To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the reform of China's urban economic system, the 2024 new book "City Matters in the People" published by CITIC Publishing Group will be distributed on JD.com, Dangdang, Xinhua Bookstore and other platforms. In the nearly two months since its release, the "triggered change" proposed by the book has become a hot word for discussion among the majority of readers.
Dr. Wei Tao, the author of "City Matters", first proposed the concept of "triggered change" in the book, and explained it with the cases of urban transformation in Houston in the United States, Katowice in Poland, and Zibo and Liuzhou in China. In a networked society, the risk of uncertainty continues to increase, and organizations with a high degree of openness (such as localities, multinational companies, industrial alliances, etc.) often cause systemic risks due to the triggering of accidental events, and even fall into a situation of loss of control. In order to improve the above problems, on the one hand, people use technical means to carry out the whole process, all-weather risk monitoring, on the other hand, accelerate the establishment of risk early warning and emergency response mechanism, as far as possible to reduce losses. Although this governance model has achieved certain results, it has not eliminated the risk from the root, much like issuing a set of anti-theft doors and windows to every resident in the city, which seems to have security for everyone, but has not improved social security, and has caused a tense atmosphere of rumors and trees within a certain range.
Wei Tao believes that the relationship between risk governance and organizational development should be rethought, and a new governance scheme should be established by linking the three dimensions of risk management, organizational reform and even cultural construction. Thus, the concept of triggered change was born. Wei Tao's definition of triggered change is:Managers take the initiative to use occasional events or external risk factors to trigger and activate structural chain reactions within the organization, forcing and positively guiding the process of self-transformation, building consensus, defusing risks and promoting the realization of greater reform goals。In other words, triggered change is a governance model established in parallel in the three dimensions of risk management, organizational reform and cultural construction, which uses the oppressive force of external risks to break the old diseases within the organization, solve problems with the hand of problems, and establish certainty in uncertainty.
A series of governance actions after the emergence of the Internet celebrity city phenomenon in Zibo obviously have the characteristics of triggered change. The book "City Matters in the People" introduces students from all over the world to "go to Zi for barbecue" at the beginning of 2023, and then hundreds of thousands of tourists suddenly visit this industrial city with very limited reception capacity, and suddenly press the start button of change. Considering that there may be related risks such as public facilities, city appearance, travel safety, and negative **, Zibo City has transformed risk factors into a force to force urban governance reform, and has launched a series of self-improvement actions such as optimizing transportation, ensuring public security, and benefiting the people through cultural tourism. The change of Zibo city began with tourists "looking for trouble", sounding the "alarm" in the urban governance system, forcing all kinds of responsible persons to make reform actions to improve their own situation - this process of "finding trouble", sounding the "alarm" and self-change actions also provides urban managers with an opportunity to observe and think about the essence of the problem with strong openness and direct to the essence of the problem.
The trigger change is reflected in the supervision mechanism of 12345 citizen service**. Citizens reflect problems, trigger the activation of the supervision mechanism, and force relevant departments to respond quickly and complete with high quality, thereby improving the level of reform and continuously enhancing people's livelihood service capabilities. Managers should take the initiative to look for opportunities and external forces to trigger change, and take advantage of the situation to achieve greater reform goals. It should be noted that in the process of reform, external triggers, triggers and risks should be comprehensively analyzed and assessed.
It is understood that Wei Tao will set up an expert team with Professor Peng Xinwu, director of the Management Philosophy Research Center of Chinese University, to further elaborate the new concept of triggered change, establish theoretical models, publish academic works such as "Triggered Change", give full play to its value in urban social governance, large-scale enterprise reform and other fields, and promote theoretical innovation to empower management practice.