Here is valuable insight on how to work smarter, not harder…
My father-in-law gave me a fantastic Wall Street Journal Article last week entitled “A New Shade of Green” by the first director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), William Ruckelshaus (see http://tinyurl.com/2d9l9jn). His basic argument is that today’s environmental challenges are far different than those faced by our country and the world when the EPA was formed by President Nixon in 1970 and as a result, the solutions must change as well.
The basic approach to handling the environmental issues in our country has been what Ruckelshaus termed “top-down, command-and-control” tactics. The bulk of the environmental problems we faced in the 50s, 60s and 70s were thought to be due to weak state regulatory programs. The states competed so fiercely for plants and jobs that regulating companies to protect the environment was rarely done.
“Fast forward to 2010,” notes Ruckelshaus, “In so many ways the problems of the 1970s seem almost quaint now – simpler problems of a simpler time. Our biggest challenge now is to make sure we don’t succumb to inevitable tendency to fight the last war. Yesterday’s solutions worked well on yesterday’s problems, but the solutions we devised back in the 1970s are not likely to make much of a dent in the environmental problems we face today.”
What an excellent point! Not just in this area of consideration, but in every area of consideration of human progress and achievement. Just because an approach worked in the past does not mean that it will work – or even be relevant – now or in the future.
Today’s problems call for today’s solutions.
People look to the past to determine what to do, but is that really wise? We can look to the past as a guide, but to expect all factors to be the same is sheer folly. Change is the one constant and adaptability seems to be one of the most important factors in not just survival, but sustainability.
The trouble with new approaches is that people are often resistant them right from the get-go. Ruts are worn in consciousness over time that are hard, if not impossible at times to redirect. Familiarity breeds comfort. The belief that “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t” stops many potentially great men and women from realizing their potential. A sad state really.
When we consider health care, economic policy or education in our country, for instance, it seems that new, innovative thought is the exception rather than the rule. The knee-jerk reaction and only mutually acceptable solution to a bigger problem seems to be to throw more of the old solution at it in hopes of plugging the dam. At a certain point, however, as we have seen with every great civilization in history, a finger in the dyke won’t hold for long. At some point the causes have to be handled, not just the symptoms.
Take time to think about your world. If you find yourself trying to fix something now with an approach that worked in the past without giving it much more thought than just remembering what you did before, get ready for failure. Take the time required – where possible – to bring integrity, instead of expediency, to the table.
Your world will thank you!
Gregory Hake 
In 1965 42% of the American public smoked; in 2007 19% did. It wasn’t because of taxes, as the percentage of tax on the cost of a pack of cigarettes actually went down from 46% tax on the retail price in 1970 to 23% by 2000. People actually took responsibility and taught it to the next generation. Things can change. Great post.
LikeLike
What an excellent article. Thank you for giving it more exposure.
One point in it really made sense to me, ” It will take a level of public understanding and knowledge of the relationship between the way we live and what we are doing to our natural systems, coupled with a sense of responsibility for the stewardship of our planet, that does not currently exist.”
I think it goes hand in hand with your post yesterday. Is it too big of a dream to think we can have a clean and peaceful world? Yet both require the same efforts, to understand the relationship between the way we live and what we are doing to …….(fill in the blank), coupled with a sense of responsibility for the stewardship of……(fill in the blank, that does not currently exist.
Mr. Ruckelshaus has had the experience that at a certain point individual responsibility has to come into play. Anytime something is completely dependent on the carrot or the stick it won’t work past a certain point.
Anyone that has raised children or managed people in the work place or being the school “room mother” will agree that success always comes down to how much personal responsibility people are willing to take.
It boggles my mind when I hear people complain of boredom or feeling useless, there is so much to get involved in that can make a huge difference.
Both posts from yesterday and today make the best case for living in the present. The future is pretty clear if we stay on our present course and the past makes no difference anymore.
LikeLike
I think it is very useful how you pulled some basic principles out of this article for us to apply personally regarding the need to update our approach. The article itself is good, but as you can see in the reader comments it is quite a controversial topic – solutions are difficult if there isn’t agreement on the problem itself (Ruckelshaus mentions the ‘dueling scientists’ challenge as one example). He notes in his experience “that when people understand their self-interest in solving a problem, they are more than willing to agree to the trade-offs necessary to come to a solution.” I think it is a good practice to question why I am or am not doing something, and update my approach according to current information, with the intention of living my life to the highest of integrity. A simple example of this is that I learned recently that 1 recycled plastic bottle saves the equivalent of power enough to run a computer for 25 minutes. Knowing specific information like this makes it even more real to me than the general notion that I need to recycle because it is ‘good’ for the earth, and you can bet I’m not going to let myself off the hook for even one plastic bottle. In the same respect, given the studies you shared last week about incentive programs (see https://gregghake.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/intrinsic-motivation-autonomy-mastery-and-purpose/ ) why wouldn’t I change the way I approach motivating my employees and even my children?
LikeLike
For the past couple of weeks I have been training a new sales representative who has quite a nice background in sales. Yet one of the reasons that I asked her to join our team was her outward desire to change – to get better. And that attitude is bearing itself out during our training – instead of being a know it all she is hungry to embrace change.
That is the type of attitude that happy and contented people have isn’t it! The desire to improve, to be better at what they do and who they are. And let’s face it, for us to be better, to improve, requires change doesn’ t it.
Perhaps we could look at change from a different direction for just a moment. Suppose somebody said to you that “you are as good as you are ever going to be.” That would be about the biggest insult that someone could give you wouldn’t it. Yet if we refuse to or resist change aren’t we in fact saying that to ourselves!
So let’s embrace change by looking for ways to improve. One way to allow that to happen is to let go of the past. Another way is to look at each circumstance in our lives and have the attitude of “that’s good!” as a starting point.
LikeLike
What a great post! It is usually the person that can make their solution the most relevant, or in other words change faster, that is the most successful. I feel like you are giving tools with these posts that will enable the readers of this blog to think about things that most people just consider subconsciously. Thanks again!
LikeLike