Institutions have been at the center of our lives for more than a century. Institutions are how we get organized and get things done. We form corporations to do business. We create school districts to deliver education. We build churches to promulgate religion. Institutions have helped to lift our society to become one of the wealthiest and healthiest in history.
We conform our lives to the needs of institutions in order to get things done effectively. We work from 9 to 5 for 40 hours a week. Families schedule vacations around the school calendar. College students go on Spring Break. In Great Britain, they name vacation days after an institution: “Bank Holiday.”
We are in an era now in which we don’t need institutions as much. We can get organized and get things done without the help of institutions. Clay Shirkey discusses the ability for people to form groups and get work done without highly structured organizations in his book Here Comes Everybody.
I have noticed a shift in public attitudes over the past ten years as people have become less reliant on institutions. I conducted a series of education focus groups over two years in the mid-1990s for the Kettering Foundation and The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. No one mentioned “choice” in those days. I had to bring up the idea that parents and students might select their own school. People seldom engaged. They accepted the idea that school boundaries determined where a student went to school – unless they went to private school.
Today, when I talk to parents and students, choice is a given. Parents and students reject the idea that a student should be forced to go to a school they don’t want to attend (within the public school context). What’s more, families don’t even conform to the school calendar the way they once did. Families do activities and take vacations on their own schedules not the one prescribed by the school district.
These shifts are taking place in other sectors of society, too. The old adage “just what the doctor ordered” no longer applies. When faced with any significant health challenge, more and more people do their own medical research and consult with the doctor rather than passively submit to prescriptions.
Brad Rourke and I have been examining the implications of people’s shifting expectations for institutions. We describe the emerging society as a Citizen Centric World. We’re leaving behind our institution centric society.
Here are a few examples of how people's expectations for institutions and public leaders are shifting:
Old: Limited options is just the way it is.
New: People expect a range of options to suit their personal interests.
Old: Experts and officials decide and do things for people.
New: People decide and do things for themselves – with advice from experts (who are often peers).
Old: Information is generated by, accessible to and distributed by officials and experts.
New: Information is generated by, accessible to and distributed by anyone.
Old: Institutions operate in a defined space and time.
New: People do things where and when they want.
Old: Accountability is to institutionally defined metrics.
New: People seek transparency; will judge performance based on their own metrics.
These shifts in public attitudes may seem self evident on the surface. “Tell me what I don’t know,” some people might say. But ask yourself, where does your organization fall along the spectrum of meeting people’s old or emerging expectations? For instance, do experts and officials from your organization still decide and do things for people? Or, do you help people decide and do things for themselves?
The private sector has been forced to confront people’s shifting expectations sooner than public sector organizations. In the private sector, a new type of business model is emerging often called the platform organization. The Washington Times Communities is one such example. It is a platform for a wide variety of writers who speak to niche rather than general audiences.
All types of organizations – public and private – are going to have to account for the societal shift from institution-centric to citizen-centric. How well prepared is your organization?
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John Creighton writes on community life and public leadership at johncr8on.com. He can be found on Twitter @johncr8on and on Facebook.
Picture Credits: Globe in hands by Flickr user noticelj.
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