By Ben Pangelinan
For Variety

WHEN times of great uncertainty are upon us, it brings with it the opportunity for great successes. This is generally how I see the current situation we find ourselves in.
The late Mark Twain was attributed the quote, “I’m all for progress. It’s change I object to.” It is human nature to resist change. We find them in all sorts of organizations, even the government of Guam. To gain support for any change we want to institute, one must understand the culture of the organization. And culture lives in the people and change is not structural; it is cultural.
We have heard people refer to themselves as the agents of change. The first lesson to learn as a change agent, real or self-proclaimed, is you do not go around shouting about it or get someone to shout it about you. It is not about you, it is about the people. You must understand and respect the elements of the organization or else the organization will reject you and your initiatives.
Every organization has its own network and to elevate the chance of success, change agents must identify both the formal and informal leaders. Invoking only the formal leaders dooms you to failure. You must gain the support of the informal leaders; the opinionated ones who must be convinced of the need for change and who, in turn, bring others along.
The threshold for change is so much greater when times are uncertain. There is a case to be made for striking quickly, but if you move too fast without the proper foundation, you lose credibility. Move too slowly and lose opportunity. Sounds familiar with the current pronouncements from self-proclaimed agents of change you know?
When one talks about change, one must have an expansive vision. To make the change, one cannot afford to reach beyond one’s grasp too early. The foundation must be poured and allowed to set with small, visible and measurable success in the early phase. Approaching the big picture in this manner gives one the opportunity to establish credibility. It minimizes the risk to the overall goal by allowing recovery from mistakes and learning from them.
We are seeing the proposals for change in our government with the introduction of several bills. Now if we are serious in making real change it does not end with bill introduction, or with a public hearing.
The agent of change who introduces a bill to re-organize government is responsible to the people it affects. A series of public hearings should be held to receive public input. More important, I believe, is a series of employee forums to hear the employees out and incorporate their ideas. This was done when I introduced the successful merger of the Department of Commerce and the Guam Economic Development Agency. In the process, employees told us where some of the divisions being moved were a better fit and thus involved another agency, the Bureau of Planning.
To all my colleagues who now own re-organization: nurture it with hard work, work it with diligence and understanding, and understand that ensuring the change you want to happen becomes reality. You too may need to change.

Ben Pangelinan is a senator in the 29th Guam Legislature and a former speaker now serving in his seventh term in the Guam Legislature.
E-mail comments or suggestions to senbenp@guam.net or ctzenben@ite.net.