Flying Cats, SARS, And Solving For Pattern
By Dale Biron and Judy Burgio
May 14, 2003
Why, despite our best efforts and intentions, do our organizational solutions so often falter, falling short of our goals? Is it resources? Lack of time? A shortage of creativity perhaps? Or could it be something deeper and harder to detect? Could it be the very way in which we “see” the world – its patterns and problems?
Consider the Dayak people of Borneo, who in the early 1950s suffered from malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) devised a bold solution, which involved spraying large volumes of DDT to kill the mosquitoes that were spreading malaria. Soon, the mosquitoes died, and thankfully the malaria declined. But then other things happened. For one, the roofs of people's houses started falling down. It seemed a certain parasitic wasp that had previously kept thatch-eating caterpillars under control, now also fell prey to the DDT. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckoes, which were eaten by cats. The cats died, the rats flourished, and people were threatened by out-breaks of plague and typhus. To cope with these new self-inflicted problems, the WHO decided to parachute 14,000 live cats into Borneo.
It's tempting to simply dismiss the WHO Officials as unintelligent. But was it really a lack of intelligence? Perhaps the kind of intelligence the Dayak people really needed from the WHO was not traditional IQ at all. It was more like PQ or "Pattern Quotient" which we could define as the ability to see the larger system or "pattern" in which a problem exists. A person high in PQ is able see the "big picture" with all its many connections, causes, and components. It's a person capable of both analysis and synthesis. It's a person capable of working with a larger, more inclusive context. In this case, one that included not only malaria and mosquitoes, but a larger pattern including people, thatch roofs, other insects, caterpillars, geckoes, plague, typhus, DDT, and of course, malaria too.
Another more current example, also involving the WHO, concerns SARS or "Sudden Acute Respiratory Syndrome." Fortunately as we write this essay, SARS seems in retreat. Only a few weeks ago the WHO warning about travel to Toronto was lifted. Unfortunately the Toronto travel warning (which only lasted a week) has already cost the city many millions of lost dollars. And these financial losses are just one of a number of unintended consequences that are connected to SARS. But is there an even larger system or pattern in play here?
The Wildcard Known as Unintended Consequences
When we define the pattern within which our problem arises too narrowly, we suffer from a kind of pattern blindness, making us highly vulnerable to unintended consequences. Certainly the WHO's recent focus on global travel, trying to head off SARS in Toronto, Beijing, and other hotspots is a good start. But what about the lack of early candor in the Chinese province where the disease first emerged? Wouldn't some kind of externally monitored early warning system have helped prevent the attempted "cover up" of the outbreak?
Or what about the allegations that China has under-funded its health care system for years? How relevant and dangerous is this practice in a world increasingly interconnected, where disease has no respect for borders or immigration laws? Might we argue that China's poorly maintained health care system, combined with an ineffective worldwide disease reporting system, are both part of a larger pattern, which has spawned SARS, with all its many unintended consequences?
Sooner or Later All Chickens Come Home To Roost
Now the world (being the complex pattern of highly mobile goods, services, and people that it is) has begun to receive the "unpaid invoices" that China and the WHO originally ignored. And with a considerable amount of interest added. These invoices will now show up as higher medical costs, loss of business, tarnished credibility, and the immeasurable cost of lost lives and suffering.
Yes! But Its Not That Simple Is It?
It's not simple. And perhaps no amount of pattern or systems thinking could have prevented SARS from spreading around the world. In fact, no amount of systems thinking will ever provide us with perfect solutions for the complex patterns we find ourselves living inside. The real question is can we work more skillfully with the patterns that define our organizations? Can we find solutions that don't just attempt to "fix" a single detached problem, but rather work more skillfully with entire systems? We believe the answer is yes.
What Does "Solving For Pattern" Look Like in Our Organizations?
First, let's be clear that designing solutions that consider larger patterns, indeed entire systems, will naturally be more difficult at first. It takes ingenuity, innovation, and teamwork. All parts of the system must be simultaneously considered and then skillfully teased apart to reveal both challenging and helpful interactions. For example, take an organization that wants to improve its sales and profits. Looking within they may find a number of people not performing as well as desired.
If we focus upon a narrow pattern that only includes the people not reaching their goals, our solution will almost always end up as an attempt at "fixing" the offenders. Usually such solutions end up being some combination of training, advice, and/or admonishments. And even if these solution steps are actually appropriate and needed, they will, by themselves, almost never be complete.
By contrast, a more inclusive system or pattern-based approach would focus on both the individuals involved, as well as the larger pattern in which they operate. In addition to questions about individual skills, such a "pattern-based" approach would ask, and ultimately address, such questions as:
1. Do spoken organizational values really matter, and are they being lived?
2. Do the actual "lived" values support or detract from the sales effort?
3. Is the organization providing enough sustainable benefit to customers?
4. How healthy is the internal "web of relationships" that makes up the organization's value-producing food chain?
5. What is the level of trust between people and departments?
6. What is the quality and quantity of coaching within the organization?
7. How much collaboration is occurring, meaning do those effected by change have a voice in designing and implementing the change?
8. Would employees buy the product or service themselves, and would they recommend it to others even if they did not work for the organization?
9. If the organization were put to a democratic test, could the current leadership win reelection?
We Came, We Defined, We Solved
While this essay has highlighted the significant problems with defining our patterns too narrowly and without considering critical connections, there also is the challenge of defining them too broadly. One example of this was the post WWI League of Nations. Here we had so much complexity, so many elements and issues included in a single system, that the League was virtually unworkable from inception. Interestingly enough, the League turned out to be more ahead of its time than off the mark. It was certainly more prophetic than anyone suspected at the time. And as rocky as life has been for the League's successor - The United Nations, many people feel that such a worldwide organization is our best (perhaps only) hope for global peace and prosperity.
In other words, global challenges such as infectious disease, pollution, large scale water shortages, climate change, terrorism, trade laws, drug trafficking, etc. are all problems that must be solved at a level significantly above any individual nation. And as such, these kinds of problems will require a United Nations type solution, regardless of the inherent complexity involved. In the organizational world the equivalents would be such organization-wide challenges as sales performance, profit margin, customer satisfaction, and product/service quality. Indeed, no single person or even team within an organization can unilaterally ensure the success in these areas. The only way forward is to solve for the full pattern. In fact, any organizational solution that hopes to be sustainable in these critical areas must address the complete pattern of value creation for customers.
In the end we all want our organizations to be both sustainable and prosperous. We must ensure that we're first seeing, and then solving, for the most appropriate, wise, and workable patterns. We must strive to build solutions that actually solve problems as opposed to merely shifting them or even making them worse. Understanding system dynamics and thus solving for pattern, are ultimately the best hope we have for long lasting success for ourselves, and our organizations.
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If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the immensity of the sea.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery |
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