Winter Reading: Switch IV - Ethics Reform

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Thu, 02/14/2013 - 03:19

Book Reviews

Why Scandals Lead to Poor Ethics Reform 
In their book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/" target="”_blank”">Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard</a> (Crown, 2010), Chip
and Dan Heath note that John Kotter and Dan Cohen argue in their
book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heart-Change-Real-Life-Stories-Organizations/dp/1…; target="”_blank”">The
Heart of Change</a> that the sequence of change is not
analyze-think-change, which is how most people (including me) try to
bring it about, but rather see-feel-change. The thing that local
government officials are most likely to see in a way that makes them feel strongly enough to embrace
change is a scandal in
their government organization, or even sometimes in the state or a
neighboring government (Watergate raised such strong feelings that
it had an effect at all levels of government). 
 
The problem with change coming from scandal is that it points to a
problem (often a mostly irrelevant problem), but not to an effective
solution. When negative emotions are involved, the solution,
according to Martin Seligman, is essentially removing a stone from
one's shoe, not fixing the shoe itself. The response to negative
emotions lacks creativity, flexibility, or ingenuity. So the results
are not usually effective or well thought out.

Negative emotions can also be harmful to ethics reform after the
reforms have been accomplished. Ethics programs that are created to
prevent further scandals usually focus on enforcement. And it is
enforcement that most strongly elicits the negative emotions (mostly
fear of being the subject of an ethics proceeding) that lead
officials to undermine an ethics program. 
 
Negative emotions are not the way to improve a government ethics
program. This can be done only by tamping down emotions and focusing
on the positive feelings of pride and professionalism, that
is, feelings associated with one's identity. A picture needs to be
painted of the public respecting its officials and seeing them as
heroes willing to give up benefits to themselves and those most
important to them. This identity is not only valuable in the
community, but can also be valuable when seeking state or federal
office later on in one's political career. But this isn't easy to do without leadership from within the government. 
 
The Heaths give an example of Microsoft software developers watching
real users struggling with Microsoft programs. This made a huge
difference in the quality of the work they did. It wouldn't be a bad
idea for officials to ask members of the community to say how they
feel every time they learn of instances of nepotism, contracts going
to business associates, zoning approvals going to developers who
make large campaign contributions, and the like. These feelings may
be expressed in the blogosphere, but there is nothing like hearing
it directly, feeling the lack of respect and anger and disgust. 
 
It
is much better for ethics reform that high-level officials hear a wide range of negative
emotions at a time when there is no scandal, than to hear a narrow
range of negative emotions in the midst of a scandal. A wide range
of criticisms should cause officials to realize that true change
will come not through more ethics provisions or penalties, but
through a change in how officials approach conflict situations and
through the creation of a quality, independent ethics program that
can gain the trust of both officials and the public. 
 
The Heaths note that "it can sometimes be challenging to distinguish
why people don't support your change. Is it because they don't
understand or because they're not enthused?" With respect to
government ethics reform, I think it's best to assume that both are
true. One must both enlighten and excite, which is not an easy
thing. Scandals excite, but they don't enlighten. In fact, they
usually get in the way of enlightenment. The appearance of acting
quickly takes over. The window for enlightenment is narrow, if it opens at all. And then the reform is done, at least until the
next scandal comes along. 
 
What are ethics reformers to do? The best way to take advantage of a
scandal is to have a reform plan ready in advance, do one's best to
enlighten officials when they're not really listening, and then wait
until a scandal gets officials interested. This is the kind of
approach good government organizations are best at. It's a variation
on the one at the beginning of this post: analyze-wait-change. 
 
Shrinking the Change 
People are much better at accepting small changes than big changes.
They like to feel that they're close to a goal rather than that they
have a long haul to get there. A long haul can feel like too much to
ask. Why not take it just a little at a time? people ask. Therefore,
shrinking the change, or making it look like the change is smaller
than it is, can be very valuable to getting people on board
important change. You want to present a raising of the bar as a bar
that can be stepped over. 
 
With respect to government ethics, however, small changes don't really change
anything. That is why they are so popular. 
 
But where there is no government ethics program, reform doesn't have
to be sold as creating something where there is nothing. Most cities
and counties have a code of ethics or, at least, a conflict of
interest law. It may be a state law rather than an ordinance. But
even where there is no state law, <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/roberts-rules-has-conflict-interest-r…; target="”_blank”">Robert's Rules has a conflict provision</a>. And there are often more
specific rules, such as a nepotism rule, procurement rules, and
disclosure rules. In other words, there is a rudimentary ethics
program. 
 
Ethics reform can, therefore, be presented not as creating something
new and different, but rather as a bringing together of rules and
providing them with the administration of an independent body or
office, so that officials can better understand the rules, get
professional advice to help them follow the rules, and provide
enforcement where necessary (since rules are meant to be enforced).
Ethics reform can be presented as the completion of a project that
the city or county government has already supported as valuable, but
which has not been given sufficient resources to allow officials to
understand or follow the rules. 
 
Best Practices 
The Heaths argue that resistance to change often reflects a lack of
clarity. It isn't clear to people how they should change. In terms
of ethics reform, providing clarity would be greatly helped by the
establishment of best practices by government ethics practitioners. Best practices also deal with what the Heaths call "decision
paralysis," what happens when there are too many choices available.
The hardest, most paralyzing part of change is in the details. The
critical moves must effectively be scripted, or they won't be done
at all. 
 
If there are no best practices, officials and government
attorneys will take the most familiar path, which means a skeletal
ethics program under the control of high-level officials, one that
can easily be borrowed from a nearby city or county. That, in a
nutshell, is the history of local government ethics. 
 
Sadly, government ethics practitioners have done next to nothing
about establishing best practices. It's something I have tried to do
in the <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/full-text-model-ethics-code" target="”_blank”">City Ethics Model Code</a> and in my book <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/ethics%20book" target="”_blank”">Local Government
Ethics Programs</a>. But there is no consensus about what an
effective government ethics program consists of. There isn't even a consensus on language. It's not that
practitioners don't agree, it's that they don't talk or write about
it much. The result is that there is very little guidance for
creating a government ethics program outside of the City Ethics
website. And that's not enough. 
 
Best practices also help "shape the path" toward change by making it
easier (1) for officials to know the changes that need to be made
and to understand the nature of the change, so that they are not
afraid of it and, more positively, so that it can be something they
are proud of; and (2) for those who want a good government ethics
program, including officials and good government groups, to put
forth recommendations that have both legitimacy and strong arguments
backing them up. 
 
As it is now, there is no clear path to a quality government ethics
program. Good government groups and government ethics practitioners
have let their cause down by failing to even argue about best
practices, not to mention set them out in writing
for cities and counties (and states) across the country to embrace. 
 
<a href="http://www.cityethics.org/search/node/switch%20heaths">Click here to read the other six blog posts on Switch.</a> 
 
Robert Wechsler 
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics 
 
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Winter Reading: Switch IV - Ethics Reform

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