The Watershed

Why working on the estuary doesn't shift the river's path

When I'm not talking about fish being wet, or the behaviour chain, I use the structure of a watershed to describe Adaptive Architecture... like this:

Imagine you're standing at the delta of a mighty river, and you don't like where it is along the coast... it would be better 'over there' more.

Moving a river at its outlet is a major undertaking: this is the most water there will be anywhere along this river, all gathered together and flowing into the sea. You'll need some big tools, and a lot of helpers, not the least because the water we see isn't all of the water. There is the underground river, the water table beneath the river and often broadly on either side of it, as well. The river under the Amazon is the highest volume fresh water river on the planet, it is miles wider than the Amazon we can see.

Moving the path of a river up on a mountain side might take a boulder, or the digging of a small channel. One person could, with some effort, move many of the tiny rivulets that feed into that mighty river, to significantly reduce the water flowing to the estuary, even directing a lot of the water into a different river system entirely.

If people (and systems) are more like watersheds than robots, then the metaphor holds whenever we'd like to influence a change...

Behaviour and results (and their metrics) are the estuary... not the tiny rivulets (or the mountainside they're flowing down.)

Systems, environments, states, knowledge, plans, dreams, understanding, and beliefs are the mountainside. The mountainside is the map of our perception.

If we want something different at the bottom, moving things at the top is the way

And I want to say that most emphatically: THE way.

Yes, sure, you can BehaviourMod people, somewhat, sometimes, for a while... but it doesn't really work. The worst parenting, business management, and 'how do we improve society' approaches are all Behaviour Modification, usually at the dimmest end of the spectrum, the carrot-and-stick, command-and-control end: blunt tools that sometimes work, but like using a hammer to wash the glassware, doing a lot of predictable damage along the way.

Take the general approach to speeders: if they're speeding, fine them. If they speed a lot, fine them more, and in multiple ways (points on their licence, impounding their cars) and if that doesn't slow them down – ha ha – seize their cars.

Do you notice the pattern there, that I notice?

The fines don't work. They don't work when they cost extra at license renewal, insurance premiums, retrieving the vehicle from the impound lot... and even at the cost of a sweet little yellow Lamborghini. The road racers just get into another car and keep seeing if they can beat their best time, or bury the needle on this speedometer – often filming themselves to entertain their friends.

It's a waste of police time, and a hazard to the community. Sure, flipping your own car and being crushed by the rocks you land upside down on is expensive, but not in a 'stop them from doing this' way (beyond the individual involved...)

Whenever I bring this up, many people say 'make it more expensive,' while their opposition say 'decrease the speed limits.'

To which Snarky Linda Brain says, respectively, 'well, yes, they can afford to lose a Maserati, of course the $2100 fine is going to ... metaphorically get added to their wall of awards...' and 'well, yes, if the little painted numbers on the sign aren't working now, clearly the solution to that is making the number smaller...'

Which reminds me of a funny guy on a ferry, sitting near me as we watched the ineffectual parents in the toddler zone, trying to get the Voice Command Software to work on their kids from a distance... he said in a deadpan, 'stop... or I'll say 'stop' again...'

Coach Linda Brain says, 'what is it that they don't know, understand, see, or appreciate the importance of, here?'

For speeders? Well, some of it is very important aspects of physics that kids don't learn while they're studying the life-altering and important issues involving onion membrane cells and long division: there is an upper limit to the traction of tires, which is greatly reduced by low temperature and the presence of ...ooh... anything on the road, from oil to water, gravel or sand, even to some wet cardboard... as speed increases. Then there are the traction limits that can be surpassed in basic steering.

It's fun that there are cars available to buy that can drive at speeds that effectively delete the ability to steer them at all – things they never show in the exciting movie scenes.

There is the equally important limits of human reaction time and braking distances, particularly in relation to, say, a vehicle that is designed to reach 230km/h. At that speed, nothing else can be on the road that the driver can't see from at least 800m away– not a cat, not a kid, not a bend in the road, not a patch of ice or oil, not another car pulling out of a side street, blissfully unaware of the speeding menace approaching who will not have time to stop, or even hit the brakes, before disaster occurs.

'Flying' is the word that describes cars at this speed, because they have neither steering nor braking ability left. And the drivers don't know this.

That is an uphill opportunity: give them the actual physical specifications, like 'this is how fast this car needs to be going, on these tires, in this temperature range, loses traction to the point of being uncontrollable regardless of the skill of the driver, or the cleanliness of the road.

Because I have had this discussion with a great many people, who are convinced of the efficacy of estuary-level action, who claim: fines are what stops most people from speeding.

Fines have nothing to do with me speeding. I do speed, routinely. I don't speed excessively (for the conditions, for the type of road) because I understand the physics involved. I don't want smushed kid on my car, at all. I don't want to wipe the rear end off a car or scare another driver into PTSD... heck, I don't even want to dent mine. This is not 'avoiding a fine' or even the cost of fixing something. It's 'I can reasonably predict what will happen if...' based on physics alone.

I do happen know how fast my little Subaru hatchback was capable of going – on a very, very long hill in the middle of Nevada, with a clear view of the very straight road more than 7km ahead. (210km/h by the way – the hill helped.) Not something I'd try anywhere on a Canadian highway (wildlife) or where there were other cars, or any way onto or off of the highway that I couldn't see in all directions.

Because physics.

Physics don't care about beliefs like 'it'll probably be fine' or 'I'm a superstar driver' or the most illogical one of all, 'it's never happened to me'... all those fantasies based on wishful thinking and a lack of understanding of statistics...

'Let's make a law about it' is also a popular downstream option, used in companies (a new policy every week!) and communities, which often doesn't look at the laws (or policies) already in place before adding another (often contradictory one to keep the lawyers in pocket money)... as if everyone out there speeding (or other unprofitable or anti-social things) is hanging around reading new laws every week...

I am reminded of public service ads about helmets, when motorcycle helmet laws came into effect. There was a lovely series using watermelons as analogs for heads – with and without helmets.

A watermelon thrown at a telephone pole, at 30km/h (these ad guys get to have so much fun!) predictably does what a watermelon does when it's thrown at a hard thing at 30km/h. Same size watermelon with a full-face motorcycle helmet on it bounces off the telephone pole. Very effective demonstration – teaching physics in an easily understandable way– to accompany the laws requiring helmets, increased compliance beyond 90%. In other jurisdictions, relying on laws alone, compliance is far lower, at around 48%, especially after the law announcement has faded in memory.

A New Way of Seeing

While command-and-control BehaviourMod feels like it's a simple and easy way to make changes to where the water is flowing into the sea, it's familiarity with the idea – how often we hear others saying these things, or watch them doing these things– rather than a lot of evidence that they work. When we are surrounded by an idea, or fully immersed in it, we often think those ideas are normal or accurate, because we've absorbed our culture's epistemic rules: no noticing things around here, missy. We are not allowed to notice that, as popular as it sounds, as pervasive as it is, the evidence against its effectiveness is everywhere. So we go on not noticing the evidence.

The frustration that arises, though, cannot be overstated. 'This just isn't working the way it's supposed to' is the foundation of a tremendous amount of stress in families, in business, in communities, and across global relationships. In absorbing Do Not Notice the Evidence, we become frustrated and simply don't know what to do with it, other than the standard advice 'be more consistent' or 'do it harder.'

As if consistency made an error less erroneous, or doing something ineffective with more intensity made it less ineffective...

Learning to see in a new way, to ask questions of reality and what we believe about it, is hard and disorienting work, especially when it is first introduced.

The problem is so very clearly where the water is flowing into the sea, we have to work on the problem... yet...

The solution to the problem is, as my late friend Jane used to say, always firmly embedded in the problem... properly defined. That is: by clearly defining the actual problem, the solution itself becomes visible.

If the problem is 'there is too much water here' bailing it out with a pail and pouring it onto the shore 10 feet away (uphill or downhill) isn't going to solve anything... but changing the direction of the major tributaries far uphill... or building Los Angeles to use it all up before it gets to the sea... that works.

This is the same in business: if the problem is a disengaged workforce, giving out prizes for metrics (estuary) they can readily manipulate will only further convince the employees of the lunacy of management. Looking 'upstream' for the systems in place that actively disengage people from their work is harder, more ego-bashing for management, and takes time to understand 'what is really happening here' when they're maybe more used to telling 'here' what is happening...

This is the same in parenting: if the problem is non-listening kids, shouting louder will only further convince the children that no one is listening to them. Looking 'uphill' to the barriers to communication that have developed is, again, ego-bashing for parents, and takes time to repair, perhaps in a climate of finally understanding why they were so frustrated as kids, expected to obey and not think or react...

This is the same in civilization: if the problem is cavalier speeders endangering lives and property, additional fines and lowered speed limits will only serve to make the legislators feel still less effective and more frustrated. Looking at the mountain, for what is enabling outrageous speeders, and what they don't know that – if they did– might slow them down, and perhaps create some limits on the source of the problem: cars available on the market capable of speeds that are not legal anywhere within the jurisdiction, or maybe public raceways where speed demons can more safely exercise their need to see how fast they can go...

Far more effective means exist to eliminate the frustrations and problems we face... if only we could stop looking at the results for long enough to ask a question about the cause...