Demystifying Social Change, A Series

by John Jensen, Ph.D.

            Awareness of the world these days means seeing needs unmet and wishing one could do something about them–education, for example.  We can wish and hope for change, or we can set causes in motion. This series of seven articles explains changes in thinking and approach that set causes in motion now.

1. Pay the Price

            Why does social change seem so difficult?  What can we do about it? 

            With the array of needs unmet, it’s fair to say that our collective efforts fall short. Worse, urgent outcomes may appear foreclosed to us: You can’t get there from here.  With our lingering faith in human effort, however, we arise in the morning still facing our practical question of what to do next.   

            A starting point is a salutary motto intended originally for business but that has legs in every facet of life, Nelson Bunker Hunt’s three-step formula for success:

            1.  Decide on your goal. 
            2.  Determine its price. 

            3.  Pay the price.

            The limits of our success in social change boil down to one sentence: When we do not pay the price, we fail. A story: For the initial screening for entry to a prestigious music school, a boy’s mother offers an audiotape to the screener. He sets it playing, and stunned after a few minutes says to the mother almost reverently, “That sounds like Jascha Heifitz!“  The mother snaps back, “It is Jascha Heifitz, and my son sounds just like him!“  There are countless ways to “sound just like” the real thing, but real thing has a price to it.

            To understand the implications of this idea, consider what price means. Fifty years ago I was preoccupied with ideas about social change. An elderly man who, in his youth, had been an organizer for the Communist Party in the 1930s, listened genially while I talked. Then he cautioned me with this: Nothing happens without first being made necessary.  If I’d been able actually to grasp the point, it might have saved me much frustrating effort.  He was telling me to expand my understanding of what it would take to get the changes I wanted.

            Think about his point. What would make a change necessary?  We’re not concerned here with all the possible randomness or complexity of events. Simpler analogies in the physical world help clarify. If you want a bullet to go 2000 yards and hit a target precisely, certain conditions cause that. When the conditions are observed, the bullet necessarily hits the target. Similarly, years ago I was walking through an airport and passed a kiosk posted in bold letters with the words Zero Defects! The people who designed and promoted that product were willing to stake their reputation on a level of quality. They didn’t count on random conditions helping them but expected to bring under control everything affecting the product’s reliability.

            A business magazine related the story of a family motoring across the wide spaces of the northwest in their new Rolls Royce when they developed engine trouble.  Pulling off the road, they found themselves marooned in a small town. They phoned the car company and asked what they should do.  They were told to wait–help was on the way–and the company put them up at a motel. The next day a mechanic flew in, bringing with him a new Rolls engine, and made a complete engine exchange right there. Upon returning from the trip, the man inquired of the Rolls company what his bill was. They answered, “I’m sorry sir, but we have no record of that. Rolls Royces do not experience the kind of problem you describe.”

            How would you bring to social change the attention to excellence implied in “pay the price,” “zero defects,” and “we have no record of that?” The answer is stark, simple, and extremely demanding.  You master the influences that govern every step toward your goal.  If you don’t manage them but leave them random, sooner or later they turn and bite you. If instead of zero defects you back off and say “We’ll allow, let’s say, two defects,” those are the two that derail you. The Challenger space vehicle came apart because O-rings failed.

            In the space program, hardware gets the most attention, but the game in social change turns on the soft stuff that nonetheless requires the same sort of attention to quality and excellence: how ideas are framed, how they are spread, how people perceive them and apply them personally. We’re told in The Tipping Point that to spread rapidly, a message has to be “sticky.”  It has to fix itself in people’s minds effortlessly. You may be the best candidate, but without a sticky message, you may lose (think of the messages of John Kerry versus George W. Bush).  Recall John F. Kennedy’s win over Nixon. People later asked Lawrence O’Brien, his campaign manager, how they could mobilize an army of novices into a campaign juggernaut.  O’Brien replied that they made everyone feel “wired into” the campaign.  Think what it would take to do that: individual attention, tasks fitted to the person, pointed training, a team to work with, responsibilities assigned and monitored, glitches removed, problems solved–countless facets of the soft equipment that, soft or not, still must done excellently.

            Understanding social change is a worthy study. But if you’re moved to become better at causing it, there’s more and different to talk about. In my next piece, I’ll discuss how hard it can be to clear your mind so that you can act effectively.

            John Jensen is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of Finding Your Inner Lenin: Taking Responsibility for Global Change (Xlibris, 2006).  He welcomes comments sent to him directly at jjensen@gci.net, and will email an ebook version of his book to anyone without charge upon request.