In a recent Big Issue article, Sir John Bird argued for a new way of thinking about the many problems that the UK is facing. But what would a new way of thinking look like?
The article lists a wide range of problems: the on-going effects of Covid, the impact of the Ukraine war on the cost of living and the changes to the economy from Brexit. Added to the list are the impact of geopolitics on the UK such as the changing relationship between the USA and China and the erosion of the environment and climate change. Sir John identifies the root of the problems: “We have had appalling political and social leadership for much of the past 23 years, since we entered the millennium. All the big problems we have to navigate now are largely due to the decisions our global leaders have taken. The galloping rate of crisis after crisis has been orchestrated by some of the most miserable thinking imaginable”. He then calls for a revolution in thinking strategically to get through the current set of emergencies. I would add that the new thinking needs to solve poverty and inequality.
But before we start working out what a new type of thinking would look like we need to analyse the problems with the current type of thinking. It is important to realise that most organisations are looked upon as systems e.g. health system, education system, benefits system, banking system, political system and so on. Roughly a system can be defined by something having inputs, then something happens to the inputs to produce outputs. In the case of the health system, sick and injured people go in and in the majority of cases, healthier people come out. There is a similar situation with the education system: young people go in and young adults come out with the skills to develop their careers and play their role in society. However most problems arise when there is an interaction between the systems. A clear example is between the NHS and social care where lack of coordination has produced bed blocking. Similar problems can be seen at the strategic level where the food system is destroying the environment, increasing health problems and is a major contributor to climate change. When a problem occurs in a system, for instance the education system, then the call is for more resources, but many of the problems are caused by factors external to the system like parental support for child eduction, impact of new technology, the influence of social media and inequality.
A new way of thinking would take into account the interrelationship of systems, as in the interaction between primary health care, i.e. GPs and secondary care i.e. hospitals. Because people cannot get easy access to a GP they turn up to Accident and Emergency with their problems which creates an overload on the emergency service. Another example is the food system, which in the the UK is market driven by food manufacturers and supermarkets, which produces high levels of obesity. Obesity costs the NHS a massive £6 billion annually and is set to increase to over £9.7 billion each year to 2050. A new form of political and strategical leadership must have the capability to understand not only the systems that are in the UK but their interrelationship.
Sir John Bird’s article picks up on a number of major problems in the UK which are against a background of an increasingly hostile world. There are techniques that look at the interaction between systems which could help to solve some of these problems. But we need a new crop of political leaders that have the intellectual capability to understand how the different systems that make up the UK work, or don’t work, together. The new political leadership must have the capability to communicate a way through the problems in a way that people feel motivated to be part of the solution.