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Article 2: The Two Lenses Secret to Solving Every Problem
Most of us want to make a positive impact on the world. That’s a good thing, right?
When that feeling of wanting to change the world bubbles up inside us, where does it lead us? Does it lead us to become a member of an non-profit? To watch a documentary? Or maybe join a local meetup group?
Once you’ve become more deeply engaged with the issue, you might get really involved and start a Youtube channel about the topic. You might volunteer to help promote a protest, or maybe you even start a festival or a conference.
But there’s a critical mistake that most people make when considering their involvement in a cause.
It’s this,
People conflate the effortthey’ve made trying to change the world with the actual measureable impactthey’ve made on the world.
It goes something like this, “I’ve been attending events, talking about this issue to everyone I know, posting about it on Facebook. I wrote a blog post about it. I painted a banner for the annual protest. I wear a T-shirt about it and read everything I can on the issue.”This person is very engaged, and as it seems, they are putting in regular hours of work trying to change the world.
Let’s not confuse all this effortwith results.
When we’re trying to change the world, all that really matters, is that we make an impact that is measurable in real world numbers.
The key question to ask is,
“Where is the evidence that your efforts have made a measurable result?”
Ask it of yourself and any social change project you are involved in.
During my 20 years of experience with environmental change, (and reading oodles of behavioral psychology books) it struck me that the most basic problem solving framework involves essentially only two principles:
measurement and behavior change.
All problems are essential made of the real world matter: matter that is measureable. All solutions require the influence of human beings, which are governed by their ownpsychological behavior.
We truly cannot avoid the process of understanding the data about our cause, if we are going to change anything at all. Wecannot avoid the process of understanding the drivers of human behavior, if we are going to change the actions of any human beings.
This understanding lead me to coin the term, the “two lenses”approach to social change.
The two lenses approach means,
1) Your problem needs to be understood through the lens ofmeasurement or data.
and
2) Your solution needs to be understood through the lens of behavioral psychology.
If you aren’t already putting these two domains together as the ground zero of your social change strategy, then you have an
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Most of us want to make a positive impact on the world. That’s a good thing, right?
When that feeling of wanting to change the world bubbles up inside us, where does it lead us? Does it lead us to become a member of an non-profit? To watch a documentary? Or maybe join a local meetup group?
Once you’ve become more deeply engaged with the issue, you might get really involved and start a Youtube channel about the topic. You might volunteer to help promote a protest, or maybe you even start a festival or a conference.
But there’s a critical mistake that most people make when considering their involvement in a cause.
It’s this,
People conflate the effortthey’ve made trying to change the world with the actual measureable impactthey’ve made on the world.
It goes something like this, “I’ve been attending events, talking about this issue to everyone I know, posting about it on Facebook. I wrote a blog post about it. I painted a banner for the annual protest. I wear a T-shirt about it and read everything I can on the issue.”This person is very engaged, and as it seems, they are putting in regular hours of work trying to change the world.
Let’s not confuse all this effortwith results.
When we’re trying to change the world, all that really matters, is that we make an impact that is measurable in real world numbers.
The key question to ask is,
“Where is the evidence that your efforts have made a measurable result?”
Ask it of yourself and any social change project you are involved in.
During my 20 years of experience with environmental change, (and reading oodles of behavioral psychology books) it struck me that the most basic problem solving framework involves essentially only two principles:
measurement and behavior change.
All problems are essential made of the real world matter: matter that is measureable. All solutions require the influence of human beings, which are governed by their ownpsychological behavior.
We truly cannot avoid the process of understanding the data about our cause, if we are going to change anything at all. Wecannot avoid the process of understanding the drivers of human behavior, if we are going to change the actions of any human beings.
This understanding lead me to coin the term, the “two lenses”approach to social change.
The two lenses approach means,
1) Your problem needs to be understood through the lens ofmeasurement or data.
and
2) Your solution needs to be understood through the lens of behavioral psychology.
If you aren’t already putting these two domains together as the ground zero of your social change strategy, then you have an