Secret agents of change4/16/2023 Plus, you’ll have an easier time crafting your idea into a well-honed strategy if you have more perspectives in its creation.įor this tip, Medina added a bit of caution. The more support you have for an idea, the less likely it will be for leaders to pushback without at least hearing it out. “You want to get as many allies as you possibly can to support your idea.” “The volume of your supporters is more important than the purity of your idea,” Medina said. “As soon as I made that connection, it was so much easier to advance the argument because it was aligned to their values,” Medina said. Instead, she sold digital transmission as a way to be more secure in how they sent information. But she met resistance because she was arguing for a “theological change from the secret information mindset of the agency.”Īfter realizing her messaging was accruing more resistance than acceptance, Medina pivoted to align with the agency’s view of information. Early in her tenure at CIA, she tried to advance the idea that the Internet was important to the agency’s future. If you link your idea, it won’t be such a shell shock to everyone else.”įor this tip, Medina offered an example from her own experience in the public sector. “Trying to change the value system of an organization is very difficult, especially if you aren’t in leadership yet,” Medina explained. Medina admitted that, “real radicals often don’t want to hear this one.” Nevertheless, it’s essential to align your ideas with the status quo values of your organization. Strategy #1: Align with status quo values This is especially true in government where Medina says, “Orthodoxy is common and strong.” So how do you break that cycle of resistance to change, without sabotaging your career? Medina offered five strategies to become a more effective change agent: She talks to potential changemakers all the time but, more often than hearing success stories, she hears laments like, “So I’m trying to make change but all I’m making is enemies.” In her work today, Medina said she often encounters a situation like the one above. After working in the CIA for several years, she used her experience as an internal change agent in government to help others become rebels at work, too. But, when you try to make the improvement, you hit a brick wall of bureaucracy and cultural aversion to change.Īt today’s Government Innovators Virtual Summit, we heard from Carmen Medina, a retired Senior Federal Executive and author of Rebels at Work: A Handbook for Leading Change from Within. You confront a process, tool or template at work that you know could be better.
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