Physical challenge
What can the limits of the natural world teach you about your problem?
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 world of your problem is full of rules and laws. Usually the ones made by people are the first that come to mind. But every social problem is also shaped by limitations of the physical world. What’s a physical limit that looms large in the world of your problem, affecting most or all of the people involved? What can you learn from the variety of ways people respond to this challenge?
If you think I went down a rabbit hole looking for a way to illustrate this newsletter with a photo from Nickelodeon’s Double Dare, you’re right.
Physical limits are often one of the aspects of social problems people think about the least, even though they play a huge role in the outcomes we can achieve. After all, if it cost nothing to construct safe housing, or if there were a low-cost way to decarbonize the atmosphere, or if diseases like AIDS and cancer could be prevented through vaccines, the dynamics of major social problems would completely change.
Unfortunately, reading a newsletter like this one won’t let you change physical laws. But looking at the human response to the challenges created by these laws can provide considerable insight. Here’s the steps to follow.
HOW TO DO IT
The first step is discovering a good physical challenge for this particular exercise. There are two criteria. First, it should be important to the big problem you are trying to solve. It may be an inconvenience to you that your office is located next to a 24-hour disco lounge, but try to think about challenges that affect everyone. Second, the ideal challenge elicits a range of responses from you, your team, and other groups connected to the problem. You want to be able to say “wow, everyone handles this a different way.”
Next, try to see this physical limit with new eyes. Think about how you might explain its significance to a curious visitor or a class of elementary school students. What role does it play in your day? Does it inspire a strong emotional response on a regular basis, or is it “just the way things are”? Has your organization developed routines or infrastructure to help deal with this limit?
Now consider how other people in the world deal with this same limit. Are the ways of dealing with it standardized or do they vary significantly across organizations? Is there generally agreement or disagreement about how to deal with it? Has the way people deal with it changed over time? In particular, pay attention to outliers who deal with the limit in extraordinary ways or who even try to ignore it. What can you learn from them about what’s possible?
Briefly, consider what you might do if this limit weren’t around. Would your problem still exist at all? Would you deal with it in a different way? Would your organization become more or less important? This step can seem like pointless fantasizing, but it can also reveal important assumptions you’re making about the limit.
Finally, step back and look at everything you have learned about the way people behave in response to this limit. Are you happy or unhappy with this collection of behaviors? Do you wish you could change some of them or even all of them? In particular, be on the lookout for social norms or "unwritten rules" that may have been revealed by looking at how this challenge is handled by different groups.
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE?
Yes, the one that always comes to mind is something I discovered when working on a project designed to uncover the social norms of ovarian cancer treatment. Ovarian cancer has a very high recurrence rate — that’s the physical limit. The way patients handle their care after remission can significantly affect their risk of recurrence. But I learned that patients' feelings about these issues are complex. Some told me that they had wished their physicians had told them everything about recurrence up front, while others told me they needed more time to process. Providers were also all over the map on their responsibility to address the risk of recurrence. Studying this behavior showed us there was a significant opportunity to improve care.
COOL, SO WHAT MAKES THIS WORK?
This question is an example of how to analyze a social problem using the limits 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: modified Chicago Daily News photo from the 1904 Olympics.
