Thursday 30 April 2015

Shouldn't We Ask Why?


As I continue to observe the antics of the UK election debacle from afar, with competing politicians explaining how they are going to make life better for UK citizens, I wonder just how many rabbits there are to be pulled out of the hat.  I am also curious why so many vote-winning initiatives (at least that's what the politicians think) are only declared when an election is in sight.  But what is also noticeable, is that election rhetoric largely consists of disassembling the nation's problems into clearly understandable 'chunks', for which the politicians will explain what is wrong and how they will fix it.

I am an apolitical systems thinker.  I don't have much time for politicians or the political system, but I'm not apathetic and I do have concerns about and feel a part-responsibility for many of the issues facing the planet.  Most of the issues require a systemic approach and hence my desire to become more adept at systems thinking.  Without going into the depths of systems theory,  let me just touch on one of the characteristics of a good systems thinker, which is the ability to synthesise as distinct from analyse.  We all know that analysis comes naturally.  We take things apart to understand them and then having worked out what each part does, we put them back together to understand the whole. But is that enough?  I don't think so.  Consider a clock and the 'vintage' really doesn't matter, so an old clockwork model or one with a quartz oscillator would be equally acceptable.  We want to know how it works so we take it apart and lay all the constituent pieces out on a table.  We have three pointers, a printed face, cogs, a spring for a clockwork version, an oscillator for the later model, a casing, etc.  We examine each component, work out what it does, how it fits together with other parts, and how the whole lot joins up to make the clock.  Bravo, we now know HOW the clock works!  But do we know WHY we have a clock?  Well it's to give an indication of the position of the earth's surface that we occupy, relative to the sun.  That is synthesis.  In the words of Ackoff: "Analysis focuses on structure; it reveals how things work.  Synthesis focuses on function; it reveals why things operate as they do.  Therefore, analysis yields knowledge; synthesis yields understanding.  The former helps us to describe; the latter, to explain."

Returning to the election, don't we need an understanding of the issues that we all face?  Let's consider three old chestnuts dominating the political debate in the UK - the nuclear deterrent, the health service and housing.  The main parties are explaining to the voters HOW they would fund the deterrent, fund and improve the health service and create more affordable housing.  I would suggest more pertinent questions are WHY does the UK need a weapon of mass destruction, WHY is the health of the nation deteriorating and WHY can't many citizens afford to buy or rent homes?  I would also contend that asking the WHY questions very soon takes you beyond the artificial national boundaries into issues affecting our planet.

When the UK elections are out of the way, I will focus my attention on the run-up to the US Presidential election and no doubt get equally frustrated! .... WHY?!


Monday 20 April 2015

The Battle of Closed Minds


I have been watching the UK election from afar, which is great.  It is not daily news here in Turkey, so I can dip into the election reports when I feel like it.  I started watching a televised debate between leaders of the opposition parties, with an invited audience and the event was chaired by the veteran political commentator, David Dimbleby.  The participants were Ed Miliband (Labour), Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru), Natalie Bennett (Green), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) and Nigel Farage (UKIP).  The current Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, declined their invitations to attend.  The absence of representatives from the ruling parties shouldn't have affected the quality of the debate.  People know what they've got in power and have to make a judgement as to whether what the opposition parties are each offering, could be better.  So the battle of the closed minds commenced!

The election fervour, in my mind epitomises the danger of closed-mind thinking, which abounds in all walks of life - political, social, religious, personal, business, pleasure .... you name it!  I guess when we are born, our minds are open.  But as we adapt to the world we've been born into, the process of teaching from others, together with our own personal experiences, moulds our mind and thus provides the 'lens' through which we view the world.  We develop a complex adaptive system that, in my opinion, becomes more predictable in the way that it 'filters' information and produces opinions, as time progresses.  Our minds suffer from being too closed.  But that suffering is probably inevitable because closed-mindedness, or an unwillingness to consider new ideas, can result from the brain's natural dislike of ambiguity.  By default, we see a person with different views to our own, as an opponent.

So returning to the political debate, there were questions from the audience being answered by five individuals, each a leader of their respective political party, but very obviously driven by the straightjackets of their manifestos.  It soon got to the point in the programme, when whatever question was raised, I had a very good idea how each politician would answer it.  So the value of the debate to me was zero and I switched off after 60 minutes of the 90-minute programme.  Maybe I was being unfair.  Perhaps it is not unreasonable for a politician to stick rigidly to a party line and it's the electorate who should assess what's better for them individually and society collectively.  But does the electorate display open-mindedness?  The answer must be to varying degrees, which is why the results vary from election to election but never by very much.

It's slightly hypocritical for me to preach open-mindedness because I know I have plenty of mindsets.  That said, I do make a conscious effort to step away from my personal agendas and biases.  I find a powerful technique is true listening.  In the words of Stephen Covey: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."  You can only understand by, at least temporarily, pushing your own preconceived ideas to one side and not, as is so common in political debates, using the 'listening' time to practice, in your mind, a pre-prepared response.  True listening really is very powerful and rewarding.  As Mark Twain said:  "An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it."

"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than closed by belief." - Gary Spence.