We’ve all heard the management adage, “Involvement is the key to implementing change.” When I’m consulting in organizations, too often I hear that adage framed this way, “The Board needs to feel like they’ve participated in this decision,” or “It’s important that the supervisors feel like they have input into what’s happening to them,” or “We need R & D to support this change so we’d better do something that will make them feel involved.”
These statements are made in good faith by managers trying to do the right thing – yet their language reveals an assumption that, not only do I hear, but that the target of the change effort often hears as well. The assumption is that what’s important is that others “feeling like” they’ve been involved, rather than that others actually are involved. If actually being involved was the goal, then I would hear something like, “I don’t see how we can address this change without the input from the front line – they know about issues we’re unaware of.”
The latter statement implies that the manager sees a need to make use of the collective wisdom of those who will be impacted in order to figure out what needs to be done. Knowledge is the end and involvement is a means to that end. “Feel like” implies that managers already have the answer or knowledge, but want those who will be impacted to think they are involved because that will make them more likely to go along with what has already been decided. Involvement has become the end.
That’s the test - if a manager already has an answer, he’s not involving others, no matter how many town halls or fireside chats he holds. He’s only trying to get others’ compliance by acting like he’s involving others – and it rarely fools anyone.
I learned that lesson many years ago while leading a Great Books Discussion Group. These groups meet once a month to discuss a book that all have read. The fundamental idea of Great Books is that the members have the ability to make sense of what the author is saying. Members don’t come to hear lectures; they come to have a discussion about the meaning of what they’ve read. The leader’s responsibility is to frame the discussion with two or three salient questions. One of the rules is that the leader cannot ask the group to discuss any question that the leader already has an answer to in her own mind.
The reasoning behind that very tough rule is quite sensible because it is close to impossible for any leader to ask such a question in an unbiased way. For me it meant I often had to read the book two or three times to formulate good, unbiased questions. If I, as the leader, violated the rule, I would find myself subtlety steering the group’s discussion toward my own bias and of course everyone in the group recognized what was happening. Framing unbiased and useful questions was great training for designing honest involvement in change efforts.
From that seven year experience of leading Great Books Discussion Groups, I also learned about the power of ordinary people to develop insights and understanding that none of us could have developed on our own, no matter how many times we read the book. If I could frame a good, honest questions, the discussion became a place of insight and alive with the pleasure of learning.
If managers bring people together to address the tough issues they face and if they frame honest questions, those discussions will produce insights that make the value of being involved obvious. There will be no need to worry about those impacted “feeling involved.”
