Change management or effecting behavioral change is often seen only as a process of changing from the current behavior to a desired behavior. Effecting the desired change usually involves a number of certain steps including understanding why people behave in that manner and communicating the benefits of the desired behavior with shared vision and leadership playing a critical role. With such a clear objective it is natural to celebrate once the desired behavior is seen to have been adopted. What is often overlooked is the fact that the adoption of the desired behavior is the start of another process to ensure that the change is sustained.
What brought this trend of thought into my mind? It is the driving etiquet (or more precisely, the lack of) on the Johannesburg city streets!!!
About two to three years ago, almost everyone in Johannesburg was complaining about the dangerous driving of taxi drivers and how they put other road users at risk. At the time, such criticism was justified. However, while the taxi drivers are still the worst transgressers of driving by-laws, they have been joined by ordinary road-users: men, women, young and old in increasing the risk of harm in driving on Johannesburg streets. The result is unnecessarily congested streets during peak hour traffic and a plethora of avoidable accidents on a daily basis. The question is what happened to get us where we are?
The answer to that is speculative and possible a combination of a number of issues. The failure of law enforcement agencies in controlling bad driving through the enforcement of existing by-laws possibly created an impression that motorists were on their own when using the roads and thus starting the dangerous attitute of everyone for themselves with total disregard for other road users. Clearly, this has to stop somewhere to give sanity the opportunity to prevail as the current situation is totally out of hand and insane. The challenge will be to reverse this unsafe driving behavior and replace it with safe and considerate driving etiquette. Would behavioral communication initiatives attain this change? I have no doubt that they would but they would need to be reinforced with some law enforcement initiatives to convince all of us that we need to operate within the parameters of existing laws. A free for all, every one for himself attitute has proven to be a disaster.
Changing behavior from bad to good is difficult. However, failure to take preventative steps to stop the deterioration of good behavior makes reversing the process that much more difficult. That is why continuous re-inforcement of positive behavior is critical in ensuring that adoption of good practices is sustained.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Assessing Risk for Whom
Terms such as impact or risk communications are often associated with large projects managed by large organisations. Much too often we forget that the assessment is for the potential impact on people. Looking at risk assessment in relation to people makes the issue more real because it is no longer about things but about people. Regrettably, this viewpoint is often overlooked leading to harm being unintentionally committed on innocent people.
A case in point is the regrettable developments of the past few weeks which started at the recent athletics games in Berlin. What should have been a moment of great glory for an exceptional athlete has increasingly become a matter of public spectacle and political upmanship.
At issue is who knew what when, who lied and why and lastly why didn’t they do anything to minimize harm to an individual who brought glory to the country. Naturally, issues like these sell newspapers and has broad media interest, local and international. While we may argue about the insensitivity in how the media dealt with the issue, the fact is that it is not up to the media to be sensitive. Officials responsible should have handled the matter differently to ensure that any media reports on the issue are packaged differently. This did not happen and now everyone seems to have an opinion on the issue with some suggesting a commission of enquiry on this saga. If this takes place, this issue will further drag the issue that much longer in the media.
The debate ranging on the athlete in question is taking place around her without her involvement. Nobody seems to be considering her feelings and the humiliation she may be undergoing and the
potential for astrocisation from her community and her friends.
Amidst all the debate and discussions about her, it is clear that no proper assessment was made on the impact of enquiries about her gender. Once the debate was started, there seems not to have been any proper risk analysis, or strategy, to deal with such risk once it occurred.
How long it will take before the athlete in question starts to live a normal life out of media glare and intrusion into her life is thus far unknown, particularly if the speculations about her gender turn out to be true and are pronounced publicly. At this stage, those in a position to do so, are taking no steps at some form of public education to about this status with the likelihood that in future, anyone known to be similar, will continue to be perceived as some form of a natural anomaly.
Her crime? To win decisively at an international athletic competition of note.
A case in point is the regrettable developments of the past few weeks which started at the recent athletics games in Berlin. What should have been a moment of great glory for an exceptional athlete has increasingly become a matter of public spectacle and political upmanship.
At issue is who knew what when, who lied and why and lastly why didn’t they do anything to minimize harm to an individual who brought glory to the country. Naturally, issues like these sell newspapers and has broad media interest, local and international. While we may argue about the insensitivity in how the media dealt with the issue, the fact is that it is not up to the media to be sensitive. Officials responsible should have handled the matter differently to ensure that any media reports on the issue are packaged differently. This did not happen and now everyone seems to have an opinion on the issue with some suggesting a commission of enquiry on this saga. If this takes place, this issue will further drag the issue that much longer in the media.
The debate ranging on the athlete in question is taking place around her without her involvement. Nobody seems to be considering her feelings and the humiliation she may be undergoing and the
potential for astrocisation from her community and her friends.
Amidst all the debate and discussions about her, it is clear that no proper assessment was made on the impact of enquiries about her gender. Once the debate was started, there seems not to have been any proper risk analysis, or strategy, to deal with such risk once it occurred.
How long it will take before the athlete in question starts to live a normal life out of media glare and intrusion into her life is thus far unknown, particularly if the speculations about her gender turn out to be true and are pronounced publicly. At this stage, those in a position to do so, are taking no steps at some form of public education to about this status with the likelihood that in future, anyone known to be similar, will continue to be perceived as some form of a natural anomaly.
Her crime? To win decisively at an international athletic competition of note.
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