Winter Reading: Switch II - Shaping the Path Toward Change
<br>In their book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/" target="”_blank”">Switch:
How to Change Things When Change Is Hard</i></a> (Crown, 2010), Chip
and Dan Heath focus on three general ways to shape the path toward
change: tweak the environment, build habits, and rally the
herd.<br>
<br>
Rallying the herd means letting people know what others are doing.
When most people do something, the others generally follow on their
own or can be embarrassed into following. A government ethics
example is posting on-time filers (and nonfilers) of annual
financial disclosure statements online and in departmental e-mails.<br>
<br>
Habits to build in government ethics include (1) seeking ethics
advice (leaders should do this as openly as possible, letting
everyone know in e-mails or even press releases what they asked,
what they were advised to do, and how helpful the advice was); and
(2) having every board chair ask for possible conflicts (from
members, involved parties, and the public) whenever a new matter
comes up.<br>
<br>
Habits are not as personal as we think they are. Many of them come
from our environments. That is why tweaking the environment can make
a big difference in how we act.<br>
<br>
<b>Predecision-making</b><br>
If officials were to predecide that, whenever faced with a conflict
situation, they would seek ethics advice from the ethics officer,
this would effectively pass control of their behavior to the ethics officer, ensuring professional handling of the conflict situation. By doing this, temptations, competing goals, and
bad habits are no longer impediments. This is why this
predecision to seek ethics advice is the central act of government
ethics. Establish this as a habit (by means of leadership, training,
an ethics officer, reminders, and visible ethics advice) and you've
gone a long way toward the goal of an effective government ethics
program.<br>
<br>
<b>Social Norms</b><br>
But this kind of habit can be seen as unnecessary, like goggles in a factory. The Heaths note
that most workers consider themselves exceptions to rules requiring
goggles. It's a macho thing. Similarly, officials think they are exceptions to the need
to seek ethics advice, that advice is useful only when they need to protect their
behinds, not because they can't figure it out on their own.<br>
<br>
The macho thing is made stronger by peer pressure. If no one's doing
it (except to protect one's behind), it's harder for any individual official to do for the right reason.<br>
<br>
The social norm of not seeking ethics advice needs to be changed in
order to weaken the personal feeling that one is a person of
integrity who knows how to deal with conflict situations (usually by
insisting, "I can't be bought" or "What I did is legal"). In an
environment that does not take advantage of ethics advice, a simple
rule may be necessary: a requirement to seek advice whenever
one has a relationship to someone involved in a matter.<br>
<br>
<b>The Haddon Matrix</b><br>
"Is it possible," the Heaths ask, "to design an environment in which
undesired behaviors—whether yours or your colleagues'—are made not
only harder, but impossible?" This is the central question of
government ethics reform. What's their answer? "Lots of people
actually make their living contemplating how to wipe out the wrong
kinds of behaviors." The Heaths focus on industrial safety experts
and others who seek to prevent injuries, for example from car
accidents. We know these experts have come up with many valuable
solutions, many of which people have been reluctant to accept.<br>
<br>
What about government ethics? Hardly anyone is trying to design such
an environment, and hardly anyone is looking for experts to help
them do this. But it's important to add, At least not yet. When this
starts happening, the field of government ethics will start
changing.<br>
<br>
Injury prevention experts have a framework to think systematically
about prevention, called the Haddon Matrix. The matrix focuses on
three times: pre-event, event, and post-event. Consider
injuries from car accidents. Pre-event interventions include things
that will prevent accidents, such as highway lighting, antilock
brakes, and campaigns against drunk driving. Event interventions
assume accidents will still occur, but injuries from them can be
reduced by seat belts, air bags, and the like. Post-event
interventions assume that injuries will still occur and, therefore,
seek to optimize health outcomes through emergency medical teams.<br>
<br>
Government ethics programs generally focus on none of these. The
principal form of prevention is enforcement, that is, preventing
through fear of punishment. This is the norm even though it doesn't
work very well. There is some training, but it is rarely very good.
There is advice, but it is usually not timely, not professional, not
independent, and not taken advantage of. There is disclosure, but it
is limited, and often not made public.<br>
<br>
A good government ethics program focuses on pre-event prevention,
including good ethics training, timely, professional, independent
ethics advice, and three kinds of disclosure. It would be nice to
market government ethics as conflict enlightening, antiscandal brakes,
and a campaign against making decisions with blinders on.<br>
<br>
But what about event and post-event interventions? Is there a
government ethics seat belt or emergency health team? Yes, I think
there is. There is the intervention of colleagues and subordinates.
If they know, they can intervene pre-event, but if they only find
out as or soon after ethical misconduct occurs, they can try to stop
the process, prevent the official from participating in the matter,
tell the official to immediately return the gift, refuse the job, or
resign from a nonprofit board. They can recommend that the official
call the ethics officer, convey the facts, and find out whether the
conflict situation can be rectified or whether the official needs to
report himself and enter into a settlement. This can turn what could
be a painful scandal into a nearly heroic admission of a mistake.
That is the government ethics way of optimizing a health outcome.<br>
<br>
Colleagues and subordinates can be the antiscandal brakes, seat belts, and
ambulances of government ethics. And yet this is rarely acknowledged
in a government ethics program. Here is a great opportunity for
change.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/search/node/switch%20heaths">Click here to read the other six blog posts on <i>Switch.</i></a><br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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