Problem solving

And when it becomes hard to combine those different political priorities, because all of our political disagreements are all along the same basic cleavage, they align with partisanship, with race, religion, etc., then that makes it really hard to engage with diverse groups of people on different priorities we might have.

and makes it harder to engage in the kind of problem solving that democracy at its best really tries to facilitate among lots of different people.

So is it inevitable that identities require boundaries? This is just in the case of where it becomes risky or dangerous is then when the norms become too defined or that they're not permeable, they can't mix with other identities.

Yeah, exactly.

That didn't have some of the kind of Keep disagreements about how do we allocate this form of funding? Do we want increased policing or something like that? That seems like it's more of a positive sub-interaction, a new solution that advanced lots of different interests.

And so some politics are like that.

But if you think of your political engagement just in terms of friends and enemies, I want to win at the expense of the enemies, you're going to miss out on those forms of problem solving.

And then in addition, when we kind of try to think even more explicitly about identity, when we're really attached to certain identity commitments and we're worried about this kind of winner and loser dynamic, we can start to prioritize signaling our loyalty to our existing group members, to our existing coalition at the expense of just genuinely trying to problem solve.

And sometimes they do have some great insight about what will work and sometimes it just spins.

But at least that's another attempt, another intervention that you could try that we would call that collaborative problem solving or sometimes.

And that's a John Green.

The Explosive Child, Lost at School author has a program very much.

Collaborative Problem Solving has been around for a long time, but he has a very packaged program where you would meet regularly and talk about what are some lagging skills? What are some ways that the student sees that? So the student gets to share their perspective on it and helps the team maybe with their perspective taking from the child's point of view.

but the child also gets their team point of view.

So it's a larger mediation session, essentially to find like a solution to be able to like go forward.

You were talking about basically having a period of time where you had to figure things out on your own because mom and dad were busy trying to put a roof over the head and doing what's right by you.

It made me realize that sometimes that's a good thing that the critical thinking kicked in for you, the problem solving kicked in for you.

It's got to get done, kicked in for you.

I, and my first thought is, you know, we have generations where we do everything for our children, right? We bubble wrap them and we solve all their problems and we try to help them avoid problems, but you were kind of thrown in the deep end of the pool and it maybe wasn't fun, But you learn critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills, right? Yeah,

His career has spanned university teaching, security analysis, professional training, and strategic communication.

For nearly 20 years, he lectured at the University of Adelaide, teaching subjects including applied thinking, complex problem solving, international security, and the politics of leadership.

He's also trained people across defence, government and private organisations, including the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Department of Defence.

In the conversation that follows, David explains with great clarity the difference between complicated and complex challenges and the barriers that make adaptation so difficult for your company and you.

Thank you very much for inviting me.

Perhaps as a preface to the conversation, could you set out how you think we should best understand the differences between complicated problems and complex problems?

This is one of these thorny things that if you get the right bunch of complex problem solving people together, they'll have a conference on and they'll take a week.

which normally means I want to scream find the bar and start concluding what can I mix with each other thing to reduce the pain of this conference.

And that's why you got the request from me to be on the show because I was attracted to the fruit of all that you're doing.

Your philosophies, your insights, your work around problem solving and human behavior, relationships and this stuff.

I found them pretty profound.

So I've got to say thank you for doing that yourself and thank you for being here.

And you know, the fact that you... turned your pain into purpose and you didn't allow those dark moments to hold you down.

That's really, really inspiring.

And I also love your work around problem solving.

So I wanted to ask, what do you actually do when someone brings you a real problem?

Yeah, one of the things I love about the Clone Wars is that, you know, for every story arc we get, which is Jar Jar impersonating the boss on Naboo while they're dealing with something, or we get an Anakin and Padme episode, every once in a while they will just remind us that this really is about a war.

And, you know, we just got off the two episodes of R2-D2 and C-3PO, Wandering the Galaxy, Solving Problems, and then they've come back in a major way.

with letting us know the horrors of war that were the Clone Wars.

Indeed.