The Hidden Power

Dr Piret Toñurist, Systems Thinking lead at the OECD's Observatory for Public Sector Innovation talks about the sense of powerlessness at the heart of leadership. She discusses how the pandemic has offered an opportunity for change, and what transformation looks like. She characterises systems thinking as a neutral zone where the ideology of what has to be done doesn’t exist.

Themed on this question of power, our discussion looks at what power is, really, when it comes to the granular detail.

Talking Points

- Connecting knowing and doing

- The end-state fallacy, manifestos and political experiments

- Politics as a rash

- From where does innovation in schools come?

Dr. Piret Tōnurist at the OECD’s Observatory for Public Sector Innovation:

https://oecd-opsi.org/about-observatory-of-public-sector-innovation/

Articles:

https://oecd-opsi.org/author/piret/

…at TalTach:

https://old.taltech.ee/institutes/ragnar-nurkse-department-of-innovation-and-governance/department-11/academic-staff-5/piret-tonurist-3/

“Wicked” Problems:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_problem

End-state fallacy:

https://www.csis.org/analysis/end-state-fallacy-setting-wrong-goals-war-fighting

Toxteth Housing project: Welsh Streets, Liverpool:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Streets,_Liverpool

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John Naughton, tech columnist at The Observer Newspaper, talks about that great Wild West of our time - Cyberspace. From its roots in “permissionless innovation” to the staggering dominance of a very small number of companies over most aspects of our lives, he surveys the absence of governance, and how two effective sovereigns - Apple and Google - have appropriated powers normally associated with sovereign powers of territorial control.

In our discussion Ed and I pick up on the de-globalisation of the internet, the digital divide and on surveillance capitalism - and while it turns out these problems are not new, the perennial importance of Truth to our Age of Enlightenment once again comes to the fore.

Talking points:

• Weaknesses in our systems of governing are at the root of the souring of social media. 
• Constitutions can and must have provisions to ensure governments, politicians and citizens deal in reality. 
• The basics would be - independent feedback, deliberative democracy and measures to minimise the culture of lies and inflamation. 

Most of our main challenges are bewilderingly complex, and they will never be solved through adversarial two-line posts. But they might well be mitigated by inclusive, deliberative conversations.

John Naughton:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Naughton

John Naughton in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/series/networker

Article we were discussing:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/13/silicon-valley-has-admitted-facial-recognition-technology-is-toxic-about-time

Google’s dominance in search, as a graph that is well worth a view:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/this-chart-reveals-googles-true-dominance-over-the-web/

Tech and truth - mainstream media turns out to be the biggest amplifier of White House disinformation:

https://www-technologyreview-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/07/1009642/mainstream-media-is-the-biggest-amplifier-of-white-house-disinformation/amp/

These problems are not new (1984 interview):

https://billmoyers.com/content/30-second-president/

BILL MOYERS: What I see and hear deals more with the emotions than what I read.

TONY SCHWARTZ: That’s right. We are in the business of using PR in a new manner, not in the old print terms of press relations. We are using PR as people’s reactions, personal retrieval of your feelings and associations. PR — people’s recall, of their experiences. PR — planning reactions. That’s our whole new business. It’s a PR business, planning reactions.

BILL MOYERS: But isn’t it manipulating people to in effect tell them what they’re feeling instead of telling them what they need to know to vote?

TONY SCHWARTZ: I use the word not manipulation, I say partipulation.

BILL MOYERS: Partipulation?

TONY SCHWARTZ: You have to participate in your own manipulation. In that, you’re bringing things to your manipulation. If you don’t want to participate in it, you could turn off the commercial. You could tune it out. But there are things that get into you. And that’s the participation.

The global network of local internets is a step closer:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53686390

Podcast - Facial recognition and racial profiling - cautionary tale:

 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000486946788

A spelling out of the substance and scope of surveillance capitalism (Alexander Nix/Cambridge Analytica):

https://youtu.be/n8Dd5aVXLCc

Google in China article (MIT):

https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/12/19/138307/how-google-took-on-china-and-lost/

China’s AI Surveillance State goes global:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/china-ai-surveillance/614197/

Podcast - More on Cyberspace and Governance - Preet Bharara (NY state prosecutor dismissed by Donald Trump after refusing to resign) talks to John Carlin, the US Justice Department’s former head of the National Security Division:

https://omny.fm/shows/stay-tuned-with-preet/introducing-cyber-space-with-john-carlin

The world is awash with bullshit:

https://www.callingbullshit.org/?utm_content=bufferfcd66&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Film - The Social Dilemma:

https://www.thesocialdilemma.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Social_Dilemma

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Professor Eileen Munro turned decades of inadequate child protection on its head with one simple question: are we helping or hindering the front line?

In this episode, she reflects on the successes - and revealing failures - of her review into child protection. Eileen covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. It is fascinating.

Talking points:

• Centralised processes can't protect children, and this centralisation is an unavoidable consequence of the current state of governance
• How child protection can work much better, when the system is re-aligned to its purpose
• Key role of feedback, service sampling, education, and the news media.

In our commentary Ed and I pick up on these and other points, specifically the governmental conditions that allowed for success, and especially: leaders believing they have grasped the systemic nature of necessary change, when in reality they haven’t. What to do? Find out in this concentrated and stimulating episode.

The Munro Review into Child Protection:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/175391/Munro-Review.pdf

Eileen Munro:

LSE

https://www.lse.ac.uk/social-policy/people/Emeritus-Visiting/Professor-Eileen-Munro

The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/eileen-munro

Detail on what child protection actually entails (podcast)

(listener alert - not for the feint-hearted):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07ffxtr

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This episode introduces the experience and current thinking of my co-presenter, Ed Straw.

We talk about his journey from being an engineering graduate to consulting at the heart of Westminster, how he encountered power and the confusion surrounding it. 

Then we get into his current thinking - he’s now a research fellow at the Open University’s Applied Systems Thinking in Practice Group, and has found in Systems Thinking many effective responses to issues that have plagued governments down the decades.

Ed Straw:

http://www.edstraw.com/about/

The (full podcast!) story of General Motors' collaboration with Toyota is a great rehearsal of how systemic change can work, and the relevant challenges:

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015

W. Edwards Demming, genius behind Japanese revolution in manufacturing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming

and that revolution:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1993/12/23/japans-secret-w-edwards-deming/b69b8c00-4c5d-483a-b95e-4aeb1d94d2c6/

Relevance of Drawing the Boundary to Systems Thinking:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_critique

The Compassionate Frome Project:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/21/town-cure-illness-community-frome-somerset-isolation

DAD and EDD:

http://www.edstraw.com/new-public-service-management-from-dad-to-edd/

Ed's story, told in more length and depth on Survival of the Kindest:

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/ed-straw-looking-at-it-in-the-round/id1525026504?i=1000489658805

Real world example in Australia:

https://johnmenadue.com/cock-ups-conspiracies-or-system-failures/

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New release date - Saturday October 10th - Episode 1, Ed Straw on the Hidden Power.

We live in confusing times - and a lot of that confusion is about where power lies. With Ed Straw, former chair of Demos and consultant to government, & Philip Tottenham.

In 2017 the UN, the WHO and the OECD all called for the use of Systems Thinking to deal with highly complex problems. But what does that mean?

In Series 1 "Proof of Concept" we explore power - power in terms traditional ideas about it, and in terms of beneficial impact on the ground - and hear from people thinking and operating at the leading edge of where beneficial impact is taking place.

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