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Recently I spoke on culture change and open government at the OpenGovWest conference in Portland. After reviewing dozens of projects, I came up with the following 8 steps that apply to any major institutional change you are pushing for.

One of my wiser clients once told me “Culture eats strategy. Every time”. If you’ve worked in this field for a while now you see how many change projects fail to achieve their (admittedly often too high) expectations. The idea of embracing change sounds great on paper, but as any therapist will tell you, it’s extremely difficult to break away from years of patterned behaviour. Add all those individual pattens into a structured system, and you’ve got a big barrier standing in the way of innovation.

My experience from leading digital change projects for 15 years is that if you don’t use the catalyst of a digital project to shift the culture of your institution towards a more innovative and responsive model, you’re really just building a website. And does the world really need another website right now? Or does it need more effective organizations that also happen to be better places to work?

So while you’re working on delivering your digital project, here is an 8 step plan for shifting your institution’s culture along the way:

1. Listen First: Start every change project with an open mind. Employ as many listening inputs as possible, and hold open the inquiry phase for as long as possible. What do your audiences want from you? What do they truly need beneath that, and who is meeting their need now? What’s their experience of your current offering, warts and all? What’s most alive and relevant about what you do now? What are your strongest competitors and other movement leaders doing to innovate and change? 
Starting with this context helps build the case for change, raises the stakes, and builds engagement and momentum you’ll desperately need later when the inevitable backlash against change shows up.

Set a clear vision2. Set a Clear Vision: Digital leaders have a responsibility to define our field for others, and all the frothy buzz doesn’t always help. Using the inputs from listening, create a clear framework for how digital will specifically support your organization’s key priorities, and make clear choices about what it will and won’t do to serve them. Embed this vision within the core business goals and mission objectives of your organization and it’s instantly not a toy anymore but a serious business tool. Use the language of your business, not of tech, to get senior leaders to pay attention. Finally, be inspiring, painting a compelling (yet realistic) picture of what a better future will look like and how it will help stakeholders, executives, and co-workers. Once you have all that, repeat it all to anyone who will listen. 
This is how you gain a mandate for change that will break through the inertia.

3. Connect the Innovators: To change a system you need a change team, so start with the people who are already hungry for it. Find the heretics in your organization, not the complainers at the watercooler but the do-ers who know there is a better way and are quietly taking risks to get it done. Connect them via lunches, special projects, list-servs, blogs, and social media networks. It’s the social capital and trust built here that will spurn future innovation and networks you need further down the line. Then reach further to connect with thought leaders outside your institution – in “competitive” fields, or even completely different industries. There are local experts in every city, invite them in to blow your team’s mind, sweep out the cobwebs, and inspire new ways of thinking. This will create a self-reinforcing system with many diverse voices 
clamouring for change, taking the pressure off of you.
Tell great stories
4. Tell Stories: Once you’ve done your research, set a vision, and connected innovators, it’s time to gather stories of how change is both possible and leads to better results. People learn from stories, and importantly they remember them. Sharing stories of others’ success deepens your credibility, gets people talking, and inspires others. Good stories help build bridges from where others are to where you need them to be to be more open to change.

5. Pick 3 Strategic Interventions: Now that your project has momentum, you’re probably starting to feel overwhelmed by the amount of opportunities! This is where wise action is needed. If you’re up for shifting your culture and not just executing your digital project, search for 3 or 4 “triple word scores” that, as you execute them will help tip the systems conditions towards the new vision. These high leverage projects are difficult to find (they’re probably not the first things that came to mind), and are different for each institution. Maybe they are related to how the institution produces content, how it collaborates among silos, or even the lack of collaboration tools. Finding them and executing them flawlessly with your highest attention could be the most difficult thing you do. But this is where your disciplined approach can create butterfly effects leading to much bigger institutional changes.

I’ll stop here today because there is a lot here to keep you busy for the first 3 months of any project. I’ll lay down the next 3 steps, which are more to do with mentoring people, changing structures, and being in integrity with your own personal behaviour, in a future post.