Knotty Problems and Simple Solutions

I smile everytime I see this cartoon. It seems to reflect the world of schools very well - and I guess most social worlds.  So many things that look simple, linear or direct in theory, are starkly different to a complex, knotted and circuitous reality.

I am struck by this again and again, .

Problem:  Lot of drunk people at football games.
Linear Solution:  Ban alcohol.

Result:  Increased intoxication problems; fans were getting really drunk before entering the stadium.

                  

Problem:  School district feel it is spending too much on heating schools

Linear Solution:   Make it mandatory for schools to drop their room temperatures to save on electricity.

Result:   Teachers brought their own heaters into school and the use of electricity increased.

Problem:  Athens heavily polluted by traffic.
Linear Solution:  Ban cars with odd-numbered and even-numbered license plates on alternating days.
Result:  People bought a second, differently numbered car as their backup. As the second car was older with worse emissions, the streets stayed clogged, and pollution became worse.

Problem:  Patients waiting for long time to be seen in UK hospital emergency rooms       
Linear Solution:  Define maximum waiting time in emergency rooms.
Result:  Patients were made to wait in another room so as not to "start the clock".

Problem:  Parent late to pick up children from nursery at closing time.
Linear Solution:  Charge late parent for every hour they were late to pick up their children.
Result:  Late pickups then increased as parents had now found relatively cheap babysitting.

Problem:  Waiting times to see GPs are too long.
Linear Solution:  Sets 14 day target for maximum waiting list times to see a doctor.
Result:  Doctors stopped taking bookings for appointments more than 14 days in the future.

In each of these case the solution was put forward and implemented by smart people, who were effectively the people in the cartoon above looking at the A------->B flipchart.  The problem is the underlying mental models of cause and effect.  If we treat complex systems, with feedback loops and autonomous agents with multiple competing preferences, as simple linear couplings, then we are likely to be missing something.   The problems are genuine ones, and deserve a bit more respect that are given by the solutions suggested.  It's an old problem (see here on spitting cobras and academic results), and it doesn't go away.  So here are a few other issues: 

Problem:  Students don't enjoy a subject / teacher

Linear Solution:  Replace teacher, or move student to another class.

Problem:  School trips have significant carbon footprint

Linear Solution:  Stop school trips.

Problem:  Students vaping at school

Linear Solution:  Place large 'no vaping signs' around school; install more security cameras.

Problem:  Students not completing work on time

Linear Solution:  Issue detentions where students complete work outside of school time in supervised conditions.                      

Problem:  Students stressed by exams / competition / grades.
Linear Solution:  Remove the exams / competition / grades.  Spend time discussing wellbeing.

Problem:  Offensive language and behaviours
Linear Solution:  Introduce stern punishments for reports of these languages and behaviours.

Each of these problems is real, and important, but each one exists in the real world outside of linear causation and in each case the linear solution (i) may work (ii) may have no effect (iii) may make the situation much worse.  It's this latter case that is, of course, most worrying - that our well-intentioned interventions can have the opposite effect to what we had intended.  I leave it to your imagination to imagine the effect of each of the linear solutions on the problems above.  If it helps, do also consider that each student, teacher and parent may react different to any proposed solution.  Doing this seems to me to be a large part of what school leadership is all about; ensuring we look at the messy bits, and not pretending things are simple, as we come to decisions.

So if we need to treat the simple, linear (likely compliance-oriented, in my experience) solutions with care, what might be better approaches?  How should be think about these issues?  For me, researchers Bennis and Nanus are on to something when they argue that a major task of leadership is the management of attention rather than the management of any specific task.  So what to attend to?  The answer has to be to attend to the principles that guide us, as they align with our mission values, and to ensure we have a shared understanding of them.  The beauty and frustration of the principles is that they need careful interpretation, and tend to open up thinking rather than provide easy answers.  Here are some examples we use - our Learning Principles,  our Teacher Standards and our Leadership Standards.  If you fancy it, try applying them to the problems above - and see the tensions and ambiguities that emerge.  These reflect the outside world in the cartoon; perhaps a new way of interpreting  the familiar "thinking outside the box" idea.

References

Bennis W. and Nanus, B. (1965) Leaders.  New York: Harper and Row
Thanks to Carla Marschall for the cartoon.