UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s Address to the World Economic Forum

             At the 2011 World Economic Forum in Davos, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon issued an emphatic call for ‘revolutionary thinking and action to secure an economic model for survival’ in which he warned the audience of the dangerous consequences of the past and current economic model of fueling economic growth by unconstrained exploitation of natural resources, and challenged the representatives of the institutions assembled at the WEF meeting to rethink “How we organize ourselves economically?” and “How we manage increasingly scarce resources?”;  to “ensure sustainable, climate-resilient green growth.” He ended his call for a revolution of thinking and action to revise the current ‘global suicide pact’ by reminding the members of the urgency of the task: “let me highlight the one resource that is scarcest of all: Time.  ... There is no more time to waste.”  Full text: Appendix  [1]

The Discussion on the LinkedIn System Thinkers World Forum

            On the Linked-In Systems Thinking World forum, a discussion was started by Helene Finidori about “how to make this happen” [2]. Starting in February 2011, the discussion has generated more than 2200 comments by early July 2011, and over 4500 by February 2012, resulting not only in a lively exchange of widely differing opinions about the issue, but also an impressive wealth of references to reports, books, action proposals published and actual initiatives already underway, that are relevant to the problem in one way or another.

The Call for a Formal Response by Discussion Participants

            A suggestion was made to summarize the results of the discussion into a concise report that could be presented to the UN and the public. This desire was based on the general interest and urgency of the subject, on the range of opinions, suggestions and researched material that was assembled in the course of the discussion, and on the conviction of many participants that a systems perspective might make valuable contributions to the problems addressed by the UN call. Several participants began to assemble material for such a response. The moderator Helene Finidori compiled the various suggestions and links, organized this into a survey of themes, presented on a special ‘systems wiki blog’ page established for the purpose by the moderator of the overall Systems Thinking World Forum moderator Gene Bellinger (to get around the 4000 character limitation for posts on the forum itself) and invited other members to prepare drafts and organized contributions for a formal summary or report. This precipitated a discussion about the basic assumptions both regarding the problems and challenges as referenced by the Secretary General, the understanding of these problems by the discussion members, the role and potential of Systems Thinking and Systems modeling in tackling such problems, and the limitations of the discussion format towards preparing valid recommendations. The discussion revealed what appeared to be different attitudes towards the overall direction of this effort that have not been fully resolved (as of this writing, with the discussion still continuing).  This report is an attempt to sketch the picture of the results of the discussion thus far, as the group's contribution to the global challenge.

Range and Themes  of the Discussion

            The discussion covered a wide range of subjects far beyond a narrow understanding of ‘economic’ model. In fact, comments pertaining to narrow economic issues such as the global financial system, trade agreements, employment, taxation, distribution of income and wealth, were in the minority. Even the threats to survival such as those specified in a UN list of disasters were taken up only in a few posts. The term ‘survival’ in the Secretary General’s appeal was quickly supplanted by ‘sustainability’ as applicable to most human activities and their relationship to the natural environment. Many posts were devoted to the nature and understanding of systems, how they should be modeled, represented, studied, diagrammed. The framework for the study and discussion itself of these issues was a surprisingly substantial part of this theme. Much attention was devoted to the problems of food -- agricultural production and gardening -- water supply, and energy.  Related to these issues was the urgent call for ‘closing the CO2 cycle’ -- recycling waste carbon emissions back into the production of food and fuel, as a major element in mitigating human contributions to climate change. Governance issues were discussed:  local participation and decision-making, the problems of power both in government and private enterprise, with many contributions from corporations striving to improve their ecological impact as well as their productivity. The controversies surrounding growth as an undisputed goal of private enterprise as well as governments resulted in calls for replacing the dominant assumptions regarding growth (long considered a main condition for economic success) and the corresponding performance measurements guiding economic policies with performance measures aiming at human well-being and quality of life.  A number of posts dealt with what might be called philosophical or mindset issues: values, ethics, principles guiding individual and social behaviors and habits, with the common theme of having to changing these before any real transformation can be achieved, indeed seeing a massive consciousness change reaching some ‘tipping point’ as a necessary condition if not as the actual mechanism for the desired changes.

                        The wide range of topics of the discussion, enhanced by the research of participants who contributed a wealth of information about literature and initiatives by individuals, companies, and groups, revealed an already significant level of concern, awareness and activity related to the very problems mentioned by the Secretary General. The impression could arise that there already are adequate answers and solutions to most of the problems -- that these merely have to be identified, the information made available, and the solutions implemented, rather than having to focus on the development of new, creative, innovative ideas. This impression may have been strengthened by the variety both of existing technological innovations that just have not yet been implemented at large scale, and small organizational initiatives by various local groups, companies, and individuals. This assessment was not shared by all participants; more fundamental changes were called for.

                        The overall findings suggest an urgent need for innovation at the organizational level. It is evident that all those small initiatives are largely uncoordinated (though easy access to information by new technology is helping at all levels). Funding and government support is inconsistent at best and at times even inhibiting implementation of innovation. In part, this is caused by the resistance of existing industries who perceive innovation as competition and use their size, economic power and influence in government to preserve their status, and in part by the inertia of large organizations, especially in government.

Limitations of the Discussion

            Any recommendations derived from the discussion must be assessed within a perspective of its inherent limitations. Observations about these limitations (which are likely to also apply to any wider, global discussion) include the following:

            The discussion was constrained by the online forum format and the common phenomena and distractions resulting from the fact that such online discussions serve various human needs in addition to seeking effective resolution of the problems discussed. Many contributors pursued different areas of interest within the overall topic, without any agreed-upon process or structure. Therefore it cannot be expected to produce concrete answers to the key question of the Secretary General’s address: a valid complete ‘economic model for survival’, much less coherent system descriptions in the form of mathematical models (together with adequate data for these models) that could have been tested and evaluated for validity.

            Nevertheless, a number of suggestions for the construction of such models were made, based on the knowledge, experience and judgment of participants with a wide range of backgrounds. The group did not, of course, have the resources or time to perform the work needed for actual in-depth data collection, analysis and model development. This coincided with the widely shared principle that any coherent global strategy to address the problems could not and should not be proposed for implementation by fiat, by any authority, but should result from a process of research, experimentation, experience from actual projects and initiatives that are already underway, theoretical work and research, but most importantly from a global discourse fed by the results from both, with wide participation, and a process of education distributing the resulting agreements and knowledge. The role of such models must be seen more as tools to enhance understanding of the system relationships involved than actual instruments for prediction of system performance and policy formation.

            The attempts to develop more specific models for understanding (and to reach agreement about these even within the group) encountered surprising difficulties not only with regard to time and resources for the work, as mentioned, but also with regard to two aspects inherent in the Systems Thinking perspective itself. One is the fact that even within that perspective, there are already so many different variations of approaches and conceptual frames of reference with their own vocabulary, that remarkable problems of communication occurred. Many groups working on applications of systems thinking have felt it necessary to develop ‘brand names’ for their versions of the approach and their constituent concepts, resulting in a flurry of esoteric names and acronyms. Such communication problems must be expected to be even greater outside of the group. The other aspect resulted from the very success of e.g. commercial applications of the approach, that have turned into prescriptive routines for ‘systems thinking’ work on problems for clients. Insistence on agreement to follow the sequence of such steps as a condition for even beginning to discuss subsequent steps and solutions at times significantly delayed the group’s progress towards formulating a coherent response to the UN call. This was evident for example in discussions about ‘essential first steps’ and conditions for the evolution of a new model: while some participants urged starting and continuing various action initiatives and projects, expecting more widespread change and shifts in consciousness to result from such activities, others saw a change in mindset and values as a prerequisite ‘first step’ for any meaningful action.

            While the composition of the group looked quite diverse in some respects -- with participants from many different professions and disciplines, there were few if any participants from economics and political economics. It should also be noted that participation from many areas of the world, -- the Middle East, much of Europe,  Africa, Latin America and most of Asia -- was less than representative of the variety of cultural beliefs and values in all these regions, -- beliefs and values seen as playing a significant role in confronting the challenges. This could of course simply be a result of the fact that the discussion was started in English.

            The admirable decision by the group to respond to the call with more than some superficial or standard blog comments must be seen as an indication of the participants’ conviction that they can contribute something of value to the problem, that they feel able to produce -- from their systems perspective -- revolutionary thinking if not action that would help solve the problems. A simple textbook answer to the question of how the systems approach would go about this task suggests that the analyst would examine the system, meaning: to identify its components, the relationships between the components (some views are speaking of components as ‘stocks’ and the relationships as ‘flows’ between them), and to describe these entities and relationships so as to first ‘understand’ the system. The analysis and understanding might mean to develop mathematical models of the system structure, to carry out calculations and simulations of the system’s behavior, testing the models to see if its behavior matches observed behavior in the real system. The validated model then enables the analyst to identify critical system components (‘leverage points’) where appropriate intervention might produce desired results. It is usually not entirely clear whether the analyst is able and/or entitled to define what system behavior (outcomes) are desirable, or where these determinations would come from. 

            The discussion has, understandably, not produced such results. A curious dichotomy of responses could be observed: On the one hand a willingness, even eagerness to pronounce basic conditions that must be met, put in place, before meaningful system transformation can be attempted. (Such transformation is almost universally seen as desirable, while the precise nature of the transformation is hotly disputed.)  Most such posts had to do with thinking, attitudes, beliefs, values and ethics. On the other hand, one could observe a reluctance to engage in the development of more detailed system design recommendations -- based on the argument that ‘first, we must understand the system’.  Many contributions provided links to reports, books, blogs, talks (videos), studies and links to reports of actual initiatives and projects already being undertaken, that represent ‘change’ from current normative practices and processes. However, any recommendations attached to such links rarely went beyond pointing out that it is ‘an interesting effort’ or view, perhaps that ‘more’ such actions should be encouraged. The basis of such recommendations rarely was a demonstration of superior system performance according to some valid measure of performance,  but mainly the insistence that the effort is guided by valid, desirable principles and intentions.

            A different assessment of what such a discussion could produce might focus on the ‘understanding the system’ precondition for action. Resulting recommendations would be based on participants’ judgment presumably honed by training and experience with such work. So far, no effort has been made to systematically examine the over 4,600 posts to arrive at reliably consistent patterns or consensus of insight by the participants, much less for looking at how such insights might translate into firm recommendations for solutions. Much of the considerable effort by some members (especially the moderator) to summarize the discussion was focused on developing a system for organizing the material from all the posts and links, and on relating the items to topics such as the UN list of threats to survival. Data mining, data clustering, “synergising of data into ‘bubbles’ of information much like the synergisms that seem to appear at the boundary conditions of chaos” were seriously being proposed as vehicles for culling meaning and sense from the many posts.