Clash of two world views – economic growth or environmental catastrophe

I had been wanting to construct a post on this subject for some time, but had been avoiding it, in part because friends told me that I was in danger of promoting an unrealistic utopian vision. However, I can no longer resist some idealism, driven on by two recent-ish events that spurred me to pitch some ideas into this debate. I started to write this post last year – and wanted to create a more comprehensive commentary. However, rather than continuing to hold back  on the assumption that I would have the time to create something better (which will never happen) I have closed this post off somewhat abruptly. As a consequence its not as well thought through as I would have wished it to be – and there are perhaps some obvious ‘holes’ in the rationale.

The first event was large and obvious – the ongoing financial crisis, which started to make people think about the precariousness of the world economic system on which we all depend. The second was small, and not widely promulgated beyond a sub-population of avid science readers, which was a special report in the UK’s New Scientist magazine.  This report is entitled “How our economy is killing the earth”

The issue that I had been wanting to raise for discussion was one of how we measure well being and what the impact of this measurement is on national and international social and economic policy. What concerned me, and obviously many others,  is that GDP does not measure whether we are improving our lot or not. One of the New Scientist articles points to a number of alternative indices to GDP including the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, which has evolved into the General Progress Indicator. If you read the Wikipedia article on GPI you will note that its states the following “By the early 1990s there was a consensus in human development theory and ecological economics that growth in money supply was actually reflective of a loss of well-being”.

Despite this, when you hear politicians speak, you will only infrequently hear concern for our well being. More often than not, you will hear instead them talking about the need for sustained economic growth, and how important the UK’s GDP is for the “health” of our nation.

So the situation we presently find oursleves in is:

(a) If we have growth we are arguably less content, less happy with our lives.

(b) We have an economic system, supported by our political elite, that suggests that sustained growth is good for us

(c) Our planet has finite resources that are being consumed at a frightening pace – and unless some real science and technology breakthroughs occur – the accelerating consumption spurred on by the sustained growth that economists and politicians claim we cannot do without – cannot be sustained. Worse than this – we will potentially create an environment in which life is much less pleasant than it is now. Frighteningly, if you listen to James Lovelock – of Gaia hypothesis fame – he already thinks we are too late to stop things deteriorating badly.

The question would appear to be pretty obvious – why are we not changing direction now – and quickly?

Scientific American Article on Origins of Open Plan Office

I just noticed a recent article, in Scientific American of all places, on the origins of the open plan office.

What I found particularly interesting is that the original intent was to improve the workplace, but that businesses just took the idea and used it for their own, less well meaning objective of saving on costs. Too often this pattern of behaviour appears i.e. a change is justified on the supposed benefits, but these so called benefits are all to often a poor, and easily seen through obsfuscation for the “real”, and less appealing reasons.

Sadly the article also notes that organisations cherry picked the space saving pieces of the Herman Miller office furniture range and left out those that added a more humanising touch, with the end result that one of Herman Miller’s designers disavowed what he had helped to spawn, calling it “monolithic insanity.”

I could not have put it better myself.

No time for holidays

Hi, I have not posted for a while, and the reason is that I have just been too busy. So what has prompted me to jot something down now? Well the reason is the apparent increasing problem with taking a holiday.

I have been trying to take some much needed leave for the past week and failing miserably. It seems that I am not the only one: this is a very common problem.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2946134.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2256384.stm

http://www.bytestart.co.uk/content/legal/35_1/no-summer-holidays.shtml

For those of you who think this is a problem confined to the UK and the US, this article indicates that the stereotypical laid-back Australians also have the same problem.

http://health.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=146428

This article also indicates why taking a break is good for you – so why don’t more of us manage it?

I am particularly keen to take a break – as the last two years I have sufferred from leisure sickness.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2002/nov/26/healthandwellbeing.health

I am not overly keen on the final suggestion in this last article, that of simply avoiding holdays, as this simply perpetuates the problem. I have therefore been trying another strategy of taking a weeks leave before heading off to sunnier climes. The hypothesis here is that a gradual wind-down from work will avoid the sudden jolt from high-pressure work to lazing around, and if this does not work, at least the illness occurs at home and there is time to recover before travelling elsewhere. However, this approach has singly failed for the last three years: remaining at home means that you are still too accessible to work.

The media quote some potential rationale for why people are failing to take their holidays, but how valid are these? Do they even apply in my case? As ever things are not as simple as the media would suggest.

1. Is it because I fear loss of my job? – not at the moment as there appears to be more work than people to do it.

2. Is it because I am a workaholic and cannot stop? – well I admit that I have this addiction – but that is not the reason either – as I am desperate for a break.

3. Is it because management are demanding that I do the work? – no that is not right – the pressure is more subtle than that (more later).

4. Is it because I fear that things will go out of control if I am not there? – no its not that one either.

So what is going on? Well it seems that every year, precisely when I have leave planned, some new urgent, critical tasks magically appear. When this happens there is an expectation from customers, management and colleagues that you, like them, will simply get “stuck in”.

Also, as I noted earlier, remaining at home before travelling means that you cannot use the excuse of dire financial penalties as a reason that you cannot participate. The end result is that you are pressured into giving up your leave and joining everyone else to meet the often crazy schedules to get the urgent task completed on time. Thus by the time your time away arrives, you are even more frazzled than normal, and the step change between work and leave is even bigger, with the inevitable end result – illness and a return to work feeling worse than when you left. Not much of a rest is it?

So I will leave you with a few questions.

In today’s highly pressured work environments, where our cut-to-the-bone organisations have no fat in the form of colleagues with the time or equivalent knowledge sets to act in reserve, is holiday ever safe?

Have we built a society and work environment that is simply bad for our health, both physically and mentally?

Are there any answers or strategies that organisations or individual workers can employ to deal with this problem or is it more systemic?

Control of Children and Adults

I have been prompted to write again after watching the final episode of a TV series on the Summerhill School.

I was disappointed, as I had not realised what this four part drama series was about, and had thus missed an opportunity to listen to more. I have been a big fan of the regime at Summerhill for some time, not least because it is a shining example of how it is possible to avoid the damage wreaked by the audit culture on our schools and our children. I just wish there were more institutions and people brave and resourceful enough to make the same stand that Summerhill did; that would give parents some real choice, rather than simply limited variants of the same formalised state regulated regime that we have at the moment.

Summerhill also demonstrates that the control culture, so pervasively introduced by recent governments of all colours, is sapping the life out of our children, making them less innovative, less independent, less questioning, ultimately less rounded citizens.

What the Summerhill regime rails against is a culture which coerces children into doing what adults believe is “right” for them, rather than allowing children to flourish because they are self motivated to learn about things that interest them. They are also more likely to continue this enthusiasm and curiosity-led learning once they leave school, a sound basis on which to do well later in life.

What I have now realised, is that it is this same coercion that I also rail against in my own life – but back to that point in a moment. Reading around the story of Summerhill led me to a book by John Holt entitled “How Children Learn”. Holt is of the view that parents and educators get in the way of children’s natural learning processes by teaching them a meaningless curriculum in industrial factory settings. He also rejects the idea that knowledge should be taught in an abstract manner, using the example of teaching fractions, which have little real-world application. This struck a chord with me, as this is currently one of my children’s pet hates in her mathematical curriculum. She has even asked me what the point of learning how to manipulate fractions is, and if she will ever use this skill in ‘real life’. Perhaps I should stop trying to persuade her of its value by proposing spurious rational explanations, and simply agree with her.

After reading about Holt’s ideas on the web, I found pointers to several related works and ideas, including some thoughts on the use of “rewards” as a means of control, which brings me neatly back to the earlier concern about coercion in the workplace. These ideas help to explain why reward systems so repel me personally:

• Reward systems are basically a controlling tool, devised in order to elicit desirable behaviour.
• Reward systems sustain power relationships, and that knowing one’s work is being constantly scrutinised and judged increases feelings of anxiety and stress, and leads to a lowering of performance
• Reward systems undermine creativity and innovation because (a) creativity and innovation implies risky behaviours that may be deemed outside of expected measurable norms and (b) individuals who conform to expected standards of behaviour tend to get the maximum benefits
• Reward systems tend to degrade personal interest and enjoyment of activities as they replace intrinsic motivation to do something with an extrinsic, controlling force.

The above provides an explanation for why I personally find performance assessment, performance pay systems, and formal criteria-based promotion assessments so difficult to deal with. That is, they seem to be designed more as a tool for control and coercion, rather than a valid device for delivering a rounded assessment.

Move photons not people (4)

Office castles going out of the window

Just came across this article on watercooler confidential. Its another example of an organisation that has recognised that you can work a different way to get business benefits, employee benefits, and cut your carbon emissions, ….all in one fell swoop.

Criminals or Children (part 2)

One of my first posts was on the changing relationship between managers and employees, and specifically on increasing numbers of control measures, and infantilisation and criminalisation of employee behaviour.

https://honi.wordpress.com/2006/12/29/employees-criminals-or-children/

I was pondering on this topic again, and wondered if there was a parallel cultural change that was occurring in society as a whole i.e. replace the relationship between management and employees with state and citizen. Do we not see the same sort of change, which is why we hear cries of “nanny state”?

Before I go further, as noted in my “about” page, I do not wish to imply any degree of expertness on subjects such as this, and I reserve the right to change my mind as a result of discussion with more informed thinkers. However, nonetheless, the following is offered as a potential trigger for an interesting debate.

The wikipedia entry on this term seems confused, as the definition in the “overview” section appears different to that in the “various uses of term”, but it is more the latter concept to which I am referring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanny_state

The consequences of the nanny state hadn’t really impacted on me, and thus registered how annoying they could be, until last year. I managed to injure my chest on holiday, and the only way to stay pain free for the three months it took to heal, was to take regular doses of painkillers. Prescription charges can be pretty high for regular drugs, so I took to purchasing these myself, except that I could never buy enough, because nanny state assumed that the only reason I could possibly want that many painkillers was to overdose myself – ridiculous! Thus my interest in this subject was piqued.

Some commentators believe that we really should desire a nanny state e.g.

http://society.guardian.co.uk/futureforpublicservices/comment/0,,1114555,00.html

Inevitably, politicians also agree, most famously Patricia Hodge who said “For me it’s not a question of whether we should intrude in family life, but how and when”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4044815.stm

I wonder how many people find such comments comforting and how many frightening, and I put myself firmly in the latter camp. But, maybe I am in the minority, for as the BBC claimed from the results of a survey, most people actually appear to want a nanny state!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3839447.stm

Strangely, in this article from the BBC, and despite being a non-smoker, I find myself strongly agreeing with the points of view put across by the two smoking lobbyists.

There is perhaps another way to look at this issue, and this is to consider the two idealogical positions that one could take i.e. either supporting big or small government. Brian Walden wrote an excellent article on this subject.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4368095.stm

There are a few points I would like to draw out of this piece, and to start:

“The idea that the government exists to solve our problems has become so deep-seated that it is reflected in the media by the famous question “What is the government going to do?” This is not confined to war, or famine, or even lack of beds in hospitals. It pops up everywhere from teenage drunkenness to old folk left on their own – the issues of the people.”

and a comment left in response was:

“People in the media never even take a step back and ask “is the government even capable of doing something effective about this” (which it usually isn’t) or “would government intervention actually make things worse” (which it usually does by reducing individual responsibility and making people even more state-dependent, perpetuating the cycle). “

How on earth did we allow this to happen? How did we get ourselves to the position that we think the answer to a huge swathe of our personal and societal problems is to ask the government to solve them? Where has our individual and collective social responsibility gone? Have we given up on our responsibilities and instead subjugated ourselves to a “Jim will fixit” state as surrogate parent? Have we all become permanently infantilised, both in our home and work life?

Another of the comments left in response to Brian’s article echoes the questions I have just posed, in that we are seemingly absolving ourselves of responsibility.

“We need someone to blame because in this modern society, we are unable to accept responsibility for our own actions. When children run amok in the streets it is not the parents’ fault, but society’s and ultimately the government for not giving them enough to do/giving them enough money/providing them with a proper education etc.”

The answer for government, as frequently is the case, is one of balance. Small government would simply not be acceptable, as we have all got used to the basic benefits that the state provides to us. However, we have arguably exceeded the bounds of what is sensible, and there should be a debate about what we might reasonably expect of the state and what we should not desire the state to intervene in.

To achieve this would require all of us to think more carefully about what is going on around us, both in our families and in our communities, and be willing to take whatever action is necessary to effect change, as frequently this change does not require state intervention. For example, obesity in children and adults is something we can individually and collectively deal with in our family and community situations. Sure we can ask for advice, but more than this is arguably too much.

As commentators on this subject have noted, maybe we get the government we implicitly ask for; exemplified by another responder to Brian Walden’s article who states: “It isn’t that people actually want ‘big government’, it’s that people don’t know what they want, because they have not learned to think for themselves. ‘Big government’ simply fills the void”

To sum up, perhaps the ultimate answer is the medicine proposed by Charles Nevin, in the form of “the simple, old-fashioned dosage so enthusiastically prescribed earlier: education, education, education.”

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2004210.ece

Move photons not people (3)

I just stumbled across a very interesting initiative in the UK that addresses many of the issues that I raised in my previous two posts on this subject.

The initiative is called Workwise and the website can be found here.

http://www.workwiseuk.org/

Its really heartening to see a group of people, and organisations from across the public and private sectors taking this seriously.

The sad thing was that one of the commentators at the summit questioned the value of more flexible working and whether it works for Small to Medium Enterprises – he argued that the agenda was ‘large organisation’ and public sector driven, rather than it being a groundswell from a large number of smaller organisations.

Despite this, there is much to make you think contained in this site. I would recommend listening to the video highlights from the Summit, in particular those from Ruth Kelly MP, Clive Ansell from BT – but especially that from Sir Digby Jones which I found compelling.

Move photons not people (2)

I just happened to pick up the Sunday Telegraph last week and noticed an article which appeared to strongly support my previous comments on this topic. Article

Stufforama also noted the same piece.

The article states that, according to Miles Templeman, the institute’s director-general: “offering employees greater flexibility would ease pressure on transport networks and cut rush-hour power demand – thereby reducing emissions. Mr Templeman apparently urged ministers not to rush into policies that risked harming the economy, such as caps on emissions and carbon taxes.

Speaking ahead of the institute’s annual convention later this week, he criticised the Government over its “ideological” approach to climate change.”

The current approach to persuading people to change their behaviour seems mostly to be punitive, i.e. impose constraints and levy charges in attempt to force people to do something. Instead of this approach, or in addition to, why not try to support new ways of living that simultaneously benefit people and benefit the environment? In this case, encourage more flexible working, which can aid workers, the companies they work for, their families and the environment. Obviously not every type of employment is suitable for such a flexible working approach, but a substantial proportion is.

A good start would be for the public sector to show a good example, backed up with encouragement and advice from government, perhaps even with limited financial incentives for organisations as well (financial incentives should already be there for employees in terms of reduced transport costs).

 So what are we waiting for?

The Trap: Whatever happened to our dreams of freedom?

Just watched the first programme of a new series of “The Trap: What happened to our dreams of freedom”, a set of films by Adam Curtis that started on Sunday 11th March on BBC2.

The programme started with a description of the emergene of game theory at RAND, focusing on one of its leading thinkers, John Nash. It described how these ideas came about, from the need to develop strategies for the use of nuclear weapons in the cold war.

It was noted that, in the game theory that they developed, all players were treated as simple, cold, calculating agents, all attempting to optimise outcomes for themselves out of self interest.

The ideas on game theory then got picked up by a number of leading people, and fed into diverse fields such as psychiatry, economics and social policy, fields that were never intended applications of the theory (and thus one can question its appropriateness).

Apparently one of Margaret Thatcher’s advisers was another proponent of these same game theoretic ideas. These ideas were used to shake up the public service, and government departments, including the National Health Service.

This led to the generation of the internal market, which it was argued, took control away from the senior clinicians and allowed all staff to contribute to innovative ways of attaining targets. This allegedly contributed to freedom, but in reality was only freedom to operate within an already narrowly defined space.

The conclusion of the programe was that our society, government and organisations are now all infuenced by these same game-theoretic ideas, ideas that deny a richer view of human existence, influding the role of emotion and altruism etc. It suggested that we are all being driven into becoming the very simple, narrow, self-interested agents that the cold-war models assumed existed. What a sad view of the present and future.

I await with interest to see how the rest of the series expands on this subject.

I found it immensley interesting as it puts another slant on a topic which I hope to post on in the future, which is about measurement, control and the death of professionalism.

Workplace progress or journey to worplace hell?

Introduction

The physical workplace has been changing over the last four decades. This change started in the United States and has migrated as a phenomena around the world. But was this a good idea? It is my own view that the jury is still out in terms of having sufficient evidence that workplace changes have been beneficial, so why are organisations still adopting the new models? It is perhaps another example of the cowpath principle, discussed in another posting in this blog. Management, Herding and Cow Paths