The Application of Behavioral and Philosophical Technologies to Strategic Planning: A Case Study of a Large Federal Agency

Abstract

This paper describes the results of a two-and-a-half year effort in proactive planning at the Bureau of the Census in Washington, D.C. Most large-scale organizations merely react to their future(s) instead of actively planning for and thus anticipating the future(s) they would like to bring about; would the Bureau be bold enough to try and break out of this pattern by engaging in what Ackoff and others have termed proactive or interactive planning? This paper not only describes the substantive results of the effort, but more importantly, the methodology that was utilized and developed to achieve those results. Approximately 120 self-selecting participants from all branches and levels of the Bureau (from secretaries to division heads to the Director) were first given the explicit instruction to think as freely as they could about the year 2000 (i.e., not to be hampered by current constraints in the internal or external environment) and to write out a scenario indicating what for them the Bureau should be like in the year 2000. Because of the difficulties that most people experience in freeing themselves from current operating constraints and in thinking significantly beyond the current time frame in which they exist, a series of psychological exercises were designed to make the participants aware (1) of the source of the difficulties and, as an important side benefit, (2) of the often deep and intense psychological differences between them. Above all, these exercises, including lectures on the philosophy of inquiring systems, were designed to make the participants more conscious of the different assumptions that different planners unconsciously bring with them to the planning process. What one type of planner often takes as a “given” another takes as a “taken,” i.e., as an unwarranted assumption. Different planners have different innate preferences for different givens, sources of data, kinds of information, methodologies, etc. One of the most important aspects of the methodology concerned the use of a recent social systems design technology developed by Ralph H. Kilmann, which was applied to cluster (via multivariate analysis) the ideas contained in the scenarios on the future and the people who produced them into a strategic-planning design (from questionnaire data on individuals' task and people preferences). The MAPS Design Technology (Multivariate Analysis, Participation, and Structure) thus answers the question, “Who is ‘best suited’ as a group to work on which set of ideas and issues?” Several such groups resulting from the MAPS analysis were utilized to write characteristically different reports on the future. When the groups were satisfied with their reports and when they and the project directors felt that the reports of the groups differed significantly from one another, representatives were selected from each MAPS group to form an executive group. The latter was charged with the task of integrating the diverse themes of the different MAPS groups and of writing a final report for presentation to the executive staff of the Census Bureau plus the advisory committees of various Professional societies and interest groups which advise and assist the Bureau and its programs. … The planner has to leave off being a precise scientist. He needs to encourage radical viewpoints. In fact, I would be tempted to say that whenever planning begins to look as though it is following tried and true procedures that have worked in the past then planning is in danger of becoming useless. Good planners are continuously asking the most searching, radical, and ridiculous questions (e.g.: Should banks be involved in the handling of cash? Should the post-office department be involved mainly in the transmittal of letters? Shouldn't the soft-drink companies be selling cheap nutrients to foreign countries? and so on). Since there is limited technology available in this area, the best way to proceed is to select planners with radical and unreasonable minds, if you can find them. If not beware of accepting the planner's version of what you can do and what you cannot do.