Missing in action
What can you learn about your problem by examining the groups who aren’t showing up?
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…
Reflect upon the people and groups who are connected to the problem you are trying to solve. Are there groups who are notably absent? Are the other people and groups aware of this absence? How might those feelings affect their behavior? How would the problem change if this missing actor were to get more involved?
Unless you come from a ridiculously conflict-free family, you’ve probably experienced an awkward dinner or two with an empty chair. Maybe the absence is an acceptable one — Jane is studying abroad or Bill is deployed. But an absence is also frequently associated with conflict. Maybe Tina and Mom had a fight and she isn't speaking to anyone in this branch of the family right now. Maybe Sterling had somewhere else he wanted to be at Christmas this year. Of course, an extended absence can restructure a family entirely.
Something similar happens in the world of social problems. Sometimes groups lose interest in a problem or find something else more compelling. Sometimes their incentives for involvement change or evaporate entirely. Other times, acknowledging a problem might require reckoning with difficulties from the past or inequalities in the present that some groups aren’t prepared to confront. In any case, this kind of absence isn’t just a neutral sort of noninvolvement — it is felt, often quite viscerally, by other groups working on the problem.
Not all problems have such “missing in action” groups. In other cases, the missing group can be identified, but the consequences of their absence are few. For almost every problem, though, considering who isn’t involved can provide insights into those who are and why they behave the way they do. Let’s take a more detailed look.
HOW TO DO IT
Review who’s here - To figure out a missing actor, you should start with at least a basic list of who is currently engaged with the problem. Try to include everyone who thinks about the problem on a regular basis. Remember, this shouldn’t just be the folks whose style of engagement you prefer — environmentalists and the fossil fuel industry are both engaged with the problem of climate change, just in very different ways. Anyway, your list doesn’t have to be perfect. You just want to make sure your “missing actor” isn’t someone who you just forgot.
Look for an empty chair - One easy way to find a missing actor is to ask if anyone has recently left the scene of the problem. If that group has disengaged, what effect has their departure had on the problem as a whole. Has it created new complications? New opportunities? When a group has recently ended its involvement with a problem, there are usual lots of opinions about it, so get ready to listen.
Ask who ought to be here - There is often plenty of blame to go around in the “family” of actors connected to a problem. But sometimes several different groups (even competing ones) develop common ideas about an outside party that ought to be involved. That may be because of their past involvement. It might be because of potential resources they would bring to bear. Or it could be that several groups think this missing actor is contributing to the problem somehow. Anyway, it’s always worth asking everyone who ought to be involved and isn’t.
Imagine the chair is filled - Now explore what might happen if this actor everyone is missing showed up. What new solution might be possible? How might the behavior of other groups change? Would the arrival of this new group really change the problem, or has their absence just been an excuse for inaction. Though you may be starting with the imaginings of the current actors, try to tell a realistic story about what effect this missing actor might have on the problem. The key is figuring out the effect they would have on everything else.
Then imagine it never will be - Finally, look at the opposite scenario. Let’s say this missing actor is never going to show up. Might there be other ways to create the change that everyone imagines they would have? Could it happen if one of the currently engaged groups behaved in a new way? Is there an outside group no one is thinking about who might be engaged to the same effect? Ideally, by the time you’re done, you are thinking about the effect that the missing actor has been imagined to have one the problem, not simply how to get their attention.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
When I first started working on social change strategy, Oprah Winfrey’s show was still on the air. Anything Oprah talked about became part of the discussion everywhere, whether it was a book, a diet, or a philanthropic cause. As a result, many groups I talked with would say something like, “If only we could get Oprah involved…” Even today, people will similarly fantasize about another celebrity taking up their cause, whether it’s a movie star or a TikTok influencer.
I usually respond to these wishes using the steps described above, trying to discern the effect these folks imagine would result from having a celebrity champion, then looking for more accessible ways to create that effect. Occasionally, though, the “missing” celebrity is invoked as a way of explaining why a particular issue has been left out of the national conversation. For example, a frequent topic among nurses I work with is how screenwriters don’t create plots around nurses because they don’t know what they actually do.
The point is that when someone says “we need Oprah” or “we need the federal government” or “we need Warren Buffet,” don't dismiss it out of hand. Instead, listen to this complaint to discover what the world of the problem is really missing.
COOL, SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to view your problem in new ways using the actors 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.