This is Andrew Benedict-Nelson, social change strategist and innovation educator. Each week, I share a question that you and your organization can use to find a new perspective on the toughest problems you face. Reply to the e-mail or comment on the site and we can talk about them together!
NOW FOR THIS WEEK’S QUESTION…
The people who come together to solve social problems are rarely interested in just one. A profession, industry, or interest group is often working on several interrelated problems at once. As a result, there often develop formal or informal rankings of which problems are more important. Similarly, people may believe that one problem needs to be solved before addressing another. What kind of rankings exist among the communities working on your problem, and how do they help or hinder your work? Might a different ranking result in a different approach?
When you start working in a new field or profession, you’ll often get a certain kind of advice from your peers. “You should write something about this, that topic is really hot right now.” Or more soberly: “This problem is going to be really important in the coming years.” Sometimes this kind of advice is based on careful consideration of the structure of different problems and how they relate to each other. Other times, the judgments are as changeable as this year’s fashions — but nevertheless real.
We would all love the problems we care about most to get to “the head of the line.” We want them to get the attention of policymakers, funders, and the public. But this exercise isn’t about that. Instead, we are looking at this “ranking” of problems to figure out the unwritten rules that shape the world around us. Unveiling these rules can help explain why progress fails to be made on our problems. And challenging the related assumptions may reveal new approaches that have never been considered before.
HOW TO DO IT
Start by listing problems in your space — There are many different reasons why people may associate other problems with the one you are trying to solve. The most obvious one is that you belong to the same field or industry. But sometimes efforts to solve the problems may also rely on the same resources or funding. Geography can be another common element — if your problem isn’t the most important one in your city, you probably know it. So start by listing any problems that are frequently associated with your own for any reason.
Consider the rankings — When you list these problems, is it obvious to you which ones are ranked above or below your problem in importance? Think about how the order from various points of view. For example, do the people most affected by your problem also consider other problems to be more important? Or do different problems matter more to different communities? You don’t need a perfectly rational order, since we are using these rankings to look at subjective attitudes anyway.
Analyze the rankings’ rationale — Even if it doesn’t make sense to you, the people who have sorted various problems’ importance usually have some kind of explanation for why they have ranked the problems this way. It could be as simple as “funders care more about this right now!” But often there is something more substantial, such as beliefs about the capacity of various communities to take on various challenges. There may also be beliefs about the order in which problems need to be solved. Discovering this underlying principle is key to making this exercise work. If you believe the principle is true, there may be ways to recalibrate your efforts to meet it. If you believe it is false, you may need to challenge it in order to build new solutions.
Play with the order of the line — The secret behind this exercise is that being at the “front” of the line isn’t necessarily good and being at the “back” isn’t necessarily bad. After all, no serious social problem was ever solved on an orderly schedule. So to generate new ideas, rearrange the rankings. How might we approach your problem differently if we put it at the top of the list? What might lead to such a change? How would it transform the way we view the other problems? Now take a more modest approach and put yourself at the back of the line. How might we view your problem differently if we admitted we need to take care of other issues first — or perhaps tackle them simultaneously?
Finally, forget about the line — The problem you are working on will always be the most important one for you, as it should be. And in reality, these rankings are mostly in people’s perceptions. So don’t get hung up on whether you discovered that your problem is first or last. Instead, take the insights you gained by moving your problem around to challenge assumptions and develop new solutions. Changing your problem’s relationship to other problems may just be the key to solving all of them.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
Sure, here’s one I run into all the time. As everybody who has had to spend time on the phone with their insurance company knows, in American health care there is a lot of disagreement over who should pay for what and how much it should cost. Many of the most serious policy fights are over reimbursement rates and eligibility for various forms of insurance. As a result, many people in the health care field have developed a sincere belief that no problem can be seriously addressed unless you address the payment structure. This is often called the problem of “value-based payment” as opposed to the more typical approach of paying per procedure.
I’ve sat on both sides of this fence. On the one hand, changing what we pay for can provide a valuable incentive for all sorts of organizations to approach the problem differently. Block payment plans have unlocked all sorts of interesting programs in population health. But at the same time, I’ve often felt frustrated when payment structures are treated as the only problem in the room. For example, when we are working on a social determinant of health like housing, trying to link it to the fairly arcane payment structures of health care may be a counterproductive approach.
COOL, SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to question assumptions about solving your problem using the parthood dynamic. It’s one of six innovation dynamics I help people master to improve their critical thinking and build strategies for social change. Reply to this e-mail with your answer to the question and I’ll let you know what I think! Or learn more by visiting http://www.teachingsocialchange.com.
Image source: Franklin Delano Roosevelt monument in Washington DC as photographed by Stefan Fussan
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