In a world facing so much political, economic and social uncertainty, surely the human species can harness its collective knowledge and experience to address some of the challenges? Can we turn to historical events and learn from those experiences? Do we spend too much time in deep thought and analysis, rather than evaluating real and tangible solutions to problems?
Thinking and doing are symbiotic processes, so it’s wrong to suggest a rigid division between the two mental models. As we think, we draw on practical experiences. Likewise, when engaged in new practical activities, our neural processes are constantly absorbing information and influencing the tasks. That said, as I muse through my posts over the years, I notice a strong bias towards thinking rather than doing. Likewise, if I reflect on many of the works of eminent contributors to discussion platforms such as LinkedIn, a similar pattern can be observed. Why is this? Well I guess it’s because it’s easier to think rather than to do and crucially, abstract thoughts don’t bear the weight of accountability compared with the real world of implementation, because they’re not visible in a real form.
A typical bridge between thinking and doing, is planning and this is where the fun really starts! A concept can become a product, but it might not be the one that was originally planned. A disease might be exterminated with an antidote, but an unexpected side-effect might be more harmful than the original malaise. An architect might design a super environmentally friendly housing estate, but planning permission could be blocked as a result of objections from the local NIMBY community. So bridges can often become barriers and the best laid plans may fall apart!
Over the past couple of decades I have tried to improve my knowledge and understanding of systems thinking. Although the fundamentals are easy to grasp the examples of successful applications to wicked problem solving, are disappointingly rare. I think that’s because the transitions from thoughts to actions means determining boundaries. But how can a system have a boundary? In the words of John Muir: ”When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.” The implicit assumption there, of course, is that the world is a boundary. Not so, because our planet is an infinitesimal part of the universe. Therefore we create boundaries to allow our brains to manage the information, and that’s true for Human Intelligence (HI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). So is true systems thinking achievable? I don’t think so.
It’s difficult to think in a system context because day-to-day life isn’t like that. A clock repairer will focus on the components that make up the clock and why, for example, the second hand keeps sticking. They are unlikely to question the need for a timepiece and how it relates to planetary motion. So the boundary for the clock ‘system’, in the eyes of the repairer, might be its wooden case. And the accountability for fixing the sticky hand, sits fairly and squarely with the repairer. Any systems thinking that might explore hypotheses such as human life without clocks, can be dismissed at this point, even though many organisms live without them.
Honestly, I’m having difficulty knowing how to bring this post to a satisfactory conclusion. As a species we have demonstrated impressive thinking and doing capabilities over many decades. Although over the past hundred years, it has been more about development than invention - a car is still a car, a train is still a train, a telephone is still a telephone, a tv is still a tv. But go back two hundred years and none of them existed. I guess what we have experienced is that the tools that have assisted thinking, e.g. modelling, simulation, AI, etc, have outpaced the tools that have assisted doing, e.g. manufacturing and process automation. It’s relatively easy to try out new ideas in a virtual environment, whereas in the 1700s and 1800s, things had to be built in order to test the new concepts, and I do wonder if we spend too much time now pondering all the eventualities, rather than cutting metal and trying out the new product for real.
Now to conclude, let me declare my hand. In my early engineering career, I generally felt more comfortable in a design, rather than production, environment. So I would want to have confidence in the design of a product or system before releasing it to production. I soon learnt, however, that this was not always the most effective way to solve practical problems. Very often it makes sense to build parts of the system before finalising the overall design. So the doing proceeds before the thinking is complete. That way you can iron out some of the risks before scaling up for full production. The same principle can be applied to solving social problems.
At the time of writing, the UK is considering a social media ban for children under 16. Whilst the UK is thinking about it, the Australians are doing it, having recently introduced a ban. This is sort of, but not quite (!), analogous to the previous example of releasing parts of a system for production, in order to evaluate critical parts of a system design. Why not wait a while and use the Australian experience as a test bed for the UK’s proposed legislation? It’s the same problem in different territories but it’s not helpful to allow territorial and political boundaries to constrain our thinking……or doing!
It’s food for thought!
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