All Crises Are Local - (2)
Problem-Solving The COVID-19 Global Pandemic from a simple systems perspective
The following is the second of three excerpts from my short book, All Crises are Local: Understanding the COVID-19 Global Pandemic. It was written during late spring and early summer 2020 and published along with four other short books in late August of that year.
Over the course of the summer, I’ll be posting to paid subscribers excerpts from the seven short books that I wrote between April 2020 and July 2021. They are available in both Kindle and softcover formats at amazon.com/author/edbrenegar.
PART TWO
The Circle of Impact Model for Solving Problems
The Circle of Impact is a simple, universal model with a range of uses. You can use it for problem solving, for analyzing situations, for creating future strategies, for making decisions, for conducting employee reviews, and for setting agendas for meetings. Anyone can learn to use it. Yes, anyone. It does not require a mastery of complex philosophical terms. Instead, all that is required is the willingness to observe the behaviors of peopithin an organizational setting, ask questions to make sense of what you see, and then apply the steps. The result is that people develop leadership capacities to function in their roles that were not available to them before.
At the most basic level, the Circle of Impact is a tool to help people take personal initiative to create impact that makes a difference in their organization and for their local community.
Three Simple Steps
To apply the Circle of Impact we begin by identifying what the problem is. Next, we ask which one of the three dimensions –Ideas, Relationships or Structure - is the source of the problem.
I’ve learned that “the solution to most problems is not in the problem itself”. Our binary, linear approach to problem solving leads us to think so. We are taught to break a problem apart into its parts. Fix the broken part. The problem with this approach is that the solution isolates the problem from the interdependent system.
The COVID-19 virus, for example, is not the first coronavirus that we’ve encountered. If my understanding is correct, this is the fifth coronavirus that has been identified. However, because we think reductively and reactively, we were not prepared for a viral pandemic. Would a holistic perspective have changed that? Maybe. I’d like to know.
The third step in the Circle of Impact method is that we turn to the other two dimensions as our resources for solving the problem. If the problem is a Structure problem, then the Ideas and Relationships dimensions are how we will solve the problem.
Applying the Three Steps of the Circle of Impact to the global pandemic?
We begin by stating the problem.
Problem Statement
As a systems problem, what should be the response to the COVID-19 pandemic?
Is it an Idea problem?
Do our government leaders understand the coronavirus pandemic problem as a systems one or solely as a public health crisis?
Do we understand all that we need to know about the medical science in order to be adequately informed about coronaviruses?
Are we confident that those responsible for global public health are adequately informed about the social and economic impact of their decisions?
Do we, as citizens of our individual nations, have access to all the information that we need to make our own responsible, informed choices?
The quality measure of the Idea dimension is clarity. When we ask these questions, we want to be clear about what I call the Four Connecting Ideas – Values, Purpose, Vision, and Impact. As the Circle of Impact model diagram shows, each of these ideas link together the Three Dimensions. Here’s how it works.
We want to be clear about our values. If you do nothing else as a result of reading this short book, take time to be clear about what your values are. Our values form a belief system that informs who we are and how we want to live our lives.