Thread by @swardley

X : What do you think is the greatest current threat to human life? Climate change? War? Nuclear terrorism? Disease?
Me : Neoliberalism. It's the one thing that is almost guaranteed to kill us all off and we don't even monitor it.

X : You think neoliberalism is dangerous?
Me : Yes, as dangerous and as much of threat as communism. Both are one size fits all extremes, both ultimately reduce freedom and invariably undermine democracy replacing it with authoritarianism of one form or another ...

... however, both also have virtues. The problems always come from rampant application as a one size fits all. I'd rather see more of a mixed model, mindful of context with component systems like the "market" and "central planning" used as tools.

X : Tools?
Me : Yes. Neither the market nor central planned are replacements for society and its purpose rather they should be tools to support. Our vision of society (i.e. the combination of purpose + values) is independent of landscape and should be independent of tools.

X : Values and Purpose?
Me : Ok, purpose is a fundamental reason for our existence as opposed to some time based mission we are on. For example, our purpose might be "peaceful existence" ... it's the very thing that defines our collectives reason to be ...

... values are beliefs that guide us i.e. a belief in reciprocity, a belief in fairness etc.

For example if your purpose is "peaceful existence" then you can achieve this in many ways i.e. "kill off everyone we don't like" or "working in co-operation with others"

... our vision is that combination of our purpose and our values e.g. "Our desire is for peaceful existence based upon reciprocity, fairness and co-operation with others".

... now at this point, you don't need to understand the landscape, it's independent of it.

Purpose (incl. vision & values) are all in the early part of the strategy cycle.

Once we have a vision, we start to undertake activities (i.e. missions) to help make our vision happen.

So, your missions are normally time based activities designed to support the path set out by the vision. Of course, the first mission should invariably be "understand the landscape" ...

... as you loop around then other potential missions become clear along with strategies that can be deployed to achieve those missions. It's in the strategy part that a use of tools becomes important. This is where market, centrally planned or "use both" exist ...

... those tools (market, centrally planned) and the related extreme forms of ideology (neoliberalism, communism) should have nothing to do with the vision, the values or the purpose of society. It should be far removed. It often isn't and that's the problem.

i.e.
Purpose : Peaceful existence
Value : Belief in reciprocity, fairness & co-operation.
Vision : Peaceful existence based upon reciprocity, fairness and co-operation with others
1st mission : Understand our landscape in order to determine further missions to support our vision

... and then you loop around creating further missions to support, gaining more insight into the landscape etc etc.

Tools like market vs centrally planned or agile vs six sigma vs lean or any tool are so much further down ...

... but instead, people often seem to start with

Purpose : A market economy

or

Purpose : An agile organisation

.. it's about as daft as you can get. It really is dazzlingly stupid.

X : What's wrong with an Agile organisation?
Me : As a purpose?
X : Yes
Me : Oh, I'm not doing this again. I've said enough on it, just read here -

https://twitter.com/swardley/status/1214919092513185793

X : Are missions dependent upon the landscape?
Me : Of course. Your first mission should always be to understand the landscape (i.e. increase situational awareness) but subsequent missions are derived from that.

X : But your purpose, vision and values are independent of landscape?
Me : Well, strictly they should be informed by it. They can also change (i.e. values evolve) and you can also pivot a collective to an entiretly new purpose but let us not complicate things. Start simple.

X : Example? Healthcare.
Me :
Purpose - Healthcare
Values (beliefs) - fair, free at point of use, funded by Gov.
Vision - A Gov healthcare system that is free at the point of use and fair to all being based upon medical need.
Mission 1 - Understand our landscape.

X : How to understand landscape?
Me : Idetify users i.e. patients, Gov, the public, healthservice providers, professionals etc. Then identify their needs i.e. funding, value for money, access to treatment etc. Then build a chain of needs and map it.

X : Once you've done that, what should your next mission be?
Me : It depends upon the landscape. For example, with a pre-existing sysytem then you might have a mission to improve efficiency. As part of that mission then you might use open plays as part of the strategy.

X : If I don't do the landscape bit?
Me : Well ... blah, blah, blah. Nice words, great story and not much else.

X : But isn't healthcare a need of something else?
Me : Yes, it's a societal need of a collective.
X : Can that be mapped?
Me : Of course. Along with the values. But we're keeping things simple here.

X : You could write your purpose, values and vision as a map?
Me : Yes. But mostly we use stories for this because whilst they are lousy tools to learn or understand an environment with and are loaded with politics whilst being difficult to challenge ... they are simple.

... you don't strictly need to understand the landscape to write a broad purpose, to describe your values and outline a vision. Of course, as you learn more (i.e. cycle around the loop) that'll change.