A Story of Two Processes
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness….
The Question
Why, despite over 30 years of prodigious effort, has the human
system failed to solve the environmental sustainability problem?
Difficult social problems historically take a long time to solve:
Women’s suffrage problem
Slavery problem
Divine right of kings problem
Racial discrimination problem
The dangers of smoking tobacco
The recurring war in Europe problem
The Question
Why, despite over 30 years of prodigious effort, has the human
system failed to solve the environmental sustainability problem?
Kyoto
Protocol
Brundtland
Report
UN Earth
Summit
Silent
Spring
Limits to
Growth
The Question
Why, despite over 30 years of prodigious effort, has the human
system failed to solve the environmental sustainability problem?
“The growth rate of emissions was 3.5% per year for the period of
2000-2007, an almost four fold increase from 0.9% per year in 19901999. The actual emissions growth rate for 2000-2007 exceeded the
highest forecast growth rates for the decade 2000-2010 in the
emissions scenarios of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (IPCC-SRES). This makes current
trends in emissions higher than the worst case IPCC-SRES scenario.”
(Source: www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/07/index.htm .)
“Modern environmentalism is no longer capable of dealing with the
world's most serious ecological crisis.” (Source: Shellenberger, Michael and
Nordhaus, Ted. 2004. The Death of Environmentalism.)
The Question
Why, despite over 30 years of prodigious effort, has the human
system failed to solve the environmental sustainability problem?
A Possible Answer
The field been using the wrong problem solving process.
Examples of the right process:
Scientific Method
Project management processes like CPM and PERT
The Toyota Production System
The Capability Maturity Model, for software development
Countless training and problem solving processes
What process are problem solvers currently
using to solve the sustainability problem?
As we use the term, an activist is anyone actively
working to change the behavior of a social system.
The Process of Classic Activism
problem symptoms
causes
causes
Step 1. Identify
the problem to
be solved
proper practices are
not being followed
causes
A. The proper
practices are
not yet known
can be solved by
Step 2. Find the
proper practices
causes
causes
B. People don’t know
about the proper
practices or why they
should practice them
C. People don’t want to
follow the proper practices,
even though they are fully
aware of them and why they
should logically follow them
can be solved by
can be solved by
Step 3. Tell people
the truth about the
problem and the
proper practices
Step 4. Exhort, inspire
and bargain with people
to get them to support
the proper practices
Environmental Problems (1)
Examples of
Classic Activism
Outcomes
(1) The 11 problems are from the
Scientific Committee on Problems of
the Environment study (SCOPE),
whose results were summarized in the
UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook
2000 on page 339. The problems are
sorted in order of decreasing
importance. These are approximately
the top 11 components of the global
environmental sustainability problem.
Solution
Success
1. Climate change
Low
2. Freshwater scarcity
Low
3. Deforestation and desertification
Low
4. Freshwater pollution
Medium
5. Loss of biodiversity
6. Air pollution (excluding climate chg)
Low
Medium
7. Soil deterioration
Low
8. Ecosystem functioning
Low
9. Chemical pollution
10. Stratospheric ozone depletion
Medium
High
11. Natural resource depletion
Low
Non-environmental Problems
Women’s suffrage
High
Slavery
High
Urban decay
Medium
Racial, gender, age, etc. discrimination
Medium
The dangers of smoking tobacco
Medium
The obesity epidemic
Low
Does Classic Activism
have a flaw?
(Break to examine the tool of simulation
modeling to answer the question)
Causal Loop Diagram
of Classic Activism
Does Classic Activism
have a flaw?
We hypothesize that Classic Activism contains these
two critical flaws:
1. It doesn’t consider systemic change resistance.
2. It’s intuitive instead of analytical, so it tends to
not find true root causes and the high leverage
points needed to resolve them.
Can we develop a better process
that lacks these flaws?
The System Improvement Process (SIP)
What quality gate must a better process pass?
The Six Principles
1. A complex system problem can be proactively, reliably, and fully
solved only by resolving its root causes.
2. In problems where problem solvers are in the minority or lack
governance of the system, root causes can be efficiently resolved
only by pushing on their related high leverage points .
3. If analysis finds the correct root causes and high leverage points,
solution implementation will be relatively easy.
4. The more difficult the problem, the more mature the process used
to solve it must be.
5. Difficult problems are best decomposed into smaller subproblems,
each designed to be an order of magnitude easier to solve.
6. Understanding complex social system behavior correctly and deeply
requires modeling.
Are these the right principles?
The four main steps of solving each subproblem
SIP
The five substeps of system understanding
The three subproblems of the main problem
The System Improvement Process (SIP)
1. Problem
Definition
A. Change Resistance
B. Proper Coupling
C. Model Drift
2. System
Understanding
A
Find the immediate cause of the problem symptoms in terms of the
system's dominant feedback loops.
ANALYSIS
B
Find the root cause of why they are dominant.
C
Find the low leverage points and symptomatic solutions.
D
Find the feedback loops that should be dominant to resolve the root
causes.
E
Find the high leverage points to make those loops go dominant.
Spend about 80%
of your time here.
The problem
solving battle is
won or lost in this
step, so take the
time to get it right.
3. Solution
Convergence
4. Implementation
Analysis Results of SIP
1. Problem
Definition
Summary of results of executing SIP on the
global environmental sustainability problem
A. Change Resistance
2. System
Understanding
ANALYSIS
This is where
we’ve spent about
90% of our time.
3. Solution
Convergence
B. Proper Coupling
C. Model Drift
Root cause of successful Root cause of improper
change resistance is high coupling is mutually exclusive
deception effectiveness.
goals between corporate life
form and Homo sapiens.
Root cause of excessive
model drift is quality of
political decision making
is too low.
You Can’t Fool All of the Corporate Benevolence
People All the Time loop loop needs to go dominant.
needs to go dominant.
The Race to the Top
among Politicians loop
needs to go dominant.
HLP is general ability
to detect manipulative
deception.
HLP is rules of the game for
corporate life form.
HLP is quality of the
process of political
decision making.
Six solution elements
Corporation 2.0
Politician decision ratings
Not ready for
Not ready for
implementation
Not ready for
implementation
4. Implementation implementation
Actual Results of Classic Activism
Done by
1. Problem The
Definition Limits to
Growth
2. System
Understanding
A
ANALYSIS
B
C
D
E
3. Solution
Convergence
4. Implementation
Actual progress on the global environmental
sustainability problem using Classic Activism
A. Change
Resistance
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
B. Proper Coupling
Dominant loops causing symptoms
found by World3 model.
?
?
?
?
?
?
C. Model Drift
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
How can we accelerate a change from Classic Activism
The
Old
and
New
Paradigms
to a process that’s capable of solving
the sustainability problem?
Classic Activism
System Improvement Process
An intuitive approach
An analytical approach
If that doesn’t
work, exhort,
Tell the people the
inspire and
Find the
truth about the
bargain with
proper
problem and the
people to get
practices proper practices
them to support
the proper
practices
Pushing on low
leverage points
Success on
easy problems
Failure on
difficult problems
Decompose the
problem into 3
Use 4 main Execute the system
subproblems:
steps for understanding step
using the 5 substeps
A. Change Resistance
each
B. Proper Coupling subproblem and simulation
modeling
C. Model Drift
Pushing on high
leverage points
Success on
easy problems
Success on
difficult problems