1. Drive out the use of jargon.
2. Be disciplined about language usage.
3. Welcome in new people and new ideas about what works.
4. Passion and discipline - the ingredients of successful change.
Advice from:
Organizational Resources
References
The Short Answer
1. Always go back to results, common ground end conditions of
well-being that people care about.
When people are clear
about the ends, it clarifies the conflicts about means. There is not one right
answer. Everyone can contribute.
2. Return to the
simple questions that drive this work: What do we want (in plain language)? How
would we recognized it in measurable terms? How are we doing on those measures?
Who are the partners who have a role to play in doing better? What works to do
better? What do we propose to actually do?
Full Answer
(1) Always go back to results, common ground. If you get off tract, and there
are countless ways to do this, take people back to their common ground, a commitment
to the results for children and families. When people are clear
about the ends, it clarifies the conflicts about means. This is not about the
one and only right strategy, program, etc. It=s
about how these can contribute to the results...
(2) Imagine a place where we had a good report card on children and families.
The report card showed the results we want for children and families and set
out indicators that gave us a good picture of whether we were getting these
results or not. Now what would we do if we wanted to make the numbers better?
What would we do if we wanted to make just one number better? This is the idea
behind Results-Based Accountability. What would we do? What would each of us do
differently in our individual jobs? What would we do differently collectively.
(3) In effect, Results-Based Accountability is a way of "calling the
question" on our rhetoric about children and families. It says, "OK,
you want all children to be safe and healthy. How could we tell if children
were safe and healthy in (objective) measurable terms? How are we doing on
those measures? What would it take to do better?" These questions are
more than they seem. They require that we pursue making a difference that
actually shows up at the population level. This means that we can not
fool ourselves by taking a collection of actions that sound good and hoping
for the best.
Results-Based Accountability means that we have set out to make a change, not by
chance, but by choice. And the deliberate nature of this work is different.
And it requires a different way of thinking about and organizing the work. We
must make the best choices possible for indicators. We must strive to get
better indicators over time. We must recognize that baselines are the only
real business like way to measure change for the better or worse. We must work
to understand why the baselines look the way they do, so that we can target
our efforts most effectively. We must bring in many partners, public and
private, parents and youth, to contribute their wisdom and where possible
their resources.
We must struggle to find the things that actually work to
make change at the population level. This means we must search for things that
have worked in other places and search deep in ourselves and our community for
things we think will work here. We must not accept the easy or
politically correct answers, but test everything by whether it will make a
difference here. And we must get started on action. We must take those steps
that can be take easily and inexpensively first, and gather resources to take
the harder and more expensive actions as soon as we can. We must track our
progress and be honest with ourselves about whether we are in fact making a
difference. We must make changes and improvements to our plan over time. And
if we do all this well, we must celebrate and share credit. And then get back
to doing more...
(4) In essence, Results-Based Accountability asks us to answer the question:
"What if we were really serious about this? (children safe, healthy ready
for school etc.) What if this wasn't just rhetoric. What if this were a life
or death matter that required us to pull out all the stops, and do whatever
was necessary. What if lives hung in the balance and time was of the essence?
What would we do differently? What would I do differently?
This way of thinking may help explain the ideas, may help motivate people,
may help keep the work simple enough to be successful.
