Cascades

by Greg Satell

  The years that followed lacked much of the romance of the early days. Four out of the original 11 members of Otpor joined the Serbian Parliament. Some went into business. Otpor grew into a prominent NGO, launching anti-corruption campaigns and ensuring that the promises of the revolution were kept. In October 2011, more than 10 years after the downfall of Milošević, Serbia became an official candidate for EU ascension. It is not a perfect country today, and it still has many flaws and challenges to overcome, but it is a stable and increasingly prosperous democracy.

  Every movement for change starts with an immediate goal to be achieved. A wrong needs to be set right; a problem needs to be solved; or an unmet need has to be addressed. That’s why when Talia Milgrom-Elcott found herself inspired by President Obama’s call to train 100,000 STEM teachers in 10 years, she answered the challenge by setting up 100Kin10. Today, seven years on, the objective is within reach and, at the current pace, will be achieved on time.

  Yet she has also learned that her journey must extend beyond that initial ambition. “About halfway in we began to see that, although we were likely to achieve the goal of 100,000 teachers, many of the core challenges would still remain,” Milgrom-Elcott told me. “So we started to delve deeper and get down to the root problems of recruiting and retaining great people for education. Solving those will be harder than reaching the 100,000 goal. As we get closer to achieving our initial target and set our sights on even bigger challenges, we are increasingly realizing how pivotal the founding values of our effort are: the importance of collaborating and connecting, sharing solutions and expertise, and building a common vision. It is those values, and the sense of trust and shared purpose that they foster, that will fuel us to achieve the next goal, and the one after that.”7

  In a similar vein, Irving Wladawsky-Berger stressed to me how important values were in continuing the initial success of the Gerstner years at IBM. “The Gerstner revolution wasn’t about technology or strategy, it was about transforming our values and our culture to be in greater harmony with the market,” he remembers. “That’s what enabled IBM’s strengths to come through, as they had in previous decades, and we didn’t want to go back to failing again. Because the transformation was about values first and technology second, we were able to continue to embrace those values as the technology and marketplace continued to evolve.”8

  In the years since Gerstner stepped down as CEO in 2002, the company has faced many challenges and has had no shortage of ups and downs. Nevertheless, it has remained consistently profitable. Nobody talks about breaking up IBM anymore. If the turnaround had been centered on Gerstner himself, rather than the values he sought to instill, that would likely not be true. Very few of the top technology companies in 2002, when Gerstner stepped down, are still relevant today. Perhaps like no other, it is an industry that demands you constantly adapt to change. That’s why, when Barry Libenson set out to move Experian to the cloud, he focused on more than just the company’s technological infrastructure. He also worked to bring about a shift in values and skills, so that the heavy lifting that was done during the transition to the cloud would carry over to new challenges, such as implementing artificial intelligence applications.

  “We need to debunk the ‘heroic leader’ myth. If we believe in mountaintop leaders, we end up centralizing our organizations around the mountaintop instead of pushing accountability to people who are closer to the problems.” Chris Fussell, General McChrystal’s former aide-de-camp, told me.9 Yet it’s so easy to look at a larger-than-life persona like Gandhi, Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., or Lech Walesa and think that if only Occupy or Black Lives Matter had a leader of sufficient charisma, they could have achieved more. For many of the same reasons, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that, with just the right strategy, a failing company can become great once again. It’s much more comforting to assume that if Blockbuster had embraced the Internet earlier, it would have been able to stave off Netflix, than to accept that it had not only formulated a viable strategy, but executed it competently—and still failed.

  What should be clear by now is that successful movements create transformational change through shared values. It is that easy and that hard. Clearly, the American Revolution would not be considered the great success it is today without the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. In fact, the founders created and then adopted the Constitution, more than five years after the British were defeated in the Battle of Yorktown, precisely because it had become clear that without shared values the whole experiment was unworkable.

  Yet maintaining a commitment to values is a challenge even in the best of circumstances. It’s always easier to act in the moment or to prioritize an immediate need or desire than it is to sustain discipline and live up to the values you profess to believe in. As Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jon Meacham explained in his book The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels, America has struggled, throughout our history, to uphold the values upon which the country was founded:

  For all of our darker shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight. There is, in fact, no struggle more important, and none nobler, than the one we wage in service of those better angels who, however besieged, are always ready for battle.10

  The quest for change is always a journey, never a destination. It is with that thought that, before I end, I would like to return to where we began, to my friends in Ukraine who, after so many hard lessons, have learned important truths and have continued their struggle, with somewhat better success.

  THE STRUGGLE GOES ON

  * * *

  I now live on the opposite side of the world from my friend Vitaliy, so we don’t get to talk nearly as often as I’d like. But recently, we had the chance to speak over Skype about events since the Euromaidan protests and how they compared to how things were back when we had that earlier conversation in my apartment.

  Much has changed in the years that have passed. Our company, KP Media, was sold to an investment group led by the chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko and Boris Lozhkin, the owner of a rival media company. Vitaliy built a positive working relationship with both men, although there were some tensions when Korrespondent came out with stories that made the regime uncomfortable, particularly when bombshell pictures of President Yanukovych’s ostentatious estate, Mezhyhirya, were published.

  Nevertheless, they never interfered with Vitaliy’s editorial independence, beyond some occasional grumbles. Yet over time, the pressures increased, and in the summer of 2013, just months before the Euromaidan protests began, Poroshenko received a generous offer from allies of President Yanukovych to buy the company. Always a savvy operator, Poroshenko saw the writing on the wall and agreed to sell.11 Roughly 18 months later, in a dramatic turn of events after Yanukovych was ousted, Poroshenko would be elected president of Ukraine and choose Lozhkin to serve as his chief of staff.

  As the sale went through, Vitaliy was given a contract to sign by the new owners. The first point was a ban on criticism of five individuals: Yanukovych, his son, and three others close to the regime. They also wanted to review all editorial content, including advertising, before publication. Vitaliy refused. They told him if he didn’t comply, his career would be essentially finished. He told them, “Then I guess I’ll have to find something else to do, but there is no way I can agree to these things. There are some things I can’t do for any amount of money, and even if I could, my journalists wouldn’t accept it.” So he left the company, and a significant portion of the editorial staff joined him. They would later establish a new newsmagazine and website, Novoye Vremya, with the backing of independent investors. As of this writing, its readership far surpasses that of Korrespondent.

  When I asked Vitaliy how the Euromaidan protests, or what Ukrainians have come to call The Revolution of Dignity, were different than what we experienced together in the Orange Revolution, he told me, “In
2005 everybody just disappeared and let Yushchenko do what he wanted. They thought he was some kind of magician and things were going to happen right away. But then nothing happened and they thought, ‘something is brewing, he’s getting something ready,’ but then it became clear that nothing is getting ready and nothing is going to happen.”

  “But this time [after the Euromaidan protests], nobody believed that things would change by themselves,” he continued. “People went to the legislature, went into government. For the first time, lots of top managers [in the private sector, such as the former general manager of Microsoft Ukraine Dmytro Shymkiv] took ministerial posts. They thought they had to take part as well.” He also pointed out that the new officials had a much more international perspective. “In Yanukovych’s cabinet only 2 out of 20 people spoke English. Now, only 2 out of 20 don’t speak English. It’s a totally different type of people.”

  When I spoke to Mustafa Nayyem, the journalist and activist whose Facebook post sparked the Euromaidan protests, he voiced similar sentiments. “In 2005 it was a very political protest,” he said. “The only goal we had was that Yushchenko be President. He was the hope that everything would change. But it was not about social mobilization. It was not about political mobilization. We hoped that these people will change the country if we elect them. In 2005, people tried to change the country through politics. In 2014, they did it themselves.” The Orange Revolution ultimately failed because it was about putting people in power, not about changing the values by which the country was governed.

  He also explained that most of the protestors during Euromaidan were those who had been disappointed during the Orange Revolution, and they had learned from the experience. “Even today, you can’t say who were the leaders in 2014,” he remembers. “It was not a revolution done by politicians, it was a revolution done by activists, journalists, and middle-class professionals. In 2014 we were fighting for an idea. That’s why 2014 was different. In 2005 people just went home [after the protests were over]. The social mobilization was very low and we lost our chance to push the government to make some changes. In 2014, people stayed angry. They stayed active. They kept pushing. And this spirit of protest is still proceeding.” Nayyem himself was elected to Parliament and continues to push for reforms.

  Much like in Serbia, the activists learned to take a more active role. They not only mobilized the populace, they also organized institutions. Independent organizations like Chestno (Honesty), the Anti-Corruption Action Center, and others, which were funded in large part by international foundations like George Soros’s Open Society Foundation and US AID and staffed by experts, sprung up and not only advocated for change, but put forth specific programs to be adopted. “NGO activity exploded after Euromaidan,” Nayyem told me, “because many saw that it was possible to put pressure on the government.”

  I spoke to a leader of what has perhaps been the most impactful NGO in Ukraine, Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, which began operations two years before the Euromaidan protests took place. Shabunin, a former political operative, founded the organization with his friend, Daryna Kalenyuk, after she returned from receiving a law degree in the United States and doing a short stint at Transparency International. They both saw the need for a watchdog group to investigate wrongdoing and advocate for reforms.

  Their respective backgrounds led them to the realization that while journalists could investigate, any complaints needed to be submitted according to legal procedures or they would simply be cast aside. So they set out to not only document transgressions, but to present them in a way that they could not be so easily ignored. One of their first initiatives, which was financed by a grant from The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, was to investigate how HIV medicines were being procured by the state medical service. Their work not only uncovered massive malfeasance, but suggested reforms that would make medical procurement more transparent and efficient.

  That early work led to a formula, which became the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s modus operandi. First, they would thoroughly investigate corruption and “name and shame” those who were responsible for misusing state resources. However, this wasn’t an end in itself, but only a means to an end. The goal was to formulate and suggest specific reforms based on their investigations and then leverage key institutions, especially international organizations, a key Pillar of Support.

  Shabunin continually stressed to me how important it is to do the groundwork early, long before a window of opportunity opens up, to drive the reforms through and make them a reality. It is that early work that helps you build up expertise so that you are able to propose detailed, viable reforms and win the credibility to gain support from both internal stakeholders and international institutions.

  That window of opportunity for Ukraine opened up once the new government was elected and installed after the Euromaidan protests. The country no longer had Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a patron. In fact, after the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea province and the “hybrid” invasion of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, it was now a sworn enemy, and that strengthened the resolve of the populace. At the same time, Ukraine was bankrupt, at war, and highly dependent on international institutions for survival.

  Now, Shabunin and the other NGOs had three significant levers to force through reforms. The first was IMF loans, which the country needed desperately. The second was the possibility of a visa-free regime with the European Union, something that the citizens of Ukraine desperately wanted. It would be a sign that Ukraine had begun its ascent into the community of free nations and had started out on its path to become a “normal” country. Third, after the presidential elections, new parliamentary elections loomed. “It was not only us and the internal pressure we put on Parliament, it was also the IMF, which made it a condition for the loan. There was also an election coming up, and Parliament needed to show that they accomplished something. So it was a confluence of mechanisms that led to the passage of major reforms,” Shabunin told me.12

  Those reforms, which included an Anti-Corruption Bureau within the government, a law that required all officials to disclose their assets (so that when an official or judge on a small government salary owns three Bentleys and a large estate he or she must explain where the wealth comes from), criminal liability for a false declaration, and human rights legislation, all had significant impact. Perhaps the most popular reform, borrowed from the Georgian Republic’s earlier revolution in 2003, was a complete restructuring of the traffic police. All former officers were dismissed, and a new cadre, with higher recruiting standards and training provided by a team of police from Reno, Nevada, proved to be a considerable improvement in daily life. No longer could law-abiding citizens be arbitrarily shaken down on the whim of a corrupt officer.13

  Still, many challenges remain, and after the pressure from the need to win financing from the IMF and the visa-free regime from the EU abated, little was done. As further needed reforms lingered, Petro Poroshenko quickly became a disappointment. In the past few years, his approval ratings have fallen through the floor. A new presidential election will be held in 2019, just before this book is published, and he will likely lose. (And, in another case of political revival, Yulia Tymoshenko is a key frontrunner.)

  “The window of opportunity has closed, because Ukrainian politicians have gotten all they need from the West,” Shabunin told me. Now that the visa-free regime has been installed and Ukraine is no longer desperate for loans from the IMF, much of the impetus has dissipated. Nevertheless, just as he did before the Euromaidan protests, Shabunin continues to prepare for the next window of opportunity that can trigger more comprehensive reforms. “Our long-term strategy is to create a situation in which it will be impossible not to do anti-corruption reforms. We are working to ensure that these reforms will be done, either by these politicians or by another, because they will lose their office if they don’t do these reforms.”

  So the struggle continues,
but the forces for change have far more advantages than we did back in 2004. Russia has lost its influence, most probably for generations to come. Vitaliy Sych and other journalists continue to do hard-nosed reporting on corrupt officials and inept policy, Mustafa Nayyem and his compatriots inside the Ukrainian government continue to agitate for better governance, and NGOs like the Anti-Corruption Action Center continue to investigate and develop proposals for new legislation that can help move the country forward. Kuchma, Yushchenko, and Yanukovych have all long disappeared from the scene and, most likely, Poroshenko soon will too. Yet the struggle continues and, hopefully, Ukraine will prosper because of it.

  AFTERWORD

  Leading Toward Common Ground

  It always seems impossible until it’s done.

  —NELSON MANDELA

  Everybody has something they want to change, whether it is something in their community, their organization, their industry, or throughout society as a whole. However, not everybody wants the same change. What excites and inspires some, others fear. No change affects everyone equally. That’s why, as Saul Alinsky pointed out, every revolution sparks a counterrevolution. One person’s win is often another’s loss.

  We’ve seen this dynamic throughout this book. Whether it is a movement to lift up the oppressed, to improve healthcare or education, to turn around a failing company, or to advocate for a new corporate initiative, change of any kind threatens the status quo, which never yields its power gracefully. There will always be a backlash. That is the physics of change. Every action provokes a reaction.