Articles

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BUILDING CAPACITY FOR STAKEHOLDERS

Capacity building (step 2 of the ELLab), is actually an integral part throughout all the steps of the ELLab process. The participants (all stakeholders) are building capacity (informal training) in systems thinking, interconnectedness and model construction, using Causal Loop Diagrams (this chapter) and Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) Modelling (Chapter 6) in order to achieve:

• The integration of various mental models into a systems structure
• ‘Ownership’ of the systems model(s) through direct involvement and informal training
• An understanding of the inter-connectedness between and amongst different stakeholders (government departments and sectors in the organisatio respectively) to improve communication
• The necessary links and needs for effective cross-sectoral collaboration.

People who are intrinsically involved are doing all the modules of the training, while some end-users (e.g. women in rural areas), are only involved informally in certain modules (e.g. for awareness) to help identify themes, discuss leverage points, rank the important variables, evaluate and refine the models and develop ways to reflect on outcomes to maximise co-learning benefits.

We have helped to build the capacity of various people (relevant stakeholders) in different places where ELLabs have been/are being established.

The stakeholders have been/are closely involved in all the different steps of the establishment of their respective ELLabs.

This close involvement has enabled a shared vision amongst stakeholders and helped them to understand complexity and be able to identify the root causes of problems, rather than merely treating the symptoms.

It has also helped them to develop solutions collaboratively over time, ‘experiment’ with them and be able to adapt when required through knowledge sharing and discussions with others.

In addition, the close involvement has enabled the relevant stakeholders to take ‘ownership’ of the ELLab and to know how to operate it.

Having a ‘champion’ is another important lesson learned through our work. We have been fortunate to work with a champion (a key person in a leading position, who understands and supports the approach) in every site where an ELLab has been established. This is essential for the successful implementation and operation of the ELLab.

INTEGRATING THE MENTAL MODELS BY DEVELOPING A SYSTEMS STRUCTURE MODEL

The process of developing a systems model provides stakeholders with a shared understanding and a big picture of the system they are dealing with. While no model represents a ‘true’ or complete representation of reality, a systems model can usefully unravel important dynamics of a complex system.

Decision makers, managers and relevant stakeholders often find it difficult to ‘see’ the big picture and account for all relationships and interdependencies between different components of their system. Therefore, it is essential to have an overall picture of the system to show the interconnectedness and roles of various players and agencies and their impacts. For example, the systems model represents a ‘big picture’ of the Cat Ba Biosphere system and provides a powerful platform for learning, collaboration and collective decision making for various stakeholders including policy makers, managers, and community representatives.

https://youtu.be/heoB3BaN9pg

Mapping the system starts through exchanging the perceptions of a problem and exploring questions such as:

• What exactly is the problem we face?
• How did the problematic situation originate?
• What might be its underlying causes?
• How can the problem potentially be addressed?
• What barriers exist to deal with the problem?
• What or who are potential drivers in the system?

WORKSHOP TO GATHER THE MENTAL MODELS OF ALL STAKEHOLDERS

Running a workshop to elicit the mental models requires a good facilitator and some key ground rules such as:

• All knowledge, opinions, information are regarded as valuable.
• Allow for discussion in order for stakeholders to understand each other’s mental models.
• Avoid conflict by respecting each other’s knowledge and recording all opinions.

It is important to remember that in order to communicate with another person, one does not need to think (construe) in the same way, but be able to construe how the other person is construing.

This means that while divergent views occur, the appreciation of one another’s views gained through ‘mapping the system’ helps stakeholders to converge on a common understanding of the management system.

Effective communication can also help to change perceptions and expectations to make them realistic and achievable.

Workshop settings with all stakeholders involved could often lead to a group of people that, say, work for the same organisation, but have different levels of seniority.

We have conducted many of these workshops, for example in sustainable tourism in Cambodia, where the stakeholders included the full range from top government officials, such as the Minister of Tourism and Director General, to officials responsible for implementing policies, young officials still in the lower ranks of government, hotel owners, and taxi drivers.

In this situation it was not possible to obtain honest and in-depth insights into the mental models of all the participants.

Changing the nature of the workshop to a ‘silent’ sharing of people’s perceptions and ideas solved the problem of domination by senior officials, while juniors and people with no power remained totally quiet.

All participants put their mental models (responses on the above questions) on notes that were then anonymously put into big containers. This process revealed a very rich picture of the tourism sector through full participation by all stakeholders.

The downside was that very little discussion took place that could improve the understanding of each other’s mental models.

However, once the mental models were obtained and integrated into a systems structure, much discussion and co-learning eventually did happen.

HOW TO PUT THE MENTAL MODELS INTO KEY THEMES

In the following example women small-scale farmers and relevant stakeholders (in a Gates Foundation’s project) identified the issues they see as the key to their problems, potential solutions, barriers and drivers.

Participants in the workshop were encouraged to share their mental models of how they viewed the circumstances under which they live and farm and to think about potential solutions towards achieving their main goal, namely to improve the quality of their lives.

The various ideas were written down on sticky notes and then pasted on a white board. Many of the notes were the same, in which case the participants put the notes on top of each other.

The participants were then asked to discuss the different variables and to identify the main themes that emerged. The notes were rearranged around these main themes to produce a visual map of the mental models that evolved.

This step provides an opportunity for the stakeholders to discuss their mental models with each other and develop an understanding of how different stakeholders construe. Even if people do not agree with each other, all the ideas are left on the board.

This is the first step towards co-learning and developing an understanding of what the system under consideration looks like.

It creates a basis for reaching consensus on the main goal, and initiates the process of thinking how the different variables relate to each other.

The grouping into main themes significantly helps to integrate the mental models into a systems structure/model.

https://youtu.be/NGDQoUksu58

THE IMPORTANCE OF INVOLVING ALL RELEVANT STAKEHOLDERS

Identifying, mapping and prioritising a project’s stakeholder community are the most important first steps in managing complexity.

Projects and other initiatives can only be considered successful when their key stakeholders acknowledge that they are a success. This requires the effective engagement of at least the key stakeholders to understand and manage their expectations and then deliver the outcome to meet or exceed these ‘managed expectations’.

Unravelling complexity requires information, knowledge, data, opinions and ideas. The stakeholders form the richest source of knowledge, because they are intrinsically involved in finding solutions to a complex issue since they have a ‘stake’ in the outcomes of any decision making and taking action.

Researchers in the field of systems thinking and modelling have acknowledged the importance of involving stakeholders.

Allowing for different perspectives and divergent views is not only important to enrich the knowledge source for finding solutions for the root causes of any problem, but also helps to ensure continued involvement of the stakeholders in the further processes of solving the issues (‘I add value; my knowledge is respected’).

‘Buy-in’ is essential for success in stakeholder engagement. Every party must have a stake in the process and have participating members who have decision-making power. Every party must be committed to the process by ensuring any action they take is based on the decisions made through the engagement.

Involving stakeholders to participate in solving their management problems instead of bringing in outside experts to solve these problems can be described as a ‘participatory’ or ‘bottom-up’ approach.

In participatory systems analysis, the involvement of stakeholders allows the multitude of factors that may influence outcomes or objectives to be identified, whilst systems thinking provides a mechanism through which these stakeholders can interact and discuss their understanding of the management system and the dependent relationships between these factors.

DIFFERENT MENTAL MODES

Each of us has a different set of visions, aspirations and views (mental models) of how to deal with the world around us. Our mental models contain information accumulated through our lived experiences. They determine our perception of new information and help us create new knowledge.

All people relate to the world by forming hypotheses about it, ‘testing’ these hypotheses through their everyday behaviour, observing the feedback from these interactions with environments or other people, and revising their hypotheses if necessary to fit the situation.

The ‘hypotheses’ or patterns of thinking are known as ‘constructs’, because they deal with how people ‘construe’ situations; that is how they develop mental models.

Mental models are ‘…deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action…’.

Mental models reflect the beliefs, values and assumptions that we personally hold, and they underlie our reasons for doing things the way we do. They are so powerful in affecting what we do because they affect what we see and they shape our perceptions.

Mental models are the filters through which we interpret our experiences, evaluate plans, and choose among possible courses of action. The great systems of philosophy, politics, and literature are, in a sense, mental models.

Unfortunately, we cannot simply look at other people and discern their mental models, any collaboration and consensus of people is a matter of shared experience, coincidence, or the result of honest discussion and understanding.

When people grew up and lived in largely isolated communities, individual mental models among members of the community tended to coincide.

In the 21st century, isolation is rare and diversity, complexity and ambiguity are the norm.

We have all become interconnected in a vast physical and digital web.

Potentially contentious issues, such as healthcare, environmental protection, gender relationships, poverty, mental health, economic development, migration, land use or water allocation (just to name a few), are now tangled and magnified in a global system of ecological, economic, social, cultural and political processes, ideas and dynamic interactions.

In any government, organisation, business or community system there are many individuals with an interest in such systems (stakeholders) and each will have a mental model of the system and its purpose depending on their individual understanding, experience, education and values.

This means that among stakeholders there can be a multitude of views and different implicit and explicit understandings of how the processes of the system they are involved in work and the factors that would affect the purposes of the system.

In managing purposeful systems, it is important to accommodate the different world views of the stakeholders involved so that any proposed management interventions are informed by a breadth of available experience, and are acceptable to those who will need to implement changes or live with the consequences of their implementation.