 In his post today, complexity guru Steve Barth suggests that since it is not in our nature to prepare for emergencies, we should instead try to
design for emergence. In other words, since we know that we
won't know what emergencies will arise, or when, or how severe they
will be, or how we will react, nor can we possibly envision or plan for
all eventualities (such as telephone switches being under ten feet of
water, for a month, after a hurricane) we should, instead of planning, figure out how we are
going to figure out what to do when the emergency occurs. We need to be ready, which is different from planning.
I replied that there are probably five ingredients in a prescription for how to figure out how to figure out what to do:
- Establishing trust: If you have a community whose members know and love each
other, trust is not a problem. But if you don't know, or don't like,
your neighbours, it's going to be iffy whether in an emergency, you
will work with them, or even know what each of you is capable of doing
(and what each of you urgently needs) so you can work together effectively.
- Learning to improvise: In some ways improvisation
is the opposite of planning. It's about staying resilient and adapting
to what others do, trusting our instincts and increasing our
emotional intelligence. And if you're a planner not an improviser, and
(shades of FEMA & the Iraq occupation) your plan fails, at least have the sense to get out of the
way of those who can improvise.
- Improving our attention skills: We need to study and learn about
how nature, and how cultures that deal with emergencies regularly, cope
with them. When an emergency happens, we need to be able to draw on
this knowledge and focus our attention on what needs to be done. That
means listening, seeing what's really happening, noticing and
communicating what's urgent and what's important, and keeping
everything in perspective. We're pretty good at doing this when we have
to be, but we can always improve.
- Improving our collaboration skills: We are so used to divvying up
work and doing almost everything individually (though hopefully in a
coordinated, cooperative way), that we rarely really
collaborate
in real time. Team sports help with this. We need to learn that there
are things that we can do together that we cannot do, no matter how
well coordinated, separately.
- Practicing: Those with the foresight to practice (and/or previous
experience) handling an emergency will be much better equipped when the next
emergency occurs. In areas where emergencies are frequent, communities
regularly practice what to do, over and over, as a social occasion, so
they're ready. There is no substitute.
So what would a 'design for emergence' that incorporates these
ingredients look like? I'm just starting to think about this, but I
think finding an answer to this is important. Help me, and Steve, co-design it? Category: Complexity
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