At the time of writing, Andy Burnham is into his third day as Prime Minister, beginning his fourth at the point you are most likely reading this. He has already made a few sigificant policy announcement aiming to help with the cost of living, the biggest of which are a national £2 cap on bus tickets, removing VAT from energy bills by scrapping the previous government’s ID card scheme, and cutting business rates for pubs and clubs. Notably, Burnham has acknowledged that these measures will not resolve the current cost of living crisis nor fix the UK’s problems, but insists it suggests a direction of travel for his government.
In response to these moves, Kemi Badenoch – leader of the opposition – had the following to say (per The Times):
Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, will say on Thursday that Burnham must “rule out tax rises to pay for his spending spree”.
She will “Don’t get me wrong: the cost of living is real. But the problems go way beyond bus fares and VAT on bills.”
She will say: “Bus fares are expensive because fuel is expensive. Energy is expensive. Employment is expensive. Regulation is expensive. Government has made nearly everything more costly, and Andy Burnham’s answer is to cap one price and send the bill somewhere else.
Both the reason for the raft of announcements from day one of Burnham’s premiership and this kind of response from the opposition boils down to the immediacy being demanded by the public for change. What Burnham and Badenoch clearly recognise in their respective announcements is that people are struggling and want to feel the effect of change pretty quickly. Anything less will lead to them looking elsewhere for the change they crave for good or ill.
Badenoch’s response, though it understands the public mood, is nevertheless unreasonable. For a start, Burnham is three days into his premiership and she seems to be expecting him to have upended the entire economic system he inherited and resolved the heart of all its problems already. This is nuts by anybody’s reckoning. She also fails to acknowledge, in part because of our political system demands this kind of opposition for its own sake, that Burnham has already acknowledged these things do not fix the systemic issues or resolve all problems. He considers them a little bit of help that can be enacted relatively quickly. It is not being presented as the solution to our ills and it is crazy to cast it as though that is what he is suggesting.
Change management is a difficult thing to navigate whether you are a Prime Minister of a country, the head of a large organisation or the pastor of a local church. If you have come into your post on the promise of change and have outlined what those changes are likely to be, it seems to me you are entitled to begin the work of enacting those changes early on. There should be no surprises as you begin doing the very things you said you would do when the people agreed to install you in your role.
Nevertheless, if you are planning changes that haven’t yet been fully outlined, if you are going to bring people with you, moving slower might be in order. It pays to lay out your plans, have those discussions and give people time to understand them and get on board with them. If people have put you in your position on a ticket of change, it isn’t unreasonable to start enacting change and to expect them to be comfortable with you doing so. If you haven’t been appointed on that basis, though change might be necessary, people may well have questions and concerns when it really wasn’t what they were going for.
At the same time, even with a change mandate, people need to be realistic about how quickly things can change. Some things might be enacted quickly and easily. I am still amazed by the number of churches that seem to take years to get about changing their bible version when most people are on board with doing so when, in reality, it should be the simplest change in the world: just buy some new bibles and start using them and/or copy and paste from the new version for your slides. I can think of no change that could be easier. There are a whole raft of other small wins that can be enacted early on in churches that shouldn’t be overly controversial and can be done quickly and easily.
By the same token, there clearly are changes that will take a long time. With all the will in the world, major constitutional overhauls, for example, might take a little while. I am not talking about minor changes to the wording of the odd clause here and there. Many people will want to understand what practice(s) we are starting/stopping, why we are being driven to change them, what will actually change in the church and why it is for the better, and will have lots of related questions. These sort of changes will be much slower and, even if we have been appointed on a change ticket with a general desire to see these kind of changes in the congregation, enacting them is a bit trickier than just deciding to try out a new configuration of chairs. It would be unreasonable of those keen on such changes to be miffed that we don’t bring them about in our first week.