Eleven Tips for Organizational Change

Posted 2023-06-19

2023 is the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first Software Carpentry workshop at Los Alamos National Laboratory [Wilson2016]. A lot has changed in those years: open access journals have proven that they can work, most scientific research is powered (at least in part) by open source software, there is greater awareness and discussion of equity and inclusivity shortcomings, and researchers can connect with each other online in ways that only a few visionaries dreamed of.

But a lot of things haven’t changed or have gotten worse:

A handful of large publishing companies continue to extract exorbitant rents for “allowing” us to read our own work.
Most researchers are no more computationally competent than they were in the 1990s, which means that most research is no more reproducible than it was then.
Academic life is increasingly arduous, insecure, and under-funded, and “awareness” and “discussion” are only rarely translated into effective action.
The tools that have allowed researchers to share ideas have also helped foster and spread anti-scientific disinformation on the climate crisis, vaccines, and hundreds of other topics, leading directly to the loss of millions of lives.

Throughout the last quarter of a century, advocates of truth, openness, and fairness have acted as if being right was enough to guarantee victory. However, “If you build it, they will come” has never been a winning strategy. Systemic change always starts with a small group of idealists sharing ideas and building a core constituency, but only has impact when people take on the hard work of organizing in the large. From women’s rights to the struggle for racial equality and the gay rights movement, every significant step towards a fairer society has required people to challenge authority in numbers too great to be ignored [Beckerman2022, Hirshman2012, Ricks2022, Wagner2019].

Back in March, I submitted a proposal to the upcoming US-RSE conference for a workshop on organizational change drawn from my experience and from works such as [Alinsky1989, Brown2007, Manns2015]. The proposal was rejected, but I hope these tips will still be useful. I recognize that they are incomplete—in particular, that they are strongly biased toward what works in affluent, democratic societies—but if you’re tired of rolling heavy rocks up steep hills over and over again, maybe they will help.

1) Be sure this is where you want to focus your efforts.

It’s going to take years, it could well fail, and there are many other things you could do, so be sure this particular change is the one you want to fight for. Similarly, ask yourself what you care about most: making change or the social status that comes from being the founder of something. If it’s truly the former, joining an existing organization will probably be more effective than starting one of your own.

2) Start by playing in someone else’s band.

The best way to learn how to organize effectively is to work with someone who already knows how to do it. Pick a cause you believe in and spend a few months or a year helping to move it forward. Take notes: how did that group’s leaders make decisions? How did they arrange space for meetings or get permits for rallies? Which journalists were sympathetic? Which t-shirt printing companies delivered on time? Success or failure often depends on getting these operational details right, and you can do some good while mastering them.

A corollary to this rule is don’t volunteer for nothing. If you help someone make a documentary, it’s fair to ask that you be listed in the credits so that you will seem more credible when it’s your turn to ask people for support. Similarly, if you show up twice a week for several months to help a city councilor get elected, they should be willing to take half an hour to chat with you over a cup of coffee. And when you’re the one in charge, remember how much that coffee chat helped you and give your supporters some of your time to help them get rolling.

3) Ask those who will be affected.

Asking people for their opinions and ideas is a good way to find potential allies, and an even better way to avoid making costly mistakes. More importantly, nihil pro nobis sine nobis (nothing for us, without us) should always be your guiding principle. History is littered with the wreckage of initiatives whose organizers had good intention but tried to fix the wrong problem or tried to fix it the wrong way.

4) Be specific.

Few people would argue in public against (for example) fair hiring practices, but an organization has to implement something specific in order for that to mean anything, and people very well might argue against those specifics. You should therefore pick something specific and achievable and make a concrete plan for achieving it. Start with whatever is likely to have broadest support, even if it’s small, because success breeds success.

5) Figure out who actually has the power to make that change and what they care about.

Your neighbors don’t make policy for your local public school: school board trustees do, so that’s who you need to influence if you want (for example) better accommodation for students with learning disabilities or updates to the history curriculum. Figuring out who can actually implement the change you want is called power mapping, and you should re-examine it periodically to make sure you’re still trying to pull the right metaphorical levers.

6) Build alliances.

People who want the same thing you do and who have a wide range of connections or a high profile (either inside your group or externally) are your useful allies. Once you have figured out who they are, find out what they want and whether you can help them achieve it. “I’ll scratch you’re back if you’ll scratch mine” is not cynical: people whose beliefs are aligned may have different priorities, and people whose beliefs aren’t aligned may still make pragmatic alliances.

Conversely, you should also figure out who is going to be negatively impacted by the change you want and whether there’s anything you can do to help them. For example, if your change is going to eliminate jobs, what else can those people do instead? People may recognize that a change is for the better overall but still fight against it because it will hurt them; showing them that you recognize this and are trying to take care of them will often defuse their opposition.

Finally, you must accept that some people will always see the world differently than you do and will never be your allies, particularly if the change you want challenges their core beliefs about their identity. It’s often hard for idealistic people to accept that sometimes their opponents cannot be persuaded and must instead be defeated. Acknowledging this and acting on it may require more courage than any other part of your struggle.

7) Test the waters.

At every stage, refine your idea and presentation in front of a small group first. But remember: when done honestly, “refining your idea” sometimes means accepting that you wanted the wrong thing. And note that it can be useful to ask someone to be the official skeptic: giving them a way to critique in private may temper their public criticism, and you just might convert them.

For example, thanks (or “thanks”) to conferences moving to 100% online during COVID-19, thousands of people were finally able to take part on an equal footing despite visa restrictions, not being able to afford to travel to an affluent country, needing to stay at home to look after loved ones, accessibility challenges, and a host of other barriers. I watched with dismay as those conferences rushed back to in-person-only in 2022 despite their organizers’ claims of valuing inclusivity. In the summer of that year I decided to launch a public pledge: if enough people said they would only attend conferences that provided full remote participation, maybe that would shame organizers into doing the right thing.

About a third of the people I emailed about this came back with some variation of, “Looks good!” Another third came back with detailed comments about the wording of the pledge, but the final third responded by saying, “This is a bad idea.” Some felt the pledge would put people in a no-win situation: for example, it’s basically career suicide for junior academics to not go to networking events (which is all conferences really are). Others felt that focusing on one aspect of inclusivity—remote participation via video conferencing—was yet another example of someone treating a social problem as a technical one. My first reaction was to defend my idea, but if you’re not willing to change your mind based on feedback from people you respect, you’re probably going to make other mistakes as well.

8) Keep it visible.

It’s easy to start a blog and create a ~~Twitter~~ Mastodon account, but that very ease has reduced these channels’ impact. Is there a newsletter you can be included in (which makes you look more official)? Can you make a presentation as part of some other event (rather than organizing a gathering of your own)? Can you get someone with a higher profile to mention what you’re doing and point people your way? Can you post notices in the lunchroom? The elevator? The washrooms? Local restaurants? T-shirts, stickers, and badges on websites or social media profiles are good ways to keep your cause in front of people.

A corollary to keeping your cause visible is to always have a single point of contact that someone actually checks frequently. Everyone is drowning in requests for attention; if they ask you a question or volunteer to help and don’t get a quick, clear response, they’re probably going to move on to something else.

9) Collect data but tell stories.

Sooner or later someone is going to ask how many people change will affect or what financial impact it’s going to have, so make sure you’re ready for that. However, data doesn’t have nearly as powerful an impact as stories: in most cases the person asking the question won’t actually want the data, they just want to be reassured that you have it. Don’t explain what kind of people this will help: explain how it helped a specific person, or how it would make a specific person’s life better. And if you’ve never cried when telling that story, tell a better story.

10) Learn how to run meetings and make decisions.

You can get the change you want without being a great public speaker, but you must know how to run a meeting and make decisions. These slides present a simple set of rules that would probably have been familiar to the builders of the pyramids:

Decide if there actually needs to be a meeting.
Write an agenda.
With timings.
And put the most important topic first.
Have a moderator.
Require politeness.
Record and post minutes.
Have clear rules for:
Who gets a vote on what.
Making proposals.
Making decisions.

11) Celebrate when you can, grieve when you need to.

Burnout is an occupational hazard for everyone trying to make meaningful change, in part because we get so used to doing things on our own at the start that we don’t share the load even when there are people to share it with. Not all of your allies will become your friends, but those who do will be able to share your victories and commiserate with your defeats like no one else.

Bibliography

Alinsky1989: Saul D. Alinsky. Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals. Vintage, 1989. ISBN 978-0679721130.
Beckerman2022: Gal Beckerman. The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas. Crown, 2022. ISBN 978-1524759186.
Brown2007: Michael Jacoby Brown. Building Powerful Community Organizations: A Personal Guide to Creating Groups that Can Solve Problems and Change the World. Long Haul Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0977151806.
Hirshman2012: Linda Hirshman. Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution. Harper, 2012. ISBN 978-0061965500.
Manns2015: Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising. Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas. Addison-Wesley, 2015. ISBN 9780201741575.
Ricks2022: Thomas E. Ricks. Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. ISBN 978-0374605162.
Wagner2019: Sally Roesch Wagner, editor. The Women's Suffrage Movement. Penguin Classics, 2019. ISBN 978-0143132431.
Wilson2016: Greg Wilson. Software carpentry: lessons learned. F1000Research, January 2016. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.3-62.v2, doi:10.12688/f1000research.3-62.v2.