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

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AIDS campaigners had to settle for small wins, which added up and eventually led to national anti-AIDS educational campaigns and substantial government funding of AIDS treatment and prevention programs.

Big-win strategies might also be pursued when the time is right—for example, when the need for action is obvious to a large coalition, the proposed solution effectively addresses the problem, solution technology is clearly understood and readily available, resources are adequate, or a clear vision is guiding the proposed changes. The Kyoto Protocol, supported by the WBCSD, is a good example of a big-win strategy to combat global warming. It commits signatory national governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent, on the basis of 1990 levels, by 2012. The protocol was approved in 1997 by parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change after years of growing scientific evidence that greenhouse gases were causing global warming. In Walking the Talk, Holliday, Schmidheiny, and Watts call the goal a modest one, but “a step in the right direction” (2002, p. 220). Unfortunately, the Kyoto Protocol has not been as big a win as its supporters hoped, since the United States has refused to ratify it. Even so, numerous major companies in the United States and elsewhere are proceeding with emission reduction programs that exceed the Kyoto controls, and Holliday, Schmidheiny, and Watts remain optimistic that the United States will eventually ratify. At the same time that WBCSD keeps trying for a big-win regarding climate change, the council continues to pursue small-win strategies at the local, national, regional, and industry levels.

Leadership Guidelines

The key to success in this phase is a focus on helping key decision makers say yes in the next phase, when the proposal must be adopted. Policy entrepreneurs must attend to the technical details and excellence of the proposal but also (and probably more important) must consider the interpretive schemes, goals, and concerns of key stakeholders. Simply being right about technical and administrative feasibility is not enough. A proposal must be comprehensible to key stakeholders and deemed to be in their selfinterest. Attention to official decision makers is especially important,

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because unless they support the proposal it is unlikely to be placed on the decision agenda in the relevant arenas.

In this phase, policy entrepreneurs can take advantage of a more informal, flexible, and collegial atmosphere, compared to the formal and often adversarial process of the next phase. Anything wrong with a proposal that reaches the review-and-adoption phase can be used to kill it. Thus policy entrepreneurs attempt to uncover and fix proposal flaws in this phase, while the proposal is being drafted. These leaders should design and use forums and informal arenas to craft proposals likely to withstand the severe test of a formal policy-making arena. The leadership guidelines for this phase are divided into:

•Development and review of the draft proposal

•“Softening up” and media strategies

•Decisions about next steps

Development and Review of the Draft Proposal

Crafting a winning proposal is a process, not an event. Various choices need to be considered, and several proposal drafts are likely to be prepared and reviewed.

Choose a Big Win or a Small Win

Decide whether or not to pursue a big-win or a small-win strategy. Remember that a big win is likely to fail unless the need is obvious to a large coalition, the perceived problem and proposed solutions are clearly connected, solution technology is clearly understood and readily available, resources are identified, and a clear vision guides the changes. Use Exercise 9.1 to help your group think through which of these strategies makes the most sense.

Keep the Next Phase in Mind

Analyze the arenas that are to be important in the next phase. Consider the opportunities for venue shopping (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993). Of the arenas that might have jurisdiction over your proposed change, which are most favorable toward the change and therefore the best target of your efforts? As part of the analysis of a particular arena, ask these questions: Which committees are likely

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Focus the Review on Stakeholder Goals

Set up an informal review process that focuses on the goals and concerns of key stakeholders. Update and use the participation matrix to decide which stakeholders to invite to a review session. Ideally, from five to nine people participate in a session. This number allows each person enough air time for his or her views and also gives the entrepreneurial team a sense of the group’s view and where individuals fit within the larger context. The results of multiple smallgroup sessions can be assembled and presented to a plenary session. The small groups may be relatively homogeneous or heterogeneous. The former permit a clear picture of their common views, while the latter reveal views that recur even in disparate groups. The heterogeneous type also facilitates learning among group members.

As in the problem-formulation phase, the drafts are typically reviewed by the entrepreneurial team, the coordinating committee, a relevant governing board and members of other arenas that are to decide whether or not to adopt the proposal, and other stakeholders. The review sessions should focus on proposal strengths and modifications that improve on those strengths. The sessions can be organized in the same way as those discussed in Chapter Seven. Make sure that any draft policy or plan is viewed as a working document so that reviewers feel that the review process is authentic, not a charade. For example, you can present the proposal in outline form without expensive graphics, and stamp DRAFT on every page.

In relatively simple cases, the review process does not have to be extensive. Where coalition building is more difficult, arrange wider participation, allow more revision of the draft policy or plan, and give more careful attention to funder concerns and requirements; you can even repeat the process with some participants.

Be Open to Helpful Modifications

Accept as many modifications as actually improve the draft proposal. Think of a review session as a helpful source of new information, avoid defensiveness, and be open to proposal improvement. Recall what the nineteenth-century Prussian field general Helmuth von Moltke said: “Plans are nothing; planning is everything” (quoted in Linden, 2002, p. 119).

Three stakeholder analysis techniques can help your team decide which modifications improve the technical and administrative

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feasibility, political attractiveness, and ethical acceptability of your proposals: the stakeholder-support-versus-opposition grid, stakeholder role plays, and a grid of policy attractiveness versus stakeholder capability.

A stakeholder-support-versus-opposition grid (Exercise 9.2) groups stakeholders in one of four cells according to the importance of a stakeholder and the group’s support for or opposition to specific proposals. Paul Nutt and Robert Backoff (1992) developed this technique.

Stakeholder role play has the special benefit of enhancing the entrepreneurial team’s capacity to understand how other

Exercise 9.2. Constructing a

Stakeholder-Support-Versus-Opposition Grid.

1.On flipchart sheets, construct a grid like this for each proposal being reviewed.

2.Brainstorm stakeholders’ names and place them on self-adhesive labels, one name per label.

3.Place the labels on the grid in the appropriate locations.

4.Discuss what the grids reveal about the viability of specific proposals and about stakeholders requiring special attention. Discuss and deploy specific tactics on the basis of the analysis.

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Exercise 9.3. Conducting a Stakeholder Role Play.

1.The team prepares diagrams of bases of power and directions of interest if it has not done so previously.

2.Each member of the team reviews the problem-frame stakeholder maps and stakeholder-support-versus-opposition grids if they have been prepared.

3.Each member of the team assumes the role of one stakeholder.

4.With the stakeholders’ diagram as a guide, each team member should answer two questions from the stakeholder’s point of view about any proposal:

•How would I react to this option?

•What could be done to increase my support or decrease my opposition?

5.Use flipchart sheets to record the responses.

6.Do the exercise more than once, and keep modifying proposals to increase their political viability.

stakeholders think. Role play, as described by Colin Eden and Fran Ackermann (1998), builds on the information revealed in one or more diagrams of bases of power and directions of interest (see Exercise 7.2) and stakeholder problem frames (Exercise 4.3), as well as stakeholder-support-versus-opposition grids. In some cases, you may be wise to use role play to inform the search for solutions and the problem-formulation process. Directions for a stakeholder role play are in Exercise 9.3.

A grid of “policy attractiveness versus stakeholder capability” (see Exercise 9.4) compares the general attractiveness of policies, plans, proposals, or options against stakeholder capacities to implement them. The grid indicates proposals that are likely to be implemented successfully because they match stakeholder capacities, and those that are likely to fail because of lack of capacity. Proposals that are high in attractiveness and capacity certainly should be pursued. Proposals that are otherwise attractive but do not match up well with stakeholder capacities require a substantial build-up of stakeholder capability to be implemented. The entire

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team should discuss how to find the resources for the build-up if they want to retain the proposal. Low-attractiveness proposals are best discarded.

Consider What the Optimal Coalition Might Be

Finding the optimal coalition is a matter of matching up the problem, the proposed solution, and politics in a wise way.

Keep an Eye on What the Opponents Are Doing

Monitor opponents’ attempts to develop a counterproposal or gut the proposal. Include any good ideas from the opponents’ proposal in order to thwart their opportunities for coalition building. Additionally, remember that opponents may try to cut vital parts from the proposal so that even if it passes it will have little effect. Exercise extreme care to ensure that the modifications suggested by others do not render the proposal ineffective during implementation. Involving truly implacable foes in a review session is unlikely to be productive, since they may undermine the process and simply gain information that helps them organize against the proposal.

Be Prepared for Proposal Displacement

Interest groups often try to attach their favored solution to a public problem that others have placed on the agenda (Kingdon, 1995). Consequently, prepare to be vigilant once your proposal is under review in the next phase to keep it from being displaced by some interest group’s favored alternative, if the alternative is at odds with your proposal. Consider drawing the group into your coalition.

Prepare a Detailed Final Draft

Prepare a more detailed and formal draft for final review in the next phase. After the informal review sessions, develop a draft that has as many characteristics of a winning proposal as seem feasible to your team. The draft should be one around which a winning coalition can organize. It should be able to withstand obstacles placed in its path, such as a veto by a chief executive or judicial review. It should accord with the state or national constitution, and its intent and effect should be supported by the relevant courts’ interpretation of previous laws.

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Call on Experts

In preparing the formal draft, take advantage of experts who can tailor it to the requirements of the pertinent arena. For example, legislatures typically employ legal staff who specialize in preparing bills or proposed ordinances. Be sure, though, to check the final draft to ensure that the original proposal’s intent is preserved despite translation into formal or specialized language.

Explore Likely Sources for Funding

During this entire phase, your team should investigate funding possibilities in detail. A number of clues about existing or potential funding and other resources have been identified in the previous phases; here they should be pinned down. In times of resource abundance, the search may not be so crucial, but whenever resources are scarce—probably the typical circumstance—resource development is a crucial component of this phase.

Prepare a Sufficient Budget

Make sure any budget proposal necessary to implement the proposed change is prepared. For many organizations, especially in government, budget documents are the basic policy documents (Poister, 2003; Osborne and Hutchinson, 2004). Additionally, some arenas separate appropriations from policy approval. Winning approval of a new policy without the authorization and appropriation of necessary resources is a hollow victory.

Develop an Initial Lobbying Strategy

Plan a persuasion campaign aimed at decision makers in the next phase, and develop support within your coalition for carrying out the campaign.

“Softening Up” and Media Strategies

Winning support requires persuasion, which may take time.

Get Coalition Members on Board

Use a softening-up process to convince potential coalition members to support a big-win strategy. Proposals for change—especially ambitious ones—typically require many stakeholders to make

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major conceptual adjustments, and these adjustments take time (Sabatier and Jenkins-Smith, 1993). To make these stakeholders more receptive to the proposed change, marshal a variety of persuasion tools: studies, speeches, Internet messages, publicity, and draft proposals to tout the need for change and the expected improvements your proposal will bring.

A case in point is the work of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The notion that profit making and environmental protection are incompatible is deeply engrained. Schmidheiny and his colleagues therefore have presented counterarguments and evidence in forums around the world for more than a decade. The council’s two books are replete with examples of businesses that have found a way to strengthen their bottom line through waste recovery and environmentally sensitive production processes.

Develop the Best Media Strategy for This Phase

Your team has to balance the need to sustain public momentum for change with candid give-and-take in proposal development and revision sessions. Of course, it may not always be possible to avoid news coverage of a proposal development session, especially if the proposed policy change is highly controversial. This publicity can be helpful, however, if it comes from a knowledgeable reporter, and change advocates should consider providing background sessions for reporters. The possibility that a proposal drafting session may become public gives your team even more incentive to structure the session so that acrimony, threats, and rigid position taking are discouraged. The public may feel more included in the process if at least some proposal development sessions are reported. Be prepared, however, to respond with positive counterinformation to any published reports that threaten successful proposal development.

Decisions About Next Steps

Two important decisions must be made before proceeding. First, if the necessary coalition has not formed by the end of this phase, consider cycling back through the previous phases or else dropping the project. The draft proposal review process should be de-