 While
my colleague Chris Corrigan is working on the Invitation to the first
design meeting for AHA!, I've been giving some more thought to its
possible evolution. Specifically, since I described our early thinking
on it in my article on the world's 10 Most Intractable Problems,
I've been having second thoughts about whether there can or should be
an 'AHA! Methodology', a process that would be followed with some
rigour in every AHA! session. I've also been thinking about What is the
Deliverable of an AHA! session -- since we've already resolved that
AHA! is going to be focused on complex system problems that by
definition do not have a 'solution' per se.
Here's my thoughts:
- Maybe the deliverable, instead of a 'solution', should be a model
-- not a conceptual, theoretical design but an actual small-scale
working model that works better than what we're doing right now, and
- Maybe instead of a process or methodology, AHA! should be defined/guided/governed by a set of principles, that would steer the conduct of the session rather than regimenting it
So
if the topic/issue of the AHA! session is the health care system, or
the education system, or a sustainable energy system, or global
poverty, the model might be a health care or education or sustainable
energy system that works for one small defined community, or a model
that distributes community wealth and/or income in such a way that none
of that community's members is poor. A model that could be studied in
real time and space and perhaps replicated, with some tweaking, in
other communities. A 'next-society model' that is sufficiently robust
that it would allow us to ask why, if it works in this community, it shouldn't
work, in some variation or other to allow for physical and cultural
differences, everywhere on the planet. Not a 'best practice', which is
a single action ripped free of the context in which it appears to work
and offered as a panacea in every other context. But rather, a viable,
working model that can be studied and assessed in context. Nothing
more, nothing less.
Why models? Because people learn and accept
things when they have the chance to see them, try them, kick the tires,
modify them to their personal style, not when they are presented as
abstract concepts, or worse, imposed as 'this will make you feel better
whether you realize it or not' solutions.
Why 'Next-Society'
models? Not because we have to wait until civilization collapses before
we can introduce or apply them. But rather, because it is human nature
that we don't change our cultural behaviours until we have to, and by
developing such models now, we'll be ready when we have to, when people
beyond the thinkers and dreamers and those ahead of their time will be
ready to embrace them.
And if there's no methodology, what
principles should AHA! sessions be guided by? Although this is just my
own thinking, and far from complete, here's some candidate principles
that might govern both the 'operation' of AHA! and the models that AHA!
would build:
- Start at the End:
Know in concrete terms what attributes a successful model would have.
It's easier to figure out how to get there when you have at least an
idea of your destination.
- Know Why Things Are the Way They Are Now: Things
are the way they are for a reason, and that reason is rarely perverse
or conspiratorial. No one is in control pulling all the strings --
there is a tragic logic behind everything that is wrong with our world.
We need to understand how and why we got stuck before we can figure out
how to get unstuck. If the reason for the current problems seems
obvious or simple to fix, we probably need to look deeper. Be skeptical
of easy answers.
- The Model Should be Replicable But Not Necessarily Scalable:
If the model only works in special rare circumstances, it's probably
not a very useful model. But there is some evidence that small is
beautiful, and some of the best models in the world just don't scale.
In that case, don't make 'em bigger, just make more of 'em. The Waldorf
schools might never scale to a centralized global system, but they seem
to work very well as a replicable, tweakable model.
- Start Lots of Experiments:
Don't pour all the effort into a single model. Try a whole bunch, and
learn from and tweak the ones that don't work. Probe, discover,
explore, and keep trying stuff, until you see what works and what
doesn't. The squirrels and chipmunks do this very well, and in my area
they have not only defeated the squirrel baffles, they have learned to
unscrew the feeder bolts, to cut through the porch screen and the
reinforced cloth-and-plastic bags, and even to pry the lid off the
metal can we keep the birdseed in. But boy did they try some dumb stuff
before they learned these things!
- The Models Should be Honest, Resilient and Beautiful:
There is no room for deception or over-selling the models we develop.
We have to be frank about what parts of them work best and worst, and
transparent about what they are, and not overpromise. By resilient, I
mean effective rather than efficient -- if the economy or the
government changes, the model needs to be able to handle it, unlike the
fragile models like 'trickle-down economics' we use today. By
beautiful, I mean people need to be attracted by them and want them to
succeed, even if that takes some work. David Ehrenfeld points out that
every model in nature has these three attributes. They allow the model
to evolve organically in response to changing circumstances and needs
of community-members. And those models have worked magnificently for
millions of years.
- The Models Should be As Simple As Possible But No Simpler: That was Einstein's definition of a good model. Enough said.
- The Models Should Respect and Learn From Nature, Instinct, and the Lessons of History: It
is almost a fetish of some post-modernists to disregard this knowledge
and learning as dated, constraining and irrelevant. That's just plain
dumb.
- The Models Should be Accessible and Inviting: No
locking them away or making them exclusive. They need to accommodate
visitors, students, skeptics and the media. We have nothing to hide.
- The Models Need to be Developed (and to Evolve) Collaboratively: No
hierarchy, no genius ideas built in secret labs by reclusive
individuals, lots of give and take, diversity of ideas, openness,
laughter, trust, equitable contribution, pride, fun, and the production
of true greater-than the-sum-of the-parts collective work-products. We did that!
- Start Small:
Every model should be like a seed, an embryo, that will grow
organically and in directions that are adaptive to the changes it faces
as it grows.
- Each Model Should Also Have its Own Guiding Principles: The AHA! model community-based health care system, for example, might have among its principles that prevention is better than treatment, and that the patient should play a key role in their own diagnosis and treatment, and take full responsibility for their own health
(almost the opposite of the principles that prevail in the existing
health care systems). The principles that guide each model will
co-evolve with the model itself.
That's all I have so far.
What am I missing? Does this idea, of trying to make the world better
by developing real working models instead of conceptual 'designed'
solutions, and of developing them within guiding principles rather than
through a specific methodology make sense to you? It seems to fit in
neatly with the whole idea of Model Intentional Communities as well.
I
still believe that the team working on each AHA! session needs to be
diverse, and that between them, kind of like James Surowiecki's
definition of an unbiased and reliable 'crowd', there needs to be a
solid basis of knowledge of the existing situation, the problem and its
complications and implications, and some of the skills needed to deal
with them. But beyond that I'm beginning to believe openness, respect,
energy and passion for the subject is more important in an AHA! member
than expertise, intellectual or creative genius, or even experience in
innovative and 'problem-solving' work. Just as I outlined the process
by which a Natural Enterprise will self-select its members, I believe
the AHA! team working on any particular issue will self-select and
self-manage itself so that it ends up having just the people it needs
to do its work.
Coming along slowly, but I believe we're really on to something here.
Thanks
to two true collaborators, Howard Deane at KPMG and John Sutherland at
Ennova Inc for prompting the 'principles-rather-than-methodology'
thinking. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
