Seminar 6: Beyond Foresight – systems thinking and complex problems

The sixth in C3’s series of International Breakfast Seminars was given by Professor Diane Finegood on 18 March 2011 at the House of St Barnabas, Soho, on Beyond Foresight: can systems thinking help us address complex problems like obesity and chronic disease? Diane is professor of biomedical physiology and kinesiology at Simon Fraser University, and executive director of the CAPTURE project >>.

• Slides from the event are available here >>
• A full précis of the event is available here >>

The Foresight map captures in visual form the range and interconnectedness of over 100 drivers of obesity – and Diane focused her talk on the ways in which complex problems are best addressed. Unlike simple or complicated problems, complex problems are not linear: they are interdependent and may include feedback loops, it is not possible to isolate and act on single variables – and ‘one size does not fit all’ in terms of solutions. Basing solutions in the real world – an integrated paradigm – is a good way to proceed.

Diane explained three of the major features of complex problems, relating each to tackling obesity:

a) Scale

The causes of obesity have multiple levels, from the micro-level of the individual (genes) through to the level of families/communities, up to international level. She highlighted a five-point framework for intervention: 1) the paradigm – our most deeply held beliefs (the approach taken should be to find a complex-system solution); 2) goals – what the system is trying to achieve, including (for obesity) improving diet and physical activity; 3) structure – for example, increasing the coherence of the clusters in the Foresight map, to pull in the same direction); 4) feedback and delays – there are more than 100 feedback loops in the Foresight map, some are positively reinforcing, others are balancing/negative (i.e. as A goes up, B goes up, which makes A go down); 5) structural elements – looking at the physical structure of the system etc., for example, physical education, marketing, affordable food etc.

Currently, all the evidence is at the structural elements level rather than, for example, at the level of feedback loops – it would be beneficial to put more effort into feedback loops.

b) Individuals matter

Perhaps surprisingly, given the scale of the issue, the level of the individual is important – not just people who may be gaining weight, but also individual stakeholders (such as the CEO of a food company). An essential point here is that if my tasks are more complex than my capacity, then I will fail. Government action to help reduce complexity – perhaps a single labelling system, for example – can help overcome a lack of capacity.

c) Competition and cooperation

In sport, to be the most successful and competitive in a league, the team must be made up of the most cooperative and collaborative individuals; similarly, in fighting obesity the stakeholders – for example, government departments – need to cooperate to make a difference, perhaps by setting competition for funding for anti-obesity projects, so that they learn from each other about how best to tackle the issue.

Diane ended by highlighting the importance of trust in any discussion between stakeholders. Trust helps to decrease complexity, and makes solutions easier to find. She is currently running a Building Trust initiative (see video here >>), which has identified a number of key points:

• building trust within a sector is harder than between sectors;
• regulation is needed when you do not want businesses in an industry to compete with each other;
• trust-building needs a safe space – in this space, progress can be made.

Discussion

The discussion that followed included:

• opinions about ‘nudge’, and the importance of behavioural economics;
• using integrated thinking to overcome the problem of unintended consequences (i.e. when you take action on one part of the system, there may be unintended consequences of an action on another part of the system);
• in the UK, capacity investment is decreasing (e.g. tuition fees, local authority cuts), so reducing complexity is required if this reduction in capacity is not to lead to more failure;
• discussion about the CAnadian Platform To increase Usage of Real-world Evidence (CAPTURE) project, which is building a web-based platform to help collect and share evaluation so that it is easier to find out what other individuals have done, and how projects can be adapted for their own communities;
• the Responsibility Deal in England;
• two major variables that are not on the Foresight map: climate change and the financial crisis. Diane suggested working with organisations that are fighting climate change, because they are similar society-wide problems.