Alfredo Del Valle Development

Alfredo Del Valle Development: Innovation with Participation Towards a Culture - Focused Understanding and Practice of Development

Paper for LACEA 2001 Classification: Z1 – Cultural Economics

DEVELOPMENT: INNOVATION WITH PARTICIPATION Towards a culture-focused understanding and practice of development Alfredo del Valle, Ph.D.1 Innovative Development Institute, Santiago, Chile

Abstract This paper synthesizes the concepts, methods, tools and key application impacts of the Innovative Development Model, a theoretical and applied endeavor to deal with fundamental development questions in a trans-disciplinary fashion, in which the author has been involved for more than two decades. This endeavor has been grounded on systems thinking, a tradition that has searched for bridges between sciences and disciplines. While this tradition has not contributed much to development research and debates thus far, it has produced significant impacts in other fields of knowledge, such as cognitive sciences, management, computer sciences and psychotherapy. The paper provides the grounds for the ID Model, by developing in detail five propositions dealing with development, potentialities, innovation, participation and culture. Significant conclusions derived from them are: (a) there is a key capability for development, which is the capability to innovate; the essential difference between developed and non-developed social systems –societies, business firms, cities, transport systems, schools, etc.– lies in their relative innovation capabilities; (b) innovation capability is a cultural trait –having to do with values, beliefs, assumptions, etc.–, and can be acquired through action-oriented methods and processes; (c) given the complexity of current social systems, such methods and processes must be participatory in order to be effective. ID concepts lead to specifying five methodological steps and several strategies for innovation with participation for facing real-world development situations, at both the policy and project scales, as well as to plausible explanations for typical project and policy failures in development practice. The methodological and practical section starts by presenting the methodological steps and some tools and strategies developed so far, for participatory policy making, project design and management, systematizing and exchanging successful experiences, managing networks in the Internet, etc. It is followed by a comprehensive list of the main practical application experiences to date in a wide number of fields: social, productive, environmental, etc. The paper is completed with some hypotheses related to measurement, poverty, policy making, project management, international cooperation and democracy.

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Ph.D. in social systems sciences (Wharton, University of Pennsylvania), M.A. in economics (New York University) and Civ.Eng. in industrial engineering (Catholic University of Chile). Former staff member and consultant at UN agencies, business companies, universities, government agencies and NGOs. Director of the Innovative Development Institute in Santiago, Chile.

A. del Valle – “Innovative Development” p. 2

Introduction: A singular inquiry into development This paper is a tight synthesis of a conceptual and methodological proposal about development on which we have been working for more than 20 years. More strictly, we have not only worked on this proposal but also from it, since our action throughout these years has been focused on applying it and also putting it to test in a variety of fields and contexts. The “innovative” proposal has its intellectual grounds on systems thinking, a tradition originated in mid-20th Century in search for bridges between sciences and disciplines.2 As far as we know, this tradition has not had a noticeable role in research, debates or policy-related work on development so far. Yet it has made significant impacts on other fields of knowledge, such as cognitive sciences, computer sciences, psychotherapy and business management. The chief authors to whom we are indebted are Russell Ackoff, Ross Ashby, Stafford Beer, Fred Emery, Hasan Ozbekhan and Eric Trist. A few methodological observations are necessary at this initial point: • Our work has looked into development by using the tools of systems thinking –both “received” tools and tools developed by us– which are essentially trans-disciplinary tools. They make it practicable to bring together knowledge coming from any discipline, experience or other source of learning. • We have dealt with development by building directly our own conceptual framework, from social systems concepts and principles. We have had no fellow travelers in the social systems community. • Nevertheless, our language is intended to be consistent with the language of economics and of the other disciplines interested in development. It is intended, above all, to be internally consistent, intuitive and as close to the language of real-world practice as possible. • We characterize our output at present as a “model”, namely, the Innovative Development Model. It is already more than a methodology, since it is in fact a source of methodologies. But we believe it is still less than a theory. • For presenting adequately our concepts, methods and experiences we would need the extension of a book, which we have not been able to write, rather than an article. For this reason the current text will be necessarily incomplete and schematic. Besides, only a book would let us deal appropriately with the relationships between our ideas and those of other authors. • We have worked mostly at the practical end of development, by trying to generate meaningful and effective policies and projects, rather than at the academic end. As a consequence, little scholarship and references to other authors may be found here. Our main sources of validation have been practical, i.e., empirical testing of all concepts; ease of communication; clear interest shown by all sorts of real-world actors; and especially concrete and efficient results, in a wide variety of fields, which have proven both effective and legitimate. The last point brings us to the motivation of this research-and-action process, which may have been intuited by the reader. Poverty in the world is increasing, rather than decreasing as it might have been expected after several decades of professional development work.3 The same is 2

The following key themes of the social systems tradition are briefly dealt with in the Annex to this article: mechanistic and systems visions, social system, the systems approach, complexity and the future. 3

The number of people living on less than US$ 1 a day increased, between 1987 and 1998, from 1,180 to 1,200 million. The number of people living on less than US$ 2 a day increased, in the same period, from


taking place with its concomitant conditions: violence, environmental destruction, intolerance, etc. Yet the world does have plenty of material resources that could be used to overcome them, and the international development community is investing billions of dollars a year towards this end. Why is the global community not getting effective results? For some authors it is the idea of development itself what has failed. 4 We disagree. We believe there is still wide room for renewing development thinking, and there is no other way out of the poverty dilemmas, than to keep looking for alternatives. Our modest contribution is intended to bring some fresh air into development work, by suggesting a new perspective form which to observe and to act. It is a trans-disciplinary and participatory one, in which development is something done by the people and their organizations at all scales, rather than something done by others for them. Moreover, it is a perspective that intends to be quite specific in its methods and proposals. The outputs of Innovative Development (ID) processes don’t just propose what should be done, but also how. And we don’t just suggest that some cultural changes ought to take place for development to happen; we have identified them with rigor and designed practical means to bring them about.

On development and its potential ubiquity Development is a purposeful process, with a direction that can be specified, rather than something that can simply “happen” to a person or an organization. Only people and systems of people can develop –or fail to develop. The term development can be applied to processes a rural community, a farm, a school, a health center, an educational system, a region in a country, a professional firm, a business company, a transnational corporation or a whole society, can go through. Notice, also, that they can only develop by themselves, from within, through the action of their internal leaderships; none of them can be developed by somebody else. A scientific discipline can also be conceptualized as a social system, which can develop. Other types of systems, however, such as a car, a herd of cattle or an ecosystem, cannot develop. The car can only stay as it is or decline by use; the herd can only grow or decline in size; the ecosystem can only evolve and change in size. Thus, we can only use the word development for a specific class of subjects, i.e., social systems, but not for others. But we can use it for any member of the class. Development is, in fact, a potential property of social systems. Whether the system actually develops or fails to do so, it is a matter of its concrete history. In principle, any social system can develop; in practice, a large number of social systems fail to develop because of internal or external conditions that impinge historically on them. Developed systems can involve non-developed systems as parts, and vice-versa. A low-income, stagnated community of immigrants in an affluent country is an example of the former. An active NGO or a creative school in a developing country are examples of the latter. In both cases the environmental conditions established by the larger systems may favor or hinder the possibility that development processes actually take place in the smaller systems.

2,550 to 2,800 million. World Bank, rounded figures from the Poverty Net – Data on Poverty: www.worldbank.org/poverty/data/trends/income.htm (visited on 29 August 2000). 4

See for instance Leys (1996) and the reader compiled by Rahnema and Bawtree (1997).


The Innovative Development Model: An overview We will start by providing a quick overview of the Innovative Development Model, involving its key propositions and its practical strategies. • On development: Development is a systemic and history-building process, whereby a social system enters a path of qualitative changes, which is future-oriented, involves its operations, its organization and its culture, and eventually becomes permanent and self-sustained. • On potentialities: The process of development is directed to making use of the system’s potentialities, which are its latent sources of self-reliant and meaningful action. Potentialities always exist, are related to the system and its environment, are usually unknown and can only be found through deliberate search efforts. • On innovation:5 Development is materialized by means of a series of innovations, through which the system’s potentialities become actualized. Innovations are qualitative changes and may be followed by quantitative changes –or growth– in the same sphere of action. • On participation: Development action should be participatory, because social systems are complex and the only effective way to deal with complexity is the methodic participation of all relevant actors or stakeholders. Methodic participation opposes both technocracy and assembly-type action, and yields results that are effective and legitimate. • On culture: A development process becomes self-sustained when the capability to innovate, or innovativeness, becomes an integral part of the system’s culture. An innovative culture is permanently looking for potentialities and making use of them. A system learns to innovate by doing innovations and becoming aware of them, and can do so efficiently through strategies for innovation with participation.

The strategies for innovation with participation: Efficient strategies can be applied for implementing the above notions in practice, through special tools. The most significant ID strategies developed thus far, which will be described further on, are:

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Policy-scale strategy: A participatory process for the social system as a whole, to design policies, plans or programs. It is future-directed, may involve hundreds of participants interacting methodically, and leads to fully identifying concrete projects.

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Project-scale strategy: A participatory process for identifying and designing projects. Success is linked to actually establishing innovations in the real world and depends on clear identification of potentialities and adequate innovation strategies.

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Internet strategy for networks: An Internet-based process and tool, for strengthening networks or communities, or building virtual organizations that are fully participatory and undertake innovation. It is called the Participatory Workspace (PWS).

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Transfer of experiences: A process for transferring successful experiences among a network of peers –both people and organizations– which combines the PWS and the project-level strategy. Replicating an experience involves undertaking another innovation.

Schumpeter (1911) was of course the first to establish the essential relationship between innovation and development in his classic work. The key aspects in which we depart from Schumpeter –some of which were somehow anticipated in his work– are the extension beyond the economic sphere towards all dimensions of development, the aim at practice and not only theory, and the linkage with contemporary themes and methods, such as culture, participation, poverty, the future and systems thinking.


Visualizing social systems and development: The action map Before getting deeper into the propositions and strategies of the ID Model, we will introduce one of its key tools, the action map. It will give the reader a clear view of what we understand by a social system and by the process of development it may go through. We will explain it with an example: In the context of the decontamination efforts for Santiago’s air, a two-day workshop was held in early 1995 to formulate the action map of a Management System for Santiago’s Air Quality, with the participation of government politicians and experts, researchers, consultants and members of the NGO community. This tool, intended to provide a comprehensive view of this complex endeavor, is presented on the following page. This action map is a vision of future of air quality in Santiago, which describes everything that ought to be done in a permanent way. It shows together all things that are currently being done and all additional things that could also be done, in this specific social system. Its main components are called basic lines of action (A, B, C, …). They have their own components, which are the specific lines of action (A-1, A-2, … P-6).6 A line of action is a particular way of observing reality, by observing actions rather than things . It is apprehended as a unity and has three types of components: activities, actors and objectives. Lines of action may or may not be currently established in the real world, through actors effectively carrying out activities, since the specification is also applicable to action under consideration. In the map, established lines are shown through upper case letters and non-established ones through lower case letters. The action map may be used for representing social systems of any degree of complexity. Let us now review what this particular action map says: •

To achieve good air quality in Santiago, parallel efforts along the 16 basic lines of action are needed. For instance, (A) “Monitoring and epidemiological surveillance” or (O) “Socio-spatial management”. The meaning of each of them is clearly specified on the map through the corresponding specific lines of action, which are below them. No further definitions are needed.

•

Not all 16 basic lines of action existed effectively at the time the map was prepared. Many were just identified by not yet under operation. We consider established only those making effective impacts. Only five ones were so qualified by the workshop: A, B, C, D and H.

•

At the scale of the specific lines, only 34 were established out of the 92 lines of the whole map. This is a further indicator of the magnitude of this decontamination task.

The action map is a key tool of the ID Model, as it makes it possible to conceptualize complex social systems, and thus to make them understandable and manageable. Its descriptive power allows it to fully describe a highly complex field of action on a single page. It differs from usual descriptions, such as the physical (cartography, inventories), economic (budgets, statistics) or analog (organization charts) ones, which are things-oriented. The action map is action-oriented and is a complement to them. Moreover, the action map is not an arbitrary listing of actions but a systematic expression of consensus of the actors who participated in building it up.

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Lines of action are recursive. Further levels of particularity can be added if needed. Experience has shown, however, that the two levels shown in the current example are sufficient for practical purposes.

Action map: (*)

A MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR AIR QUALITY IN SANTIAGO Key:

UPPER CASE lower case:

-

established line of action (i.e., with impact) non-established line of action

A MONITORING AND EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE A-1 AIR QUALITY MONITORING A-2 EPIDEMIOLOGICAL SURVEILLANCE A-3 Effects on flora and fauna A-4 Effects on materials A-5 METEOROLOGICAL MONITORING A-6 MODELING

F Transient source emissions control F-1 Emissions inventory F-2 Operating standards F-3 Enforcement F-4 Promotion of lean technologies F-5 Brick manufacturing control F-6 Construction of infrastructure

B QUALITY STANDARDS B-1 CRITERIA POLLUTANT STANDARDS B-2 Standards for other pollutants

G Domestic source emissions control G-1 Emissions inventory G-2 OPERATING STANDARDS G-3 Enforcement G-4 PROMOTION OF CLEAN TECHNOLOGIES G-5 Indoor air pollution control

C STATIONARY SOURCE EMISSIONS CONTROL C-1 EMISSIONS INVENTORY C-2 EMISSION STANDARDS C-3 ENFORCEMENT C-4 Low and zero emission technologies C-5 GRAVEL AND SAND PRODUCTION CONTROL C-6 Control of remote sources C-7 EFFICIENT BOILER OPERATION C-8 Participative enforcement C-9 Specific economic instruments D MOBILE SOURCE EMISSIONS CONTROL D-1 EMISSIONS INVENTORY D-2 EMISSION STANDARDS D-3 RESTRICTION TO CIRCULATION D-4 ENFORCEMENT D-5 Low and zero emission technologies D-6 Vehicle driving and maintenance D-7 TECHNICAL INSPECTION D-8 PARTICIPATIVE ENFORCEMENT D-9 Specific economic instruments E Street dust emissions control E-1 EMISSIONS INVENTORY E-2 Management standards E-3 PAVING E-4 Rainwater collection E-5 Street washing

(*) METHODOLOGICAL NOTE:

H Agricultural emissions control H-1 Emissions inventory H-2 OPERATING STANDARDS FOR PESTICIDES H-3 Pesticide use control H-4 Implementation of clean technologies H-5 AFTERCROP BURNING CONTROL I Technical support for measurements and certification I-1 STATIONARY SOURCE EMISSIONS MEASUREMENT I-2 MOBILE SOURCE EMISSIONS MEASUREMENT I-3 Certification of industrial equipment I-4 Certification of new vehicles I-5 Certification of household equipment J Non-regulated pollutants J-1 Control of air toxicals J-2 Foul smelling emissions control K EPISODE CONTROL K-1 EMERGENCY PLANNING K-2 Development of predictive capacity K-3 Contingency plans K-4 MITIGATIÓN ACTIONS

L Promotion of energy quality L-1 Fuel quality L-2 Industrial energy efficiency L-3 Household energy efficiency L-4 Vehicle energy efficiency M Transport system M-1 STRUCTURING AND ACCESS ROADS M-2 Traffic management M-3 RAPID MASS TRANSIT SYSTEM M-4 BUS SYSTEM M-5 Taxi fleet size and use policies M-6 Disincentives for private car use M-7 Inter-modal and alternative transport modes N Management of the bio-physical environment N-1 “GREEN LUNGS” N-2 Circulation of air N-3 Selection of vegetal species N-4 Erosion control N-5 Arborization of freeways N-6 Waterborne sediments control N-7 AFFORESTATIÓN AND REFORESTATION OF MOUNTAIN SLOPES N-8 Peri-urban watershed management O Socio-spatial management O-1 Impact assessment of public road construction O-2 Deconcentration policies O-3 TERRITORIAL MANAGEMENT O-4 Development of sub-centers O-5 Pedestrian areas in urban centers and sub-centers O-6 INDUSTRIAL LOCATION O-7 Policies for population distribution in Chile O-8 Policies on social segregation O-9 DENSIFICATION PROGRAMS P Education and communications P-1 Formal environmental education P-2 NON-FORMAL ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION P-3 Technical dissemination P-4 Motivational communication P-5 INFORMATIVE COMUNICATION P-6 Training of journalists

The "action map" is an instrument used to describe complex social systems through their action. It shows at the same time what the system is (present) and what it could be (future). It is a tool of the "Innovative Development" model, used in this Project. Map developed by: An Innovative Development Workshop, with participants representing all social actors linked to air quality in Santiago, held in Pirque on January 25 and 26 , 1995. Subsequently revised for consistency by the Project team. This Action Map belongs to a project report with the same title as the map, by Dr. Alfredo del Valle (Innovative Development Institute, Santiago, Chile) and Dr. Raúl O’Ryan (Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad de Chile). Santiago, Chile, September 1995.


Finally, by distinguishing the established (or actual) from the non-established (or potential) lines of action, the action map makes it possible to undertake an assessment of development of the social system, since it shows the present and the future together. The future is the whole map. The present, that part of the map that is already in upper-case letters. The task of development, on this basis, consists in turning into upper case all lines which are not yet there. And turning a line into upper case letters is to undertake an innovation. As it can be imagined, many innovations can also be made within the lines of action that are already established. We turn now to the five propositions of the ID Model.

First Proposition: On development First proposition: Development is a systemic and history-building process, whereby a social system enters a path of qualitative changes, which is future-oriented, involves its operations, its organization and its culture, and eventually becomes permanent and selfsustained. This proposition refers to the nature of development rather than to its content, which is the subject of the second proposition. The nature is general, i.e., in principle, any social system can follow a development process. The content is specific, i.e., the air quality system of last section will develop on the basis of its decontamination potentialities. Development is a process that involves a system as a whole and modifies it deeply. At the predevelopment stage, qualitative changes do not take place, are not valued and are perhaps feared by the system members, or at least by those in power. At the developing stage the system is making some qualitative changes, is learning to make them and is starting to value the experience of making them. This is the current stage of the air quality system in Santiago. At the mature stage, qualitative changes have become common, and the system includes specific components –in its operations, organization and culture– that facilitate their continuous occurrence. For the above example, some mature operations already exist, like experts in most technical issues and projects for identifying decontamination potentialities; mature organizational elements also exist in the successive leaderships that have encouraged participatory innovation at the environmental agency (CONAMA), but not so at other private or public actors involved; and mature cultural patterns are still farther away, as shown by a dominant understanding of the air quality problematique as an issue of reducing emissions, while acting upon other dimensions, such as territory or education, has still played no significant role. Summing up, the developed or mature social system is the one which undergoes qualitative changes –or innovations–, at internal initiatives, on a permanent basis. The source of the initiatives may or may not be the same for all innovations and may be placed at any level in the system’s power structure. Since this type of self-induced change has entered the system’s culture, and has become common and widespread, it finally becomes unnoticed to the members the system. Conversely, non-developed social systems are those unable to innovate. They can also undergo change processes, but such processes are induced by external factors. They are called adaptation processes. We believe, finally, that this one is the key distinction between developed and non-developed societies. A developed society builds its history chiefly by means of innovations. A nondeveloped society can only build its history by means of adaptations. The same distinction can be applied to any type of social system.


Second proposition: On potentialities Second proposition: The process of development is directed to making use of the system’s potentialities, which are its latent sources of self-reliant and meaningful action. Potentialities always exist, are related to the system and its environment, are usually unknown and can only be found through deliberate search efforts. A potentiality 7 is “something that could be done”, with realism and practical sense. It is a possible and latent action that needs to be activated. For the ID Model, potentialities are the starting points of development action in any field: production, education, health, safety, services, etc. They are attractive and positive; they generate motivation and enthusiasm; once known, people feel interested in getting them and making use of them. Potentialities are what the system in fact wants to achieve, or what it would want if it knew that they exist. Notice that in this respect we depart strongly from what seems to be normal development practice, which is to start from the problems.8 Problems are negative, depressing, to be kept at a distance. They are in fact what the system does not want to have. And there is no reason why what-it-wants should only be their absence. Social systems certainly need and want much more than that. Every social system, like every person, in fact needs and wants to be all it can be 9, and that is precisely pointed at by its potentialities. Another usual point of departure for action are the opportunities, especially in the management literature. We need to distinguish them clearly from the potentialities. An opportunity is simply the reverse of a problem. It is assessed by the system as something good, rather than bad. It is something “offered” by the environment that can be readily used by the system, and is thus recognized by it. For instance, a new client or a new market for a firm, a new source of funds for an NGO or a deep conflict inside a political party for another party. Using an opportunity does not involve a qualitative change, but only a quantitative change in the social system. In terms of the action map, using an opportunity involves acting within an established line of action, while using a potentiality involves establishing a new line of action. 10

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The term potentiality is sometimes used in development literature, and in practice, with meanings that are close to resource or to capability. We give it a technical sense that is specified in this section. 8

We are not using here the term problem to refer to the unresolved tensions existing inside any social system, which are in fact its conflicts. Problems, in the sense used in development practice, refer to unresolved tensions between the system and its environment: housing, employment, access to water, etc. Conflict resolution is not a question of development but a question of operational governance. New avenues for conflict resolution emerge, however, whenever a social system enters a process of development, and gets access to the new resources involved in its potentialities. 9

In this respect we clearly side with humanist psychologists like Maslow (1954) and Fromm (1976), and extend their views beyond individuals, to social systems. 10

Note for readers from developed countries: We have found that this distinction is not easy to grasp for people who belong to cultures that are already innovative. For working within such cultures the distinction is not necessary, because most social systems actually show innovativeness, including development agencies. The word “opportunity” is used in the management literature (of developed countries) in both senses and generates no difficulties, because looking for the new and making qualitative change is for them commonplace and obvious. But it does lead to a significant distortion in the development context. People from non-developed cultures will tend only to look for sources of continuity or quantitative change, rather than for sources of qualitative change. As will be hypothesized later, we believe that a key factor for


The diagram on the following page shows a potentiality profile from a social project with older people that applied this concept. It was identified in Cerro Navia, Santiago, in 1999. 11 The profile consists of three circles that describe the three aspects of any potentiality that are inseparable: (a) the requirements that must be met, (b) the resources that make it possible to meet such requirements and (c) the instruments that mobilize in practice the resources towards meeting the requirements. Any potentiality is a system and has to be grasped as a whole. A potentiality actually exists when the following four conditions are met: (a) the requirements are legitimate, (b) the resources are available, (c) the instruments are effective and efficient for mobilizing the resources towards the requirement and (d) the whole system is consistent, i.e., every component in one circle has counterparts in the other circles and is not “loose”. As the reader can check on the diagram, these conditions are met in the example. It should be noticed that normally potentialities are not simple, but involve a large number of elements in order to hold together.

Units for Health Self-Control in O lder People O rganizations REQUIREMENTS

RESOURCES

• Self-generation of health prevention and health promotion actions • Establishing working relationships between OP organizations and health centers • Strengthening OP organizations by developing clear and valued roles • Decongesting primary health care centers by reducing irrelevant consultations • Incorporating healthy habits and behavior into daily life

• Older people organizations • Older people with appropriate conditions and service vocation • Health teams of primary care centers • Model for awareness, training and operational enabling of Self-Control Units

P

INSTRUMENT Formalized working modality, between older people organizations and health care centers, whereby a team of older people undertakes with support the following responsibilities: • Be trained as health promoters • Carry out basic periodic controls to all members of their organization • Management and maintenance of the community medicine-chest • Permanent operational linkage with the primary care centers

a large number of project failures in Northern development assistance to the South, might be found in the application of methodologies that do not consider this essential culture-related distinction. 11

This profile was prepared by Paula Araníbar from CEC, a Chilean NGO. It is included in Del Valle, Chomalí and Vial (1999), p, 70.


By focussing on the potentialities we are not advocating that development should be based only on the resources directly possessed or controlled by the social system. Such a position would call for autarchy. The ID Model calls rather for self-reliance, i.e., the capacity to mobilize both internal and external resources towards meeting the system’s requirements. In the above example, the health teams of the primary care centers are external resources mobilized by the older people organizations; and there are also requirements and instruments in which external entities have a role. In general terms, potentialities normally refer to relationships established between the social system and its environment, and not just to the system in isolation. We complete this presentation of our proposition on potentialities by stating our conviction that all social systems have potentialities, and can find them as long as they start looking for them. Doing so is not easy or obvious for non-developed systems, naturally, since it implies working from another cultural perspective –i.e., doing research, regarding the future as open, etc.– and it takes method. But it is feasible, and is highly effective and motivating when the method is participatory. Whenever we have done so in our projects we have found potentialities, in large numbers:12 160 in regional development in Magallanes, 130 in traffic safety in Chile, 140 in environmental management in Ventanas, 260 in air quality in Santiago, 90 in NGO sustainability in Chile, etc.

Third proposition: On innovation Third proposition: Development is materialized by means of a series of innovations, through which the system’s potentialities become actualized. Innovations are qualitative changes and may be followed by quantitative changes –or growth– in the same sphere of action. What is it that happens in a social system as it develops? The system undergoes a series of qualitative changes, at some internal initiatives, which become permanent. The source of the initiatives may or may not be the same and it may be placed at any level in the system’s power structure. After a particular qualitative change has become fully established and self-sustained, the system may be ready to experience quantitative changes in the same sphere, which would be observed as growth. For instance, some farmer may introduce a new crop in a particular region and succeed with it; then other farmers would follow suit and the output of the crop would start to grow. Or a particular composer may introduce a new musical genre –such as Haydn did with the symphony in Europe’s late 18th Century–, and as he finds followers the number of works of that genre will grow. The type of change we have identified is, naturally, innovation. The key to innovation is the achievement of change in a particular social system, rather than the presence of novelty. 13 It is also the difficult side of innovation, since it is easy just to propose new ideas without having to materialize them. Whenever an innovation has impact upon the whole system, it acquires historical significance to the system. Social systems, therefore, may build their history by means of innovations. This is not the only way for them to build their history, however, but it would normally point to the part of their history they would be most proud of. 12 13

See below the section on ID experiences.

For innovation relative novelty is sufficient, i.e., what is introduced should be new to this particular system; the crop brought in by the farmer may be already well known elsewhere. Absolute novelty belongs in the realms of invention and creativity, rather than innovation. Conversely, imitation and copy may be valuable starting points for innovation, as shown by Japan in its early stages of industrialization.


How does an innovation take place? We have identified a process, which we call the cycle of innovation, that involves all steps an innovation seems to go through; not those it should, but those it does go through. This cycle can only start effectively when somebody –we call him the innovator– has sufficient knowledge available about a potentiality in the system to start working on it, considers that working hard to materialize it is worthwhile to him or her for whatever reason, and sets to the task of materializing it.14 The cycle consists of the following successive steps, which are led by the innovator: (a) raising awareness of the potentiality, (b) building motivation to make use of it, (c) organizing the new activities, (d) operating the new activities, (e) obtaining results from the new activities, (f) raising further awareness on the basis of the results achieved, etc. This cycle is closed by the key role played by the results, which contribute to reinforcing awareness, motivation and organization. It is, therefore, a self-reinforcing cycle, that tends to strengthen all its components. In systems language it is a positive feedback loop. The innovation can be considered established when no further activation by the innovator is needed, and the new organizational unit in charge of the innovation can work on its own. What are the impacts of the innovation process on the social system? They are indeed very deep, and can be observed from three perspectives, i.e., those of organization, operations and culture. Organizationally, the system makes a new distribution of responsibilities, and at some level sets up a new organizational unit to operate the innovation. Operationally, a new set of activities are performed on a regular basis, with people doing new things, new inputs coming in, new outputs going out, new techniques or methods being used, etc. Culturally, the system incorporates new language to refer to the new activities and their components; new values expressed in changed norms and priorities because of the innovation; new symbols and images to express it; and perhaps new statements of its own identity that now involve it. To complete the discussion of this proposition we come back to growth. Growth is quantitative change and may be unrelated to innovation and therefore to development. A firm that is meeting some increasing demand on its market, by investing in its current lines of production, is not innovating but just adapting. Yet it is experiencing growth, and for a while it may be growing considerably –until a more innovative one challenges it. Notice that what is usually observed as economic growth is a set of aggregates in which the qualitative and the quantitative types of change are mixed together, into measures that are only quantitative, such as the sectoral or the macroeconomic ones. It is easy to realize, then, that by missing the qualitative changes, such aggregate measures miss the critical points at which development actually takes place. Growth is, therefore, not only an insufficient proxy for development but also a misguiding measure.

Fourth proposition: On participation Fourth proposition: Development action should be participatory, because social systems are complex and the only effective way to deal with complexity is the methodic participation of all relevant actors or stakeholders. Methodic participation opposes both technocracy and assembly-type action, and yields results that are effective and legitimate.

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When innovation becomes institutionalized, this role of innovator can be played by organizational units in addition to individuals.


Real-world problems, including development-related problems, are normally complex. We may characterize complexity in social systems as a situation in which the actors involved typically observe processes or statements expressing: ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

A growing number of issues A growing number of people and institutions involved A growing number of disciplines involved A feeling that the others simplify the situation Feelings of agreement and disagreement Difficulties in communication Even greater difficulties for action Everything is related to everything Inability to specify where to start from Etc.

This situation needs to be faced in practice, however, and some strategies for facing complexity are applied. We will review briefly four common ones:

15

◊

Simplification (or simplism) : It consists in denying complexity, by discarding whatever is not controlled or not understood. Action proceeds on the basis of a single interpretation of reality, with no intention of getting deeper knowledge; only additional information is sought. Many “practical” or “action oriented” people impress others through this strategy, by taking quick care of the situation. Approaches based on the key variable, the central issue, the cause of the situation or the solution of the problem are based on this strategy. In the real, complex world, however, there are no single causes, clear solutions or key variables. This strategy may give the impression for a while that it works, and increase power to its user, but it is bound to eventually fail because reality stays complex.

◊

Trial and error: This strategy takes a significant step ahead, since it acknowledges complexity and seeks to face it actively. Its way is experimentation and evaluation. This is the world of pilot projects, controlled essays, best practices and case studies. It is accepted from the start that additional knowledge is needed –not just additional information– and it is postulated that the experimental method will be sufficient to this end. It is also action-oriented but is respectful, since its provocation to the world is aimed at learning from it. This strategy tends to yield results in some situations, but has three severe deficiencies for higher-complexity ones: (a) it is slow for arriving at practical and reliable results, (b) it suffers from “blindness” for selecting its experiments and can only know at the end if they were or not useful, and (c) it is costly, because of the preceding reasons and because in the real world errors count, as they affect people, organizations and material goods.

◊

Analysis:15 This strategy also acknowledges complexity and lack of knowledge, but works differently. Its way is not empirical but rational. It tries to apply to the problem all available knowledge in sciences and disciplines. For this purpose it breaks the problem down into parts, and these into sub-parts, … until it reaches a level at which specialized knowledge can be applied. Once this is completed, outcomes are integrated by synthesis. In sophisticated cases, such synthesis takes the form of a computer model. Some examples are business scheduling, transport planning models and the approach of Western medicine to health. This strategy works well for repetitive situations that can be effectively isolated from their environment. But fails systematically in other real-life

For more details on analysis, see the Annex to this article.


situations because they cannot be isolated and there is no common language for synthesis but a Babel Tower of disciplines. Moreover, in today’s complex world its effect is even more serious: analysis tends in fact to increase complexity considerably. ◊

Public polling: This strategy has some elements of the preceding three ones. It consists in validating statements or propositions about some proposed action with people who may be representative of their addressees, in order to increase the likelihood of success. It shares the advantages of trial-and-error and analysis, without showing their most serious deficiencies: it applies available knowledge, it experiments, it is fast, it is not expensive. It has an additional advantage that likens it to participation, which is the involvement of the addressees. But it has a severe deficiency, i.e., it is only applicable in simple, precise and well-defined situations. It is not, in practice, a strategy for facing complexity.

Underlying the reasons that lead these strategies to failure there is a common reason, and there are scientific grounds which support it. Systems scientists have established laws of complexity, which make it possible to evaluate strategies like these with rigor, and also to explain why the world appears so complex. The explanation rests on the low descriptive power of the above strategies, vis-a-vis the reality they are called upon to describe.16 Let us consider now where could we find the high descriptive power that is needed to face the complexity of the current world. In technologies such as microelectronics, computing or mathematical modeling? We are obviously not convinced. No super-computer will solve ever poverty, urban crises, unemployment or environmental destruction without sacrificing human values. And it is futile to speculate on this, because the urgent responses needed must work today. Our proposal is considerably simpler and it is at hand: Let us face complexity by applying the outstanding descriptive powers of human mind and spirit. We can do so with great efficiency and speed by applying the principle, based on the laws of complexity, of multiplying the individual capabilities through methodic participation processes . If we can have available the tools that make this multiplication feasible in practice, we might in fact control complexity in most situations of management or public policy making. This is precisely the content of the participatory innovation strategies that will be presented below. We will complete the current discussion by dealing briefly with two significant impacts of methodic participation. Our research and practice leads us to conclude that both effective and legitimate results may be obtained through methodic participation processes . To make this clear, we will link methodic participation with two common ways of action and leadership in the practical world, especially in public policy making. They are technocracy and assembly-type action; we will describe them in their extreme versions. In technocracy, effectiveness is the key objective and nothing is participatory. In assembly-like action, legitimacy is the key objective and everything is participatory. But technocracy eventually loses effectiveness because of its lack of legitimacy, i.e. the technocrat loses contact with the real world. And assembly-like action eventually loses legitimacy because of its lack of effectiveness, i.e., little or nothing gets done in practice. Against this background we can draw two final conclusions:

16

We cannot get in this article into any detail about the important works of Ashby and Beer on the management of complexity. Some hints are presented in the Annex. This is not necessary for our argument, however, since their principles are already embodied in the ID Model and its tools, and they can be understood intuitively.


◊

Methodic participation does in fact have the potential of being both legitimate and effective. It makes it possible in practice that the sources of legitimacy and the sources of effectiveness come up simultaneously. The concrete results obtained by applying the ID Model and its tools in a number of fields confirm this clearly.

◊

The usual mistrust of participation is due to poor experiences owing to lack of appropriate method (if we leave aside other intentions). Without method, participation may decay towards either of its extremes, may fail to get results and may become discredited in a particular social system. Sometimes it may be just assembly-like action, and thus be ineffective. Other times it may be just technocracy and manipulation in disguise, and lose legitimacy.

Fifth proposition: On learning and culture Fifth proposition: A development process becomes self-sustained when the capability to innovate, or innovativeness, becomes an integral part of the system’s culture. An innovative culture is permanently looking for potentialities and making use of them. A system learns to innovate by doing innovations and becoming aware of them, and can do so efficiently through strategies for innovation with participation. We do not have space in this paper to deal with learning and culture with any detail. Thus, before getting to practice, with the methodological topics, we will observe the following: ◊

Learning occurs in the ID Model through practical action, rather than through teaching or training. As the system innovates, learning becomes embodied in all its dimensions, namely, its operations, its organization and its culture. The system and its members learn about themselves by formulating action maps, searching for their potentialities, etc.

◊

The agent in the ID Model is called the animator, because the role played by him or her is not just to facilitate meetings but also to provide support to the system in its transit from an adaptive culture to an innovative culture. In addition to a full command of concepts and tools, an ID animator needs to be trustworthy to all system members and to understand fully the system’s language.

◊

Participation will naturally be the key culture-changing process, since a large number of members of the system will be acting in this process. Furthermore, both the actual and the potential contents of culture will be shown together and will be considered critically by the system members along the process.

◊

We distinguish three main awareness steps in the development process. Progress towards the full incorporation of innovativeness into the system’s culture might be measured through them. They are: (a) awareness of current action, at the time the action map is formulated and socialized, (b) awareness of potentialities, after one or many potentialities are identified and some innovator or animator starts a communication process about it, and (c) awareness of innovation, when the system has done its first innovations, and has started to value them and to become ready for more.

The methodological steps Practical action with the ID Model is made through its methodological steps, which are all carried out through participation and apply the already-presented concepts and tools. They are:


• Convoking the ID process: Rigorous identification of the social system in which action will take place and generation of a single- or multi-organization instance that may be capable of convoking all relevant actors. Normally a group of conveners is established, with careful consideration of the sensitivities involved. The social system is always identified by means of an appropriate name, that may be long and detailed, which is built together with the group of conveners. • Formulation of the action map: Creation of a vision for action in a complex social system, concrete and reflecting consensus, which systematizes the whole action space of the system, both actual and potential. The map is a vision of attainable and desired future for that system. The map is normally prepared by a one- or two-day workshop, with up to 25 participants. The participants are selected by the group of conveners. The workshop may be followed by a wider validation seminar, for further improving its legitimacy and effectiveness, to which a much larger group of people may be invited (i.e. up to 100 or 120). • Evaluation of development and maturity: Estimation of the distance from the current situation to the attainable future, and of the available capabilities for attaining such a future. The main task is done at the mapping workshop or the validation seminar, and consists chiefly in setting by consensus the upper case and lower case letters on the map. It may be accompanied by a subsequent diagnostic study of the degree of knowledge of potentialities of each of the map’s lines of action. • Identification of potentialities: Systematic identification of the prospective actions of a meaningful and self-reliant nature that the system has available. This may be done in different ways, according to the strategy being applied (to be discussed on the following section). In policy-making exercises, they are identified by means of a series of workshops, one per basic line of action of the action map, followed by drafting and validation exercises. In project design processes, a project identification workshop is conducted to specify the three-cycle potentiality diagram. In process for exchanging experiences, the potentiality that explains a successful case is identified through a workshop with the participation of its authors, etc. • Design for action: For valuable potentialities, designing and implementing the projects that would materialize them. This involves the following participatory activities with the relevant actors of the social system: (a) evaluating the legitimacy of the requirements, (b) evaluating the availability of the resources and (c) designing strategies for raising awareness of the potentiality and for building up the instrument.

Some strategies for innovation with participation By combining the above methodological steps, and by using also a new Internet tool that reflects the ID Model, we have developed and applied over the years some specific strategies for innovation with participation, that are now outlined: • Policy-scale strategy: A participatory process is undertaken for the social system as a whole. It involves (a) key actors who lead the process, (b) conveners with legitimacy who invite actors to participate, (c) participants who are representative of the relevant actors of the system and (d) qualified animators who facilitate the process. The concrete outputs of the process are (1) a consensus vision of future for the social system, and assessment of its present, on its action map; (2) a widely-participatory identification of the system’s potentialities, which are in fact its feasible projects; and


(3) a final development policy or plan, based on the map and the potentialities, in which priority projects are selected and a management structure is established by the key actor and the conveners. • Project-scale strategy: A participatory project management tool is established on the following bases: (a) successful projects are those which actually establish innovations in the real world; unsuccessful ones fail to innovate; (b) the keys to a successful innovation are the clear identification of a significant potentiality and the definition of an effective innovation strategy; (c) the innovative project management tool is defined on these bases and involves four phases: identification of the potentiality, project design, project operation and project closing and evaluation; and (d) the contents obtained by applying this tool are fully consistent by the structure provided by the Logical Framework and related tools. • Internet strategy for networks: An Internet-based process and tool for networks, communities or groups, has been developed for applying the ID Model. It may strengthen existing networks or build up new virtual organizations that are fully participatory and undertake innovation processes. It is called the Participatory Workspace (PWS) and involves participants, messages among them, a mapped communication space, a virtual library, interest groups, tutorial processes, a number of specialized working tools and an organization methodology. • Transfer of experiences: A process for transferring successful experiences among a network of peers –both people and organizations– has been designed by combining the PWS and the project-level strategy. It considers that replicating an experience involves undertaking another innovation. The process includes: (a) identifying and systematizing the potentialities involved in the original experiences, (b) publishing the potentialities and complementary material in the PWS of the network, and (c) establishing a dialogue over the PWS, facilitated by a qualified animator, between the original author and those interested in replicating the experience, to support the interested ones in their particular innovation strategies.

Looking backward: The ID experiences Following is a list of significant projects in which concepts, tools or strategies of the ID Model have been applied, between 1990 and 2000. They include both research and consulting projects and are presented in alphabetical order of subjects. It should be noticed that we have considered these projects an ongoing research process and we have never advertised the ID Model; they just came from former students or other contacts, or from the few research supporters that have become interested in our work. With the exception of the research studies, all these processes have been conducted for some client or user; the author has never had a government or managerial position from which to apply this Model. a) Agricultural health: Participatory design of a vision of development for the national system for improving the sustainability and competitiveness of Chilean agriculture, convened by the Agriculture and Livestock Service (SAG), the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Agriculture Society, and the International Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA), Santiago, 1997. b) Agriculture: Systematic study of innovation capabilities in Chilean fruit-farming; University of Chile, 1989-92.


c)

Clean Production: Participatory updating of Chile’s Clean Production Policy, Public-Private Committee for Clean Production, Santiago, 2001.

d) Education communities through Internet – Colombia: Development of two Internet communities for improving quality of education in Bogota, with the Participatory Workspace (PWS) tool, for Bogota’s Secretariat of Education, Colombia, 2000. e) Energy efficiency – Latin America: Development and presentation of a strategy for energy efficiency for Latin America, at the Latin American and Caribbean Forum of the World Energy Council, Caracas, Venezuela, February, 1998. f)

Energy policy – Latin America: Contribution to the “Latin American Energy Strategy for the 1990´s”, Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE), Quito, Ecuador, 1990.

g) Engineering education: Methodology and guidance for the preparation of foreign missions, for their companies, for the young engineers who participated in program “Discovering Chile in the World”, College of Chilean Engineers, 1994-95. h) Environmental management in industry: Participatory design of an environmental management system (ISO 14,000 standards) and an environmental improvement program, for the Ventanas Copper Smelter and Refinery (Valparaíso), convened by the National Mining Company (ENAMI) and the Chilean Copper Commission (COCHILCO), Santiago and Ventanas, 1996-97. i)

Environmental policy: (1) Project “A Management System for Santiago’s Air Quality”, for Dutch Cooperation Program and CONAMA Metropolitan Region; University of Chile, 199495. (2) Methodological conduction of the “Participatory Process of Santiago’s Atmospheric Decontamination Plan” for the National Environment Commission (CONAMA), financed by The World Bank, Santiago, 1996-97. (3) Design and conduction of a “participatory follow-up process” for Santiago’s Atmospheric Decontamination Plan”, for the National Environment Commission (CONAMA), Santiago, initiated in 1998.

j)

Housing Policy - Bolivia: Formulation of bases for a National Housing Policy in Bolivia, through a participatory process convened by the Ministry of Human Development, Ministry of the Presidency, Association of Municipalities, National Chamber of Industry, Bolivian Chamber of Construction and Habitat Project (United Nations), La Paz, 1995.

k)

Human settlements reconversion: Project “Cerro Sombrero: From Camp to Life of its Own” that in a participatory way re-designed a town in Magallanes; National Petroleum Company (ENAP), Regional Planning Secretariat (SERPLAC) Magallanes and Municipality of Primavera, 1993.

l)

Industrial innovation: Formulation and application of an innovation policy at the National Petroleum Company in Magallanes, Punta Arenas, Chile, 1991-93.

m) Ministerial decentralization: Participatory project for identifying instruments for the Ministry of Public Works, Santiago, Chile, 1995-97.

decentralization

n) NGO Strengthening: Participatory design of a vision of development, and identification of concrete action proposals for strengthening NGOs in Chile, with the support of Ford Foundation, 1999-2000. o) Older people NGO Internet network – Latin America: Opening an Internet community (PWS) for three Latin American NGO networks, Santiago 1999. p) Regional Development: Participatory project “Magallanes Creates its Future”, convened by the Magallanes Regional Government, Foundation for the Development of Magallanes (FIDE XII) and the regional offices of National Petroleum Company (ENAP), National


Confederation for Production and Commerce and National Industrial Development Corporation (CORFO); Punta Arenas, Chile 1993-94. q) Small mining – sustainable development: Participatory design of a vision of development and an assessment of the current situation of small mining in the Atacama region of Chile; National Mining Enterprise, 1999. r)

Social policy in Chile: Participatory assessment of social policies in Chile, by participants from NGOs, government agencies and foundations, with the support of IDRC (Canada) and Andes Foundation (Chile), 1997-1999.

s)

Social policy research Internet network – Latin America: Opening an Internet community (PWS) for a Latin American networks of social policy researchers, Alberto Hurtado Jesuit University, Santiago, started in 1999.

t)

Traffic safety: (1) Participatory formulation of the National Policy for Traffic Safety as a joint effort of eight ministries and the Chilean Police; Santiago, Chile; convened by Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications, 1993. (2) Methodological support to the participatory application of the National Policy through successive innovations; National Commission for Traffic Safety (CONASET); Santiago, Chile, started in 1994.

u) Urban Transport: Characterization of the lack of control of the Santiago Bus System through a consulting study for the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications, Santiago, 1990.

Looking forward: Hypotheses on some development-related questions We will conclude this paper with the brief statement of a few hypotheses that have being calling our attention over the years. They provide an indication of the fields of applicability of the ID Model. We will just state them, without further details or justification. Testing them would require research or intervention work, or both. • On local-level poverty: The most effective approach for dealing with poverty at the local level would be to: (a) set up methodic participatory processes for the communities to identify their potentialities, with animation from well-trained NGO members, government officers or community leaders, and (b) allow the communities to establish their own procedures to allocate public or other resources to the projects that may materialize their potentialities. • On national-level poverty: The most effective approach for dealing with poverty at the national or sub-national level would be to: (a) establish the national program required for the local-level approach shown above, (b) establish a parallel process for identifying the national-scale potentialities and projects, with significant participation of people coming from the local level processes. • On policy making failures: Most failures in public policy making come from applying either technocratic or assembly-like approaches, and getting the consequent results which lack legitimacy and/or effectiveness. This happens in any field of public policy. • On project management failures: Most failures in social or public policy projects come from the lack of clearly-identified potentialities and clearly stated innovation strategies, at the time of design. • On international development failures: A significant share of project and policy failures in development cooperation can be related to the use of approaches and


methodologies that do not consider in practice the key distinction between nondeveloped and developed cultures, i.e., their difference in innovativeness. Common approaches such as “funds plus technology” tend to fail for this reason in many social systems of developing countries. Developing cooperation policies should be focussed upon building of innovativeness, by means of well-designed animation processes, as their key strategy. • On measuring development: It is not sufficient to measure development by means of growth indicators, which measure quantitative change, because they miss the key process of innovation, which is qualitative change. Effective indicators of development should be focussed on processes leading to a culture of innovation with participation in the whole society, such as participatory leadership, education for innovation, resources for innovation, openness of public policies to participation, etc. • On participatory democracy: Experiences in participatory democracy, with strong legitimacy and effectiveness, could be designed on the basis of the ID Model. They would require good understanding and active involvement from the current power holders.

Annex: Some key themes of the social systems tradition •

Mechanistic and systemic visions: The systemic vision arose in the mid-20th Century in search for overcoming the dominant mechanistic orientation in scientific work and for building bridges between disciplines like the biological, the social and the technological ones. Such distant disciplines did face similar processes such as communication and control, and the notion of system seemed a promising starting point for such approximation. We paraphrase Ackoff’s (1981) classical comparison among both “concepts of the world”: The mechanistic one is analytical (it takes things apart to understand), reductionistic (it looks for ultimate, indivisible elements) and deterministic (the cause is a necessary and sufficient condition for the effect). The systems one is holistic (every whole is unique and loses its properties if taken apart), expansionistic (it broadens towards greater wholes to understand) and contextualized (the environment co-produces the effects).

•

Social system: A system is a unit formed by interdependent parts that cannot be understood separately. They depend on the whole and the whole depends on them. A social system involves people or systems of people among its parts, in a specified environment. Groups, organizations, societal processes (education, the macro-economy), societies, etc., may be conceptualized as social systems. A social system is a way of looking at social reality by an observer, i.e. as a space formed by systems rather than by mechanisms.

•

The systems approach: This approach has come up as an alternative to the analytical approach. We follow again Ackoff’s (1981) specification. In the analytical approach (a) the object under study is decomposed in parts, (2) the behavior of each part is explained separately and (c) the behavior of the whole is explained by synthesis of the former; e.g. understanding a clock as a mechanism of gears, battery, display, etc. (analysis first, synthesis later). In the systems approach (a) a containing whole, of which the object is a part, is identified, (b) the behavior of the whole, understood as a system, is explained and (c) the behavior of the object is explained in terms of its roles or functions within its containing whole; e.g. understanding this clock as my linkage point with the international system for temporal coordination of activities (synthesis first, analysis later).


•

Complexity: Social systems are always complex, i.e., impossible to describe in detail and susceptible of many possible descriptions. Facing their complexity is crucial to managing them in practice, and is thus an important challenge for the systems tradition.17 The key question has been: Why is there stability, control, non-chaotic change, etc., in systems as complex as ecosystems or societies? A key answer is in Ashby´s law of requisite variety, which for Beer (another central author) is as important for understanding the world as Newton’s law of gravity. Its basic idea is simple yet very powerful: regulation needs that all distinguishable states of the regulated unit be matched by states of the regulating unit. 18

•

The future: This theme comes from futures research and is key for social systems work. We follow here Ozbekhan (1971). The relevant future for action is not what will happen (prediction, with date, derived from the present), which cannot be known in practice since it depends on what we do in the present. It is what we want to happen (intention, without date, creator of meaning for the present) which provides guidance to our action. The present is the here and now that in fact exists; the future is another here and now that is imposed upon the present in order to change it. The direction of time is reversed, i.e., the present follows the future and not the other way around.

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The typical route for this purpose in the analytical tradition has been mathematical modeling.

The populations of rabbits and foxes, the availability of grass for the rabbits and all other variables of an ecosystem are controlled mutually and kept stable in this way, without any external controllers.

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Schein, Edgar H., "Coming to a new awareness of organizational culture", Sloan Management Review, Winter 1984, pp. 3-16. Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1911), The theory of economic development. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 255 p. Spanish edition, 1957, based on the 1934 English edition.