Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change
Greg Satell
288 pages, McGraw-Hill Education, 2019
In 2004, I found myself running a major news organization in Kyiv, Ukraine, during its Orange Revolution. One of the things I remember most distinctly about that time was a general sense of profound confusion as events seemed to take on a life of their own. Thousands and thousands of people, who would ordinarily be doing many different things, would stop what they were doing and start doing the same thing altogether, in nearly perfect unison, all at once. Instead of a clear order, there seemed to be some mysterious force that nobody could describe, but no one could deny, that was propelling events along.
The experience inspired my 15-year journey to understand how movements create transformational change. In my research, I consulted historical accounts of movements that succeeded and those that failed, but the most important insights I found talking to a diverse group of actors and experts, including brave revolutionaries, corporate executives, innovative social entrepreneurs and network scientists. What I found was that there are basic principles that we can employ, many of which have been battle-tested for decades, that can help us drive change in our organizations, our industries, our communities and throughout society as a whole.
This excerpt from my book, Cascades, comes from Chapter 9, which focuses on the problem of “surviving victory.” The first part focuses on the aftermath of the Orange Revolution, when we still felt triumphant. Little did we know that the great victory we thought we had just won would soon descend into chaos. In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych, the man who we had taken to the streets to keep out of power in 2004, rose to the presidency in a hotly contested election. His rein proved to be even worse than we had feared.
The second section of the excerpt shoots forward to the end of the chapter and focuses on the Euromaidan protests of 2013 and 2014, essentially Ukraine’s second revolution. This time the activists learned from earlier mistakes and, by focusing on values rather than specific personalities or programs, were better able to “survive victory.” On April 21st of this year, Ukraine elected a new president in a peaceful transfer of power in an election that all international observers judged to be fair. While challenges remain, Ukraine is now unquestionably a free, democratic country.
I hope this excerpt—and the book—inspires you to create positive change in a world that’s never needed it more. — Greg Satell
Chapter 9: Surviving Victory
I remember sitting in the living room of my Kyiv apartment one night early in 2005, drinking whiskey with my friend and colleague Vitaly Sych. As the Editor-in-Chief of Korrespondent, Ukraine’s most popular newsmagazine, Vitaly was one of the most prominent journalists in the country and one of the best people to talk to if you wanted to get a sense of the zeitgeist of the nation.
We had developed a great working relationship in the office, but what I really treasured was to get a few quiet hours to sit and talk with my friend. Apparently, The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman felt the same way, because upon meeting Vitaly in 2004, his next columns focused largely on him.1 Vitaly has that effect on people. Straightforward and direct, while at the same time thoughtful and insightful, he is someone that immediately commands attention in his own quiet way.
On this particular night we were still basking in the glow of the Orange Revolution. The old order had been defeated and a new era was dawning. Korrespondent’s sales were soaring and the future seemed ripe with opportunity. We talked and poured some whiskey and talked some more. Eventually, after we had drunk the requisite amount of whiskey to broach the subject in earnest, we got around to the subject of what the future might hold for Ukraine.
As both an outsider and someone who had lived in Poland during intense years of reform, Vitaly was interested in my opinion. I told him that I thought EU and NATO ascension would be key to securing Ukraine’s future. It was only through external structures such as these, I thought, that the necessary reforms could be accomplished. Vitaly had other ideas. He favored a more “Finnish-style” solution in which Ukraine was neither in the Russian camp nor part of NATO or the EU. He just wanted Ukraine to be left to find its own way.
As usual, Vitaly captured the mood in the country. Ukrainians had just taken to the streets to stand up to injustice and they had won. Now, they just wanted to be able live their lives once again. It was to be a terrible mistake. What came next should have been predictable but, at best as I can recall, nobody saw it coming. I certainly didn’t.
What happened first was a breakdown of the political alliance between Viktor Yushchenko, now President of Ukraine and Yulia Timoshenko, the Prime Minister. Former President Yanukovych's Party of Regions regrouped and obstructed all they could. The Russians cut off the gas supply and infighting soon broke out between the various ruling factions. There was a scandal with Yushchenko’s son, increasingly erratic behavior from Timoshenko and before long we all felt betrayed by those we had marched for.
The financial crisis hit at the end of 2009. The Hryvnia, Ukraine’s currency, plummeted by 45%, GDP fell by 20%. It was the final straw. When the Presidential elections came around in 2010, Viktor Yanukovych was politically reborn. His image and message newly polished by American political consultant Paul Manafort, he seemed to many Ukrainians a more stable choice than his scandal ridden opponent, Yulia Timoshenko, despite her well-earned reputation for competence. He seemed like just the man to make Ukraine great again. He wasn’t. And soon the country would descend into turmoil once again.
***
I now live on the opposite side of the world from my friend Vitaly, 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 Euromaidan 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 had past. Our company, KP Media, had been sold to an investment group led by the chocolate tycoon Petro Poroshenko and Boris Lozhkin, the owner of a rival media company. Vitaly 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’s ostentatious estate were published.
Nevertheless, they never interfered with Vitaly’s editorial independence, beyond some occasional grumbles. Yet over time, the pressures increased and in the summer of 201, 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.2 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, Vitaly 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. Vitaly 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 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 Vitaly 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 two out of 20 people spoke English. Now, only two out of 20 don’t speak English. It’s a totally different type of people.”
When I spoke to Mustafa Nayem, 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 protesters 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.” Nayem 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,” Nayem 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, Vitaly Shabunin, Head of the Board at 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 US 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, as 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 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 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 started out on its path to be 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.3
Those reforms, which included an Anti-Corruption Bureau within the government, a law that required every official disclose their assets, (so that when a official or judge on a small government salary owns 3 Bentleys and a large estate he or she must explain where the wealth comes from), criminal liability for a false declaration as well as human rights legislation, all had significant impact. Perhaps the most popular reform, borrowed from the Georgian Republic’s earlier revolution in 2003, was 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 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.4
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 is likely to lose.
“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 of change have far more advantages than we did back in 2004. Russia has lost its influence, most probably for generations to come. Vitaly Sych and other journalists continue to do hard-nosed reporting on corrupt officials and inept policy, Mustafa Nayem 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 fight goes on and, hopefully, Ukraine will prosper because of it.