Campaign for change: exploring ideas and practices that lie between fields such as planning and theater, organizational change and campaigns, traditional and corporate universities, and other managerial intersections - On the boundary - Brief Article

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, Feb, 2001 by Mario Moussa

World-shaking CEOs Phil Knight and Jack Welch know it. Political animals James Carville and Bill Clinton know it. And social activists Rene Dubos and Jesse Jackson know it. They all know the energizing force of the right idea distilled down to an attention-commanding message.

"Just do it." "Think globally, act locally." "It's the economy, stupid." These terse imperatives pierce through the swirl of information that engulfs our over-loaded minds. They come from wildly different quarters--the worlds of advertising, social movements, politics--yet they draw upon related sources of power. They focus on action, invite engagement and participation, and mobilize campaigns.

In all their various forms, campaigns offer a model for organizational change. Many corporate leaders are natural campaigners. Jack Welch, whose annual shareholder letters highlight no more than a few compelling ideas and make a convincing case that General Electric will continue delivering value, is the patron saint of simple, powerful messages. Many leaders in higher education have taken a similar campaign approach to inspiring and guiding change, and they have reaped the benefits.

Soon after becoming president of Ursinus College in southern Pennsylvania, John Strassburger "campaigned" for change on a "platform" of "Students Achieving." He wanted to change the way faculty teach and students learn. He believed the emphasis should be on doing (consulting to a social service agency, organizing an art exhibition, staging a play, and so on) rather than knowing (as verified by writing papers and passing exams).

According to this kind of pedagogy, "consumers"--peers, clients, local media--evaluate students' performance and professors mentor.

The president believed a traditional strategic plan could not capture this vision of achievement. It had to be understood, through active experimentation, before being memorialized in a document. So he and his top team launched several initiatives--journals and research conferences, for example, run by students--aimed at teaching participants how to realize the "Students Achieving" notion. When an accreditation team visited Ursinus, two years into the campaign, they found an "inspired" and "inspiring" intellectual community.

More Than a "Forced March"

Campaigns such as the one at Ursinus match the structure of academic institutions, which fall into the category of "loosely coupled systems." Management theorist Karl Weick applied the term to decentralized organizations where unit managers exercise broad autonomy in making local decisions and centralized functions have limited authority. In such organizations, leaders at the top or center--university presidents, executive vice presidents, provosts build coalitions rather than rule by decree. Top-down strategic planning would be pointless. A "change campaign" suits such an environment where autonomy is deeply ingrained and even built into management by-laws.

Naturally it takes more than word-smithing to mount a campaign. It also takes an infrastructure: a "war room" of insiders who orchestrate activities; a "manager" supporting the "candidate" or leader (such as the Ursinus president) who gives a campaign its public face; and finally tangible incentives, financial and social, that reward participants' efforts.

Just as important, it takes a feel for an organization's passion, its heart. According to the creation-myth of the "Just Do It" campaign, an advertising executive, impressed by Nike's can-do spirit, announced to a group of the company's employees, "You Nike guys, you just do it." Here was the organizational equivalent of a Harmonic Convergence: passion and words in alignment.

The campaign metaphor breathes life into that stale concept "change management." For me, the phrase always conjures up prepared charts, scripted discussions, and tightly choreographed meetings--a "forced march," as a former client grimly described a reorganization.