I Helped Bust A Drug Dealer. Now I Want Lawmakers To Bust The System That Creates Drug Dealers.

Yesterday I told a group of systems thinkers that the “war on drugs” is really a giant “red bead experiment” that proves day after day that our “war on drugs” is not a “broken system” but a system that efficiently and reliably produces exactly the results we don’t want – drug-related deaths caused by heroine laced with carfentanyl, turf wars between armed drug dealers, thefts, home invasions, robberies and even murders by addicts seeking drugs or money. The current system of drug prohibition reminds me, I said, of another system, alcohol prohibition, that we abandoned and replaced because it reliably produced the wrong “product.”  The designers of our system of drug prohibition, our lawmakers, have learned nothing from our country’s failed alcohol prohibition of the early 20^th century.

Every “product” or outcome is the result of a system that produced it. To change the outcome, you have to re-engineer the system that is producing the unwanted outcome. People don’t always see the systems that produce outcomes but those systems exist nonetheless. For example, today we have the means to see and understand the “weather systems” that our TV meteorologists talk about and we know that weather is produced by weather systems. Just a few hundred years ago we had no idea where our weather came from because we had no way to “see” the weather systems. One of the things Deming’s red bead experiment teaches us is that outcomes are produced by systems and that we can’t change the outcome without changing the system that produces it. We can’t change the weather but we can change the drug prohibition system that actually encourages the manufacture and sale of the drugs we don’t want people to consume.

After W. Edwards Deming taught post-World-War-II Japan how to become a manufacturing powerhouse, he became famous for his live, somewhat theatrical “experiment” or “game” that he used to teach US managers and executives what he had taught the Japanese.

In the red bead experiment, Deming announces that he has created a company whose mission is to produce white beads for its customers. He recruits from his audience four “willing workers,” two quality inspectors, a chief quality inspector, and an accountant. The “willing workers” are then “trained” to “produce” white beads. Deming then starts supplying the willing workers with both red and white beads.  He also makes the willing workers use some clumsy paddles with which to collect and “produce” only white beads. The red beads are “defects.” The “willing workers” are warned against producing red beads. If the willing workers accidentally fail to separate red beads from white beads and “produce” too few white beads, the quality inspectors yell at them and threaten them, the chief quality inspector threatens and yells at the lower quality inspectors, the accountant yells at the chief quality inspector. How long will it take for somebody in this experiment to notice that the problem is not that the willing workers are very bad at “producing” only white beads, the problem is that the system in which they are working produces both red and white beads? To eliminate red beads from the production end of the system you have to keep the red beads out of the system.

In our system of drug prohibition, the “willing workers” are police, prosecutors and judges. But notice that the police, the prosecutors, the judges and the prisons didn’t build the system that produces bad outcomes. The system that produces the drug war’s bad outcomes is the legislative branch of government. Everybody else just works in that system.

How long will it take for the participants in this drug prohibition system to quit talking about raising taxes to hire more cops, prosecutors and judges and build more prisons and start talking about how to change the system that is producing more drug dealers than we can arrest, prosecute and jail?

Fortunately, a proven model for regulating the manufacture and sale of previously illegal substance exists. You see it work every time you watch a person walk in to a Rite Aid, buy a bottle of Wild Turkey, then walk out of the store without anyone getting arrested or gunned down in a turf war. When lawmakers make it illegal to manufacture or sell alcohol or drugs they essentially give lawbreakers an irresistibly lucrative franchise to make and sell alcohol and drugs. Lawbreakers become the only game in town. Prohibition systems do not produce the result we want, decreased substance abuse, but prohibition systems guarantee that criminals will supply substance abusers with the substances they crave because there’s so much money in providing substances that are illegal to make and sell.  

Lawmakers, it’s time for you to do your jobs and change the unsustainable system your policies created. Society’s “willing workers” – police, prosecutors and judges – are getting “red beads” from a system that needs to be redesigned to make only “white beads.” We can go broke hiring more police, prosecutors and judges and building more prisons, or, lawmakers can do their jobs and replace the drug prohibition system with a sustainable system that more closely resembles the system of alcohol regulation and taxation that replaced alcohol prohibition.

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This post’s author, Joseph Higginbotham, has never used any illegal or non-prescribed drug. Many of the insights that led to this article came to me while helping my city councilperson and local police build a case against a neighborhood drug dealer. It took months of great police work and "neighborhood watch" work for us to build the case. Over a period of a couple of years, local police arrested the drug dealer several times and he eventually spent some time in prison. To build cases against, arrest, prosecute and incarcerate all the drug dealers in my little town would require more taxation than any town, county or state can afford. I've seen our drug prohibition system up close. It's not sustainable.

Joseph Higginbotham has written hundreds of columns and articles for dozens of newspapers, magazines and journals including Leadership Journal, Rx HomeCare, Drug Store News, Living Well 50Plus, Campus Career Counselor, Church Administration, The Journal for the American Society of Church Growth, Medical Products Sales, S9, Home Health Care Dealer, Business Lexington and more.

Higginbotham has spoken at more than 40 venues and has been a guest on such talk radio shows as "Front Page with Sue Wiley", "The Morning Show with Jack Pattie", "The Eddie Cooper Show", "Tri-State Talk" with Mayor Bobby Nelson and more.

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How To Really Change Organizations And Companies

When the companies you work for, the organizations you belong to and support with your financial gifts don't accomplish the things they say they want to accomplish, 2 things are true: (1) The system is working as designed and (2) Somebody wants it that way. Systems do what they are designed to do. They can do nothing else. If you wish to get a different outcome or a different product you have to actually make changes to the system. If you don't change the system, you can't change the product of that system.

All outcomes are the result of a system that produced them. A system that is designed to make widgets will not make cars or parkas unless the system is reconfigured to produce cars or parkas. A system that is designed to shut down puppy mills will not cause more puppy mills to open.

Some of my church-going readers belong to churches that say they exist to "make disciples" or "win souls to Christ" and yet these churches aren't making disciples or winning souls. To my church-going friends I say don't write a check to drop in the offering plate, write a letter explaining that you will not be providing further financial support until the system  that doesn't make disciples or win souls is redesigned so that it does make disciples or win souls.

If you have been donating money to an organization that is supposed to help so-called "older workers" find employment, I strongly advise you to ask that org for proof of the efficacy of their work on behalf of "older workers". If they cannot prove that your financial support hasn't been squandered, instead of sending more money send a letter explaining why you won't be sending more money. That organization already knows it's squandering your donations and it will continue to do so until donors withhold funds and demand change to the system.

Until recently I was involved with a "task force" made up of representatives of various orgs that have received taxpayer and private funds to encourage companies to hire so-called older workers yet none of these task force members could name a local company they had teamed with to employ these older workers. These "older worker" programs are jobs programs, alright, but not for older workers. These programs have systems that are designed to produce jobs for overpaid bureaucrats and they will never produce jobs for so-called older workers until the systems are redesigned to produce employment opportunities for older workers, not bureaucrats.

Most religious, membership and non-profit orgs really exist to provide jobs for the people at the top. If you are sending money to such an organization, withhold your funding immediately and tell them why.

More importantly, tell your friends not to send money to organizations that don't do what they claim they want to do. Systems produce what they are designed to produce and they will never produce anything but what they are designed to produce unless the system itself is changed.

Let's say you are a city government and you have outsourced job creation to some membership organization that can't prove it has produced even one job with the money you've paid them. Cut them  off. Tell them they can't have any more taxpayer dollars until they have a system that produces jobs instead of excuses.

Do you send money to an organization that doesn't accomplish what it says it wants to accomplish? If so, don't send a check, send a letter telling them you will resume your financial support when they make the systemic changes needed to produce a different outcome.

Do you own or are you managing a company that isn't getting the desired results? You will not get improvements in quality, sales, profits or innovation until you are willing to make changes to the systems that are failing to produce the desired results.

A system that produces jobs for overpaid executives will not suddenly or accidentally start producing jobs for laid-off plant workers. A system that produces widgets might produce widgets of varying quality and might occasionally produce defective widgets that cannot be sold, but a system that produces widgets will never produce iPads or blue jeans unless the system is reconfigured to produce iPads or blue jeans.

If you are a donor, don't just demand change, demand change to the system.

If you are a company owner, it does no good to fire your management and hire new managers unless your new managers are systems thinkers who will make changes to the system that is producing the disappointing results.
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For more on how systems produce what they are designed to produce, see my
21 JULY, 2010 post in the blog archives.

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Due to reader complaints and inability / unwillingness to understand my "no pseudonymous or anonymous comments" policy, Higginbotham At Large no longer publishes any reader comments at all. I was simply spending too much time moderating reader comments and I had to either allow comments to be published without moderation or I had to disallow comments altogether. I chose to disallow comments. Send your hate mail directly to JosephHigginbotham@gmail.com. Pseudonymous emails will be given the attention they deserve: they will not be read.

The System's Not Broken: It's Serving The Interests Of Its Designer

Products are the result of systems that are perfectly designed to produce them. A system that produces tires will never produce soft, swirled ice cream unless that system is redesigned and reconfigured to produce swirled ice cream.

What’s true for manufactured goods like ice cream and tires is also true of our civic, social, governmental, advocacy and business organizations so if your organization isn’t producing the results it claims it wants to produce, the system must be redesigned. Read John Seddon’s Systems Thinking In The Public Sector or the books of Eliyahu Goldratt or Seeing Systems by Barry Oshry.

Don’t be afraid to notice that your organization doesn’t seem to be doing any of the things it would be logical for it to do if it were really serious about achieving its stated goals and objectives. Don’t be afraid to notice that your organization has a lot of meetings, puts on a lot of events and puts a lot of happy talk on its website but isn’t any closer to achieving its stated goals than it was 5, 20 or 20 years ago when the organization was formed.

Many organizations read “systems” – really exist to serve interests other than the ones stated in its charter or website.

The Area Minister for a group of churches once sent me to meet with a dying church to see if I could show them how to increase attendance. The church’s stated goal was to reach its neighborhood with the gospel of Christ yet none of the church’s well-heeled middle-class and wealthy members lived in the neighborhood and the church was doing nothing whatsoever to reach its poor neighbors that lived within walking distance of the church. On Sunday mornings, the church’s tiny parking lot was overflowing with SUVs and luxury cars. The church was landlocked and there was nowhere to add parking so the only logical thing to do – especially since their stated goal was to “reach their neighborhood with the gospel of Christ” was to implement programs designed to evangelize the 500 or so poor people who lived within a 3-minute walk of the church. Long story short, the church chose to close rather than achieve their stated goal of reaching their poor neighbors with the gospel of Christ. The well-heeled members of this church joined churches where they could be with other well-heeled people. You see, they didn’t want to reach their poor neighbors with the gospel of Christ at all. Their real goal was to use church affiliation as a means of being with people they liked and could, perhaps, do business with.

Don’t be afraid to notice that your organization isn’t doing the things it would do if it were serious about achieving its stated goals. Don’t be afraid to speak up and say what you’ve noticed.

Don’t be afraid to notice that your organization – your system – is not producing the product its website says it’s trying to produce and that it will never produce that product until the system is redesigned. Don’t say “the system is broken”. No, the system is producing exactly what the system is designed to produce.

Don’t be afraid to ask yourself and your org’s leaders one simple question: “Why?” When your org plans an event that doesn’t seem to advance the org’s stated goal, ask why. When the org doesn’t do the things it would seem logical for it to do if it really wanted to reach its stated goal, ask why.

Many orgs exist not to actually achieve their stated goals but to provide a showcase for the org’s leaders or to provide what I call a “hunting and fishing license” to go out and advance their political or business interests under the guise of “effecting public policy” or “creating a better business climate” or even “reaching the neighborhood with the gospel of Christ”.

The system’s not broken. It’s functioning as designed. The system is serving the interests of its designer. If you don’t like the product you have to redesign the system that produces the product. 

Higginbotham At Large publishes dissenting opinions but

Higginbotham At Large will publish no comments from “anonymous”, from company names, from organization names or from aliases (like screen names and CB handles). If you want to comment here you must be accountable for what you write as I am accountable for what I write.

People With No Stake In The Future Should Not Be Planning The Futures Of People With A Stake

Because I am a systems thinker, I know that outcomes of any kind are the products of systems that are perfectly designed to produce those products and that those systems, unless altered, will always and only produce the same results. That's why I can say with authority that if you’ve recently been elected or appointed to a position of titular leadership in an organization that hasn’t done anything in decades, it’s not an honor it’s an insult and an indictment. You were elected because the do-nothing organization knew they could count on you to prevent, not promote, positive change. Why? Because the last thing do-nothing organizations want is positive change so they perpetuate and guarantee their culture of backwards thinking by passing the cold, charred, flameless torch of leadership to those who won’t show them up, those who can be counted on to get nothing done. Your election or appointment was exactly the outcome the system is designed to produce. You are the same kind of dud the system has been producing for decades and will continue to produce unless the system is changed. The fact that nobody changes it is proof that the keepers and protectors of the system want the system to produce duds like you.

In towns whose tax base and population are declining, new leadership is suffocated in the crib through exclusion from programs, organizational leadership and committee membership. The last thing an existing leader wants is to share power, glory, credit, recognition or influence with someone else so potential leaders are at first ignored and, later, if they seem to be getting some traction, attacked by the current titular leadership. (See my 26 July 2009 review of Tribes by Seth Godin).

Most of the time where you see a whole town that has been declining for decades, all the existing orgs in that town from City Hall to the Rotary Club to The Chamber of Commerce and even the Regional development Authority are co-conspirators in the town’s demise. The rank and file members of those orgs can’t be depended on to elect real leaders because they haven’t see any real leadership in their lifetime so they don’t know what leadership looks like. Sometimes this inability to discern preventers of leadership from real leaders is so pervasive that an entire town loses its ability to even elect a capable mayor or city council.

When a town or a region has raised an entire generation of people who don’t know that their so-called leaders are fools or impostors, new organizations sometimes spring up promising to bring change. But these organizations can’t transform their communities without changing the culture of low expectations and aspirations that the current leadership has fostered.

If you’re serious about changing your community, you first have to identify the people who feel disenfranchised and ignored by the titular leadership – the mayor, the city council, the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary, the Regional development Authority. These disenfranchised people are the largest single interest group in any town. Inform them, get them thinking about the future of your community and, together, you can transform the community.

Don't waste your time trying to win over the existing leaders. The existing leaders see capable young leadership as a threat to the status quo and to their natural human tendency to enshrine the past and defend past decisions.

If your town's civic orgs don't get anything done and won't give you a "seat at the table" find the disenfranchised majority and enfranchise them. Start a new organization. Start a movement.

Second, you have to identify and empower people who really have a stake in the future of your town, people who would like to raise a family or start a business in your town. Forgive me for being blunt but in the kind of backwards, small towns I’m thinking of, the older folks who run the town couldn’t care less about the future of the town. They’re retired, their businesses have been sold or closed, their children left years ago and their grandchildren will be making a life somewhere else. Chances are, if you live in a town that is losing businesses, losing population, losing its young people and losing its future, your town is run by people who have no stake in its future, people whose opposition to progress has more to do with ego than with principle, more to do with validating its past than with creating its future.

It doesn’t make any sense to entrust the future of your community to people who have no stake in your town’s future. Expose the civic and political leaders who have no stake in the decisions they make about your future.

And while you may begin the community culture change through organizations like Charleston Area Alliance or through new orgs like Create West Virginia, if you really want to change your community, you eventually need to elect Congress members, governors, legislators, mayors, regional development people, city council members and other leaders who actually have a stake in its future - people with kids to raise or businesses to start or educations to acquire. The change from a do-nothing, fall behind state or community to a vibrant state or community can’t happen if the reigns of political power are still held by people who don’t know why we should be laying down conduit and high speed fiber and don’t understand why Starbucks is not about coffee as much as its about creating democratic meeting places where people share ideas.

These people who “get” conduit and democratic meeting places are easy to find. They are your young people. I’m talking about young couples who need a good place to educate and raise their kids and young entrepreneurs who need a community capable of retaining and attracting the talent they will need to grow their businesses.

As I said in my 22 January 2010 post about economic development, your community may only be one Steve Jobs or one Sergey Brin away from giving birth to a company (or an industry) that will transform your region but if you drive away all the young thinkers and inventors and entrepreneurs, you may be driving away the next Google or Apple.

Maybe the inventor who can perfect the electric car lives in your town. Will he or she stay or will he or she leave?

Some of my regular readers may think this is a strange position for a “Boomer activist” like me to take. My regular readers may have expected me to say that leadership should be in the hands of people with years of experience and wisdom. No not unless those experienced, wise leaders have a stake in the future. Leadership should be in the hands of people with the greatest stake in your town’s future no matter what age they may be. A few of those people will be Boomers like me but most of them will be much younger.

To change the culture of a community you have to change the conversation of that community. Do you want to change the culture? Start a new conversation. Create a document that you can print out and put on windshields, stick behind storm doors and hand to young adults you see in your daily walk. Your document might say:

"Is your community creating the kind of business, education, cultural, social and lifestyle in which the next Sergey Brin or Steve Jobs could be nourished and the next Google or Apple grown? If not, why not?"

Or your document might say, "Think of a talented person who left your community and has no plans to ever come back. Why did he or she leave and what would we have to do to get him and people like him to come raise a family or start a business here?"

If you put your name and your contact information on that document I'll bet some of the disenfranchised and some of the voiceless young adults whose futures are being planned by people who have no stake in it will contact you and ask you what you plan to do.

If they do, start a movement. Start an organization of those with a stake.And even if you don't have a plan, you've planted a seed of change. You've changed the culture a little bit just by changing the conversation from "How can we raise money for this year's stupid parade?" to "How can we make our town the kind of place where a young inventor or entrepreneur would want to build the next Apple?"

Your future was being planned by others since before you were conceived. After conception, your first 9 months was a case of gestation without representation. Somewhere between the womb and the tomb, shouldn't your future be decided when you're in the room?

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Higginbotham At Large is happy to publish dissenting - even insulting - comments but Higginbotham At Large will no longer publish anonymous or pseudonymous comments or comments from readers who hide behind the name of an organization, a company or one of those silly "CB handles".