The ministry argues that "if you do what you always did, you'll get what
you always got." They say this is a valuable insight they use on a
daily basis, because it makes things predictable and computable.
They call that experience.
But sometimes, they argue that experience also gets in their way.
Especially if we ask for boundary solutions. As Einstein said: "We can
not solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we
created them".
If it really is different, if a breakthrough is really required,
we ask people from all around the Netherlands to think "out-of-the-box".
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| A LEF Session in action |
Out of the box?
And how do you do that, you might ask? Are people
willing to say goodbye to their comfortable standards, values and
thinking patterns? And are they able to cut new paths in their own brain
with a surgical knife, so to speak ?
LEF helps to realize this concept. "Only when people really break their
existing thinking patterns and frameworks,there is room for real
innovation, for a real breakthrough they say.
LEF Future Center is the organization within the Ministry of
Infrastructure and Environment-specializing in the creation of
breakthroughs and new patterns.
As to the practical side of how this LEF concept works, this came at the
invitation of Erdal Sahin,, who invited me to attend one of these LEF
sessions, at what the Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment calls
the FUTURE CENTER, housed in the impressive modern Ministry building in
Utrecht.
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| Dialog works: achieving common goals |
The theme of this particular group discussion I attended, focused on
"How to bring the Government and the Public closer together in reaching
common achievable goals, eventually benefiting the community at-large".
The groups were divided in a variety of "psychological categories",
which by itself is already quite an innovative approach, to get people
thinking about similar issues, from different angles, based on their own
interest and inner composure, but with the same ultimate goals in mind.
At the conclusion of this very interesting gathering of people, from a
variety of disciplines, one could say that the overall opinion seemed to
be that change will and can happen, mainly as a result of grass-roots
movements, which start at the Public level, moving via the Municipal
level, to eventually reach the Government level to make change happen.
It must also be noted that over the years the so-called "trickle-down"
philosophy, whereby both the dialog and the economy are being directed
to flow from the Government and/or the Corporate sector downwards,
thereby benefiting the Public sector, has shown to be counter-
productive and in many cases a total failure
With LEF obviously organizing many of these events throughout the year,
one would hope the data of these dialogs are circulated and available,
not only among government ministries, but also at municipalities, and
educational institutions .
Compliments to the Netherlands Ministry of Infrastructure and
Environment, LEF and the organizers for putting this most stimulating
event together.
EU-Digest
