Dagen H: Teaching a New Normal

Högertrafikomläggningen.

No, I can’t pronounce it either. It’s come to be known as “Dagen H” or “H-Day” in Sweden. Translated, it means, “The right-hand traffic diversion.” Originally on September 3, 1967, H-Day was the day that Sweden formally and officially swapped from people driving on the left side of the road to people driving on the right side of the road.

They made the change in one day.

The purpose for the change was to align Sweden with most of their European continental neighbors who were already driving on the right side. This was no small task as it involved, among other things:

• Requiring an entire culture to change a life–long habit which they had resisted doing on previous attempts
• The movement of 360,000 road signs
• The reconfiguring of 8,000 public buses
• Broad “Dagen H” advertising campaigns to promote awareness, including on milk cartons and underwear
• A contest for a hit song to promote the change. The winner was “Håll dig till höger, Svensson” (“Keep to the Right, Svensson”).

“This isn’t the way we’ve always done it.”

I don’t know about your setting, but I think many of our congregations have struggled with restarting or reinventing nearly everything in the last few years as COVID has subsided. Especially if people’s assumptions are built on one routine, it becomes especially important to help them understand what has changed and what has stayed the same. 

Getting the Word Out

In Sweden, preparing for Dagen H, the government launched a comprehensive public awareness campaign. This included:

• Extensive media coverage on television, radio, and newspapers to educate the public and provide tips for how to adjust to driving on the right side of the road.
• Public demonstrations throughout the country to show people how to drive on the right side of the road.
• Special training sessions for professional drivers to help them adapt to newer traffic rules.
• Public service announcements were aired to remind people of the coming change, and to remind them to be patient with each other.
• On Dagen H, all non-essential traffic was banned from the roads so the remaining vehicles could be carefully guided through the transition process.

All in all, there were only a few minor accidents reported. Dagen H is considered one of the most successful examples of a large-scale societal change and it served as an example for other countries who needed to make similar changes.

What Needs to be Clearer?

If you haven’t taken the time in a while to communicate with people about the nuts and bolts of how things work in your setting, I want to encourage you to give it some thought. 

• Have the people affected by recent and upcoming decisions been adequately included in the decision process? Have they been informed sufficiently through multiple means? Is there someone who could feel blindsided by this?
  
• What assumptions might long-time participants have that gently need nuance in the coming weeks or months?
  
•  What are you doing to teach newcomers the pathways into involvement in your ministry setting? Do you have spaces where you tell them clearly what it means to be one of you? Do they know what is expected of them and what they can expect from you? 
  
• What are the behaviors you most desire from people in your context? Have you made these things as clear and accessible as possible? What obstacles could you remove that are slowing people from taking next steps? Make the best path be the easiest and most obvious path to access.
  
• Is there a fun way to go about this? Interactive experiences and humor can help to make things more memorable. If something major is going to be different, can you have a group of kids act out the new way of doing things? Can you make something humorous for people to hold onto that reminds them of what will be different? Any time you can make something important into something fun, it is easier both to accept and to remember. You can always accomplish a lot more through play than through pressure.

All of these are worth good signage, good communication, and maybe even a song contest. Who knows? If you want people to make a change, you have to teach them, show them, listen to them, remind them, walk beside them, and praise them as they go. If something is important enough to do differently, then it’s important enough to communicate effectively to everyone involved.