In my last post, I talked about strategy as logic; that is, a system of reasoning we utilise, based on our views and beliefs, about how to achieve change.

My own strategic logic for change (and therefore my practice as a leader of healthcare improvement) has been particularly influenced by Marshall Ganz. Ganz spent decades as a community organiser, leader and enabler of campaigns and social movements before joining the Kennedy School of Government to teach, research and write about leadership of change from a social movement perspective.

It’s very helpful for healthcare leaders to reflect on Ganz’s logic and definition of strategy: how we as leaders turn what we have (resources) into what we need (power) to achieve what we want (outcomes) by focusing on clear strategic objectives. I’m concentrating on this perspective specifically in this blog and will discuss resources next time.

The Montgomery bus boycott

We can see these strategic principles in action in so many of the inspiring stories of social change. Let’s take the example of the Montgomery bus boycott which was a pivotal point in the genesis of the American civil rights movement in 1955-56. Following the arrest of Rosa Parkes for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, the black population of Montgomery, Alabama, boycotted the town’s buses in protest at racial segregation of buses.

‘By organising for civil rights, a group of largely dispossessed marginalised African Americans was able to pool resources to create collective power for change’

By organising for civil rights, a group of largely dispossessed marginalised African Americans was able to pool resources to create collective power for change (enough people withdrawing their use of buses and payment of bus fares so that it had a profound impact). They built power both by pressing the authorities for reform through united action and growing their movement by winning other people across the nation to support and take action for their cause.

And they achieved the outcomes they sought: pressure for change increased across the country and eventually the segregation rules were deemed unconstitutional by the courts.

Ganz, along with other commentators, concludes that the leaders of social movements (“voluntary organisations”) typically have fewer levers and resources for enacting change than leaders of formal organisations have. This makes the strategic focus of leaders, to turn potential resources into power for change, even more important.

Ganz quotes James Q. Wilson:

“In most voluntary associations, authority is uncertain and leadership is precarious. Because the association is voluntary, its chief officer has neither the effective power nor the acknowledged right to coerce the members – they are, after all, members and not employees. In a business firm, the chief officer may, within limits, hire and fire, promote or demote, his subordinates…

“In most associations, power, or the ability to get a subordinate to do what the superior wants, is limited, and authority, or the right toexercises such power as exists, is circumscribed and contingent.”

Use your levers

I concur with Wilson that the kinds of levers and resources available to organisational leaders can create an easier set of circumstances for enacting change (when compared with social movement leaders who have none of these resources). However, on their own, coercion, compliance and other organisational mechanisms won’t create sustainable transformational change within and across organisations.

So I don’t necessarily agree that organisational leaders have a more straightforward task in leading change. In fact, I think that leaders of health and healthcare who are seeking radical changes across their organisations and systems in an ever more complex and unpredictable world have got more in common with social movement leaders than they have differences.

Many NHS change strategies are driven by logic based on extrinsic levers for change: incentivising payment systems, regulatory and quality assurance systems and holding leaders to account to deliver change outcomes. The strategic logic of social movement leaders is essentially based on igniting intrinsic motivation: building shared purpose, connecting with values, mobilising actions and taking meaningful action.

Transformational change across the NHS system requires both intrinsic and extrinsic factors and we as leaders need to find ways to align them and balance the tension between them. Otherwise there is a tendency to overemphasise the extrinsic factors and inadvertently kill off the energy, creativity and sense of psychological safety that people need to innovate and deliver goals for change.

Peter Drucker got it right when he advised organisational leaders to “accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer”. We can learn greatly from the strategic approaches of social movement leaders who led change that succeeded because people wanted to be part of the change, not because they had to be. They have a lot to teach us about motivating, mobilising and building power for change through the assets and resources of a community based on common interests and a common goal, creating capacity for change from within.

Some questions to consider:

  • What is the shared purpose underpinning our change efforts? Is it framed in a way that connects with values and builds intrinsic motivation?
  • What leadership actions can we take to shift power in the system and get the outcomes we seek?
  • Think about loss and gain: what control/power might we have to surrender in a hierarchical sense to enable a more distributed leadership system and quicker, wider progress of change across the system?

For more resources on large scale change, follow Helen Bevan on Twitter @helenbevan

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