Via Johnnie, comes a sweet elucidation from David Weinberger about the creeping relgion of “accountabalism:”
The Folly of Accountabalism
Accountability has gone horribly wrong. It has become “accountabalism,” the practice of eating sacrificial victims in an attempt to magically ward off evil.
The emphasis on accountability was an understandable response to some god-awful bookkeeping-based scandals. But the notion would never have evolved from a buzzword into the focus of voluminous legislation if we hadn’t also been lured by the myth of precision: Because accountability suggests that there is a right and a wrong answer to every question, it flourishes where we can measure results exactly. It spread to schools–where it is eating our young–as a result of our recent irrational exuberance about testing, which forces education to become something that can be measured precisely.
When such disincentives as the threat of having to wear an orange jumpsuit for eight to ten years didn’t stop the Enron nightmare and other bad things from happening, accountabalism whispered two seductive lies to us: Systems go wrong because of individuals; and the right set of controls will enable us to prevent individuals from creating disasters. Accountabalism is a type of superstitious thinking that allows us to live in a state of denial about just how little control we individuals have over our environment.
Accountabalism manifests itself in a set of related beliefs and practices:
It looks at complex systems that have gone wrong for complex reasons and decides the problem can be solved at the next level of detail. Another set of work procedures is written, and yet more forms are printed up. But businesses are not mechanical, so we can’t fine-tune them by making every process a well-regulated routine. Accountabalism turns these complex systems into merely complicated systems, sacrificing innovation and adaptability. How can a company be agile if every change or deviation requires a new set of forms?
Accountabalism assumes perfection–if anything goes wrong, it’s a sign that the system is broken. That’s not true even of mechanical systems: Entropy, friction, and manufacturing tolerances ensure that no machine works perfectly. Social systems are incapable of anything close to perfection, so if something goes wrong in one, that need not mean the system is broken. If an employee cheats on expenses by filling in taxi receipts for himself, the organization doesn’t have to “fix” the expense-reporting system by requiring that everyone travel with a notary public.
Accountabalism is blind to human nature. For example, it assumes that if we know we’re being watched, we won’t do wrong–which seriously underestimates the twistiness of human minds and motivations. We are capable of astounding degrees of self-delusion regarding the likelihood of our being caught. Further, by overly formalizing processes, accountabalism refuses to acknowledge that people work and think differently. It eliminates the human variations that move institutions forward and provide a check on the monoculture that accounts for most disastrous decisions. It also makes work no fun.
Accountabalism bureaucratizes and atomizes responsibility. While claiming to increase individual responsibility, it drives out human judgment. When a sign-off is required for every step in the work flow, those closest to a process lack the leeway to optimize or rectify it. Similarly, by assuming that an individual’s laxness caused a given problem–if so-and-so hadn’t been asleep at the switch or hadn’t gotten greedy or hadn’t assumed that somebody else would clean up the mess, none of this would have happened–accountabalism can miss systemic causes of failure, even, ironically, as it responds to the problem by increasing the system’s reach.
Accountabalism tries to squeeze centuries of thought about how to entice people toward good behavior and dissuade them from bad into simple rules by which individuals can be measured and disciplined. It would react to a car crash by putting stop signs at every corner. Bureaucratizing morality or mechanizing a complex organization gives us the sense that we can exert close control. But grown-ups prefer clarity and realism to happy superstition.
[tags]accountability, David Weinberger[/tags]
The truth, from a site that excels in getting it right: indexed. Props to Dave Snowdon for the link
Several people on the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation list have been noticing the line taken by US Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton regarding engaging in dialogue with Americans. Both candidates have launched their campaings with a promise to engage Americans in conversations to learn more about what’s on the collective mind.
Obama:
For the next several weeks, I am going to talk with people from around the country, listening and learning more about the challenges we face as a nation, the opportunities that lie before us, and the role that a presidential campaign might play in bringing our country together. And on February 10th, at the end of these decisions and in my home state of Illinois, I’ll share my plans with my friends, neighbors and fellow Americans
No matter where you live, no matter what your political views, I want you to be a part of this important conversation right at the start. So to begin, I’m going to spend the next several days answering your questions in a series of live video web discussions. Starting Monday, January 22, at 7 p.m. EST for three nights in a row, I’ll sit down to answer your questions about how we can work together for a better future. And you can participate live at my website. Sign up to join the conversation here.
I have had experience with the political process as a policy maker, citizen engagement consultant, lobbyist and within party structures here in Canada.
I generally give very little stock to politicians that talk about dialogue in the context of a political campaign. That isn’t to say that some parties and politicians don’t genuinely believe in the dialogue process. It’s just that in the context of a a campaign there is too much at stake to actually have a real dialogue with the public.
Before a politican launches a campaign, the dialogue is is mostly over. It has been held with people in the party, with the supporters of the candidate and those in the structures of power that need the confidence to endorse this one person as representative of their views and interests. No one would put millions of dollars into a political campaign that was going to find its agenda through dialogue with citizens.
Having said that, I have been remarkably surprised over the years at how much incredibly deep dialogic deliberation actually goes on behind the scenes in various party circles and in the corridors of power. While some of this is simply naked influence, political parties can sometimes be interesting crucibles for ideas to tackle the biggest issues facing a country.
And certainly I have had many, many experiences where polticians, once elected, engage in deeper dialogue with citizens. Once the election is won, the ones who truly care about dialogue are free to attend and engage in the Open Space meeting, the talking circles, World Cafe’s, and other intensive dialogues with citizens where the outcome is unknown and what is needed is openness and willingness to explore ideas, away from preconceived notions and ideologies. I have worked with provincial premiers, federal and provincial cabinet ministers, members of the opposition, municipal and regional leaders as well using all of these tools and processes, and the politcians have nearly always made the point that they have learned something in the process of engaging in dialogue.
I think this must be true in the States as well, at the more local levels of governance. It would surprise and delight me to see a president engage so vulnerably though, especially with all that is invested in the outcomes of a presidency. Instead what tends to happen is that they loosen the tie, grab the hand held mic and stand in a town hall where they engage in some friendly and spirited cross-examination with public and don’t really learn anything at all. And this seems peculiar to America, in which the leader doesn’t have the same polticial accountability that our prime ministers have by having to face questions in Parliament. In that context, where a president can spend eight years as a hermit, a town hall is a startling thing to see. But it’s not dialogue as we all know, and it conforms to the same safe approach to citizen engagement that protects the political investmnts in the holder of high office.
I think the proof of the tasting for these leadership hopefuls will be first of all in how they respond to the grassroots dialogues that do emerge around their compaigns, a tack taken by Howard Dean in 2000. And then it will be interesting to see what happens when and if they actually get elected, but it would surprise me if even Barack Obama turned to conversations with Americans to set policy in the same way with the same weight that he responded to conversations with the power structures that set tha American agenda regardless of who is in office – large multinational commercial interests, global poltical alliances, economic markets and domestic advisors and strategists.
[tags]Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, politics[/tags]
Picture a field in which someone has planted wheat.
We imagine the harvest from that field to look lkike a farmer using equipment to cut down the wheat, thresh it, and seperate the seeds from the stalks.
Now imagine a geologist a biologist and a painter harvesting from the same field. The geologist picks through the rocks and soil gathering data about the land itself. The biologist might collect insects and worms, bits of plants and organic matter. The painter sees the patterns in the landscape and chooses a pallete and a perspective for work of art.
They all harvest differently from the field, and the results of their work go to different places and are put to different uses. But they all have a few things in common; they have a purpose for being in the field and a set of questions about that purpose, they have a pre-determined place to use the results of the harvest, and they have specific tools to use in doing their work.
What’s useful to note is that, despite the field being the same, the tools and results are specific to the purpose and the inquiry.
It is like this when we meet. There is much we can do, but a well thought through inquiry helps us to sift all that we might learn in the meeting to that which serves our purpose. When we can design questions that open up our curiosity, think through how we might use the results of our work and use the tools appropriate to the task, we can go deeper into our tasks and acheive emergent, innovative and better quality results.
So just try this for the next meeting you are a part of. Give some time before hand to create a little inquiry: “What am I curious about in this meeting?” Think in advance how the results of that inquiry will help you work better, and decide on at least one way in which you will use what you have learned. See if that doesn’t create just a little more engagement and createa little more momentum for the results.
Photo by Hector
In the Netherlands, a groupd of kids has challenged a government minister to see who can reduce their power consumption the most:
Being 14 is no obstacle to helping the planet, judging by the example of a group of Dutch school kids fired up by an idea as bright as an energy-saving light bulb.
The schoolchildren from Almere taking part in The Bet
Thanks indirectly to their efforts, vehicles at the Netherlands’ environment ministry will be running on natural gas by the spring of 2007.
The teenagers in Almere, a futuristic new town near Amsterdam, had called on the environment minister to outdo them personally in ways to save energy.
Over four weeks, and under the arbitration of environmental organisation Friends of the Earth, the two sides vied to come up with ideas for meeting the European Union’s minimum Kyoto goal of 8% savings.
Children from Helen Parkhurst School, which already has its own wind turbines, pursued The Bet at home, in class and in local businesses.
If they lost, the kids – average age 14 – would have to pull State Secretary Pieter van Geel around The Hague for a day in a rickshaw.
And guess who won? The kids reduced their energy consumption by 33% beating the minister’s 20% reduction.
This is an outstanding idea. I wonder what other challenges kids could think of to put in front of politicians? Pure passion bounded by responsibility.