by Greg Satell
Every effort to create transformational change is, to a certain extent, unique, with its own “vision of tomorrow” as well as its own particular Spectrum of Allies and Pillars of Support. However—and this is a crucial point—every movement must be true to itself, and that requires that it be faithful to certain values and maintain discipline.
A high level of organization and discipline can be an asymmetric advantage because it makes anything that seems like a brutal response by the powers-that-be backfire. Police beating peaceful protestors becomes impossible to characterize as “troublemakers getting what they deserve” because the movement has so clearly displayed a high level of morality and courage. Brutality is seen for what it is, the last resort of a corrupt regime. Yet movements that don’t display that kind of discipline are fairly easy to discredit.
The apparent disorganization of the Occupy movement, along with the filth of its camps and the vulgarity of some of its members, turned off many in the mainstream who shared its concerns about economic inequality and the greed of financial firms. When Black Lives Matter protestors disrupted political rallies, they attracted attention to their cause, but also turned off many potential supporters. During the 2016 presidential election, a faction of Bernie Sanders supporters, branded “Bernie Bros” in the media, did great harm to their cause with their obnoxious behavior. In many cases, it only takes a few rock throwers among a cast of thousands to discredit an entire movement. Anarchy isn’t a value, but simply a lack of discipline.
That’s why instilling a genome of values is so crucial for success. Most activists come to their cause with the best of intentions, but in the heat of the moment, when they are insulted or violence is perpetrated on them, it’s easy to fall into the trap of yelling out an epithet or picking up the nearest rock and throwing it at antagonists. It feels good to reply to a snarky social media post with one that tops it. Yet the second you respond in the moment, you risk all of the work that has come before (which is one reason that successful political movements often avoid large demonstrations until the end game).
So a crucial feature of any successful movement is training activists to internalize the genome of values so that it becomes second nature. In preparing for the “Freedom Rides” of 1961, the activists did more than just recruit volunteers, organize logistics, and set up media coverage: they held a weeklong training camp in which the volunteers were prepared for the travails ahead. They were insulted, intimidated, and denigrated, and the very real dangers that lay before them were clearly spelled out. By the end of the week the activists were ready to face hostility with restraint and dignity.22
CANVAS provides an entire curriculum online, including guidebooks and videos that explicitly spell out its principles. Srdja Popović told me that he considered these materials to be the organization’s “unique selling proposition” and a key part of its success, along with the workshops it does with activist groups.23 There are many who can incite a crowd and fuel passion, but very few that can provide a genome of values that will lead them to success. However, providing this backbone is crucial. In the Orange Revolution, for example, I personally felt enormous social pressure to act in accordance with the movement’s values. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way.
The principle of building a genome of values is not at all limited to the political sphere, but is important to any organization. Facebook runs a six-week “Bootcamp,” which every engineer, regardless of experience or expertise, must complete. It does so for many of the same reasons that the “freedom riders” set up their intensive training camp—to indoctrinate and maintain values even as the company continues to grow at a rapid pace.
“Beyond the typical training program, at our Bootcamp new engineers see firsthand, and are able to infer, our unique system of values,” says Eddie Ruvinsky, an engineering director at Facebook who is deeply involved in the Bootcamp program. “We don’t do this so much through training manuals and PowerPoint decks, but through allowing them to solve real problems, working with real people who are going to be their colleagues. We’re not trying to shovel our existing culture at them, but preparing them to shape our culture for the future.”
Incidentally, Facebook’s “Bootcamp” has another added benefit. During the course of the six weeks, new employees build close bonds with each other and often maintain those bonds as they spread throughout the company, which not only provides a support system but also helps to create the “small world effect” that Duncan Watts discovered in his research. That, in turn, not only helps new information and best practices to cascade throughout the company, it also helps reinforce values. We had a similar training program at our company in Kyiv and noticed many of the same things. It is through building those kinds of informal relationships that you can transform a diverse organization from a collection of varied business units and functional departments into a true “team of teams.”
In their book Scaling Up Excellence, Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao, both professors at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, explain “Catholic” vs. “Buddhist” approaches to values. “Catholic” organizations seek to create a strict doctrine of beliefs and practices. “Buddhist” ones are more open-ended, providing guiding principles but leaving details open to interpretation. They tend to be able to travel across cultures much more effectively, because it is the values that are being evangelized, not a rigid set of procedures.24
Moreover, Sutton and Rao show how taking a “Buddhist” approach can be crucial to success in today’s business climate, in which the ability to adapt to a changing context can be decisive. For example, they tell the story of how Home Depot flopped in China because it stuck to its “do it yourself “strategy, which did not appeal to Chinese customers. IKEA, on the other hand, understood that its genome of values wasn’t a rigid set of rules, but principles for adaptation, and encouraged local managers to make necessary adjustments. Its stores in China, which its Western customers would still recognize as quintessentially IKEA, are thriving.25
However, Sutton and Rao also explain that in reality, things are rarely so clear-cut, and most organizations take a Catholic approach to some things and a Buddhist approach to others. The highly successful Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain, for example, has the same menu in each of its locations, but each dish is cooked according to which ingredients can be freshly procured. McDonald’s, known for its highly standardized business practices, also has a long history of successful local experiments, which resulted in hit products like the Big Mac and the Egg McMuffin. Cosmopolitan magazine, with 64 international editions published in 110 countries, is the most successful periodical publication in the world. Its brand book, which every local market must adhere to, clearly divides its guidelines into “must have,” “can have,” and “don’t.” CANVAS takes pains to recognize that every movement is different, but loads its training manuals with specific advice like “Break down a campaign into small and concrete tasks”26 and “Adopt the backward planning process for creating a campaign calendar.”27 It further advises, “You need to give volunteers simple and achievable tasks that lead initially to small successes and victories.”28
Values, it should be noted, are not solely a shield, but can also be wielded as a sword. For example, in the struggle for women’s suffrage, which in many ways was the prototype for all change movements that came after, Alice Paul’s band of “Silent Sentinels” picketed the White House with phrases lifted from President Wilson’s own book, published just a few years earlier. How could he object, without appearing to be a tremendous hypocrite, to signs that read, “LIBERTY IS A FUNDAMENTAL DEMAND OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT” and “WE ARE INTERESTED IN THE UNITED STATES, POLITICALLY SPEAKING, IN NOTHING BUT LIBERTY,” when he was, in fact, the very author of those same words?
Later, when he declared war against Germany and its allies, the suffragists once again carried Wilson’s words, “WE SHALL FIGHT FOR THE THINGS WHICH WE HAVE ALWAYS HELD NEAREST OUR HEARTS—FOR DEMOCRACY, FOR THE RIGHT OF THOSE WHO SUBMI
T TO AUTHORITY TO HAVE A VOICE IN THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS.” It was an inspiring message for a country to join a war, but was just as strong an argument for the women’s voting rights that the president was neglecting to support.29
In much the same way, Apple CEO Tim Cook often speaks out about data privacy and supports the principle that consumers should own their own data. This is, by all indications, a deeply held personal and corporate value. However, as many observers have noted, it is also a potent weapon against competitors like Google and Facebook, both of which have businesses based on monetizing their customers’ data.30
To create fundamental change, what is crucial is that values are tied to an affirmative vision of tomorrow rather than merely targeting grievances. You may, for example, think banks are greedy, but unless you have a practical plan for replacing the global financial system without causing severe economic havoc, closing them down is not an option. There are literally millions of people who work in banking, most of them good, civic-minded people. What values do you share with the best of them?
Police brutality is a horrific abuse of power, but the vast majority of law enforcement officers risk their lives every day to make us all safer. What hopes and dreams do you share with those brave, admirable people? You may believe that inefficiency stems from laziness, but unless you can present a clear plan for improvement, like the executives at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals did in their movement to implement lean manufacturing principles across the company, don’t expect things to change. There are many people who can see flaws in any system, but far too few who are willing put in the hard work to actually make things better. That requires you to adapt to the hard truths of the real world, but maintain your values nonetheless.
There are few injustices in the world that can compare with the Jim Crow laws in the American South. Yet Martin Luther King Jr., in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, spoke not to black grievances, but to common values. He said, “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’”31
Later, before the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, he declared, “I say to you this afternoon that I would rather die on the highways of Alabama than make a butchery of my conscience. . . . I’m asking everybody in line, if you can’t be nonviolent, don’t get in here. If you can’t accept the blows without retaliating, don’t get in line. If you can accept it out of your commitment to nonviolence, you will do something for this nation that may well save it. If you can accept it, you will leave those state troopers bloodied with their own barbarities. If you can accept it, you will do something that will transform conditions here in Alabama.”32
Nonviolence and dignity were core values of the civil rights movement, but what made them powerful was that they were inextricably tied to King’s vision for fundamental change: civil rights. In much the same way, when Paul O’Neill announced his vision “to make Alcoa the safest company in America,” that was also inextricably tied to certain values, such as respect for employees and a passion for excellence. These, in turn, produced further changes that helped to make the turnaround at Alcoa one of the most successful in history.
For example, when workers were encouraged to suggest changes to increase safety and those changes were implemented, they started to suggest changes in other realms as well. One worker had an idea for grouping painting machines together so that the company could more nimbly respond to changes in demand for aluminum siding. Within a year, profits in the division doubled.33 When O’Neill required that every Alcoa office throughout the world link up to an electronic network to share safety data and practices, an unusual practice in the early 1990s, they began sharing other information too, such as changes in local market prices to help the company respond, which resulted in even more profits.34
Values are how an enterprise honors its mission, so ends cannot be divorced from means. A crucial feature of any successful movement is training adherents to internalize the genome of values so that it becomes second nature. Successful revolutionaries are warriors, but they are also educators. Once “I Have A Dream” devolved into “Any Means Necessary,” progress stalled, because values are not salves for the far left side of the Spectrum of Allies, designed to rile up the most active supporters, but are vehicles of shared purpose and shared consciousness that allow you to connect even to those who are not committed to your struggle and may even be passively opposed.
SHARED VALUES AND SHARED CONSCIOUSNESS
* * *
Values, if they are to be anything more than empty platitudes, always come with costs. To be true to the values of a just society, Gandhi had to instill among his compatriots the importance of treating Muslims and outcastes as equals, which to many meant a loss in status for themselves. In fact, as we have seen, they could not be successful until they had fully internalized the values of Satyagraha. At the Saddleback Church, Rick Warren stresses the importance of service to others and tithing earnings. Martin Luther King Jr. preached the importance of remaining nonviolent even when horrific violence was perpetrated on his people. Srdja Popović and Otpor realized early on that in order to create real change in Serbia, the band of passionate student activists needed to take into account the viewpoints of their fellow citizens in rural areas who did not share their cosmopolitan sympathies. Paul O’Neill insisted on putting safety first, to the consternation of many market observers. Lou Gerstner preached the gospel of the customer, even though that may have meant settling for less on a particular sale. To make transformational change a reality, the mission always has to come first, and the mission cannot be divorced from the values that sustain it.
That’s never an easy sell, so values and their costs always need to be tied to the fundamental change that will make a positive vision of tomorrow a reality. There must be, above all, the will to make a real difference rather than just to make a point, and to do that every movement for change must overcome gaps of trust that exist along the Spectrum of Allies. That is the role that a genome of values plays.
As we discussed in Chapter 4, in every endeavor there exists a classic Prisoner’s Dilemma in which the immediate gains to defection will always surpass those of trustful cooperation, even though the payoffs to building trust are always greater in the end. Values, if they are adhered to, are what help to bridge that gap. Paying the costs associated with values by appealing to deeper truths creates the shared purpose and shared consciousness that lead to empowerment. It also signals to those outside your movement that you’re serious, not just an undisciplined band of rabble-rousers.
Perhaps most important, values are most powerful when they speak to shared human experiences. When, during the struggle for civil rights, the American public saw the scenes of well-dressed, well-mannered black activists being beaten by vulgar white bigots on the TV screens in their living rooms, they couldn’t help but feel commonality with those who were being oppressed. That’s what Martin Luther King Jr. meant when he said he was there to “cash a check” written by the founding documents of the Republic. When Nelson Mandela was accused of being a radical and a communist, he pointed to the Freedom Charter, which espoused values that any free country would recognize. When Paul O’Neill wanted to create change at Alcoa, focusing on the value of safety created a sense of shared mission among workers and management, just as Lou Gerstner’s commitment to the customer helped to restore IBM to its former greatness.
At the same time, as we have also seen, when movements for change are unable to articulate a clear sense of shared values, they fail to make much headway. Occupy, by its very name, implied you needed to be willing take over public spaces to be a full-fledged member of its movement. The filth of many of its camps and the conduct of many of its members did
not remind people of friendly neighbors that you’d want to barbecue with, but of a loud-mouthed nephew who wouldn’t shut up at Thanksgiving dinner. John Antioco’s strategy to take on Netflix was formulated and executed among a relatively small cadre of executives. While their strategy was effective, other stakeholders weren’t committed to it, which is part of the reason that his successor, Jim Keyes, was able to reverse course so easily. The LGBT movement floundered for decades trying to make the American public understand what it was like to be gay, but became ascendant when it made clear that most gays want the same things that everybody else wants, to be in a committed, loving relationship and, often, to raise a happy family.
It is the assertion of shared values that leads to shared purpose and shared consciousness across the Spectrum of Allies and allows a movement to influence the institutions in the Pillars of Support that have the power to drive changes through. The way you communicate those values is through platforms and tactics, which is what we turn to next.
CHAPTER 8
Building Platforms for Participation, Mobilization, and Connection
Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.
—ADAM MICHNIK
By 1969 the Polish government’s promises of creating a worker’s paradise were beginning to ring hollow. It was becoming increasingly clear that the Polish economy was hitting the skids. To close the budget gap, a series of austerity measures were announced, including cuts in healthcare, housing, and wages. A year later, it was decreed that food prices would also be increased. Despite efforts to defy the basic laws of economics, even a planned economy eventually must make the numbers add up, and the regime intended to do that by squeezing the workers from both ends.1