A note by the Defence Reform Unit
1. It is important to understand why change fails, both in the MOD and externally, and what is necessary for it to succeed. Reputedly, around 70% of major change programmes fail to achieve all their objectives, often for common reasons that recur across programmes and over time in the public and private sector2.
2. We looked at the recent history of change in the MOD, to determine whether any of these challenges are particularly acute in Defence or whether there are any additional challenges unique to Defence. There was little that was unique. The main issues were around leadership, vested interests, culture, engagement, implementation, and addressing the whole 'system'. These are set out below.
3. Two points are worth making as context. First, it would wrong to assume that change typically fails in Defence. Very significant modernisation and manpower savings have been delivered since the 1990s, while continuing to deliver core outputs. It is a much smaller organisation and works quite differently to the MOD of ten or twenty years ago. But the institution tends to struggle with any significant changes to the balance of power within Defence (eg: between the three single Services and joint organisations or the Head Office), and with implementing significant behavioural or cultural change. Second, there are elements of how Defence Reform was set up that aimed to address some of the issues set out below. Most notably, the establishment of the external Steering Group for Defence Reform was designed to challenge the organisation's tendency towards conservatism.
4. There are some particular issues around leadership in Defence. Given the very federated nature of Defence, and the dual leadership of PUS and CDS, pan departmental change is impossible unless the Defence Secretary, PUS and CDS are all united behind it, and tends to fail if the Chiefs do not actively support it as well. This can be tricky to achieve and trickier to sustain, given the nature of the issues and the rapid turnover of the most senior appointments. It is also hard for the most senior leaders to devote the time they need to drive reform in Defence; the nature of politics and current operations, and also cultural preferences, draws leaders from the strategic to the tactical. Many of these issues also exist below the most senior leadership, where tour lengths, particularly (though by no means exclusively) in the military, can be even shorter. This means that those leading and managing change do not remain in post for long enough to see change through. At worst, people are rewarded for their initiative in instigating change, but then move on, leaving the implementation to others, who often then stop it (or are unaware of any implementation plan) and instigate their own change.
5. Like in any large organisation, 'vested interests' exist. These are unusually strong in Defence, where specific allegiances often trump corporate ones. The single Services are often cited in such discussions, but are of course only some of many, albeit ones with unusually strong identities and ability to resist change they dislike. The strength of these interests coincides with the weakness of the corporate decision making culture (often consensual, with many people effectively able to veto decisions) and the culture of holding to account (where a tendency to 'consent and evade' is permitted).
6. There are three related cultural issues. First, Defence does not like change: the organisation is largely 'bottom-fed' - the senior cadre in the Department is filled primarily by home-grown staff, civilian (although this has begun to change significantly) as well as military, which tends to perpetuate conservatism and insularity; this is common to military organisations worldwide. Secondly, there is also a view that the Department has simply taken on too much ill-considered, piecemeal change over the last 20 years, which has led to change fatigue and scepticism about the benefits of any new initiatives among staff throughout the organisation. Thirdly, the Department has often under-estimated how hard it is to change behaviours and culture, the resources required to do it, and the senior commitment involved; so the Department has failed to build the foundations for real changes in working practice and expected too much, too soon without support for those affected. As a result, the Department has not built a shared culture of relentless improvement.
7. Some past attempts at reform have, for understandable reasons, focused on elements of a process or organisation, rather than the system as a whole, which has sometimes resulted in displacing problems and / or not identifying the root cause. An example is acquisition, where successive attempts at reform have concentrated on acquisition delivery, rather than - as Bernard Gray's review suggested - seeing procurement as a symptom rather than a cause of the problems in the Department's decision making.
8. The Department has often underestimated the importance of good, transparent communications and genuine engagement. This may stem from the 'need to know' culture, a concern about leaks, and a cultural tendency to see problems as too purely intellectual. This leads to a tendency to communicate late and to engage insufficiently, with the result that the reforms are not as well informed as they could be and that the people who have to implement them are not as bought-in as they need to be.
9. The Department has also failed in how it approaches implementation. Experience of the Defence Change Portfolio - the Department's mechanism to oversee implementation of the most significant changes across Defence - is that change programmes often fall down by failing to follow best practice (available both from within the MOD and externally) in programme management. Partly, this is because change is not resourced sufficiently, in terms of manpower, finance, training and leadership attention. Partly it is because people and attention move on, and implementation is not driven through. A particularly acute challenge has been freeing up the resource to invest in change, when it can be seen, in the short term at least, as taking money from the front line.
10. Recognising these lessons, and broader public and private sector experience, we identified the following conditions for success in transformations such as this. They are:
• Leadership: Defence's leaders - Ministers, senior military and senior civilians - are role models who visibly lead and champion this change, and see it through;
• Vision: the change is driven by a coherent, unified, vision-led approach, which all leaders can adopt;
• Engagement: people - senior leaders and throughout - are consistently engaged to obtain their contribution and their buy-in;
• Communication: leaders and key stakeholders 'sing from the same hymn sheet' with strong, consistent communication of why and how;
• Effective People: the change is clearly and visibly focused on skills, competences and incentives as well as structures and processes;
• Implementation: a strong emphasis on incremental, sustainable, implementation planning with robust change and risk management;
• Resourced: the change is sufficiently resourced in terms of manpower, finance, training and leadership attention
• Innovation: implementation visibly encourages original and radical thinking, and leverages both independent expertise and internal knowledge;
• Honesty: the programme's tone inspires confidence, enthusiasm and a 'sense of opportunity' while being realistic about cuts and challenges; and,
• Benefits: a clear focus on the benefits in effectiveness and efficiency, that clearly outweigh the effort and risk involved.
The Department will want to think carefully about these as it plans implementation, engages with its people, and establishes leadership of change.
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2. The statistic is drawn from the academic John Kotter's work on leadership over the last 30 years, which has proved quite resilient since.