My perspective on successful reforms 

The starting point for my further research into successful reforms is this belief:

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Successful civil service reforms are those that leave an embedded change in how people do things and how they think, such that the dynamic capability[1] of the civil service is improved. Their success is explained by a messy, imperfect coupling of multiple streams of ideas and methods, carried out by a network of multiple reform agents in a context that is conducive to change and sufficiently open to doing things differently. 

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I want to be open about my starting point for this programme of research into reform and the beliefs that I take into it. Four perspectives (or prejudices) have informed  my exploratory research:

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• There is a time and place for reform. Successful reforms require a context (internal and external to the civil service) that is permissive or demanding of change. Successful reforms in the UK show that a call for reform is best articulated in terms of outcomes rather than inputs and should be open-minded about how it is achieved. The call for reform from the senior sponsors or formal leaders is the trigger for the coupling of various internal and external reform agents and ideas. If this coupling is to be productive, agents need permission, support and open minds from the reform sponsors. Timing is all as the context can change rapidly from helpful to hopeless.

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• Choosing how to reform is a messy business. Because people who choose to reform have multiple choices, imperfect knowledge, distinctive personal values and beliefs this is a messy process. Competing solutions are likely to be already in play along with their advocates and critics. The call for reform triggers a need for agents to rapidly collaborate, share and incubate ideas which already have some traction and history. The facilitation of this collaboration will create the persuasive case for and outline of the reform. The key agents will assemble the arguments and have sufficient credibility to ensure the proposition is accepted. The way they do this will often be a deliberate effort to engage and mobilise others in the need for and approach to reform. Rational models and theories of decision making, change, policy making, and governance do not shed much light on how reform propositions are shaped and chosen.

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• The quality and 'fit' of the reform design and implementation is crucial. The ideas and insights of multiple agents from inside and outside the civil service are needed to shape the detailed design and execution of reform. This often entails a highly skilful, collaborative and engaging adaptation or ‘bricolage’ of different routines, models and language to ensure that the assembled elements of reform (regardless of their provenance) engage civil servants and work in the civil service at a point in time. Achieving fit with multiple agendas and circumstances that creates engagement and ownership is at the heart of the process of design. A striking feature of the more successful UK reforms is the brilliance of their business models and the sophistication of their theory of change. Some of those involved in this phase inevitably become part of the core team implementing the reform. The most impactful reforms create transformative routines[2] which are spread through the organisation by those people who worked with the reform intervention as they adapt their own practice to reflect what they learned from the experience.

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• You need to understand the evolving cast of reform agents not just the most senior people. The role of the agents who couple and collaborate in order to assemble and deliver a successful reform over time is too often ignored amidst conventional narratives about heroic leadership, governance and rational change processes. To understand successful reform we need to understand the personal journey, values and motivation of key agents. We need to understand how different agents acquired and adapted the elements that were assembled into a successful ideas for reform and its design. And we need to understand how they were able to connect those ideas to the world and language of the permanent civil service. What it is about the experience, career journey, character and capability of these agents that made them critical to success? These agents are rarely the most senior sponsor or advocate of the reform. They may be from outside the civil service or have switched between multiple sectors and jurisdictions. They may be maverick problem solvers, brilliant communicators, innovators, experienced implementors, or those with a deep experience and understanding of the civil service. One feature that is noticeable amongst many key agents in successful reforms is that they possess quite distinctive public service values, drive, ambition, courage, and persistence – without which they might have buckled in the face of the inevitable resistance and challenge most reforms will face. They seem to thrive in chaos and uncertainty.

 

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Notes

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i “A dynamic capability is a learned and stable pattern of collective activity through which the organization systematically generates and modifies its operating routines in pursuit of improved effectiveness” Zollo 2002

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ii “Transformational routines have the potential to enable firms to do something radically different from what they are used to doing.” Tranfield 200

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References

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Tranfield, D, Duberley, D, Smith, S, Musson, G, Stokes, P, ‘Organisational Learning – it’s just routine’, Management Decision, Vol. 38, Issue 4, 2000, pp. 253 – 260

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Zollo, M., & Winter, S. G. (2002). Deliberate Learning and the Evolution of Dynamic Capabilities. Organization Science, 13(3), 339–351.