| Mick James looks back at history to understand change management the British way. |
| Change management the British way |
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| | By Mick James
Those of you outside
the UK may be wondering
why it’s suddenly become
impossible to do business
with us – and it’s not
even snowing.
The fact is that the
powers that be have
decide to make a pile-up
of public holidays caused
by a late Easter even
worse by inserting a
Royal Wedding in the
middle of them. As a
result most of us have
decided to head for the
hills (I’m in the Lake
District) and try to
avoid the whole thing.
But it does strike me
that the young woman who
will be inducted into
“The Firm” (that’s the
Royal Family, not
McKinsey) on Friday will
probably be reigning as
Queen of England for some
time after my death.
How is this even
possible? This is the
future, right (lack of
hover skateboards
notwithstanding)? Most of
the science fiction I
read as a youth has
already “happened” by now
and I don’t recall Kings
and Queens of England
figuring very strongly in
it (although I’m sure Dan
Dare should be due for a
knighthood about now).
To answer that
question we have to look
back at history and
understand ‘change
management the British
way’.
We thought we had
definitively solved this
issue on 30 January 1649,
when we executed what
should have been our last
king. Having hammered out
the foundations of modern
democracy and individual
rights in the Putney
debates, the way forward | |
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| | should have been clear.
Unfortunately, the
ensuing Commonwealth
under Oliver Cromwell
ending up showing even
more autocratic contempt
for Parliament than the
monarchy, and a lack of
succession planning meant
people were happy to
revert to the old system
after a few years. A coup
and a foreign invasion
supported by fifth
columnists (disguised as
a “glorious revolution”)
established the basic
compromise that has
governed Britain’s
relationship with its
monarch ever since: you
try not to impose your
will and we’ll try not to
execute or exile you.
Meanwhile supporters
of the failed change
project had gradually
drifted away to set up
their own enterprise.
English Civil War 2.0
(aka the American War of
Independence) established
the new state on
fundamentally rational,
democratic and
enlightened principles.
They even managed to
institute a transparent
and equitable system of
changing the system of
governance.
But while the
Americans got their way,
they didn’t get what they
wanted. The British
Constitution by
comparison is held
together with string and
sticky tape. Our Act of
Succession is on the face
of it an intolerable
piece of bigotry,
excluding Catholics and
women from the throne.
But it establishes the
basic principle that at
some level the monarch is
appointed or at least
vetted by parliament,
rather than the hand of
God. Given that most of | |
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Here we have one of
the classic outcomes of
change management – the
British way. An entirely
indefensible system on
paper – having
legislation revised by an
upper house that consists
largely of the
descendants of Charles
II’s mistresses – worked
reasonably well in
practice.
The problem is that
now that we’ve more or
less got everyone in the
tent, because we failed
to agree our change
mechanisms in advance
everyone can manipulate
to their own advantage.
So our half-hearted
attempting at reforming
the House of Lords
stalled half-way through,
leaving us with an
appointed, but not
elected second chamber.
Here you have to stop
and wonder at the low
cunning – or is it
brilliant naiveté of our
current prime minister.
David Cameron has pledged
to create new peers so
that the make-up of the
house more closely
mirrors the outcome of
the last election. This
has already taken the
number of peers to over a
thousand, and given that
these appointments are
for life raises the
prospect of a second
chamber that will
gradually inflate over
the years until it
explodes. Is this
stupidity or is it a way
of subtly making change
inevitable?
In the meantime, and
in the spirit of not
letting your
half-finished roof stop
you replacing the
windows, we’ve held a
referendum on changing
our voting system. In | |
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| | accordance with the
principles of change
management – the British
way – we’ve decided to
enrage most of the
stakeholders by not
putting the alternative
that most people have
been campaigning for on
the ballot paper. You
might also question
whether timing the
referendum on whether to
abolish a
long-established way of
doing things just a few
days after an outbreak of
atavistic nationalist
fervour once again
represents stupidity or
extreme deviousness. I
couldn’t possibly
comment. It is odd,
however, that I am far
more certain about who
will be Queen in 30 years
time than under what
system I will elect the
next prime minister.
But that’s the British
way. What can you say
about a system that sends
women to the back of the
queue but where for 123
of the last 175 years the
monarch has been female?
You could say the British
way is a triumph of
evolution over
revolution, but as
students of evolution
(and change management)
will tell you, evolution
can lead you up a dead
end. Is the British
constitution a superbly
adapted giraffe or a
giant flightless parrot?
Even time may not tell,
but as consultancies
start recruiting again, I
suggest a good question
for budding change
managers might be: how
would you broker a reform
to the British
constitution so that all
stakeholders are happy
with the result?
Or is that an unfair
question? | |
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| | the monarch’s powers have
migrated to an impersonal
entity known as the Crown
and are wielded by the
state on his behalf, the
monarch becomes an august
figure above the fray of
politics, essentially
powerless but able to
keep order. This, of
course, is exactly what
the Americans wanted from
their head of state, so
they could avoid being
ruled by populist
demagogues, warmongering
tyrants or blithering
idiots. As Sarah Palin
might say, “How’s that
working out for ya?”
What we crucially
lacked was any means of
changing the system built
into the system itself.
The next great step
forward could have come
in 1812, when the British
Constitution was for the
first time written down.
Unfortunately, it was
written in Italian, as
part of an attempt to
turn Sicily into a
constitutional monarchy
(which we later
abandoned, meaning that
the Mafia is Our Fault as
well).
The ensuing century
demonstrated the British
genius for getting things
right on an intellectual
level and then taking
ages to implement. Some
key features of the Great
Charter of 1838, such as
fixed term Parliaments,
are only now being
implemented. And while we
(eventually) sorted out
the universal suffrage
end of the things, we
left ourselves with the
thorny problem of an
unelected second chamber. | |
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