Evolving Mindset Series: When Problems Are Complex
Our world seems to be fixated on solving complex problems using lower-brain thinking, resulting in simplistic solutions. Whether it’s a government, a non-government nonprofit organization (NGO), or a private company, these attempts will not lead to real solutions but will predictably have unintended consequences.
David Damberger described one example of a lower-brain attempt to help poverty-stricken people in Africa in his TEDx talk. He explained how the well-funded NGO he worked for, Engineers Without Borders in Canada, was driven by the higher-brain mission to help others who are suffering. The problem was that they were using lower-brain thinking when implementing their solutions to bring clean water to Malawi.
Using their expertise, the engineers, commissioned by the Canadian government, built gravity-fed systems through a series of pipes that collected clean water from higher elevations and delivered it to several communities. Faucets at the end of the pipes allowed access to clean water. In his talk, Damberger noted that the World Bank stated this solution provided access to clean water for about 80% of Malawi people.
But, when one of the staff members checked Malawi's communities less than two years later, more than 70% of the water faucets weren’t working. How could that be? These are smart, well-intended engineers. One problem with implementing a lower-brain solution to address a complex problem is thinking that it will work as planned when experts implement a one-size-fits-all solution. Complex issues can’t be handled that way successfully. They need the engagement of diverse perspectives, including the people in each local environment. Then, regular feedback learning loops are required to address unexpected problems that will undoubtedly arise. These teams can gain insight from feedback and apply ideas for improvement to whatever solution is being implemented.
As they assessed the broken pipes and non-functional water faucets, the Canadian staff member discovered a different set of pipes that looked older. When asked, a resident told the staff member that those were the gravity-fed pipes built by a team of American engineers about a decade earlier. Those pipes also broke down within about two years. These failures were predictable when implemented without a higher-brain understanding of how to address complex problems.
If the Canadian engineers had applied higher-brain thinking, they would have engaged with the local communities and addressed the first broken faucet as a feedback loop for learning. Higher-brain thinking requires humility and the understanding that relying only on experts is not sufficient; small, diverse teams that include the people suffering from the problem itself are essential; trial and error with learning feedback loops is mandatory; and the transparency of data, measuring what matters, and the appropriate analysis of data can lead teams to gain insights for improvement.
Ultimately, sharing learnings with other teams in other communities can allow for ongoing innovation that will lower costs and improve solutions over time. This type of higher-brain networked learning requires transparent collaboration for a successful application. Lower-brain competition and fear-based concealment of information by organizations and governments will continue to inhibit our ability to address and solve complex problems, like poverty and even our current global pandemic.
The engineers took these lessons to heart and started a website called Admitting Failure. They realized that they would only be able to address complex problems successfully through trial and error. By publishing their failures, they could learn faster from others who were tackling similar problems.
Lower-brain thinking is comfortable with the status quo. In systems science, actual transformational change and new, higher-brain thinking usually occur only when a system is at the “edge of chaos”. Just like the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, although it was arguably not only at the edge but in chaos.
Homelessness was a complex problem in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina, with an estimated 2,000 people considered homeless. After the hurricane, the number rose nearly 500% to about 12,000 people in 2007. At the edge of chaos, the city launched a higher-brain effort to address the homelessness issue. They didn’t hand out one-way bus tickets to faraway towns out west. They also didn’t criminalize homelessness and rely on police to disperse or arrest the homeless. They used many concepts that put the unfortunate people who had no place to live at the center of their effort, using humility and empathy. By 2018, about 1,200 people were homeless, a 90% improvementfrom the post-Katrina situation.
City officials used a “housing first” policy to provide housing at no cost without requiring mental health or addiction treatment before being housed. A free health care clinic for the homeless was expanded, and weekly check-ins were conducted to develop relationships and connect people to counseling and other services. They looked at other cities and how they dealt with homelessness (an example of network learning). For instance, they adopted the low-barrier shelter system, successfully implemented in San Antonio, that didn’t require people to be sober to be housed and allowed couples to stay together. They quickly addressed the newly homeless situations and attempted to reunite them with estranged family members or paid their rent if they were recently evicted. Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Department of Health, said in one interview, “We want the most humane and compassionate approach.” That is higher-brain thinking.
Another leader of this effort has been Martha Kegel, Executive Director of Unity of Greater New Orleans. She noted that many studies support the cost-effectiveness of housing first strategies. It’s usually less expensive to pay for housing and other needed services than the cost of arrests and jail time or the frequent visits to hospital emergency rooms standard for homeless people. Local hospitals also helped out by implementing attempts to identify homeless patients, called the homeless consult program, and proactively found social services and housing solutions as part of the care plan.
There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. Homeless veterans presented a unique sub-population of the homeless. Some, in part due to mental illness, refused help. The city continued to work with that group of veterans until they could get them into housing. Other unique sub-populations included those with disabilities, the elderly, and children. All had unique challenges and a variety of potential solutions.
This strategy of a value-based solution and engaging with the people who are suffering requires empathy and is a higher-brain approach. It took being at the edge of chaos for the city to transform its system for homeless people in New Orleans. I hope our world is near the same “edge of chaos” with the pandemic and several other stressors that we have endured as one global humanity over the past many months. We’ve been heading toward the edge of chaos for a long time, but the pandemic certainly seems like it could be a catalyst for change. Since the pandemic started, the homelessness situation in New Orleans has worsened. We will need leaders in our world to recognize the need to implement value-based innovation and provide the resources and authority to work through the trials and errors required to address complex problems.
There are plenty of complex issues that need to be addressed in our world. Virtually all the diseases and other issues in healthcare are complex but relying on experts to produce magic bullet solutions is not adequate. Only by using higher-brain thinking and solutions, working with small, diverse teams applying principles of continuous learning and ongoing feedback loops, will we manage and resolve the complex problems in our world successfully.