Experience has shown that major change initiatives undertaken by government agencies seldom succeed according to plan. Too often, expectations are frustrated, budgets are over-run, schedules are exceeded, and/or programs are abandoned. Why is this story written so often, after the fact, about so many government programs? From years of working with federal agencies on some of their toughest challenges, I have found that leaders tend to underestimate the difficulty of the journeys they embark upon, at almost every stage of their more complex transformation initiatives. Indeed, many leaders set themselves up for failure, by not sufficiently preparing themselves or their organizations for the risks that await them, on the winding road to transformational success. To help improve this situation, my MITRE colleagues have been working with me to promote a Framework for Enterprise Transformation, which highlights three fundamental preconditions for success in large-scale transformation initiatives.
Click image to view Figure 1 (PDF).
There are three critical prerequisites, we have found, for launching transformations on a grand scale in any organization:
The Recognized Need for Change requirement (sometimes called a “burning platform” threat – such as “Y2K” in the late 1990s) has been shown to drive through mountains of change resistance, in untold thousands of organizations all around the globe. On the other hand, a Compelling Vision of the Future (e.g., JFK’s oft-cited vision of putting a man on the moon in the 1960s) has also been shown to exert a powerful force, in terms of attracting support for a major paradigm shift and sustaining that support over very long periods of time. Regardless of whether large-scale change is being pushed by a “burning platform” or pulled by the magnetism of an imaginative objective, those force-levels have had the effect of neutralizing most resistance to change. Unfortunately, those change enablers are too few in ordinary times, in government agencies, and too far in-between.
Sometimes, a “burning platform” type of threat to the status quo appears in the form of an external condition, such as a significant reduction in funds authorized – either by the legislature, by Congress, or by other approval authorities – for a given budgetary period. Another example of such a potential threat to business-as-usual is negative public reaction to a sudden event or incident, such as an apparent breach of security or a perceived failure to adequately respond to a public emergency. These types of situations, though relatively rare, can be seized upon by an organization’s leaders to obtain widespread recognition of the need for change to its modus operandi.
A Compelling Vision of the Future, on the other hand, almost always derives from bold and exceptional leadership. This, too, is a force that often emanates from outside a given department or agency of government – as, for example, when a new administration is swept into office with a mandate for reforming government on a large scale (e.g., in the areas of healthcare or education). Even within agencies, however, bold leaders have been known to effect dramatic changes from time to time – though changes that are inspired by local leaders often run the risk of rapidly losing steam once the visionary moves on.
Still, for all ambitious transformation initiatives, it is essential that the combination of a Recognized Need for Change and a Compelling Vision of the Future be sufficiently established in the affected organization, to win the proverbial “hearts and minds” of its most impacted stakeholders. Absent the influence of such positive motivation, attempts to anyway press for organizational change – no matter how well intentioned – will surely be hampered by the weight of institutional resistance to change. This is a reality that appears to be as prevalent in government agencies as it is in the private sector, perhaps due to the transitory nature of some executive positions (such as that of a CIO) – thus making it possible for skeptics in the organization to assume a wait-and-see attitude toward new change initiatives.
Even with the benefit of a Recognized Need for Change and a Compelling Vision of the Future to rally stakeholders around a campaign for achieving organizational change, the road to transformational success remains a long and winding one, fraught with lurking distractions, delays, detours, deviations, doom, and distress. Indeed, the analogy of political ambition comes to mind in this regard. Just as the distinction is often made between the capacity to win a tough campaign and the capabilities needed to govern effectively thereafter, gaining the institutional goodwill required to launch widespread organizational change has little to do with what’s needed to deliver on the promise of the proposition.
When government agencies undertake large transformation initiatives such as the consolidation of IT support or the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, little attention is paid to the need to address the organizational implications of such ambitious undertakings. People need to be engaged in the development and implementation of new or improved business processes, well before the transformation initiative is launched. The impact of employing streamlined business practices on employees, customers, and partner agencies needs to be effectively addressed as part of a Transition Strategy that may need to be executed over a period of years. To make such an endeavor more achievable, it is best to help the affected stakeholders learn how to crawl before they walk and run. A Transition Strategy is needed to help stakeholders appreciate the challenging nature of the journey being embarked upon, and to help them envision achievable milestones en route to the desired destination. Such a strategy should also provide for mechanisms that enable stakeholders to actively engage in the many course-adjustment decisions that will need to be made along the sometimes winding road to success.
As suggested by Figure 2, a robust Enterprise Transition Strategy is necessarily complex, and a high-maintenance one as well – requiring the orchestration of numerous, often overlapping activities. Furthermore, the competencies required to perform those transition-enabling activities, though highly specialized in their own right, must be applied in a manner that recognizes, and leverages, their mutual interdependence.
Click image to view Figure 2 (PDF).
In case the complexity of the Transition Strategy depicted in Figure 2 gives rise to concerns about how an agency might expect to harness that many skills at once – or even apply them on an as-needed basis over the course of a long transition period –, the fact is that many of those skills are highly interrelated, and complementary of one another. Indeed, to serve this type of need for its government customers, MITRE has organized a set of practices in one of its divisions around Enterprise Strategy and Transformation services, which cultivates expertise (and promotes best practices) for virtually all of the competencies depicted in Figure 2. Though I really didn’t set out to promote the service offerings of MITRE in this article, I do believe that our extensive experiences with many government customers has led us to build our Enterprise Strategy and Transformation services – directed at the challenges of transforming government – around these primary areas of focus: Enterprise Business Strategy, Enterprise Architecture, Investments & Acquisition Management, and Organizational Change Management:
By design, many overlapping skill areas are cultivated and nourished by the MITRE Practices offering Enterprise Strategy and Transformation services. This is a direct reflection of the complex mixture of competencies that are required to help our customers implement their transition-enabling activities. It is also indicative of a need to motivate most staff members to acquire and maintain a diversity of skills over time, many of which are not applied for the duration of a given customer engagement but “parachuted in” at critical junctures – or “just-in-time,” when conditions and events converge to create especially knotty situations that threaten the aforementioned distractions, delays, and distress.
It is an understatement indeed, to characterize the implementation of an Enterprise Transition Strategy as a high-maintenance undertaking. For one thing, it aims to overhaul the way business has been done for years and years, while at the same time ensuring that business-as usual continues to occur for customers of the organization. It also has to somehow overcome the kinetic effects of institutional habits, and the deeply embedded patterns of human behavior – many of which had long been celebrated and lauded as signs and symbols of past success. To achieve such a daunting objective means beating the odds. Studies have shown that attempts to effect major organizational change tend to fail much more often than do large-scale software development projects – which we all know have a notoriously dismal track record.
Despite the many risks to success, government agencies can be changed – and have been changed in the past. Patience and persistence are the keys to success, I believe, along with an appreciation for the fundamental prerequisites for transforming your government enterprise.
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