In case of emergency
What can you learn about your problem by the emergencies you’ve planned for — and those you haven’t?
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…
In your organization or industry, there are almost certainly plans for emergencies. Some of these may be formal plans written up in three-ring binders or stored on the company intranet. Others may be speculative plans discussed among just a few people. When you reflect on the community of people working on your problem, what emergencies have been clearly envisioned and which have not been? What do the plans tell you about your community’s behaviors and values?
We like to say that no one can predict the future, and in many ways that is true. Yet for almost every type of disaster or catastrophe, there is usually someone out there who has developed a model for what the event might look like or how frequently it might occur. Sometimes organizations even listen to these experts and develop contingency plans. This exercise uses those plans to critically examine our beliefs and priorities.
Before we dig into this exercise, I’ll give the disclaimer I always do for questions of this type. For the moment, set aside the question of whether the emergency in question is a likely one or not. Don’t worry about whether you think the plans in the binder are exemplary or ridiculous. Instead, adopt a non-judgmental attitude, saying to yourself, “Someone at some point thought to write down this list of behaviors we would follow in extraordinary circumstances.” Then use your reflection on those plans to examine behaviors and social norms in the present.
Here’s how to get started:
HOW TO DO IT
Dust off those binders - You may not have looked at your organization’s emergency plans since some kind of HR training long ago. Take a look at them with fresh eyes. Ask yourself why the emergency situation described was considered sufficiently likely or important to generate a policy. What sort of beliefs about the future are reflected by these documents? How do they compare with your own sense of beliefs and behaviors in your organization?
The unspoken plans - Official policies probably aren’t the only way your organization has approached the idea of “emergencies.” In what other ways do you see people preparing for disastrous events? Are there contingencies you think just a few people are contemplating? Additionally, consider what events seem too unlikely, too insignificant, or too overwhelming to plan for. Ideally at the end of this step you’ll have a notion of how people in your organization might respond to a range of events.
Expand the field - In these exercises, we are always trying to examine behavior around a whole social problem, not just one organization. So take a moment to consider how the ideas in your organization compare with other groups who may be working on your problem. Are the kinds of plans you’re examining industry-standard? Is there a lot of agreement or disagreement about what the future holds? Try to get to the point where you can make some generalizations about how people view the future of your problem.
Return to the present - Some of the situations you encountered in the past three steps may seem far-fetched or absurd. But there are almost certainly ways in which the underlying beliefs from these emergency plans are expressed in behaviors around your problem. What are those behaviors? Behaviors are usually connected to beliefs about the future through people’s expectations, hopes, and fears — how are those feelings showing up in the behaviors you observe? Consider whether changing any of these behaviors or the expectations connected to them could help you take on your problem in a new way.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
Sure, I’ll give you two. First comes from an Insight Lab we did on the role of creatives in organizational strategy. One of the most important things we learned is that even though they may not be as fluent in finance or statistics, creatives had a wider range of ideas about the future. Crucially, they have often imagined new products or other developments that could challenge the organization in fundamental ways. The relevance for this exercise is that you should be open to the possibility that many people working on your problem, especially leaders, have taken a narrow view of the future that excludes potential solutions.
Here’s another scary example: Garrett Graff’s book Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself – While the Rest of Us Die. In examining several decades of American plans to survive nuclear war, Graff observes that saving civilian populations shifted from a primary goal to an afterthought. While the planners may have said that was the result of increasingly destructive nuclear weapons, I would say the shifting story about the future also reflects a change in values and behaviors for the worse.
COOL, SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to view your problem in new ways using the future 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 via James Cridland