I recently spent a weekend with other professionals from around the country discussing how to design and lead change. It was one of those great topics that are both abstract and highly personal. The main challenge was how to design change so that someone else would actually embrace it voluntarily.
In Vermont, we talk about changing a lot - from the way we create and consume energy to the way we produce and eat local food, from our school systems to our health systems, and from early childhood education to end of life care.
That’s a lot of change! And one of the key points our group focused on was that if you want someone to embrace change, you have to tap into what they value and care about. If you don’t do that, no one and nothing will change.
This got me thinking about some of the thornier changes we debate. Take everyone’s worst example: gun control. After Newtown, a large number of Americans have demanded change in the way we manage the volume of weapons available to the public. The horror of that event has spurred action toward more restrictions on guns and ammunition and a push for greater gun registration. That effort has caused a large counter-reaction from gun owners and manufacturers resisting most, if not all, of these proposed changes.
The real problem is that those of us who want more gun regulation want the people who own guns to change their behavior. Most pro-gun regulators don’t own guns, so they really are designing a change to impose on someone else. What would happen, I wonder, if we concentrated on understanding the values and concerns of gun owners, instead?
We might find that they care a lot about the safety of themselves and their families; that they value independence and not feeling powerless. They fear not being able to protect their homes. People pushing for more legislation also care about safety. They fear that they will lose someone they love in a school or movie theater shooting.
When you think about it, despite the seeming intractable differences between these two groups, there are probably more commonalities in values and concerns than we usually acknowledge. And the reality is that if we want better gun regulations, we’re going to have to spend more time with people who own and value guns.
That’s true of any change, whether its education, health care, or wind power.
So it would be a good idea for those of us working for one type of change or another to spend a fair amount of time with the people who would be most affected by that change – people who may have wants and needs very different from our own. Because the real power of change happens when we can understand others around us and change the way WE approach things.
Maybe Tolstoy said it best when he stated, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
