2: Me, us, then:
Transcending boundaries for impact
TLDR:
- This week’s worksheet
- This week’s expert interview
- This week’s suggested reading
In 2007 I had serious argument with Kat, an environmental activist, about the impacts of flying on society. At the time there were serious protests about the expansion of Heathrow and the view was that any additional amount of flying would bring irreparable harm to the environment.
Although we have to call into question our addiction to fossil fuelled flight, my concern at the time was about a less globally connected world. Separation from each other would increase our fear and suspicion of other nations and cultures. Increasing the risk for conflict and reducing the scope for cooperation.
Seems we were both underestimating the scale of the challenge we were addressing. Global air travel has doubled since 2007 and a hyper connected world has fragmented into a nationalistic mess, with more fear, anger and exclusionary rhetoric than before. On the surface it would appear that easy access to global cultures has not really reduced the prevalence and suspicion of ‘the other.’
“And Dave, you're the kind of customer I'm happy to lose,”
Jeffrey P. Bezos - Amazon. Response to racist customer
This week I’ve been deeply touched by Rutger Bregman’s ‘Human Kind.’ His key warning strikes a profound chord right now; our continued conditioning – “humans are fundamentally bad” – creates a ‘nocebo’ effect. Our constant exposure to a diet of sensationalised negative news makes us more suspicious, distrustful and afraid than reality actually demands.
Our increasingly mediated connection to others turns them into ‘others’ – not like us. Distant and a threat to our way of life. The media thrives on the tribal narratives of reactionary isolation (along the entire political spectrum), closing the ranks, rounding the wagons and battening the hatches. A brittle existence on a limbic knife’s edge.
The ‘nocebo’ of ‘othering’ has deeply permeated our narrative about how the world works. Everything from biology to economics has been written to support the idea that everyone is selfish and fighting ‘others’ in order to survive.
This narrative couldn’t be further from the truth.
Natural systems thrive by building self-regulating diverse and inclusive systems. We need to expand our scope and perspective. It’s about reaching out to be stronger, not holding on with a sweaty palm.
But how do we deal the tragedy of the commons? If our core instinct really is to be collaborative, why do people exploit and abuse common goods like our rivers, the atmosphere and our trust?
Economists point to ‘bounded rationality’ as an explanation. Our actions are driven by our perceived options. Good is ‘what you know’ and if you don’t venture beyond the confines of your assumptions, you’ll think all your actions are good.
We are quick to point at poachers, looters and “bad actors” but essentially, you would do the same in their shoes. Our position in a system determines our view on events, the facts we have access to and the resources we can mobilise.
Beautiful systems design The Abalobi app suite. Photo © abalobi
This week the wonderful team behind abalobi launched a beautiful documentary laying bare the reality of this challenge. The crayfish stocks on South Africa’s west coast are almost depleted. Rather than shunning and shaming the fishermen and poachers, the scientists co-created an app with them, to improve livelihoods and build a sustainable inclusive economy.
Understanding poaching as a rational option for someone trapped in a badly designed system unlocks the potential to leverage real change. By designing for the whole system - from high end restaurants to subsistence fishermen - they have been able to turn the situation around. Building an inclusive economy that turns the whole community into contributors.
Challenge:
If the system has such a fundamental influence on your objectives, resources and ultimate achievements, how do you improve, if you can’t redesign the system?
By changing the way in which you connect with the people closest to you. Abalobi started by building a co-creative relationship with fishermen. The people closest to you, are part of your functional system and you have the ability to redesign these relationships.
I suggest three lenses for viewing this redesign:
Vitality: Is there energy and ‘Life’ in the relationship?
Diversity: Are you learning from different perspectives?
Interdependence: Are you creating relationships that matter to you and others?
This week’s worksheet provides a small activity to help kickstart this process.
Masterclass:
Using systems design for more inclusive perspectives. This week with Peter Coughlan (co-founder of the transformation practice at IDEO).
1. How does defining the right system boundary affect the design work you do with clients?
In the practice of design, I often invoke Eero Saarinen’s quote “always design a thing in its next larger context …” Too often, we set the systems boundaries too closely around the thing we’re designing.
Opening up provides us with new insights and opportunities. I once ran a hospital design workshop where we played with system boundaries — ranging from a patient room all the way through to the community in which the hospital was to be built. Teams came up with radically different hospital designs according to what perspective they designed from.
2. What specific strategies do you suggest to ensure that the boundary is set correctly to be useful?
I like to play with temporal boundaries — consider a single touchpoint in an experience over the length of the experience, over the life of the product/service. In my hospital systems design work, I often have the clients begin the engagement with a way-finding exercise. They accompany someone unfamiliar with the hospital to some hard-to-find destination.
They are also asked to explore how way-finding happens in non-hospital contexts. This helps them to understand that the building they have learned to navigate over years is not the same building their customers are experiencing, sometimes for the first time.
Summary:
If the last 13 years have taught me anything, it is that we don’t need to get on a plane to appreciate, engage and support others. Travel starts in the mind, with the willingness to step outside the comfortable boundary of ‘safe.’
Resilience and stability come from inclusive systems that invite people in, not shut them out. Vulnerability is strength. Rigidity is the fragile, brittle illusion of control.
When you start to view the world as systems, and not simply events, there is no clear boundary between your actions and the contribution, support and reaction of others. We are necessarily enmeshed in the same reality. Design for the next scale by bringing others into your reality.
In this spirit, I extend a virtual Hongi as a reminder that we share the same breath.