual or potential stakeholder power, legitimacy, and attentiongetting capacity (Mitchell, Agle, and Wood, 1997). The group should carefully think through the positive and negative consequences of involving—or not involving—other stakeholders or their representatives, and in what way to do so.

3.The group should decide whether to proceed to a “full group” forum, or series of forums, where group members work with additional stakeholders to engage in further stakeholder analysis and set up a more formal structure to undertake a fullfledged change effort. If group members decide to proceed, they should empower a planning group to put together ensuing forums.

Full-Group Forums

Planners ideally should try to bring together all the participants in the previous meeting along with additional stakeholders the group believes should be included in a full-fledged change effort. A personal invitation should be sent to key individual stakeholders in addition to general invitations to selected stakeholder groups. If a combined forum is not practical, the group can hold several forums to attract the additional stakeholders and then integrate the results of all the forums. The aim of the full-group forum is to engage in a final round of stakeholder analysis and gain agreement on an organizational structure to undertake the change effort. These forums are useful for assessing and building commitment to the change effort. Policy entrepreneurs summon their visionary leadership skills to convince newcomers that change is needed and possible, and that everyone present can and should contribute to shaping the effort.

First, the previous stakeholder analyses may need to be repeated, at least in part, with the full group present so as to get everyone on the same page or “bought in,” and to make any required corrections or modifications to prior analyses.

Second, if the full group has sufficient enthusiasm and commitment for undertaking the change effort, the conveners should gather their ideas for naming the effort and organizing various groups that will have some role in the change effort. These groups

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include sponsors and champions, a coordinating group, a planning team, and various advisory or support groups (Bryson and Roering, 1988; Friend and Hickling, 1997).

The conveners might suggest a name for the change effort and ask for other ideas or modifications. They can use focus groups to consider names or simply have people submit suggestions on note cards. Remember that the name can be quite important in framing the desired change.

Third, the conveners should explain the roles of individuals and groups typically involved in a successful change effort. Sponsors are people with enough status and authority to ensure the process will move ahead; champions are people who have a high level of personal commitment to the process and will consistently follow through on process details.

Sponsors typically do not have to commit a lot of their time to the effort, but they can be counted on to come through when needed, especially at a high-visibility juncture. In the campaign against AIDS, for example, the sponsorship of Elizabeth Taylor and other stars drew media coverage to fundraising events; other important sponsors were two congressmen, Henry Waxman and Philip Burton. The champions were the health professionals, congressional aides, and gay activists who marshaled evidence, rallied supporters, and organized an array of forums to alter the existing policy regime.

In the African American Men Project, Hennepin County commissioners Mark Stenglein and Peter McLaughlin and County Administrator Sandra Vargas were important sponsors, while Gary Cunningham, Shane Price (the current AAMP coordinator), V. J. Smith (a grassroots activist), and others were champions. Herman Milligan Jr., former Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, and other prominent African American community leaders were sponsors. Champions can be policy entrepreneurs themselves, or “process” champions who do not have any preconceived notion about a desirable solution. Rather, they are committed to the process of policy change because they believe that something must be done and that a policy change effort is likely to produce a desirable solution.

The coordinating committee (possibly called a steering group, task force, or some other title) maintains momentum and serves