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February 11, 2009

Clarifying Assumptions

All conversations have a set of underlying assumptions that can either deepen or derail a meaningful exchange.  Almost always, these assumptions remain in the background, making magic or doing mischief, until someone decides it’s time to step back for a clearer perspective on the conversation itself…calling for a ‘meta-communications moment’ where we talk about how we are talking. But wait…what if we were clear about at least a few of our assumptions as we entered a conversation? Perhaps…just perhaps, we could get a little more magic and a little less mischief in conversations that matter to us the most.

In the framing of issues for NIF-style conversations, I’ve tried to identify and clarify some of the assumptions that are operating in an issue as I’m doing the research, analysis and writing. In a small-group conversation a couple days ago, we talked briefly about our recent NIF projects in California. In a couple of the brief issue guides, a basic contextual assumption was written into the introduction. In several others, however, we decided that the basic assumption wasn’t clearly written, but it should have been.

Here are a few examples. In a framing on ‘Tax Cuts’ the assumption was that some kind of tax cuts were desired by most people during the 2008 Presidential campaign. In the framing on ‘Agricultural Sustainability’ the assumption was made explicitly that agriculture should be sustained rather be allowed to die through neglect. In the Kettering Foundation framing on ‘Alcohol’ the assumption appeared to be that the abuse of alcohol caused significant enough harm to warrant a new look at alcohol-related laws and public acceptance of alcohol abuse. In the framing on ‘Immigrant Neighbors’ the assumption was also made explicit that many of our neighbors are recent immigrants so we should discuss how we interact with them in healthier and more respectful ways.

Concerning issue framing in our deliberative NIF practice, I’m thinking that a clear statement in the text of the basic assumption of the framing would help in the ultimate deliberation in forums. As moderators, we’re asked to focus the forum conversation on a topic the participants already feel is urgent and important in order to build a ‘deliberative momentum’ that doesn’t stop when the forum concludes. In my perspective, the basic assumptions of the framing give the approaches their meaning and tensions. Without clarity about these assumptions, the approaches don’t push and pull at each other to create a cohesive conversation. In the practice of issue framing, I believe one of our most important tasks is to understand and to make explicit whatever assumptions are needed to make the approaches work together effectively. If we don’t do this, we make deliberation more difficult…and it’s already quite a challenge!

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February 03, 2009

A Crisis of Unintended Consequences

Our current economic crisis is being called ‘a perfect storm’ by some columnists and experts. That’s probably accurate. A crisis this deep and this pervasive cannot be created by just one or two errors in judgment, but requires a series of short-sighted decisions that each brought their own unintended consequences.

The Federal Reserve Board started cutting the prime rate in January, 2001 from its high of 9.5% in order to combat an emerging recession. This trend was accelerated by the September 11 attacks as a new world of risk was priced into the markets. In mid-2003, the prime rate found its bottom at 4%, but by this time the housing bubble was growing rapidly. It was easy to borrow money, especially if you wanted to purchase a house. In addition, it was obvious that there was money to be made in ‘flipping’ houses as investments rather than living in houses as residences.

Meanwhile, U.S. and global investors with lots of cash from the ‘good times’ of the 90s and early '00s were looking at our feeding frenzy in the housing market as a safe place to make high profits. In a political climate of deregulation and free-market enthusiasm, Wall Street firms clamored to connect these rich investors with our rapidly expanding housing market by creating some very complicated financial instruments. These instruments…such as mortgage-backed securities…gave easy access to the housing market as a ‘wealth engine,’ but this new cash also fed the rapidly increasing price spiral. The housing bubble made a few people very rich before it made many people very poor, devastating the global economy in the process.

The problem I have with seeing our 2008 collapse as ‘a perfect storm’ is that this concept makes it appear that it was just bad luck. Some might think that it might be just a one-in-a-million chance that these seemingly disconnected and innocent forces might flow together sometime in the future to create another economic meltdown. No…this wasn’t bad luck. A series of decisions were made by naïve and overly-trusting people where caution was tossed to the wind for short-term profit. We need to know the details of what happened and who made the key decisions that unleashed this highly risky behavior and made it part of our self-destructive culture.

“Never Again: What Economic Safeguards Are Needed in the 21st Century?” can be framed as a national conversation of truth and reconciliation. While each citizen in our country didn’t get to directly participate in the creation of this crisis, each of us watched it unfold and accelerate with dizzying speed…and many of us recognized it as a house-of-cards, but were too busy doing other things to sound the alarm. It happened ‘on our watch’ so we’re responsible to evaluate the events and our failings to make sure our learning curve protects future generations.

 

 

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Defining a New Role for Government

Recently the ‘invisible hand’ Adam Smith wrote about as the guiding principle of free-market economics has been slapping us around rather than meeting our needs. In his Inaugural Address, President Obama reminded us that the market place is unmatched in its “power to generate wealth and expand freedom.” The critical trade-off he then adds brings the mandate to discuss a new role of government, saying, “this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control.”

What kind of ‘watchful eye’ will serve our immediate or long-term needs? We clearly don’t know. Plenty of ‘experts’ have their opinions, but none of them were capable of seeing the edge of the cliff fast approaching before the economy took a dive last fall. In my view, we don’t know because we haven’t asked the question before now.

I’m proposing that our people need to define a new, 21st century role for government. Again from the President’s speech, “the question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works….” My assumption is that our new President meant the ‘we’ in this statement as an inclusive public rather than an elite cadre of experts. If my assumption is correct, we need to get busy as a deliberative community to support this critical conversation.

I believe the topic can be framed for deliberation within the next 5 months for NIF practitioners around the country to use on the July 4th weekend: ‘The Role of Government in the National Economy.’ We’ll have no problem in populating our forums…our people already have some deeply-held and diverse opinions on the topic. What they need is the opportunity to carefully and respectfully confront the trade-offs in several economically-sound approaches. It could be a very illuminating experience for the public, for elected officials and for the deliberative community.

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The Arrogance of Experts

I was watching CNBC sometime last week, and was struck by the amazing gall of the panel of financial experts as they riled at the idea that Congress might actually place some stipulations on the billions of tax-payer dollars they’re dishing off to the banking industry as an essential bailout. All seemed to agree that the bailout money was needed…and fast. At least the most vocal panel members, however, also spoke vehemently about how Congress knows nothing about the banking industry, so they shouldn’t try to ‘run this business.’

 

I found myself shouting at the TV, saying, ‘Hey, Mr. Expert…neither you nor the banking industry knows how to ‘run this business’ or we wouldn’t be in this mess today!’ In my book, it’s pretty arrogant to tell the biggest single stockholder in a whole sector of the economy to butt out in the discussion of pending decisions. If these experts really wanted Congress to let them alone, all they needed to do was to take care of business in a responsible way in the first place.

 

Here’s what I consider to be a recurring event: when the people whose responsibility it is to make critical decisions fail to do so, they are amazed and angry when others step in who don’t really know how to ‘run this business.’ They are right that the ‘others’ aren’t well versed in how the business runs, but in the face of total dysfunction someone needed to do something…and they were unwilling to make the tough decisions when a crisis could have been averted.

 

My dad was a farmer in central California. I remember a conversation we had in the 70s about the increasing threats of pesticide regulations, and what these regulations would mean to the farming business. I recommended a pro-active approach by farmers across the state where they would self-regulate in dramatic ways, crafting policies that would best fit the industry and the public’s demand for care. I remember saying that, if they (the farmers) didn’t create workable regulations, people who didn’t know the unintended and serious consequences of their actions would step into the vacuum to make their best guess at farm and environmental policy. And that’s what happened.

 

We need a new generation of leaders in the business community who are willing to include the public’s need for responsible decisions on their ‘balance sheet.’ This can also be a part of a conversation I believe is needed to define the role of government in the national economy. If business leaders are unwilling to make the tough decisions, ‘others’ who are less prepared to decide will have to step into the vacuum.

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Critical Thinking Is Unpredictable

One of the priceless moments in recent media history literally took a popular TV program off the air for evading their responsibilities in critical public discourse. On October 15, 2004, Jon Stewart appeared on CNN Crossfire to personally challenge the two co-hosts on their journalistic ethics. This exchange has become one of the most blogged news items of 2004, and is now part of the popular culture as citizens think about the role of media in 21st century politics. Most important reflection I have from this event is not that a TV program was quickly canceled after an on-air confrontation, but that it took a comedian to expose the shallow nature of political discourse in much of our media.

Alas, not much has changed. The specific format of Crossfire has not been duplicated, but the foundational political premise of the show has basically taken over: politics is a power struggle between predictable ideologies. I believe it was the predictability of the nightly Crossfire interviews that fueled the strongest of Stewart’s criticisms. It was ideological theater where predictable questions brought predictable answers, and where no one was expected to go “off script.” Fortunately, Stewart went “off script.” 

Last year at the sudden and shocking death of Tim Russert of Meet the Press, we had the opportunity to reflect on a journalist who hadn’t fallen for the ideology trap, and we mourned his rare gift as a critical and humble political interviewer. Russert’s questions never became predictable. His style and content challenged us to think about the political choices our leaders make as complex and interconnected, rather than reinforcing our political stereotypes in simplistic policy sound bites.

Critical thinking is unpredictable. It never follows a straight line. It’s interested in the political landscape as a puzzle to be understood more each day. It brings deep satisfaction in each new connection between unlikely partners. Critical thinking is a lifestyle practice that requires our on-going attention and interest as we adjust to the changing real world. I think our political and global dilemmas are important enough to leave the predictable scripts of ideology behind as we choose to solve big problems in unpredictable real-world conversations.

Posted by deliber8ca at 09:49 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Challenging Ideology

By now I think most of us are familiar with the concept of the ‘housing bubble’…the over-inflation and explosion of housing prices across the country, but most troubling on the coasts. Unfortunately, this bubble leads to another and another and another. As Paul Krugman pointed out in mid-December in the NY Times, our economy and the Madoff scheme look amazingly similar. One is legal and one is not…both depend on greed…neither is sustainable.

We know bubbles float around and are very pretty…while they last. We also know that when they burst they are gone except in our memory. Of course, our natural tendency is to create another pretty bubble to replace those we’ve enjoyed momentarily in the past. Such seems to be the tendency now with many of our financial and political leaders, even as more bubbles are on the verge of exploding. It appears that President-elect Obama is calling us into therapy, so we can deal with our child-like dance after the latest bubble. And already, many voices from diverse perspectives are rising up to defend their ‘ideas’ as each tries to ‘sell’ shares in the next promising bubble.

We call them ‘ideologues.’ It doesn’t appear to matter if they are liberal or conservative, business or government, in media or in religion. They sell ‘idea bubbles’ to unsuspecting consumers with promises of ‘life-time warranties’ and ‘plausible deniability.’ Fellow ideologues need each other, even when they compete. They are the talking-heads on 24-hour cable news programs, and they quote each other to keep the bubbles floating.

So…what do we need to do? It appears to me that the only way to limit or control the continued proliferation of empty ‘idea bubbles’ is to practice critical-thinking in our everyday decisions and conversations. Ultimately, this is the method devised by philosophers around the world and through the centuries to differentiate one idea from another, and to integrate the most fulfilling and sustainable ideas into our relationships at all levels. Let’s talk these issues so we can learn something valuable from the crises we’ve created together…and about how we can keep from creating more for our children and grand-children.

 

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Rethinking How We Pay for Public Services

I was re-reading a Paul Krugman Op-Ed from Dec 29 08 today. In this article, he was marginally critical of the Governors of all 50 states…more than marginally for some, including ours in CA. In Krugman’s view, the states should be equal partners with the federal government in fueling the financial recovery efforts. Hmmm…nice thought, but it looks to me like the states are no longer capable of this kind of financial partnership.

For at least four decades, our states have been destabilized as the federal government assumed program and tax responsibilities for more and more public services. The positive consequences of this shift of responsibility are significant…and I like many of them. Equality has been advanced. Standardized expectations have been set and have been increased through time. National, ‘big picture’ problems have been tackled with some remarkable successes. But…the states have been destabilized in the process. It’s just another one of those pesky trade-offs that complicate our lives.

Krugman is spot-on right with one of his key sentences: “And once the crisis is behind us, we should rethink the way we pay for key public services.” Amen! But along with this rethinking about paying for public services we must also rethink who has responsibility and authority to organize and administer those key public services. A topic many of us thought had been put to rest will revisit our conversations and our public deliberation: state’s rights. Oh, my!

 

Posted by deliber8ca at 09:41 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

New Partners in Southern California

2008 was a watershed year in turmoil and opportunity. Needless to say, we didn’t end 2008 with the same issues and challenges we thought would dominate our conversations. It seems abundantly clear that anyone who wants to make a difference in this rapidly changing world needs to have some tools for constructive public conversations. Our most urgent issues are emerging and morphing quickly as the State of California suffers with a crippling, governance gridlock and the new Obama administration applies crisis management in context of turmoil and uncertainty. There has never been a better time to learn some new skills for inclusive public conversations.

“Constructing Community Dialogues” is a new workshop to equip more people across the Southern California region with skills in convening and conducting public conversations on important community issues. The Fielding Graduate University is sponsoring this workshop under the direct leadership of Katrina Rogers, Director of the Institute for Social Innovation, an initiative of Fielding Graduate University. She will be joined by Craig Paterson who has worked for over 12 years in National Issues Forums (NIF) as a tool for deliberative decision-making in public policy. Rogers and Paterson will coordinate an interactive workshop curriculum with a team of educators and community organizers to learn new skills and to better understand how the public can be more effective in shaping the policies that affect our lives.

Click on the link below for a workshop flyer and registration form.

Download file

 

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Trust People as Partners

I believe in the American experiment as a democratic republic...but I also believe this experiment can only be sustained by our active participation in public decisions at all levels. Since I have a limited amount of time and energy, I've chosen to devote a significant amount of my efforts in bringing people together in NIF-style conversations.

National Issues Forums (NIF) provide everyday citizens an opportunity to purposefully and carefully deal with our most challenging public problems. For over 25 years, people have come together in NIF-style forums across the country to deliberate on the urgent and important public issues where reasonable citizens disagree strongly and deeply.

· Participants often find themselves considering some actions they thought they would easily oppose—they're willing to set aside their assumptions.
· Similarly, people sometimes discover hidden costs and consequences in actions they thought they would support—they're willing to see the issue as complex.
· Participants gather to learn together, not to simply persuade or advocate—they're open to new ideas and perspectives.
· Citizens move from making individual choices to making choices as members of a better informed and more connected community—they show respect and build trust in how they talk and how they act.

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