You Say You Want a Revolution?
by Lucy Lettis
Lucy Lettis is a principal at Andersen, where she is competitive intelligence director.
She is currently serving as a director on SLA's Board of Directors.
Start the Change!
Actually, this article has two titles. You are free to choose
between them, at no extra charge. The one you see above is for those of us who can relate to the Lennon and McCartney song of 1968:
"You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world."
The second title is also for those of us who have reached what is euphemistically called "a certain age." This title is called "Start the Revolution With Me" and is a paraphrase of the title of a cult movie called Start the Revolution Without Me, which was filmed in 1970. I'm actually more familiar with the song than I am with the movie.
Both quotations are, to my ear, rather passive. I cite them in order to change them and change is what this article is about. The second quote I have already changed and the first I would revise to "Well, then, do something!" Revolutions don't happen simply because we want them to and they certainly don't occur without us. Will and Ariel Durant may have put it best when they said, "The future never just happened. It was created."
If one is lucky enough, their organization is strong and secure enough, and their bosses are self-confident and wise enough, the organization will do what it can to hold on to an irritant and nurture it, even when the relationship is mutually painful. That's a pile of "ifs," and it suggests that no one should join or start a rebellion thoughtlessly. But unless we accept the Yogi Berra line that our future "ain't what it used to be," it is necessary for some of us to do something.
Do what? Before I make some suggestions, it is important to stress that we are talking about making and probably getting into trouble. Of course I am talking about attempting change in our professional world, which means not only information services but the businesses within which they operateand it will not be news to
you that pushing for significant change inside a large, complex, bureaucratic organization is never easy. Becoming known as a change agent requires all the tact, diplomacy, and charm you can muster; all the allies you can find; and all the political skills you can summon. But more and more business leaders are becoming aware of the necessity for innovation, so revolution may be achieved with less stress and sacrifice in the future than it has been in the past. And as the well-known strategy thinker Gary Hamel has said, we find ourselves benefitting less these days from great discoveries than from innovation.
Science can overcome physical constraints, but it is the malcontent and the dreamer who shows us how to overcome mental constraints. Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric, went as far as to advise colleagues to "Destroy your business." He launched internal revolutions every few years to challenge managers to reinvent the way their groups operate and think. In a way it is a "controlled burn," which is a process by which forest managers burn off small sections of forests in order to clear out the deadwood, make space for new growth, and head off uncontrollable wildfires.
So we need to talk not only about what to changeor what to rebel aboutbut also how to change, how to avoid the mere noisemaking and pyrotechnics of those who are more interested in looking like revolutionaries than in actually getting things done. First, I suggest that the effective revolutionary keep under control. We've all seen two people arguing on a train or in a parking lot, yelling their heads off at each other. Does either really think he or she has a chance of persuading the other to do something by screaming? No. Whether they know it or not, they have given up their desire to achieve something for the pleasure of losing control. Revolutionaries who sincerely desire change can't afford that luxury. We work within the system, though we desire to change it in part. We work with those who we need to help us to effect change. We abandon the luxury of anger, resentment, and that oh-so-satisfying blow-up that devastates our resister and also sets them against anything we may ever try to accomplish.
Second, I suggest, we practice patience. Oh, how glorious and satisfying it is to propose something tonight and see it put into effect tomorrow! It is glorious, satisfying, and just about impossible. Change requires people working patiently inside organizations, expecting only modest progress, and not getting discouraged at the lack of dramatic, instantaneous improvements. That ant may have high hopes of moving that rubber-tree plant (Remember the song?), but he won't move it unless he talks other ants into helping him. And he does not groan with exasperation when the second, third, and fourth ants say no. He just continues efforts to persuade them. If not those ants, then an army of other ants you've convinced that the plant must be moved. But perhaps my point is better served by the image of that one ant patiently moving grains of sand, not some huge shrub, until he has built his mound. Seek small wins and watch them grow into a great victory. "Patience and fortitude," another old song says, "and things will come your way." Small wins are a central strategy for effective revolutionaries. And this concept speaks to the issue of dangerwhen challenges are bite-size, risks are minimized. You're testing the system, negotiating resistance, prodding gently, and subtly challenging the status quo. When you push too hard, too far, and too fast, you risk becoming ineffective and you put yourself and your career in jeopardy. Patience is a virtue. You may have heard this somewhere before, but patience is a key component to your longevity in the organization.
A third quality of the effective revolutionary is malleability. Certainly some points of what you desire to achieve should be non-negotiable because there is no point in succeeding if what you have accomplished is worthless. But you can be flexible on the approach. You need to sweeten the medicine that you're giving the organization. That may require softening your approach without losing sight of the goal. Of course it will help to find allies in the company to help you with your work and to share and thus minimize the risk. But be cautious. Allies may want to change, weaken, and subvert your idea. They also may want to blab it to the world before you are ready (a danger of which I will say more later).
Patience and caution are two qualities I would emphasize as much as possible. Think of the fisherman, reeling in his prey. He lets the fish run when the strain is about to snap the line and hauls in like mad when the resistance weakens. This is an important analogy because many people simply do not want to be led in revolt any more than a fish wants to be caught. Most of us fear change, and rightly so. Revolution is dangerous and the higher the stakes are, the more treacherous the path. Because it is dangerous, a lot of planning, forethought, and care must be taken. We all work hard, but revolution requires something more than hard work. Some of us like things just the way they are. Maybe we could be better, but we do ok this way and if it ain't broke ... Well, you know the saying. If change has to occur, many people would prefer, like Rip Van Winkle in the mountains, to sleep through it.
No army ever conquers without a reveille, and I am urging us to blow our horns. If it is scary, demanding, and chancy to revolt, it can be hopeful, exciting, and energizing too. Hear what Ralph Waldo Emerson, that early spokesman for American values, said:
"If there is any period one would want to be born in, is it
not the age of revolution, when the old and the new stand
side by side . . . when the historic glories of the old can be
compensated by the rich possibilities of the new?"
The age of revolution, Emerson is saying, is the age of opportunity.
Very few like danger, but almost no one who lives can avoid it. If you start a revolution, you must virtually run to meet it. No one can start a revolution from the bottom, at least not alone, so what we are talking about here is the quiet and steady rebel who has moved up the corporate ladder and is in a position to urge and affect change. Rising in the business world is like mountain climbing: the higher one goes, the greater the danger of a fall. A danger in rising higher within an organization is that success can create fear; people sometimes become very risk-averse. The spotlight grows brighter and larger the higher up the ladder you climb. Everyone is looking at you and wondering if you are the sort of executive we want and need here. Are you one of us? Are you partner or managing director material?
Many good people get to this place in their careers and become so cautious and risk-averse that they lose the innovative or revolutionary drive that got them there in the first place. They may tell you this is wisdom or maturity.
Maybe it is. But maybe coming to terms with greater power, if it means tiptoeing through eggshells instead of taking chances, is not all it's cracked up to be. If we decide that it's worth the danger, many in the companya metaphorical oyster shellwill consider us an irritating grain of sand to be expelled. But if we stay the course, we could wind up a pearl.
What qualities, besides stubbornness and bravery, are needed to become a pearl? In addition to the obviouscourage, desire, ambition, tact, and so onI suggest two. We need the ability to handle ambiguity. The trouble with our worldbut also the potential of itis that it is always dualistic, meaning there is no high without a low, no good without a bad. Virtually nothing in our lives means just one thingeverything means two. That's why so many aphorisms contradict each other: like to like, opposites attract; absence makes the heart grow fonder, out of sight out of mind. Many a revolution has failed because the leaders thought the revolution was about just one thing, when actually it was about two things that were sometimes contradictory. So we need to at least look at things as pairs.
Several months ago I was in Rome attending the European Business Information Conference (EBIC). On the final day of the conference, I had two or three free hours in the late afternoon to roam around Rome. Having visited the major tourist attractions on a previous trip, I decided to use that time to visit the house located at the base of the Spanish Steps where the great English poet John Keats spent the final year of his young life. I was reminded of what Keats wrote in 1817 about a state of mind that he called Negative Capability. Keats defines Negative Capability as "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." Today, the world is full of organizational psychologists and management theorists writing and lecturing about being able to thrive in an atmosphere of chaos, confusion, and ambiguity. I like to remind myself that it was 1817 when Keats developed the concept of Negative Capability, which I think sums up this idea far better than any of today's management gurus. I especially like the last clause " . . .without any irritable searching after fact and reason." There are many days in my organization when I have to remind myself to stop searching after fact and reason.
The rebel needs the ability to work the system. Crucial to this, I think, is the realization that we do not work in linear organizations. They consist of a matrix of webs of relationships and connections, and we must learn to manage our areas, not in a simple line from A to Z or even just to B, but by moving within the complicated pattern that actually exists. In a nonlinear world, we sometimes need to stop worrying about how we get things done, but instead worry more about what we're doing. By the time a company has taken maximum efficiency out of the how, its competitors will have devised a new what. Coming up with the new "whats" is the secret to thriving in the new economy.
How many of you feel as though you really understand the structure of your organization? How far that question takes us beyond our formal training in schools of library and information studies? Nobody in any class I attended suggested anything about looking at the company we would be in, trying to understand its complexity, and working out the way to operate within it. (Perhaps they do now; I hope so. Or perhaps it is not their task. Maybe it is up to us, as we experience our practical work instead of learning the theory of it, to see that we need to do such things.) The rebel who just picks up a gun and charges, without any idea of where to go or what is waiting, will run right into the grave (which in this case is metaphor for unemployment).
Inspiration is another important quality to the successful rebel. Lots of us have read about, talked about, and given consideration to the distinctions between management and leadership. But in becoming a revolutionary, one sometimes may cross over the line from leadership into the realm of inspiration. In the new economy, organizations seeking peak performance have to unleash the talents and power of their people by inspirationnot by leadership or management. The word inspire comes from the Latin meaning to breathe in, and what we hope to do to our company is comparable to the feeling a body has when it takes a deep breathawakened, energized, and ready to go. Companies have accepted the usefulness of the coffee break, but more need to advise their workers to take a deep breath. Some companies have discovered this during attempts to re-engineer deeply embedded systems. Often, parts of those systems would mysteriously reappear. The notion of starting with a blank slate, is ludicrous in complex systems.
There are three critical "I" words for the rebel: initiative, inspiration, and imagination. Speaking of imagination, I can imagine people thinking of all this as far beyond them. It is easy to ask "Who am I to effect change within my company?" But revolution does not start with the monarch. Neither Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, or Vaclav Havel possessed political power at the beginning, yet each one of them disrupted their time and changed history. It was passion, not power, that enabled them to do so. The age of revolution does not require obedient soldiers, bowing to their superiors and throwing themselves at the enemy en masse. Polishing the egos of senior management by telling them what they want to hear is robbing your company and yourself of potential.
Of course it requires courage to do any of what I am suggesting. But courage does not necessarily come from the genes; one can learn how to be brave. You can start with a very small risk, and alternate risk-taking with actions of certain safety, and then finally get started in undertaking a whole new and very uncertain challenge. After a while, one gathers momentum and gains confidence. In her editorial column in Searcher magazine, Barbara Quint cautions us against "wimpiness." She says, "If the siren call of wimpiness persists, just remember this. It's the same call the lemmings hear on their march to the sea. These are radical times. No conservative strategies will work. It's quick or dead, brave or slave." For every so-called great leader who accomplishes a transformation, chances are there are at least half a dozen activists at work deep within the organization who have been advocating and preparing for change for years.
Lesser lights in firms must think of and work at revolution in a different way from major players, while also employing different tactics. Maybe the greatest impact would be to select and work on just one or two ideas at a time. Perhaps that idea appears very clearly. If it does not, start gathering several ideas, work on each of them equally, and one or two will begin to emerge as having the greatest potential. If it's a good idea, it should benefit the corporation, the customers, and you.
Now put the idea forward. You will need two supportersthe workers at your level who help you develop and support the idea and at least one superior who thinks it will work. I recommend that you work out a business plan that helps you through each part of the change you are attempting to effect, like Gifford Pinchot advises in his book, Intrapreneuring. Here are some of the questions you will find yourself asking: Are you able to present your proposal fully and precisely? Can you identify the services it will perform and the needs it will meet? Can you show how it is particularly appropriate for your firm? How will you make its benefits clear to your customers and how can you persuade them to accept and use it? What competition may your proposal have and what will enable it to triumph? Few ideas, even if they are good, are going to succeed without lots of good answers.
Pinchot advises us to do all this as quietly as possible. While the plan will help you to argue for your idea, early exposure will help others to formulate objections. He suggests making two plans: a fully detailed one (obliging us to think through all the issues and guiding us to see who is committed) and a more vague one (showing that we know what we're talking about, but not offering as much for potential adversaries to shoot at). Deciding to do this depends on your identification and assessment of the strength of potential opponents. Though you do indeed need a team and a superior to sponsor your work, you should exercise considerable caution in seeking them out.
I think you may be surprised at the enthusiasm you will encounter if you begin to work for some kind of change. People respond to the "idea" of the future as much as they plan for it. Agents of change need to focus on recruiting followers that are open to new ideas or the need for change. This is actually more important than having a detailed blueprint to move through every step of the process.
To illustrate what is needed to create change, I would like to tell you of a sequence of events that occurred in the AT&T organization, which I read about on Gary Hamel's Strategos Institute web site. AT&T's Opportunity Development Department (ODD) submitted a report proposing improvements in the operation of its labs. When the department decided on tools and ideas for the specific improvements, it submitted a report that had absolutely no impact. The department members realized that if there was any hope of making change in the labs, they would have to do something else besides write a great report. What? They found Gary Hamel's "Strategy as Revolution" article that advocated subversion. ODD was told to pinpoint fundamental convictions and beliefs in the minds of appropriate personnel and explore ways of "overthrowing" them. Sounds like a revolution, doesn't it?. They decided to invite these people into the process, engage them in developing new perspectives, and encourage ground-breaking concepts for innovation in the labs. In short, they started a revolution by co-opting the loyalists. Revolt without gore can work. England had a "Bloodless Revolution" once that worked, at least for a while.
Several characteristics are essential for workers in a revolt. They must hold a strong commitment to their institution and a deep passion for their efforts. They must have confidencethe powerful conviction that what they propose is right and will make a difference. They must be ambitious, for their company and themselves. They have to be willing to break the rules, to act without routine authorization, and to refuse the stultification of
bureaucracy. They should be endowedor find allies who are endowedwith considerable political savvy and antennae sensitive to feedback as their project becomes known; to exercise common sense; keep an eye on the big picture; and network aggressively. And they need thick skin and resolutionthe ability to encounter and shrug off objection and rejection.
These are the characteristics needed, but what are the skills? The three major ones are communication, facilitation, and corporate surveillance. The rebels need to position themselves in their organization so that they can understand how their work will fit in and explain it to all comers, doubters, and skeptics. They must see what argument is needed and develop their ability to press it.
Facilitation means that they will be able to guide and manage groups as their plan is worked out and put into operation. Corporate surveillance means they understand the power structure of the company, the depth and limitations of management, and the management perception of problemssuch as what it worries about, what keeps it awake at night, and what it would change once the advantages of change are explained to them.
I know much of this is scary, much may seem too demanding, some will seem to require the revolutionary to be, not an information specialist, but a Superman or Superwoman. A list of tips for revolutionaries that I read concluded with this important tip: "Have another job ready."
Not everybody is cut out to be a Minuteman, to shout Bonzai, or to come up out of the trenches. I hope those who are not revolutionaries, will understand and encourage others to lead the charge. But if you are merely uncertain, don't sell yourself short. Shakespeare said that only some people are born great, others will achieve greatness, and some others will even have it thrust upon them. Remember the many instances in history of humble people rising to the occasion and making a difference in the world. We are not speaking of "greatness" in any historical sense, but we are talking about information specialists working in businesses. The small arena has its heroes, too, and none of them ever triumphed without saying to themselves, "I think I can. In this highly competitive business world, the companies that survive must have innovators, brave personnel activists, changers, and rebels. Johnny and Jeannie, get your guns. 
For further reading:
Gary Hamel. Leading the Revolution. Harvard Business School Press, 2000.
Mark C. Maletz and Nitin Nohria. "Managing in the Whitespace." Harvard Business Review. February 2001. Pages 103-111.
Gifford Pinchot and Ron Pellman. Intrapreneuring in Action: A Handbook for Business Innovation. Berrett-Koehler, 1999.
Barbara Quint. "Wimps." Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals. September 2000. Page 8.
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