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Wicked Problems, Cuckoo Clocks and ToastAdventures in Leadership and Policy

Jim Dickinson, CEO UEA Students’ UnionGraeme Wise, Ast Director Policy NUS

Let’s think of some problems

• We’re all about solving problems, aren’t we?

• Democracy not as end itself but way of collectively identifying problems and collectively identifying solutions for an interest group

• Union problems

• University problems

• Student problems

• Societal problems

Normal Problems

P Students want more drum n bass

S Book more drum n bass

P Students are concerned about sexual harassment

S Poster Campaign. Lobby University

P Students don’t want more than one exam on a day

S Lobby University to space them out

P Poor kids aren’t coming to University

S Inspire them out of poverty

About normal problems in SUs

• Notes, Believes, Resolves

• Problems facing students expected to be solved by motions and manifestos

• These invariably involve:

– The awareness/promotion solution

– The demand solution

– The lobby solution

Leaders

• Big problems, signature solutions

• Big problems, solution conditions

• Decisive, Bold, Out in front, Strong, etc

Normal Problems

P Students want more drum n bass

S Book more drum n bass

(Oh. They don’t)

P Students are concerned about sexual harassment

S Poster Campaign. Lobby University

(Oh. What about off campus)

P Students don’t want more than one exam on a day

S Lobby University to space them out

(Oh. Prepare for chaos one year later!)

Widening Access/Participation

• Which problem (HE, Universities, Russell Group)

• Which problem (Poor, Less likely, mature, carer)

• Which type of solution

• Inspire them to apply

• Rig admissions to take into account

• Change the provision’s O&M and support

• Change the provision itself

So many problems

• There are all sorts of problems in unions and their institutions that never seem to get fixed.

• In the 1970s, two academics coined the terms ‘Tame’ and ‘Wicked’ to describe two different sets of problems.

• Tame problems are complicated but easily solved; wicked problems are highly complex and can’t be tackled without knock-on impacts.

• (Then they added critical problems, more on that later)

• The problem is that leaders everywhere- especially in universities and SUs- are addicted to simple solutions that might fix the tame but don’t fix the wicked.

This session

• In this session we will examine wicked problem theory and give you an opportunity to identify leadership characterises and behaviours present in their union and university/college- hierachists with their rules and punishments, egalitarians with their consensus and debate, and individualists with their incentives and management.

• It will also give you a chance to identify how you might break free from the cuckoo clocks and solve wicked problems that others have failed to do.

Tame

• Tame problems are those which may be complicated but which are contained and easily solved using discreet interventions.

• They only entail a limited degree of uncertainty and can be addressed by rolling out the same solutions that were used to combat the problem previously.

• Grint describes these problems as being like a puzzle “for which there is always an answer”

Critical

• Critical problems entail little uncertainty about what response is needed and which demand a fairly immediate reaction from leaders.

• The Cuban Missile Crisis is an obvious example of such a problem.

– When SUs run out of money- Critical problem

– When a student is injured on a trip and H&S was poor-Critical problem

– Staff member accused of sexual harassment- Critical problem

Wicked

• Wicked problems are those which are complex, not just complicated

• Come about as a result of a number of interrelated drivers, each of which cannot be tackled without having a knock-on impact on the other drivers.

• Obvious current example Greek financial crisis, where no action can be taken without causing ripples that affect other Eurozone countries.

Wicked problem

• First theorised within the field of urban studies by Rittel and Webber (1973)

• A social or public problem that meets some particular characteristics in relation to complexity and the difficulty in formulating solutions

Wicked problems• Old.

• People often think the solution is easier than it is.

• There is no definitive formulation of a wicked problem.

• No criteria for when the problem is fixed.

• Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good or bad.

• Success or failure judgments are subjective.

• There is no immediate and no ultimate test of a solution to a wicked problem.

• Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation"; because there is no opportunity to learn by trial and error, every attempt counts significantly and impacts on people.

• Every wicked problem can be considered to be a symptom of another problem.

Student Finance as a wicked problem

There are no fixed criteria for judging when the ‘problem’ is fixed. • Should we consider that the system is doing what is should when every student has all they

need to sustain themselves (at all levels, and in all modes)?

• If so, how should this be financed?

• The cost of doing this on a non-repayable basis would easily run into many tens of billions, implausible even in a sound economic climate.

• What then should be considered an ‘adequate’ solution and why? It is a judgement call.

All judgements as to success or failure are subjective. • When judgements are made, they are made in the context of an enormous range of

possible priorities.

• Different interests are in play and they demand that different groups of students are helped.

• Policy makers may succeed or fail in different peoples’ eyes by choosing a particular policy option.

• Increasing the amounts that students can borrow from the government for living costs could be part of the solution to students working excessive hours, but the consequence is increased student debt.

• Is this success or failure?


Every policy change impacts both widely and deeply on people • Experimental policy implementation is used widely in many policy contexts,

though pilot schemes and trial schemes.

• Scale and its limits on pilots and trials means that changes to policy and practice – for instance on entitlements, means testing, interaction with welfare benefits, payment structure, and so on, must usually be implemented for a whole cohort.

• The consequences of making mistakes may be serious and widespread.

It is essentially unique. • No other policy issue presents similar challenges, focused around the need to

sustain the expenses of a very large number of people from across the social spectrum, often for years, in a highly heterogeneous structure, where most have few alternative sources of support.

• Heterogeneity is critical – it is necessary to fund students doing many different subjects in different durations, modes and at different ages. International comparisons may be inappropriate for the same reason – no other territory will have a similar enough mix of student and subject profiles to take meaningful lessons.


It appears as a symptom of wider problems. • Student financial support is an essential dimension of several much wider, more

complex and arguably ‘wicked’ problems – the transition to and continuing development of a mass system of higher education, the endless structural and funding regime changes around provision of further education, and tension in the (increasingly important) relationship between the two sectors.

• For forty years we have discussed ‘problems in the transition from elite to mass higher education’ (following Trow 1973).

• Perhaps the focus now turns to ‘problems in the transition from mass to universal higher education’, and the way that as this occurs higher education activity increasingly ‘flows into’ further education and vice-versa.

• Because of this, we view student financial support in 2012 as an essentially ‘tertiary’ problem, requiring ‘tertiary’ solutions. Indeed, one only needs to look at the difference in expenditure in this area between the further and higher education sectors, at the most general level, to see that there is considerable value in taking this approach.

Wicked problems

• Widening participation/access

• SU Officer profile/communication

• Assessment and Feedback

Command and Control

• Harry Lime (Orson Welles) –eponymous Third Man (1949) set in early post war Vienna.

• Famous scene set on top of the Riesenrad, large Ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park.

• Lime confronts his erstwhile friend Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) about latter’s sentimentality.

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they

produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. “

“In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did

that produce? “

“In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Cuckoo Clock Syndrome

• Peace, patience & mundane activities generate tedium & stasis

• Crisis, competition & violence generate progress

• Crisis requires decision-making through Commanders

• Commanders temporarily alleviate the symptoms of a Critical Problem but cannot address the causes if they are generated by Wicked Problems – that would require collective action

• Does this lead to an addiction to Command – hence permanent crisis – and an Allergy to Leadership?

Problems and Leaders

1. Critical Problems: Commander

2. Tame Problems: Management

3. Wicked Problems: Leadership

Tame Problems

• Tame Problems need Management

• Problems as PUZZLES – there is a solution

• Can be complicated but there is a unilinear solution to them as these are problems that management can (& has previously) solved

• The problem of heart surgery is a Tame problem

• It’s complicated but there is a process for solving it & therefore it has a Managerial Solution/Answer

• Launching a(nother) new product is a tame problem

• Relocating is a tame problem

• Leadership role is to engage the appropriate process to solve the TAME problem through management

• Lots of politicians these days like management

Problems and Leaders

Critical Problems: Commander

1. Portrayed as self-evident crisis; often at tactical level

2. General uncertainty – though not ostensibly by commander who provides ‘answer’

• No time for discussion or dissent

• Legitimizes coercion as necessary in the circumstances for public good

• Associated with Command

• Encouraged through reward

Leaders and Wicked Problems

• Leaders often treat Wicked problems as though they were Tame or Critical (and sometimes vice versa)

• These problems (obesity, mental health, anti-social behaviour) not caused by a single factor but rather a complex web of drivers; social, economic and environmental.

• Attempting to secure power with a single, discreet intervention is a good way to win a vote

• Attempting to solve them with a single, discreet intervention is misguided and likely to be counterproductive

Example

• Global warming and the rise of biofuels is a classic case of mistakenly treating a Wicked problem with a Tame solution that compounds the original challenge

• When Global Warming first emerged as a problem some of the responses concentrated on solving the problem through science (a Tame response), manifest in the development of biofuels

• But we now know that the first generation of biofuels appear to have denuded the world of significant food resources so that what looked like a solution actually became another problem.

• This is typical of what happens when we try to solve Wicked Problems: other problems emerge to compound the original problem.

Another Example

• Sometimes leaders treat Wicked problems as though they are a Crisis.

• Need to be seen as courageous and having a strong handle on the problem.

• Obsession with ‘dithering’ and U-turns when political decisions not made decisively

• Wicked problem met with a Tame response because simple interventions look and sound so much more appealing.

• Inner city knife crime. Politicians more likely to be praised for introducing new stop-and-search powers than for mobilising the community to engage with the issue in their neighbourhoods

• Because we demand a decisive response from our leaders, many learn to “seek out (or reframe situations as)” crises.

Solving Wicked Problems

• Wicked problems require ‘Clumsy’ rather than ‘Elegant’ solutions that combine different ‘cultural understandings’

• Hierarchical, egalitarian and individualist

– Hierachists tackle problems by implementing stringent rules and punishments

– Egalitarians cultivate norms and community values

– Individualists design incentives and support structures

Drink/Lad Culture

• Elegant solutions to problems are those which focus on using one particular cultural understanding.

• They are often simple, practical and with a clear timeframe, and are therefore useful for tackling Tame and Criticial problems where the response needed is fairly obvious to all concerned.

– Hierachists think about SU and University behavioural codes

– Egalitarians want to make sure we influence social norms (“Never OK”)

– Individualists design incentives and support structures (Leaflet on what to do if a “victim”)

Elegant solutions

• However, when it comes to Wicked problems they rarely do much good and can even exacerbate the situation.

• Individualists can solve the problem of decreasing carbon emissions from cars (a Tame problem open to a scientific solution), but they cannot solve Global Warming (a Wicked problem)

• Egalitarians can help ex-offenders back into the community (a Tame problem) but they cannot solve crime (a Wicked problem)

• Hierachists can improve rule enforcement for the fraudulent abuse of social services (a Tame problem) but they cannot solve poverty (a Wicked problem)

Time to get clumsy

• Not everyone responds well to punitive hierarchicalmeasures.

• Nor is everyone affected equally by the incentivesand support offered by individualists.

• Rather, what is required are ‘Clumsy’ solutions that broach and draw upon different cultural understandings.

Getting clumsy

• Importance of implementing ‘experimental’ approaches “because we cannot know whether the approach we adopt will eventually work

• The key is for policymakers and leaders to act as ‘bricoleurs’ and ‘experimental pragmatists’, eschewing nicely framed Elegant responses which are the preserve of many policymakers.

• The problem is that our leaders can be addicted to cultural understandings– hierachists to their rules and punishments

– egalitarians to consensus and debate

– individualists to incentives and management

• “Culturally induced cataracts”, which prevent us from tackling problems with new approaches informed by different viewpoints-‘Cuckoo Clock Syndrome’.

Increasing uncertainty about

solution to problem

TAME

WICKED

CRITICAL

CACULATIVE/RATIONAL

NORMATIVE/EMOTIONALSoft power

COERCION/PHYSICAL

Hard power

MANAGEMENT Organize Process

LEADERSHIP

Ask Questions

Increasing requirement

for collaborativ

e compliance/ resolution

COMMAND

Provide Answer

Normal distribution of situations/problemsBut what happens when the problem isn’t solved?

Solving Wicked Problems

Authoritative Strategies

• These give the problem to some group (or an individual), who take on the problem-solving process while others agree to abide by its decisions.

Competitive Strategies

• Central to the pursuit of such strategies is the search for power, influence—stakeholders following this strategy generally assume a win-lose outcome.

Collaborative Strategies

• These are supported by the bulk of the literature as being the most effective in dealing with wicked problems that have many stakeholders amongst whom power is dispersed.

Addicted to Command & Allergic to Leadership?

1. Fear of Failure

• Leading a Wicked Problem implies you don’t know the answer

• But do we assume leaders have to know the answer?

• Does the fear of failure drive people to adopt Command

• When they should be Leading?


2. We love crisis30 July 2009 Disorder Fears If Swine Flu Crisis Grows

There have been dire warnings of civil disorder and a breakdown in the basic infrastructure if the worst fears over the imminent swine flu pandemic are realised.NI health officials have briefed hospitals to be prepared for overwhelming volumes of swine flu cases and associated civil disorder.

SWINE FLU CRISIS COULD BRING NHS TO ITS KNEES July 25,2009

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/

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As at 20/8/9


3. Time, Speed & the Adrenaline Rush: Carpe Diem Commanders & commanded as adrenaline junkies

Anxiety over ‘indecision’ – Keats Negative Capability – the time & space to reflect (Versus ‘the first 100 days’ syndrome)

Role of crisis & epic history-making

Lord of the Rings

Harry Potter

Gladiator

Pearl Harbour

Inglourious Basterds

Terminator


4. Followers Fear of Freedom

Fear of freedom – why we have an almost compulsive submission to authority.

Modernity uprooted people from communal relationships & this intolerable loneliness and consequent weight of responsibility drove us to seek solace in the protective arms of authority – fascist or democratic – for only that way could we avoid the fear generated by personal responsibility.

What Bauman calls, ‘the unbearable silence of responsibility’


5. The difficulty of Leadership:

The Romance of Collaborative Leadership (Leonard)

• Collaborative Leadership is rooted in a form of egalitarian culture that

• positively inhibits decision-making.

• Partners need to – but tend not to – give each other permission to take responsibility to decide.

• We often don’t so either we fail to decide or

• we revert to Commanders!

The three classic solutions

(Widening) Participation

• Inspire people to want to participate

• Amend rationing to favour disadvantaged groups

• Amend structures to make it easier

• Are there other forms of participation?

• What if it’s not just about Participation?

Solving

• Solve the right problem

– A good problem statement describes an unfavorablecondition that prevents a goal or objective from being achieved. A good problem statement includes: the problem or defect, the magnitude of the event (how often it occurs), the location where it occurs, and how important the problem is (use metrics!).

• Pinpoint your stakeholders

• Analyze the issues

• Brainstorm solutions

• Test your solution(s)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vS_b7cJn2A

Thank you!

@[email protected]

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