Using OCM for Social Good
I routinely ask organizational change management (OCM) practitioners what kind of projects they love to do most, and many respond, “the bigger, the hairier, the better!” A different question to consider is, “Have you ever thought about using your OCM skills and experience to tackle a big, ugly problem, not inside the walls of a company, but within society?” I recently met an OCMer who not only thought about it, but is doing just that: using OCM for social good.
His story begins during another crisis, the 2008 financial crisis. Howard Perlstein, an experienced OCM consultant, learned that the federal government was interested in teaching financial literacy to the homeless and that his local government was having a hard time figuring it out. Could he help? He had never put the two together, organizational change management and social good, nor did he have any background in personal finance nor the homeless; but he wanted to give back and decided that the challenge would be a great test to see if he could leverage his professional skills and experience to positively impact his community.
OCM for Social Good
From the outset his OCM and consulting skillset came into play, “I was presented with an amorphous situation and a vague idea of the desired outcome, and in an efficient manner I had to figure out what was going on, what would be the most helpful, and then try to implement it.”
First, he identified and talked with stakeholders. He contacted human services agencies and spoke with their program and case managers. He reached out to other volunteers and banks to see what they had tried. He conducted research to understand what had already been done in terms of financial literacy for the people experiencing homelessness. Finally, he talked to homeless job-seekers. Something he had never done before; historically, the issue of homelessness made him uncomfortable and it was not one that he understood.
Simultaneously, he listened and learned. A human services agency arranged for Howard to meet with homeless job seekers during their weekly Monday Night Meeting. The participants lived in a shelter while they went about the challenging process of rebuilding their lives. They came together on a weekly basis to talk about their progress.
The agency representative introduced him, “Here’s Howard, he has a few things to say to you.”
“There were about ten to fifteen men there that night, and they all turned to me. I felt like we had nothing in common and no way to relate.” But Howard turned to them and said, “Here’s the deal: I am thinking about teaching homeless job seekers about money. Is this a good idea or a dumb idea? What do you think?” And then, in his own words, he “shut up and listened”.
He learned about the complexity of homelessness and the challenges of overcoming it. People shared histories of poverty, incarceration, emotional and / or substance abuse. Many never had an opportunity to go to school and some were just simply forgotten.
He learned that homelessness is a spectrum. On one end you have people on the street. The people on this end of the spectrum have not received the help they need, they may have a mental or intellectual disability, and perhaps are unable to receive the help they require. Another step in this continuum is the homeless that reside in shelters. These people are generally clean, sober and have a support system, such as a human services agency, that works with them to help them through a variety of services such as workforce development programs.
Through encounters like these, Howard also learned there is an opportunity to help people understand credit, banking, managing money, as well as topics like “wants vs. needs” and attitudes toward money.
During that Monday Night Meeting, when Howard asked the men if they would like to learn about money, the homeless jobseekers replied, “Yes, we need it.”
He faced resistance. Howard took all of this information, all of these learnings, all of his work and thought “I’ve got this!” He went back and developed a prototype for teaching financial literacy to the homeless job seekers: a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation. He thought it should work – but a PowerPoint for the homeless?! He went back to the agencies, showed them what he had put together, and asked, “Can we try it?”
One after the other, they all said no. Their reasons were varied. We can’t fit it into our schedule. Or, we already do this. Some even said he’d never reach them.
Finally, he set change into motion. In the “juxtaposition of the universe,” as Howard likes to recall it, while working at his client, Harvard Business School, his phone rang. It was an agency calling, “We would like to try it.”
A few weeks later, Howard delivered a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation to homeless job seekers. He stood at the front of a big room in the middle of a homeless shelter, the seats were filled with homeless job seekers, and the walls were lined with agency representatives. It went well.
After the presentation a homeless job seeker came up to Howard, shook his hand, and said, “Thank you.”
The agency said, “We need to keep doing this.”
Make Your Change Count™ was born. Make Your Change Count™ is a program for homeless job seekers and low-income individuals. Through partnership with human services agencies, volunteers teach professionalism, personal budgeting, financial literacy and digital literacy. The program has one goal: Help learners sustain their transition from poverty and homelessness.
“I was one guy, coming out of nowhere, in no way equipped to talk to or help people experiencing homelessness,” Howard says. But after delivering this content to over 1000 homeless job seekers Howard can count on one hand the people who were too tuff to reach with his message of financial literacy.
How To Use OCM For Social Good
“The change stuff was hugely important” to the creation of Make Your Change Count, Howard shares. “As change practitioners we pretty regularly walk into new situations with little background. We have to immediately get in, figure it out, work within the existing structures and momentum, to introduce new things as well as undo a few things, in order to move people from point A to B. And, point B changes. Working with people experiencing homelessness is no different.” In the simplest of change terms, Howard listened to stakeholders, advocated for the voice of the customer, validated information, and developed a training prototype. Similar to a project steering committee pitch, in the development of the 20-minute PowerPoint, he considered, “Who needs to hear it, what do they need to hear, how do they need to hear it, and, is it actionable?”
However, his social change work did bring some key elements of organizational change management into focus:
Social OCM stakes are high, really high. Higher than rolling out SAP to 30,000 end users in 90 days? Yes, way higher. In this case, the stakes are either lifting someone out of homelessness or sending them back to the chaos of the street.
Listen first and learn. “Work in a listen first manner and learn; let go of preconceived notions of what is needed,” Howard advises, “They won’t listen to me until I listen to them first.”
Change capability is key. “If homeless job seekers are no better off when I walk out, then game over. I have developed a heightened awareness and skill set for how critical it is to develop change capability. A to B still has to happen but takes a back seat to developing leave behind capacities,” Howards shares.
Must bring tactical OCM to bear. “With social change there is very little room for the nice-to-haves; you’ve got to focus on the reasonable, practical and actionable.” You may have a very short window to engage your stakeholders to help them; in the case of people experiencing homelessness, you may only see them one time.
Deliver something they can use. The educational focus should be mastery of the fundamentals. Change strategies must be direct, relevant, and useful right away.
Call To Action
As OCM professionals we are really skilled at helping people move from point A to B. OCM for social good is no different. “There may be an increased emphasis on close proximity to customer, increasing capabilities, mastering of fundamentals, rolling up your sleeves, and role modeling,” says Howard, “but in the end it’s really all the same surprisingly and encouraging.”
“Every OCM person out there can walk out their front door tomorrow, head over to Goodwill, your local food pantry, or an environmentally focused agency, go in and have a huge impact with the OCM skills that you bring.”
“Is there a whole field of OCM for social good?” Howard wonders, “If so, I would like to find it.”
A very special thanks to Howard Perlstein, transformation leader and founder and CEO of Make Your Change Count, for sharing his story with us and for collaborating with us on this blog.
How To Support Make Your Change Count
Make Your Change Count is in need of the following volunteers to help continue to grow and scale its mission to teach professionalism, personal budgeting, financial literacy and digital literacy to homeless job seekers.
Instructors
Experience delivering classroom training
Strong facilitation skills
Ability to break down information
Willingness to sit face to face and deal with the complexities of homelessness
Comfort using Zoom
Approximately 6 hours required to become an instructor; each class takes 2-3 hours to conduct
New Market Partners
Desire to provide financial literacy to the homeless in new markets
Facilitate introductions to local workforce development programs
Explore together from there!
Please contact Howard Perlstein to get involved!