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REINVENTING THE RECOVERY MODEL FOR TIMES OF CRISES Looking to the future: letting go of the past
Looking to the future letting go of the past
A crisis should be seen as an invitation to reimagine the preferred futures and not as a desperate clamour for the romanticised certainty of the past. Madelaine Page and Jamaine Krige discuss Dr Morne Mostert’s Pro-silience model to take South Africa into the future. Dr Mostert is Director for Futures Research at Stellenbosch University and also used this model to score South Africa’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
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Language, he argues, is the audit of knowledge. And as knowledge evolves and changes, so must the language to communicate this.
“Insights expire,” he explains. “And to the extent that language reflects the thinking that produced the insights, language that describes strategies for general success also appears to have a limited shelf-life.” This, he says, is rather easy to prove. “If the general tenet of continuous change is embraced, then it cannot be argued that language, derived of a time and a place never to be revisited, is somehow immune to similar evolution.”
In times of general success, it’s easy for individuals, organisations and societies to overcome minor disruptions and return quickly to the status quo. “The need to bounce back to a time of prosperity makes intuitive sense under pressure,” he explains. This, however, was not the case with Covid-19. “When the negative disruption is nothing short of tectonic, and the status quo was already severely undesirable, a meek attempt to return to a previous normal appears deeply misplaced,” he says. Even if successful, resilience under these conditions would not produce a satisfactory future.
Dr Mostert warns that the reality of Covid-19 with its deadly impact and
Dr Morne Mostert, Director of the Institute for Futures Research at Stellenbosch University, is also a member of the Club of Rome
accompanying lockdowns has not yet brought about a ‘new normal’.
There is also no reason to yearn for the ‘old normal’ because this normal was actually not working very well.
Resilience entails the ability to recover quickly from difficulties and toughness. This is no longer good enough. Resilience and recovery suggest a similar goal – to return to times of prosperity. But, as Dr Mostert points out, we need to move forward, not backwards, if we are to truly step into the tomorrow we deserve.
No matter how daunting the prospect of alternative preferable futures may seem, rapid or dramatic innovation now holds the key.
“An active citizenry cannot allow its government to revert to the defence of outdated patterns of thought and practice, or the lowering of ambition to levels of a time gone by.” Instead, he says, what is required now is a futureconscious system actor who recognises the irrefutable reality of futures with low recognisability.
Instead of just bouncing back, successful systems of tomorrow must transcend resilience as ‘re’ implies a repetition of the past. This is instead replaced by ’pro’ (pro-silience) to suggest a creative design towards preferred futures. Within the context of this Pro-silience model, Dr Mostert defines a crisis as “a sudden and surprising event or realisation, which causes significant interruption, disturbs the systemic balance, and presents an appreciable threat, especially for the current future.” He uses his Disruption Satisfaction Matrix to illustrate the limited options of traditional resilience and explains how traditional thinking cannot deliver the desired results for an uncertain future. “In fact, traditional thinking is what has produced traditional problems,” he explains, “and a back-to-basics approach, embraced for its apparent certainty, can only repeat yesterday’s challenges.” That is why one must look at innovative, alternative futures, he says. When redesigning a business, family or society the focus should be on being successful in a “considered and dynamic future landscape” without yearning for the past, as the past will not bring about innovation and alternatives.
Dr Mostert says his Pro-silience Model embodies a future-conscious design of complex adaptive systems. He uses a diagram to propose the ten point process for achieving pro-silience, starting with Distance.
10 POINT PROCESS FOR ACHIEVING PRO-SILIENCE
1Distance As a first step, the valued asset is removed from the immediate threat and in extreme cases drastic action may be necessary, like killing parts of the self (he uses the examples of cannibalism or self-amputation). This may be because the asset has expired or may have been rendered useless, possibly due to the crisis itself or because of a more attractive offering. • South Africa scores 8/10 on this this step as Dr Mostert lauds
President Ramaphosa, saying the country did “exceptionally well to design and communicate the first hard lockdown”.
Only a long-term vision could have bettered the score.
2Conscious Care The severity of the disruption in a time of crisis, he says, makes it essential to allow the system to “stop and rest” to make sure that it is secure and not injured further, either externally or due to its own dysfunctional momentum. • South African score: 6/10. Despite fairly rapid early responses, especially by the business community, and social grant measures, most businesses and vulnerable citizens remained at the mercy of the crisis.
3Thermo-dynamic rebalance Dr Mostert says the overall temperature, for instance the social temperature/mood, can be controlled as soon as a form of care and security is established. “By reducing system ‘inflammation’, the system is ready to be guided towards renewal.” • South African scores 5/10 as bureaucratic incompetence, arrogance by politicians and a lack of defensible scientific acuity brought about escalating tempers.
4Pro-hydration & Diagnosis It is at this stage where the prefix “pro” is introduced as the limits of retrogression to the past have, by implication, been reached. By controlling the systemic temperature, rehydration is allowed and a prima facie diagnosis undertaken to assess the extent of the damage. Comparisons are made between the current reality and the reality just before the crisis. The current reality is also compared to where one had expected to be now; and one’s own present reality is compared to the current reality of another. • South Africa gets 4/10 with corruption even engulfing food parcels, apart from the fact that no early diagnosis was done.
5Pro-resourcing & Prognosis Once the system has proven that it can continue its viability, resources must be allocated for it to develop further. Not lingering on traditional resourcing models, the focus must be on what is required for the preferred future. Pro-resourcing refers to “a future-informed process of decision-making and resource allocation.” It is at this stage, Dr Mostert says, that the system can start with safe experiments towards an envisaged future. • South African score: 3/10 – The outdated conversations about the rescuing of state-owned enterprises, for instance, prevent the reinventing of the economy.
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At this stage the system must start moving towards its preferred future. Its recovery path should now be redesigned “with the intelligence of the recent shock embedded in the intelligence of its new DNA” and not a rehabilitation to regenerate its former state. • South Africa scores 5/10, as Dr Mostert says that after more than a year, very little has been published on meaningful recovery strategies and almost no critical focus areas have been communicated publicly.
7Pro-synthesis, Coalescence & Homeostasis A new identity in a novel context should now emerge, with new connections being formed. • South Africa scores 3/10. The South African Cabinet has remained unchanged, despite “glaring evidence of strategic incompetence”, which makes it clear that insights for the post-Covid landscape are still lacking.
8Scarring & Trauma Treatment This is not the time to stop the recovery efforts, but rather to increase and maintain them. Doing so timeously is what will prevent intractable damage in the future. One must make sure that ghosts from the past do not feature when decisions for alternative futures are made. It is, therefore, important to test the system memory to make sure it does not hinder future progress. • South Africa scores 2/10. Dr Mostert says the government has caused economic and social scarring that will be felt for a long time as little attention was paid to the damage of the draconian measures. Talking about “hermetic lockdowns”, he says, showed almost no evidence of the slightest agility in decision-making.
9Provention & (un)Learning Deep learning of the new future is necessary, especially as the past may linger or even try to repeat itself. Beyond prevention, unlearning of obsolete perspectives and prevention is also needed. Dr Mostert warns that crises are part of systemic wholes and their restructure must be able to withstand similar future shocks. Early warning systems should be developed for timeous risk detection and agile system design for rapid future response. • South African score: 2/10 – The health system, divided by stark lines of inequality, showed similarly unequal responses. Referring to the varying degrees of lockdown and the debates on, for instance, open-toed shoes and the risks of rolled cigarettes (“zol” in slang language), Dr Mostert says there is little communication of the lessons learnt or a new thinking on early warning mechanisms.
10 New paradigm Dr Mostert gives South Africa a score of 1/10. This, he says, is because the country’s national paradigm is one of a nation held hostage by its past. He refers to people in positions of great influence and power based on their perceived roles of the past, and adds that he does not foresee the current leadership presenting a sudden paradigmatic shift. A number of critical structures, like the independent judiciary, free media, professional business management, sophisticated financial system, constitutionally protected academic freedom and an active citizenry, however, remain beacons of hope.
The Pro-silience Model
Provention Resilience (un)Learning, EWS dev.
Scarring phantom limb (muscle) memory PTSD treatment
Pro-synthesis Coalescence Homeostasis Autopoiesis Teleology New paradigm Distance/Removal Extraction/Barrier Cannibalism Self-Amputation
Shock Despair
Confidence
Meaning Hope Conscious Care Stop & Rest Secure
Thermo-dynamic rebalance Reduce inflammation
Pro-generation Pro-habilitation Repair Pro-construction Pro-Resourcing Experimental movement Prognosis Pro-hydration Diagnosis Prescription Re-fueling
