The challenge is to find features of the existing culture, even if they re not dominant, that can serve as a basis for reforms. Attitude research as far back as the earliest studies of voting behavior in the 1940s by the social psychologist Paul Lazarfeld show that it is more difficult to change attitudes than to emphasize submerged elements of existing ones. Advocates gathering public support for a cause or a political candidate often make less of an attempt to change public opinion than they do to encourage citizens to focus on existing beliefs that are favorable to the cause. So, for example, environmentalists concerned with environmental policy seldom spend much effort trying to persuade people who are indifferent to the image of a smokestack bellowing foul smoke over a pristine lake. Instead, they encourage people who already value pristine lakes to focus on the lakes rather than on the opponents image of strict environmental regulation, which may be a shuttered factory closed down by zealous regulators.
Research also shows that the best path to attitude change often starts with behavioral change.
Getting people to change their behavior often sets in motion a process of further behavioral and attitudinal change. Only l7 percent of subjects who hadn t received the earlier visit agreed to display the sign. Those involved in change management need to understand it as well. These lessons ring true in efforts begun in l993 to change the culture of the government s procurement system. I was involved as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and procurement lieutenant for Vice President Al Gore s reinventing government program.