Do You Decide In A Vacuum?

No.

Decisions are products of a system (of thoughts, habits, patterns of behaviour). Inputs, we might call them.

This is true for you, running your business, your home.

This is true for government.

Big companies have an unhealthy hold over Government.

Worry not, I’m not getting all conspiracy on you.

Understanding the context from which decisions evolve is important. Understanding the relationships from which they arise.

Little people have more power than they think.

And I don’t mean physically little.

< 6ft = more power.
6ft> = less power.

No, not like that.

I mean you, me, Aunt Jane; the little guys. Running our companies, doing our work.

Sure, we might have big ambition but standing next to a Pfizer or a Boeing or a United Health we feel small by comparison.

They are made (to look) big by their relationships with Government, with other sources of big looking power.

Their survival is dependent on these relationships too.

But governments work for you, not them.

And if Governments are mainly interested in serving their needs over yours, should they be the Government? Just sayin'.

Decisions are not made in a vacuum.

They are the products, the fruits, of relationships, conversations, ideas, norms and behaviours. These frame the likely options. They frame the breadth of thinking.

This happens at large between governments and big businesses.

And happens at small for you too, in your work, your company’s.

If you want to make better decisions, broaden the inputs. Seek more diverse perspectives, points of view. Let the decision fruit grow from more diverse trees. It will make for better, more creative solutions. It will help you see beyond the constraints of the seeming obvious. Diverse views = emergent thinking, after all.

And this is true for Governments too.

A friend asked a good question not so long ago.

Who stands to gain?

It’s a question asked in any political economy analysis, when looking to understand root causes or motivating factors.

More big submarines?
Outsourced medical services?
Or, dare I say it, more vaccines for younger and younger people, and such like?

Decisions are not made in a vacuum. They are the fruits of the system thinking trees.

Change the inputs for better outcomes.

And then connect well, connect generously.

Change happens when we see others changing. If you have children, or spend time near them, you’ll know what I mean. They don’t listen to what you say. They watch what you do. Then copy it.

Change can be achieved stitching together multiple small actors and actions.

Spend time with a broader set of ideas, with divergent thinking.

Then challenge convention.

And as new ideas materialise… act on them.

We are all nodes in a system. And your neighbour nodes are watching you, are shaped by you. As you change, I change and so on, rippling through the system at large.