Readers may not have come across Rozell's book Changing Maps, as it is
published by one of the less well known publishers. It ranges well beyond
scenarios, but is an interesting example of use of scenarios and is of
particular interest to those concerned with the public sector, but is of
general interest. The mention of Kees van der Heijden in a recent posting
reminded that the book contains a very good commissioned article by him.
A review of the book follows:
Rosell, Steven A. et al.. Changing Maps: Governing in a World of Rapid
Change. Carleton University Press (Canada) 1995.
ISBN 0-88629-264-6.
The book is a sequel to a previous Round Table study - Governing in an
Information Society, published in 1992.
The report argues that we are in the middle of major changes which we only
partly understand - hence there is a search for new maps which provide an
ability to communicate and work together. We are in crisis because the
traditional apparatus of governmen t is less and less able to respond to
the new challenges in the face of such problems, the rise in the number
and sophistication of special interest groups and the fragmentation of
decision making. To quote from the paper by Daniel Yankelovich which is
included in the report, "The principal insight of the governance project
.... is that the principal cause of the government's loss of legitimacy is
an obsolete framework within which issues are defined and addressed."
The report's concern is with governance, which it defines as the process
whereby society steers itself. Governance includes a complex of issues
which are fundamentally important but difficult to address because they
cut across all boundaries and require a long time horizon. [This is almost
a definition of the fact that societal issues are systemic in their
nature.]
The report has three themes:
The key conclusion is the need to develop learning based approaches to how
we organise and govern ourselves, which in turn requires leaders who
establish a shared framework of goals and values. The tools on which the
authors focus are:
as the principal loci for construction of shared values;
building;
public servants as knowledge workers skilled in translating data into
information; and
means including 'learning based alternatives to regulation'.
There is a good brief history of scenario planning, written in the context
of the inadequacy of current economic paradigms and models. The authors
give as an example of this inadequacy the tendency to take technology as a
given and not as a fundamental e ndogenous part of the system. They also
give a good catalogue of the characteristics of contemporary change
(somewhat reminiscent of that in Maynard's The Fourth Wave) and draw the
conclusion that a huge social learning process is needed.
A large part of the text of the report consists of a set of scenarios
which are offered as a basis for building societal discussion. The
scenarios and suggested process for building consensus are modelled
consciously on the famous Mont Fleur Scenarios wh ich were developed in
South Africa (The San Francisco based Global Business Network - with which
Peter Schwartz is associated is the best source of those). The material
on scenario planning is supported by inclusion of an excellent
commissioned paper by Kees van der Heijden on Scenario Thinking.
A major conclusion from the scenarios is that success in the information
or knowledge based economy depends fundamentally on social and cultural
factors - and the authors note how different this perspective is from that
of the economic rationalist prescription. A second conclusion is that the
nature of the system has changed so much that government, as it has
operated in the past, simply can not cope with the complexity of the
information society, so its role needs to be rethought.
The focus of the discussion is on building social/cultural cohesion and on
the Learning Organisation as a way of achieving this through encouraging
'distributed intelligence' and a shared sense of overall goals. The
authors claim that distributional issues are fundamental; there is a major
question to be addressed of how to redistribute work and/or income.
While recognising that no one has a prescription for building a "Learning
Organisation", (which is a direction and an ideal, not a 'thing'), the
authors stress the need for a change in the measures of progress - towards
measures of human development rather than accounting numbers and for a
style of discourse which encourages consensus building rather than
adversarial polarisation. They argue that the conditions for building a
society for the knowledge age include:
networks can reorganise themselves flexibly to deal with rapid change;
proceeds of the work of the organisation are distributed more equitably
among members, so that they continue to participate and contribute fully;
and
framework of overall goals and values.
"Wealth is the consequence, not the cause, of a healthy civics".
This 'public judgment' model emphasises engaging the wider public in
defining issues and options, dialoguing and searching for consensus. The
focus is on the process whereby people 'work through' issues, moving from
raw opinion to considered public judgment. As the authors point out,
currently, we have few institutions or practices designed to enable people
to work through issues that way.
The report does not end with firm recommendations but with agenda items:
- what revisions are needed to our social contract to deal with the
changed world of the information age and to build a learning society in
that context?
of values, about the governance issues we face?
process of learning throughout society?
- how can we use information and communication technologies and the new
information infrastructure to assist our efforts to build social cohesion
and a learning society?
Some years ago Swieringa and Wierdsma, in Becoming a Learning Organisation
made the distinction between the 'tourist' model of development, in which
you choose between known destinations, and the 'trekker' model in which a
direction is chosen but the whole journey is itself a process of learning
while travelling towards a destination which can not be known. Like it or
not, we are trekkers and it would be unwise to act as if we were tourists.
Many organisations are wrestling with the issue of how they become more
effective organisational learners. This book covers the same issues and
the same territory against the wider landscape of a whole national
society. The needs are urgent and, while the claims of the book are
modest, it opens a very important area for attention.
--Bill Godfrey <bgodfrey@ozemail.com.au>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>