“If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” – Abraham Maslow
For many Sri Lankans, it is becoming clearer by the day, that no viable solution is in the horizon for any of the economic or political problems they are facing at the moment.
The bigger irony is that the more they wonder in search of solutions the further they get from any feasible solution, not to mention the new problems they create along the way. As Jiddu Krishnamurti has said: “The problem is the important thing, and not the answer. If we look for an answer, we will find it; but the problem will persist, for the answer is irrelevant to the problem.
Our search is for an escape from the problem, and the solution is a superficial remedy, so there is no understanding of the problem.” It will not be that difficult for anyone who has made a conscious attempt to understand, the connections between the problems the country is facing, and the solutions being suggested by the relevant authorities, how fitting Krishnamurti’s statement is to the current situation in Sri Lanka.
Anyone who intends to find a solution to a problem must first make a serious attempt to understand the problem and its source. Some researchers say that reaching such an understanding about the problem will take one almost three quarters of the way to the solution where different options to reach a feasible outcome can easily be seen.
Creative problem solving has become one of the most ‘in-demand’ skills in the 21st century. It is arguably the most marketable talent one could have in the global competition for employment.
There is no shortage of classes, lectures, seminars, and workshops teaching ‘creative problem solving’ all over the world. Almost all these programs will try to teach the participants how to solve socio-economic problems within their own environments.
Enriched with 17th century mathematical ideas the field of creative problem solving has branched out to all types of subject areas such as Operations Research (OR), Game Theory, Network Analysis, Neural Networks, Decision Theory, and Econometrics, quantitatively and Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), Strategic Options Development and Analysis (SODA), and Strategic Choice (SC), qualitatively, within the formal education systems.
Most of the higher educational institutions around the world, including our own State university system, offer courses covering most, if not all, such topics through various undergraduate as well as postgraduate degree programs.
However, none of these theories seem to have made any tangible impact on the recipients of such degrees who have been policy makers and decision-making officials in our state institutions.
Though most of the people are quick to put the politicians in our country down by highlighting the inferior educational qualifications of some of the parliamentarians, we certainly should not forget the fact that we also have people with degrees such as PhD, MSc, MA, MBA, LLM, BSc, BA, LLB, MBBS and BCom and other professional qualifications such as CIMA and ICT in the same Parliament.
Some of these parliamentarians have the highest qualifications in the fields of economics, law, sociology, and different areas of natural sciences. The two main institutes governing the economy of the country, the Central Bank, and the Treasury certainly have enough and more officials at decision-making positions with such educational qualifications of very high standards.
The two main institutes handling the energy sector of the country, the CEB and the CEYPTCO are no different.
They are filled with engineers and other professionals who have performed at the highest-level of competency expected by our education system. Not only that, most of the secretaries to the ministries are also graduates of our own university system.
Wouldn’t such an environment make: “How did we end up where we are today with all this knowledge and human resources that were in place, one might even say strategically placed, in order to protect the country from any foreseeable threat to these two pillars, energy and the economy, that holds the country up?” That is the fundamental question in everybody’s mind.
That is why the most important part of solving Sri Lanka’s problem is also the understanding the problem and the environment within which it has been created clearly.
Toyota car company started using what is called the ‘5Y’ (five whys) technique of bringing counter measures to problems. Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Industries developed the technique in the 1930s and a lot of other successful companies are also using it today.
This simple but powerful technique cuts quickly through the symptoms on the surface of a problem to reveal the underlying causes. The method is particularly useful in tackling the stubborn or recurring problems that are perhaps just the symptoms of different issues that are hidden under several layers of activities, that don’t even seem to be related to the original problem at the first glance.
Though quick and or popular fixes seem convenient in solving such problems they often cover the surface issues and even end up wasting more resources that could otherwise have been used to counter the real cause of the problem.
The technique is so simple that some people think that it is an invention of a five-year-old child. It is just asking a sequence of five ‘whys’ starting from the problem at hand. It doesn’t always have to be exactly five ‘whys’ though that usually would get to the root.
In analysing our economic and political problems we may have to resort to twenty-five whys. Nevertheless, it will guide us to the root cause (s) of the problem. We may start with questions like: ‘Why didn’t the governor of the Central Bank, being a well accomplished professor of economics, see this coming?’ Then the answer to that should be followed with another ‘why’ and continue until the root cause is reached.
Similarly, we may apply this technique with questions such as: ‘Why didn’t the Treasury Secretary notice that at the rate it is being emptied the place will be completely dry by this particular time?’ ‘Why can’t the engineers at the CEB calculate the number of days they can generate electricity by the water levels of the reservoirs after the rainy season and have alternative measures ready by the end of that period so that people won’t have to experience power cuts?’
‘Why do the sluice gates open more than necessary when the reservoirs are filled but no need for excess water for agriculture or power generation while the dam can easily hold it in?’
Answers to some of these questions may end up pointing out the weakness of our education system through which some of these people gained their educational qualifications yet didn’t have enough knowledge to attend to the required work at their respective positions.
If that is the case, then we may have to look for ways to fix the education system. Some of the answers may show that they knew what was happening but couldn’t do anything about it. If that is the case, then we may start from there and go with another sequence of ‘whys’ to find out the causes for that.
Whichever the case may be, unless we look into the root causes of these problems and implement counter measures to those, this country will not be saved even if we appoint Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Elon Musk together with Richard Branson to our Parliament while the rest of the system is in place exactly as it was.
Perhaps singing the nursery rhyme ‘There’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza’ may not be a bad way to relax with our children during these challenging times.
The writer has served in higher education sector as an academic over twenty years in the USA and fifteen years in Sri Lanka and he can be contacted at [email protected]