The main reason why things don’t change in any given situation is that people might want payoffs associated with a change, but they don’t actually want to work to earn the payoffs. Generally, we can see problems and we can shake our heads at those problems, but when the time comes to act to solve the problems, we all tend to scatter and leave it to someone else to solve them. That way, we can all play Pontias Pilate and wash our hands of the problems.
But, over the years, I have led and participated in major changes and I can tell you that I’ve gotten pretty good at being a scapegoat. I have a ton of experience in taking the blame during the course of a change. As a leader, I know that things will get hairy during times of change and I tend to gauge the tolerances for the hairiness before I engage. Once I do, I stick through the upheaval and keep my eye on the payoffs that will come as a result of committing to a change. I remind myself and anybody else who will listen of those payoffs and their meaning. However, during the hairiness, people look to someone to blame for their discomfort and when a situation is extremely rutted within a detrimental status quo, people don’t even know how bad their situation is. When they’re taken out of their ruts, they become angry at their discomfort and will blame anyone they can for their pain. I’ve been blamed so many times that that I’ve come to accept the scapegoat role as par for the course.
Currently, I am a big part of major changes underway at the City of Santa Fe. We’ve now deployed new systems in the Finance and Community Development departments and these changes have had far-reaching impact. Many employees are upset at the breadth and depth of the changes within their work environment and they’re lashing out with anger and blame. I get it: Their work environment has NEVER changed in their entire City careers and they were comfortable in getting signatures on paper documents and then waiting. Now however, we all have to put in effort to enter and track contracts and requisitions and invoices and we all have to be responsible for the outcome of those efforts. Whereas before, a piece of paper would go to various people no one really had any visibility into the paper’s journey. Now, we have to know the relationship between our work environment and our internal and external partners. We should have all along.
The payoff of this process is that the City will be far more capable of taking care of its business. We will be more transparent and have far more ability to report than before we made these changes. Are changes of this magnitude difficult? Yes. Are they perfect? No. But in the both the short and long runs, the City of Santa Fe is now, and will be, far better and taking care of its internal business. We as citizens can trust that our civic leaders have the tools and abilities to lead us into a healthier future. Systems at the City, both Software and Human, have not been changed/upgraded in decades, literally, and to uproot practices that were deeply entrenched doesn’t come without cost. But we will get through this adjustment period in far better shape than we were. Already, we are in a better place than we were – simply now we have software support whereas before, we didn’t.
So, people can blame me all they want. I’m ok with it. What we’ve done took monumental courage from our elected officials and I plan to honor that courage regardless of the cost.
