Engineers and designers must change the system
The job of serving the interests of society
Reading the excellent book by Susan Krumdieck — Transition Engineering — Building a Sustainable Future I was stopped in my tracks when I came across the following challenge in Chapter 5:
Scientist can measure secondary feedback about the unsustainable impacts resulting from normal operation of the physical system. However the signal must have a direct relation to the decision set of each person and organisation in order to influence behaviour… the physical system actually determines behaviour through the primary feedback of habit.
there is one clear conclusion… Engineers and developers, under pressure of policy and in a manner that responds to the market, must change the engineered physical system to mitigate the impacts of the mega issues of climate disruption and oil and resource depletion. Prices, Policies and social behaviour will adapt to use the new system…
Engineers cannot simply accept the narrative that climate action or sustainability will be achieved through political leadership, a carbon tax or consumer behaviour change. Engineers must get to work on the job of serving the interests of society…
Krumdieck is highlighting that as engineers, we bear the accountability for how the physical world is designed. We cannot fall back on glib claims absolving us of responsibility because our leaders or society aren’t calling for a change to our current economic systems or that the “price signals” a keeping us stuck with the status quo.
We need to do better.
We need to build the systems that make it easy and delightful for people to do the right things, systems where the feedback reinforces the positive behaviour, making more people sign up for the change.
This mirrors an observation by John Shook who lead a famous transformation of the poor performing car manufacturing site NUMMI in a joint venture between Toyota and GM. How Toyota changed the Culture at NUMMI.
the way to change culture is not to first change how people think, but instead to start by changing how people behave — what they do. Those of us trying to change our organizations’ culture need to define the things we want to do, the ways we want to behave and want each other to behave, to provide training and then to do what is necessary to reinforce those behaviours. The culture will change as a result.
Act your way into a new way of thinking rather than thinking your way to a new way of acting
Further reading
- Culture and Change. What is culture and how do you build…
- Life With Bob Professor Susan Krumdieck — Solving Wicked Problems Through Transition Engineering — YouTube
- Transition Engineering: The Big Do — YouTube
- Transition Engineering: A Way For Engineers To Help Move The Energy Transition Along — CleanTechnica
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Get in touch… — https://tomconnor.me/
If you liked this then check out…
- Three horizons framework. A way of thinking about the future
- Systems Archetypes- Places to intervene — An advantage with using systems archetypes as a problem solving methodology is that places to intervene in the system can be thought through and played with.
- The OODA Loop — Getting ahead of your competition
- Your Operating System-is it delivering ? — How can you begin to understand the Operating system of your organisation?
- Building a culture of full disclosure — How does a work place culture allow people to speak up, highlight important issues and opportunities to improve?
