Change Means Tension. That’s OK.
A couple of years ago, trying to explain what Deep Why is all about and fresh off of an inspirational few days of systems change leadership hosted by the Society for Organizational Learning, I sketched out a little video. I’ve since used Peter Senge’s illustration of the rubber band stretched between two fingers as an explanation to many clients of why they’re feeling what they feel during a major change initiative. It is a simple and compelling illustration.
As a technology solutions designer that often replaces core systems in organizations, I’ve had to learn a few things about how groups of people deal with changes. Organizations are mini-societies, complete with social hierarchies, myths and folklore, institutionalized inequalities, and some shared agreement on the purpose of the collaborative efforts with each employee showing varying degrees of attachment to that agreement. Using technology to change how even a relatively simple organization does its work has almost nothing to do with technology, and almost everything to do with understanding change itself.
Successful changes have these things in common:
- A clear vision of what the future should hold
- Commitment to that vision
- Respectful and realistic de-construction of the old
- Building of the new
- Time allowed for all of this to happen
Like many others, I have been reflecting on the ways in which I am complicit in perpetuating systemic and institutional racism. I’ve worked with the nonprofit sector for years, and this has allowed me to become lazy. I believed I was somehow already “doing good” — or at least doing good enough — by just partnering with my clients and staying aware of the broader dialogues in our sector about racial justice.
Yet it is rare that I have a real dialogue with my clients about how their data systems and data practices inadvertently perpetuate racist and other harmful mental models, or how we can change that together. I love my work and I love the people I work with. Out of respect for them, and respect for the people they serve, I can and must hold myself to a higher standard in my own work.
I can only speak for myself and what I can hold myself accountable for. I offer this essay in hopes it provokes thought in others who do similar work and offers opportunities for me to learn from people already doing this work.
A clear vision of what the future should hold
Deborah Stone has said, “If You’re Strong Enough to Be in a Position to Design a Measure, You Have an Obligation to Amplify the Voices of the Weak by Counting What Matters to Them.”
The work I do in technology is the manifestation of someone else’s vision. It becomes the conduit through which dozens or hundreds of processes, decisions, and transformations occur. Some of these processes and decisions are innocuous, but usually they represent things like who owns a decision, what factors into that decision, and what the next action should be. As I’ve written about before, this gives my boring and geeky little job a tremendous amount of unearned power.
Borrowing from the disability rights community, I believe that the idea of “nothing about us without us” should extend to our technology systems. Borrowing from Professor Stone, I am fortunate enough to be in a position to design systems that enforce measures, so I have an obligation to amplify the voices impacted by those measures. To do this, I will strive at all times in my work to ensure the systems I work on are:
- Inclusive — from start to finish and into maintenance — of the people whose data they rely on to function.
- Transparent to everyone whose data is used. What is it gathered for? How is its interpretation going to impact someone?
- Aware of power dynamics. Who is making decisions? Who is setting definitions? If they are things we can’t immediately control (e.g. government definitions, funder-driven definitions) then are we having open dialogues about that dynamic with people who are impacted?
With digital systems, I look to trauma-informed intake as my model. Many organizations have learned that requesting a client’s personal details — particularly when they are linked to traumatic or stigmatizing circumstances — can be a barrier to engagement. Trauma-informed intake prioritizes serving the program participant first, building relationships, and slowly and gradually documenting any sensitive data that may be needed for program analysis or use. These systems are built with participants and through centering participants’ experiences and feedback. What would it look like if every system were built that way?
Commitment to that vision
What does it really mean to commit to projects that are inclusive, transparent, and aware of power dynamics? Certainly it means being willing to speak up and make space for the people most impacted by the technology to lead the dialogue. It means creating clearer guidance for my methodology in my contracts, and setting expectations from the beginning that I will be ensuring the design includes all stakeholders in a very real way. Those are the easy ones. They’re extensions of what I do every day.
It also means being willing to walk away, or decline to take a project. That’s a really hard one for me. As an independent contractor, I have boom-and-bust cycles that mean I’m always worried about tomorrow, about my own financial wellbeing.
There will be many times when I am tempted to either deny reality (“oh, this project will be fine! these are good people! they’re already doing the right thing so I don’t need to push them”) or lower my standards (“this system is just for internal use anyway, it’s OK that we don’t have a working group of participants on this one.”). The tension between what I do today and the change I want to make in my work will be real and ongoing.
Respectful and realistic de-construction of the old
What is “the old” in this scenario? I believe it is the idea that those who pay for the technology are the only ones whose voices matter. In the traditional model of database delivery, the idea is that it costs a lot of money to build a database and so the people primarily served by that database should be the executives and decision-makers. My own “old” mental model is that the database should facilitate the work of the staff, not just serve the executives. So I have to deconstruct my own thinking first and remove roadblocks to embracing data systems that truly work — transparently, and inclusively — for program participants as well.
In technology it’s tempting to dismiss anybody not immediately on board with a new method as behind the times or clueless in some way. It’s easy to forget there are reasons a person rejects a new model — some valid, some not so much, and likely none of them consciously examined. So many emotions and learned behaviors are involved in our data systems: fear, control, power, hope, helplessness. Where a participant-first approach to technology conflicts with other mental models of how program is delivered or how data should be captured, I can’t just brush it aside and say “yeah but we’re doing it this way now.”
The funders and executives still need what they need from data systems. The people who work in the data systems still need effective supports for their work. Where these conflict with a participant-first approach, they have to be named, collaboratively examined, and evaluated with the goal of moving forward in a better way.
Building of the new
One of my first questions in designing a new system is to ask people not just what isn’t working, but what is working. What do they love, what do they rely on, what can’t they live without? Pragmatically, I do this because if the new system threatens something that is working well, success depends on replacing it with something better. Also, I’ve never seen a change project that was successful when people only focused on dismantling the old.
A significant part of my job is helping a project group see what’s possible and start tentatively examining what that future might mean for them. I help them really think about what it would mean for the organization to inhabit this proposed future state.
Yet I don’t know what an anti-racist enterprise system actually, tangibly, look like when it’s in operation. What do I need to be aware of, what are the “gotchas” along the way, what is harmless if you’re white and/or holding relative power but harmful if you are not?
I can only go into the work with an open mind and awareness that I need to ask these questions. I can learn from others who are doing this work, and help bring that information into new projects to shape people’s vision of what is possible. I can nuance my opening questions to ensure we’re talking not only about what is and isn’t working in the current system, but for whom.
Time allowed for all of this to happen
Back to Peter Senge’s illustration — these changes will take time. That time will feel uncomfortable as I live in the gap between my goals and my present reality. Some of that time will be wasted on backward-looking, unproductive responses to the tension. Only by being aware of the dynamics can more of that time be spent on forward-looking, productive responses to the tension.
As a technology and process person, as a builder and doer of new things and fixer of broken things, and as a person raised in white culture, I am accustomed to identifying a problem, finding a path to a solution, and working until the problem is solved. When I can’t do that, I am generally privileged enough to walk away from it as something I simply cannot fix.
This work doesn’t have an end date or a finish line. My goal is simply to keep improving in the one place that I most impact others — through my work — and to be willing to live in the tension caused by the gap between my goals and my reality. I cannot fix systemic racism but I can continuously be on the lookout for, and address, my contributions to these harms. I can no longer say I’m doing enough or there’s nothing much I can do and simply walk away.
