Earlier the week, I finished reading an advanced copy of Steward Brand’s “Whole Earth Discipline .” For those of you unfamiliar with Brand’s work, I urge you to check out his Wikipedia and TED page. Brand is a biologist by trade and a lifelong environmental activist. His writing style is warm and inviting. I admire his ability to teach, inspire, and motivate the reader into action. I highly recommend you pick up a copy when it is published on October 15th. You will not be disappointed.
Midway through the book is a fascinating chapter entitled “Romantics, Scientists, Engineers.” Brand talks about how the environmental movement is made up of these three archetypes. He has devoted much of his life to being either a romantic or a scientist. His latest work represents an evolved role of engineer. Brand describes them in the following way.
“Romantics identify with natural systems; the scientist study natural systems. Romantics are moralistic, rebellious against the perceived dominant power, and dismissive of any who appear to stray from the true path. They hate to admit mistakes or change direction. The scientists are ethical rather than moralistic, rebellious against any perceived dominant paradigm, and combative against one another. For them, identifying mistakes is what science is, and direction change is the goal.”
As it pertains to the environmental movement, Romantics make up the majority of supporters.
“Scientists and their perceptions are always in minority; they are easily ignored, suppressed, or demonized when their views don’t fit the consensus story line.”
“Engineers are arriving who see environmental problems neither as a romantic tragedy nor as a scientific puzzle but simply as something to fix. They look to scientist for data to fix the problem with, and the scientists appreciate the engineers because new technology is what makes science go forward. The romantics distrust engineers—sometimes correctly—for their hubris and are uncomfortable with the prospect of fixing things because the essence of tragedy is that it can’t be fixed.”
“Romantics love problems; scientists discover and analyze problems; engineers solve problems.”
Let’s translate this concept into everyday life.
Marketing dreams up this fancy glitzy new fandangle product. Finance analyzes the market opportunity and product to death; concluding the revenue projections are inflated and the costs to implement are surly understated. They want to kill the project. IT steps in and begins to brainstorm on how they are going meet Marketing’s needs, satisfy financial concerns, and seamlessly implement the product offering. More challenges and hurdles are uncovered. Finance says I told you so and stands firmly behind their decision. Marketing becomes ever more resolved and pushes harder. Frustrations mount. Fingers are pointed. Executive escalations are made.
The original vision and driving need were lost in a righteous enmeshment of nonsense. There are no winners in this game. Everyone loses. Valuable company resources have been wasted and any market opportunity has surely been lost.
Can’t we all just get along? If only this was so easy. A man can dream, can’t he?
As I was contemplating the real world applicability of Brand’s holy trinity, I couldn’t help but think I live in each of these arenas every day. I’ll bet you do as well.
There are plenty of romantic utopian ideas I passionately cling to (i.e. “Can’t we all just get along?”). I play the role of scientist whenever it comes to making a major financial decision. When my wife presents me with a problem, in my desire to help, I immediately become the engineer and move into problem solving mode. All she wanted was for me to listen to her, no assistance was required.
What lessons can be learned by examining which arena we stand in with important people and situations in our lives?
I offer the following rules to live by as a conversation starter.
Curiosity: Expands our perspective, feeds our desire to learn, and introduces new interests
Flexibility: Loosens our attachments to preconceived notions and opinions
Openness: Creates opportunity to listen, reflect, admire, and respect contrary points of view
Passion: Discover the romantic in you; pursue what is important to you
Passionate pursuit of your dreams and desires requires maintaining openness and flexibility to changing your course as new interests emerge.
