Tag Archives: social change

“Give More Tomorrow”: Can we program ourselves for social action?

Posted on May 24, 2012 by | Leave a comment

My favorite part of the book Nudge was the section on how to nudge ourselves towards the actions that we know we should be taking anyway.

Because, of course, policymakers and recalcitrant should-be voters aren’t the only people who need a little nudging.

There is evidence, for example, that getting people to commit to increasing their charitable contributions by a predetermined amount at a preset time is an effective way to get them to the desired level of financial commitment.

Because, while I may not be willing to give more right now, I’m also fairly likely to just go along with it once it kicks in.

Inertia, and all that.

And, so, what I’m wondering is, if regularly-scheduled increases in charitable contributions work, then what about regularly-scheduled commitments to take on advocacy?

If we know that imagining, in detail, how we’ll take action, increases the likelihood that we will, then shouldn’t actually committing that it will happen have all-the-greater effect?

We do this some, already, in our campaigns. We ask people to sign up to come to a meeting, we ask them to commit to calling their legislators, we ask them to sign a pledge to boycott a certain company.

But I think, too often, we tell ourselves that the reason that we’re asking for this commitment is so that we have an excuse to call them (repeatedly, sometimes) to remind them of their promise, as though it’s our nagging, and not their own ‘commitment trigger’ that makes the difference.

I think the psychology on that is wrong, and I think that confusing internal priming and external haranguing also leads us to overlook some opportunities to make this whole ‘advocate more tomorrow’ approach work even better for us.

What if, for example, we used social media, or even our websites, to publish people’s commitments? Not in a ‘shame-on-you’ way, but a ‘look who’s going to be there–awesome, hunh?’ way.

Or what if we had people sign a commitment to contact their legislator, with great detail (“I’ll call Senator XYZ about the Earned Income Tax Credit cuts the second week in February”) and then we sent them the reminder in their own handwriting (maybe scanned and emailed), so that they could see where they had already put this into motion?

What if we asked people to tell us exactly when they would be ready to come to a rally, or write a letter, and then we made that date our timeline for their engagement in the campaign, instead of trying to get them to slot into our calendar?

With my kids, they know that they can choose whether they’re going to stop playing to eat dinner, or brush their teeth, or pick up their room.

They can choose to do it now, or in 5 minutes.

And choose they do, programming themselves to do what I wanted them to do.

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Vote: All the cool kids are doing it

Posted on May 22, 2012 by | 2 Comments

I KNEW it.

In this case, that’s surprisingly unsatisfying.

See, I have felt for years that trying to guilt people into voting by emphasizing how few people vote, and how important it is, and how they’re really bad people if they (like all of those other degenerates) don’t vote…is really, completely ineffective.

And, here, research discussed in Nudge that confirms my practice experience, culled from hundreds of hours spent doing voter registration and Get-Out-the-Vote work, that telling people to vote because not very many other people do is exactly the wrong way to approach increasing voter turnout.

If we want to increase voter turnout (and, from the perspective of nonprofit organizations working with marginalized communities, we do!), what we need to do is channel people into voting, prime them for the voting experience, and, if we can…

make it sound like other people ARE voting, so they should, too.

I thought about this a few weeks ago in class when, despite the oncoming spring, 9 out of the 15 women in my class were wearing the exact same boots.

I mean, in marketing, no company would ever try to convince someone to buy something by stressing its unpopularity (“you should wear boots like these because only 35% of other young women wore them last season”? Not effective.).

We get people to do things, especially things they may have never done before, or may even be reluctant to do, by normalizing the experience, creating a like-minded community, and taking away as much of the uncertainty as we can, in order to make it really, really easy to make the behavior change.

So, what does this look like in the realm of voter engagement, since we want people to shape our electorate, not wear matching footwear?

What if we…

  • Had high school seniors register to vote as part of the classroom experience, when they turn 18, so that they’re registering as a group?
  • Used voter data to target those who are not engaged in the electoral process, by highlighting others within their social networks/peer groups who are? (“Can I register you to vote today? Your neighbors have really high voter participation, so I figured you would probably want to get registered, too.”)
  • Presented examples of reference peers voting, in a sort of micro-targeted ‘Rock-the-Vote’ way?
  • Implemented more user-friendly voting procedures, so that voting wasn’t such an extraordinary experience (like allowing online voting, or allowing people to vote in places they frequent (their own schools/colleges, for example) rather than the church down the street they only go in once every two/four years?
  • Invested in marketing campaigns that underscore not only the civic importance of voting but, indeed, its centrality to our understanding of what it means to be an American…a sort of, “everyone’s doing this, so we’d love you to join us” message?
  • Reached out to underrepresented communities year-round, instead of expecting that they’ll make a big behavior shift right around election time?

What kinds of approaches do you think would ‘nudge’ unlikely voters to civic engagement? How are you shifting from a ‘thou shalt’ to a ‘wouldn’t you like to, too?’ message?

How can we make claiming our civic right as ubiquitous as those boots?

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Happy Week! The awesomest things I’ve seen lately

Posted on May 7, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Image from I Wish This Was

This is Happy Week! So, then, here are some things that make me super happy/excited/energized/hopeful/inspired.

What awesomeness can you share?

IfWeRanTheWorld: What would you do if you could do anything? And can’t we?

FIXES: Innovative approaches to solving major problems, available in RSS feed every Wednesday…like a dream come true.

Social Work Activist Reader: There hasn’t been much new content added to this lately, but what’s not to love about anti-racist, ‘justice-centered social work’? Online?

The Fun Theory: Parenting has taught me how much easier it is to get people to do things if they are fun. Try NOT to smile at the piano staircase.

Minnesota Idea Open: Ann Wiesner at Grassroots Solutions showed me this earlier this year. Crowdsourcing problems, with the added dimension of geographic-based community. It builds identity and addresses real concerns, and I think it’s pretty awesome.

I Wish This Was: This reminds me a little of a photography project I did with immigrant teenagers more than a decade ago, when they cataloged what they saw in the community around them, and what they thought it said about what others thought about them. Except even cooler, I think.

Open Source Leadership Strategies: File this under the category of ‘awesome people who are doing terrific things’, because I met Marisol Jimenez-McGee more than 10 years ago, and I couldn’t be happier to see her sharing her incredible talents in such an exciting way.

The Montana State Supreme Court: Honestly, if I have to try to convince one more should-be voter that his/her vote DOES still matter, in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, I might scream. Thank you, Montana, for meaningful campaign finance limits.

Nonprofit Vote: The good people at NonprofitVOTE are on my happy list for sending me emails every week with resources to help nonprofit organizations engage their clients as voters. I even appreciate their exhortations, because I just love their incessant emphasis on our responsibility to shape the electorate. Love them.

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Organization Culture, Advocacy, and “Free Spaces”

Posted on April 30, 2012 by | 4 Comments

These days, I have the luxury of existing somewhat apart from an organizational culture. As a consultant, I get to swoop in, sometimes, knowing that my mere presence will shake things up for the organization’s traditional way of operating, and that, within that dynamic, there are new opportunities for change.

I also get to observe different organizational cultures, which is a very valuable experience. I can often get a quick ‘feel’ that a particular organization is, for example, particularly receptive to an advocacy orientation, or especially concerned about appearances and protocol. In one organization I’ve done some work with, they even started a Transformation Council, to specifically look at how the organization itself needs to change, in order to more fully live its mission. The formation of that council, in turn, has created momentum for change, which is embedding itself now within the organization’s culture (in a way that openness to change begets more openness to change).

Since much of my work involves helping nonprofit social service organizations integrate advocacy and social change work into their direct service provision, I’ve been thinking about the role of organizational culture in helping institutions make this shift, and about how to use organizational culture as a lever for the kinds of alignments and redirections necessary for the organization to take on this advocacy function as a complement to their services.

As quoted in Switch, “organizational culture isn’t just part of the game; it is the game”, and I find that that’s no where more true than in trying to get an entrenched organization, and, more importantly, the stakeholders who are entrenched within it, to embrace a new way of seeing those they serve (as co-creators of social change), their services (as bridges to fundamental social transformation), their staff (as catalysts for empowering advocacy), and their organizations (as resources to be leveraged in pursuit of social justice).

Review of case studies of organizations that successfully tackle change find an important practice in common: the existence of small-scale gatherings where like-minded individuals can exchange ideas without surveillance from opposition, including internal opposition. These gatherings allow people to gain strength in unity, somewhat set apart, until they are ready to engage more openly. Applying what social workers know about groups, that’s how cohesion, and the norms that accompany it, set in, so that, in this case, before there is an effort to unleash the new ideas on the larger entity–the organization–they have rooted themselves within a part of it, demonstrating, of course, in the process, that the sky will not fall down.

Understanding the critical role of these ‘free spaces’ within organizations, and the role they play in successful organizational culture shifts, doesn’t necessarily tell us how to build them. Or, perhaps more accurately, how to permit them to grow, since there’s a certainly organic element implied. They are in some ways like the learning circles used in the Building Movement Project’s model, except that, here, there’s a greater willingness to let only those staff members enthused about social change cluster together initially. In some ways, because of the appearance of distance from the rest of the organizational apparatus, they have a sort of ‘cell’ quality, which means that organizations, and these actors within them, will have to get at least a little comfortable with tolerating some dissent and division on the road to a larger purpose.

Have you been part of a ‘free space’ within an organization? What did it look like and how did it function? Organizational leaders, what do you do to cultivate this learning circle approach, and what within your organizational culture supports or resists those efforts? And social service agency change agents, when have you attempted organizational transformation without the benefit of this ‘incubator’? How do you think it might have made a difference?

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See–Feel–Change

Posted on April 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

I’m still thinking about change.

About how we understand it. In order to spark it.

Even though we can never really control it.

I find that these inquiries lead me to rely more than usual on the ‘social-worky’ side of my self, since a lot of what leads people to change depends, to a great extent, on how they connect–to the people in the movement, to the cause, to their own hopes and dreams.

It’s really, really not about the cookies.

One part of Switch that fascinates me is the discussion about the psychological studies of how people make decisions.

See, the way they describe it, we all think that we’re “analyze–think–change” types. In the policy world, too, policymakers always tell us they want more data. But when do they listen the most attentively? When someone tells them a story.

Because they, like us, are really more “see–feel–change”. We respond best to what hits us in our gut, to what we see vividly from a reference of our own experience, to what moves us emotionally even when our brains may not be ready to go anywhere.

This isn’t the same thing as relying on fear or anger or other somewhat negative emotions to catalyze action. We can feel empathy and hope and excitement just as powerfully, and the evidence suggests that they can spark change just as surely.

And it goes without saying that our thinking isn’t totally marginalized in the process. What we feel is shaped in part by what we believe, which is the culmination of many thoughts we’ve had, that becomes our way of seeing the world.

But this see–feel–change process does point us in a different direction, for our policy communication efforts, than we often believe would be most effective. It suggests that the stories that we tell are even more important than the data that we amass, and that wanting people to know something is not, at its core, the same as wanting them to do something.

Here’s what I think it means, for how we talk with people about the problems we face and the policy solutions they demand. And, perhaps even more importantly than how we talk with people, here’s what I think it means for how we show people what’s going on in our community and why they are an essential part of those same solutions.

  • We can’t be so afraid to get people upset. I mean, sure, not instantly alienating our policy targets is always a good idea. But we need people to be somewhat agitated, if we’re going to get them to action. So when things are raw, we can’t be afraid of that.
  • We need to think creatively about what people need to see, and the kinds of emotions we want to prompt. Remember the piles of shoes from Auschwitz? And the way you feel when you see them? Obviously our problems today are not on that scale, but there are still vivid visuals that tell our stories, and we need to bring them into the communication.
  • We need to acknowledge our own emotions. We can’t expect to move people to action, through their felt response, if we are analytical robots who deny the ways in which we’ve been moved to this work. That means telling our story, too, and, when we’re angry or sad, saying it.
  • We need to acknowledge what we don’t know, or can’t yet understand. Sometimes we are so afraid to admit any weakness that we have to pretend that we’ve answered every question, when the truth is that we’re just figuring out what to ask. But we know how we feel, and why it’s not OK, and that has moved us to do something about it. We need to create spaces for others to accept the limits of their analysis, too, and to take the first step anyway.

When have you been moved to act, in the advocacy arena, based on how you felt about what someone helped you to see? Or, perhaps more importantly, can you remember when a piece of data, or some analytical conclusion you reached, is what prompted your advocacy?

We don’t make pro and con lists for most of the biggest decisions in our lives. It’s the same with trying to right a wrong.

We see.

We feel.

And we do.

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Maybe SMART goals really aren’t

Posted on April 24, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Note: I’m going to get (briefly) a little ‘churchy’ here.

I was on a church committee once where there was a lot of frustration with the pastor, who had submitted a budget request that many church members felt was significantly beyond the church’s fiscal capacity. Several committee members expressed some iteration of the “it’s just not realistic” or “we have to live within our means” arguments, especially upset that she had recommended a huge increase in our local and international mission giving.

She listened and then said, “Ours is not a God confined to the realm of the feasible.”

I’ve always wanted to be able to command silence like that.

Back in the secular world, we have this same problem, right? A continual battle between what we think we can really do (truth be told: what we think we can really do without too much trouble) and what we know must be done.

We have this in our own practice, when we downgrade client goals a bit because what they aspire to just “doesn’t seem that likely.” We have it in our organizations, where we laboriously craft strategic plans that are all based on whether our goals are really measurable and attainable, even when what we know we need is a messy and improbable revolution.

And we forget.

We forget that we’ll never reach what we’re not reaching for.

We forget that we’re likely capable of things far larger than what our constrained (and strained) minds can imagine today.

We forget that we need aspiration for our motivation, and that no one ever changed the world without trying really, really hard.

Maybe those SMART goals that strategic planners like so much have their place. When everyone agrees on what the end game should be, and it’s something that’s a rather technical fix, instead of a struggle of ideas and ideals, then making sure that we all know who’s doing what, and when, and how we’re going to check that it’s done is a good thing.

But when what we really need is far from attainable at this moment, then what we need are goals that speak to people’s hearts, not their cautious minds. We need outlandish, wild, terrifically powerful goals that create vivid pictures in people’s minds about the world as it should be…because those are the kinds of goals that people will sacrifice and risk for.

We need goals that are intentionally unreasonable: end poverty, eradicate racism, cure cancer, prevent child abuse. It’s not about willfully disregarding the context in which these struggles will take place. We still need to know what we’re up against. It’s about building a vision that, while unrealistic, presents a compelling alternative around which people can rally.

Because reality is part of the problem.

So refusing to play by reality’s rules may not be SMART.

But it’s smart.

Because today’s dream is tomorrow’s fight is the next day’s victory.

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Action triggers: how to set them, and how to use them

Posted on April 23, 2012 by | 2 Comments

I’m not, in general, a big fan of “triggers”. As in, no “Taxpayer Bill of Rights” automatic tax reductions when revenues go up. No automatic cuts if the supercommittee can’t reach an agreement.

I don’t even let my online exams grade themselves.

I think that there are activities–including most of self-governance–that still require human consideration.

But we know that automatic works, right? People save more if their savings are deducted automatically. We pay bills on time if a computer does it for us. I use alarms to remind me when my kids need to be where, and what to get at the grocery store, and even when it’s my mom’s birthday.

The less of a ‘lift’ some activity is, the more likely we’ll do it. You know, the whole ‘set your exercise clothes out the night before’?

Except, seriously? Doesn’t everyone just stumble over them in desperate search for their kids’ waffles and, please, a little caffeine?

There’s a part in Switch about how setting action triggers makes change more likely, though, that really appeals to me as an advocate. This is the idea that getting people to imagine how they’ll take action increases the likelihood that they will, and it makes a lot of sense. Now that I’m familiar with the concept, I see it all over; just the other day, the home visitor who comes to visit with the baby and me had me write out how and when and where I could put these ‘new skills’ (maintaining your baby’s interest in a toy) to use, in very specific detail.

So, what about it, advocates and organizers? What if we helped people not just to practice how they, hypothetically, would call an elected official, for example, but also when they’d do it, and from which phone? What if we got people to think of 5 specific people that they are going to see within the next week, and to plan out exactly when and how they could approach those people to recruit them for a campaign? What if, instead of spending most of our energy convincing people that they should take action (and then begging them to please do it) (and then following up to remind them to do it), we instead invested considerable attention in helping them lay the mental groundwork to do it, in the belief that that’s a big part of the journey?

That way, when we’re, for example, sitting down to our computer right after putting the kids to bed, something reminds us that that is, indeed, when we said that we’d call 5 of our kids’ classmates’ parents to talk about the new proposed school finance formula, so it’s more likely to happen then if we only vaguely said that, yeah, we’ll try to get to that when we can.

Hypothetically, of course.

When and how do you use action triggers? How does going through the motions mentally help you to actualize in reality? How can you weave this concept into your organizing, and into your own personal advocacy?

And, then, when and how and where, specifically, are you going to try this out?

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There’s always a bright spot

Posted on April 17, 2012 by | Leave a comment

My favorite story from Switch is about the mothers in Vietnam, and how an anti-hunger campaign there, rather than beginning with an exhaustive study about all of the factors that perpetuate the problem of child malnutrition, instead started with a search for where things were going well.

And then set out to replicate those bright spots.

Over and over and over again.

This idea aligns with how I teach social policy from the strengths perspective, taking the stance that policy approaches that build from the good things that are happening, even in the midst of social problems, will be ultimately much more successful.

It’s how I parent, too, consciously trying to spend way more time talking with my kids about what they’re doing well than about what needs to change. Because it’s really true, at least with my 3-year-old twins, that focusing on the problems mainly get you more problems.

Strengths-based social workers spend a lot of our time defending ourselves. Because, no, focusing on strengths does not mean that we ignore the problems. Or that we’re all Pollyannas. Or that we pretend that things will take care of themselves. Strengths-based social policy isn’t unrealistic.

To the contrary: it’s what works.

Because it begins from what’s working.

There are a variety of reasons why focusing on these bright spots–again, even in the context of real challenge (think: child starvation)–works, all of which will be familiar to strengths-based direct practitioners, too:

  • Beginning with a nod to what’s already going well is like starting halfway there, and that breeds hope which, in turn, gives us momentum for greater changes
  • Sometimes we can’t fully understand a problem, but we can zero in on the places where, even inexplicably, things are going well, to try to mirror that
  • In the policy context, we can bring more people to our cause by rallying them around a possibility than guilting them into caring about our disasters
  • Strengths-based policy development builds on a different process, not just a unique product; if we’re going to solve this problem by following the leads of those who have already partially solved it, then we are by default going to involve those folks more actively in the solution, rather than give them a list of directions to follow. It’s no surprise which works better (another way in which parenting is like social change!).

    All of this has me thinking about bright spots, an exercise which, I’ll admit, is a bit foreign to me, as someone who is uncomfortably attuned to the injustices and inhumanities that populate our world.

    But there are some, and I think that we’re already learning from them. What about the teenager who makes it out of a poverty-ridden neighborhood, later to credit the mentor or one caring adult who shepherded her? Why can’t we build systems that provide those shepherds for everyone? What about the welfare office that locates in a school, and sees intake rates skyrocket as barriers are erased? Why can’t we take down hurdles everywhere? What about the backpack programs that send nutritious food home with kids from school and significantly reduce food insecurity? Why can’t we make sure that every hungry child has one?

    Looking for bright spots, to me, is more than just a reflection of an ideological preference for positivity.

    It’s about turning technical problems into political ones.

    Finding what works allows us to stop pretending that we don’t know how to solve the problems that face us–or at least how to begin to solve them–and requires that we focus, instead, on overcoming our resistance to solving them.

    Which means that we need to look for other bright spots, then: the places where movements of people have, as only movements of people can, summoned the political will to light bright spots all over the place.

    To light.

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Make sure they know what to do: Clarity combats exhaustion, which can look like apathy

Posted on April 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

My husband and I have a sort of running joke (well, several, but only one relevant here). Whenever he asks me what I’m doing, or what’s going on, I say “advocacy”.

See, the thing is, I talk about advocacy ALL THE TIME.

Shocking, I know.

My preoccupation with the term is evident from my job titles. I am an advocacy technical assistance provider. A public policy advocate. An advisor to the Advocacy Fellows.

And, of course, in my free time, just a regular ‘advocate’.

But the reason that it’s funny, too, is that it’s a word that doesn’t necessarily tell someone much. I mean, what’s ‘advocacy’ to me may not be ‘advocacy’ to someone else. So I can throw it around (and, guilty as charged, sometimes do) without having to really articulate what in the world it is that I mean by it.

And, you know, that’s not too helpful, not when we really want people to advocate.

And not when, by that, what we mean is “organize your friends and neighbors” or “call your legislator” or “write a letter to the editor” or “speak up at the next meeting”.

My favorite part of Switch is this section with studies about how having to make a lot of decisions actually exhausts us, to the point to which it can look like we don’t care. They say that explains why we’re so tired after going shopping (and here I thought it was just because I really don’t like to buy things).

That means that, sometimes, what looks like apathy can really just be exhaustion; people can be literally too tired to do what it is that we want/need them to do, after the effort of figuring out what it is that we want/need them to do, even if they really want/need to do it, too.

This is a big problem, especially since we’re much more likely to spend our energy trying to convince people that they should “advocate”, instead of explaining exactly what that means, what it will look like, and how they can do it.

When they don’t do anything, we call it resistance. Or apathy. Instead of fatigue. Because, to us, how can they be tired? They didn’t do anything! Except they really did–they tried to figure out what to do, and that effort can wear us out.

My favorite part within this favorite part, then, is an experiment where researchers identified those within a college dorm most likely to give to a food drive (they called them ‘saints’) and those least likely to give (‘jerks’). Then they asked both groups to give, except they gave the ‘jerks’ explicit instructions about what to take, and where, even with a map. The saints just got the appeal.

Who gave more?

Those who knew exactly what they needed to do.

And this, people, is really, really, really awesome news. Because, as the authors of Switch conclude, it means that we don’t need to spend our time searching for saints, or trying to cultivate saintliness from mere mortals.

We don’t necessarily need more saints, because jerks with maps will do just fine.

And we can do maps.

What would be super-clear look like in your work? Where can we replace ‘advocacy’ with something that means a whole lot more, to more people? How can we resist our temptation to call it apathy, instead of figuring out if people know exactly what we need them to do? And where do you see this in your own life? And, dare I say it, in your own advocacy?

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Shrink your bucket: maybe ours aren’t ‘people problems’

Posted on April 9, 2012 by | 3 Comments

Tomorrow’s post is about how, in the realm of advocacy and social action, we can’t rely on the same environmental changes that marketers and athletic trainers and others use to motivate people to take action more easily. Because, after all, if advocacy is so easy, doesn’t it lose some of its impact?

But that’s enough of a spoiler.

Because I’m still thinking through this whole “how much do we focus on motivating the individual to change, versus change the context in which the change needs to occur” question. And I’m thinking that, in social policy, there’s a pretty good argument to be made for bucket-shrinking, and that social workers would be well-served to shift some of our advocacy efforts towards those policy solutions that focus on the size of the bucket, and not the decisions people make in response.

See, there’s this popcorn bucket study in Switch that is pretty compelling–essentially, researchers found that they could make people eat more, or less, popcorn just by changing the size of the bucket.

Just the bucket. That’s all that was different.

There are all kinds of applications for this bucket shrinking in the social policy world, some of which are among our greatest policy successes. What if we made cars safer, so that even really bad driving isn’t as likely to kill anyone? What if we made food safer, so that fewer people contracted foodborne illnesses? What if we built highways everywhere and defunded public transportation, so that people learned to think that they need to drive themselves everywhere? (OK, I know, but that last one WAS successful, if that had been our goal!)

What if we applied this bucket-shrinking approach to the social policy realm?

What if Election Day was a holiday, so people would be more likely to vote (especially if they didn’t have to register in advance)? What if we gave everyone time off work to participate in their kids’ schools, instead of complaining that “parents aren’t involved”? What if we co-located services, so that it is easier for parents to, say, stay up on their kids’ immunizations and get their own cholesterol checked? What if insurance paid for mental health check-ups every year, just like physicals? What if credit cards weren’t so easy to use, and debt not so hard to avoid? What if every child in poverty knew that college was paid for?

What if, instead of just telling people over and over again, with exhortations and graphic warnings and shiny social marketing, that they should really, really eat less popcorn…we just made the buckets smaller?

Where, in the social policy issues you care about, is there a need for a different bucket size? How would changing the incentives, and the costs, make a difference? What are the limits of these contextual modifications, and what kinds of policy approaches would test those? How do social workers ensure that individuals’ right to self-determination is protected, without confusing true self-determination with the unnecessary divorce of context and behavior? Why do we focus so much on the individual, scratching our heads and wondering “what is WRONG with ‘these people’, that they eat SO MUCH popcorn”…instead of just making the buckets smaller?

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