Shared Missions
I really didn’t want to go to Saudi Arabia.
In March 2022 I was invited for a conference and to say I was apprehensive would be an understatement. I was so apprehensive that I was hoping I tested positive for Covid so as to have a decent excuse not to go.
This is part two of a three-part post about social innovation and rocket science. You can read part one here.
I spoke to members of the team who wouldn’t feel they could legally visit and be themselves, I did research, I wanted to be prepared for what would come, and go with my eyes fully open.
I was ready to be angry.
In the end, I was so glad to have gone ahead with the trip to see things for myself.
What was clear from my experience (albeit, a very curated one) was that there was a clear nation-building mindset. This didn’t feel like petty nationalism, everyone I spoke to had a sense of a role in creating a green and inclusive economy and society.
Every Saudi national that I chatted with created the impression that they were fully bought into this mission, everyone saw they had a role.
Everybody recognised there was a big opportunity, that it would take hard work, and that there would be uncomfortable moments as old skin was shed for the new.
The extreme here was that everything I had expected going into the trip was dispelled. I’ve never seen any British leaders or politicians create such a platform for female talent as the Princes did in Saudi.
It was a deeply intoxicating thing seeing this shared mission that had been taken to heart by all residents.
This was the old story of the janitor at NASA in 1962 who, when asked what he did by JFK, stated “I’m helping put a man on the moon”.
I didn’t leave angry, but inspired.
We don’t have a shared cause in the UK right now, we don’t all agree on our national mission or our moonshot.
We don’t agree on anything anymore.
Our Shared Cause
Right now, the fabricated “culture wars” create a very difficult environment for a shared cause to emerge.
Without being too crass, this is why I think environmentalism should be such an opportunity for us as human beings.
Solving the environmental crisis doesn’t need to be divisive. It doesn’t matter whether you believe in climate change or not, it is rational for us to focus on energy security through renewable sources, and reducing use.
It gives economic potential through power generation, while giving sovereignty over the security of our power sources.
The only reason why any group would be fighting against environmental causes is to seed chaos and distract through dispute, or vested interest.
Revolutionising our energy system has been blocked by talk of our restrictions due to the cost of living but this is a flawed argument. There is no care there for that, this is an opportunity to make a buck.
Every household and business should have access to interest-free loans to implement specific energy efficiency technologies. The interest and return we would receive as a commonwealth would be worth it.
We need a social mission that unites us and creates on-ramps for more people to be able to benefit from it.
On-ramps
On-ramps are simple concepts, they’re the entry points for people to engage with a service or system.
This is a fundamental factor in creating accessible services for different user groups and profiles.
I’ll write more about these in the future, but I want to make sure that jargon isn’t just sailed past.
How We Do Things Around Here
There is another risk which could turn opportunity - and that’s tradition. The way we’ve always done things.
But that doesn’t stack up. Ask anyone over the age of 50 and they’ll tell you about Corona pop, and homemade stock, and turning off the lights, and only having meat on Sundays.
Just because some people are afraid of the world changing, it doesn’t mean the rest of us should hold back.
But it also doesn’t mean we can push on an ignore the needs of an influential audience.
Being more vegetarian became a fashionable trend which a meat alternative manufacturer tried to promote and capitalise on in the last decade.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a vegan or vegetarian if you enjoy what you eat and it comes from sustainable sources. People buy into the idea of shopping locally and the value of doing so, when they can afford to.
But if vegetarianism is perceived as a lack of something then this is never going to work.
We fear loss more than we appreciate gain, which Kahneman and Tversky identified in 1979 when they coined the term “loss aversion”.
This theory makes the pain of loss feel much greater than the joy of gaining.
Understanding it better makes game shows like Deal or No Deal or the Weakest Link a bit less interesting, so I’d suggest skipping to the next section if enjoyment of these shows makes up a large part of your life’s joy.
The simplest way to understand the idea is that we, on average, need to gain 2.5x as much to justify the risk of a loss. Basically, losing £1,000 feels far worse than gaining £1,000 feels good.
Same in football, a point gained feels much better than the same point if it comes from letting a winning position slip.
If we talk about people losing meat as a privilege from their diet then vegetables need to feel more than an equal replacement.
And never cauliflower steaks. Ever.
It’s not just meat, this applies the same to trying to encourage people to ditch their cars for public transport.
That certainly won’t work if the service is worse and more expensive than running a car, and the answer isn’t making that twice as costly and cumbersome. A mistake which is being made right now in my own country.
Yuval Noah Harari talks a lot about tradition in Sapiens, as does Jonathan Haidt in the Happiness Hypothesis. Sharing our culture between generations is important, and these relationships form a significant proportion of our happiness in life.
That doesn’t mean we don’t create new traditions but there are a lot of people who are going to be feeling quite upset that we’re not appreciating and valuing theirs.
If we want change, we need to bring people along on the journey and make them feel welcome, not force them to embrace it without giving them any options.
Ditching their traditions like they’re worthless is the quickest way to ensure you will not succeed.
Part three comes next week and focusses on why we need social entrepreneurs now more than ever.
If I missed anything, let me know - I’d love to hear your views on this topic, it means a lot to me.
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