Jake Chapman ‘System Failure’ DEMOS publication (2002), seminal paper in the UK which applied systems’ thinking to the messiness of public policy problems. Relevant to our thinking about context of use and the personal specifics of intimate experience of innovation.
In discussing core systems concepts (pages 33-34), Chapman writes:
The existence of significantly different perspectives on a problem is a key characteristic of a mess, one that is difficult to incorporate in alinear, rational model of decision or policy making. In their discussion of intractable policy controversies, Schön and Rein14 argue that a root cause of their intractability is the different frameworks used by participants and policy makers to make sense of the world. Echoing many of Thomas Kuhn’s comments on conflicts in science arising from different paradigms the authors argue that there is no possibility of falsifying a frame; no data can be produced that would conclusively disconfirm it in the eyes of all qualified objective observers.
The reason for this is that if objective means frame-neutral, there are no objective observers. There is no way of perceiving and making sense of social reality except through a frame, for the very task of making sense of complex, information rich situations requires an operation of selectivity and organisation, which is what ‘framing’ means.
Elsewhere they state: ‘Evidence that one party regards as devastating to a second party’s argument, the second may dismiss as innocuous or irrelevant.’ This means that it is effectively impossible to establish a rational model of decision making or analysis that would span more than one framework. Bluntly put, all analyses based on a single framework or perspective are politically loaded and never neutral. Thus employing an approach that takes into account different perspectives or different frameworks is not a luxury; it is essential if the proposals that emerge are to have anything approaching widespread support. Associated with this multiple perspective approach is another systems idea: a trap built into the way an individual thinks. It is often the case that an individual or group will define and think about problems in ways that make them harder to solve.
A common way this is done is to blame others for the problem, thereby denying oneself any ability to change the situation. For example, policy maker blame implementers when things go wrong. However, as Mintzberg pointed out, there is no such thing as a gap between strategy and implementation; there are only policies whose poor design fails to take into account the realities of implementation. One sure sign that someone is in a mental trap is when they find themselves in a situation they have faced before and can only think of doing what they have done before – which they know will not work. Sir Geoffrey Vickers has an illuminating observation about traps:
‘Lobster pots are designed to catch lobsters. A man entering a lobster pot would become suspicious of the narrowing tunnel, he would shrink from the drop at the end; and if he fell in he would recognise the entrance as a possible exit and climb out again – even if he were the shape of a lobster. A trap is a trap only for creatures who cannot solve the problem it sets. Man traps are dangerous only in relation to the limitations of what men can see and value and do. . . . We the trapped tend to take our own state of mind for granted – which is partly why we are trapped.’
Intimate innovation is a particular frame – in the sense it is used here – but one in which there may be less likelihood of staying stuck because of the fact that intimacy has to make use of difference in order to exist as a condition of relating; and in difference, there is less likelihood of endemic blindness, or the fundamentalism that comes from a closely held paradigm.
Slingshot