Unintended consequences – are certain thinking styles responsible?

Here in the UK, In October 2015, the government introduced a policy making all large stores charge 5p for single use carrier bags. The driving force behind this policy was the large number of single use plastic bags that were in the environment, not just littering, but posing a real danger to wildlife due to entangling creatures and being mistaken as a food source by aquatic birds and mammals. The aim of the policy was to significantly reduce the number of single use bags and, as a consequence, total plastic manufactured and handed out to shoppers as they switched to long-lasting bags instead (so-called bags for life)

In 2017, a review was done of the previous 12 months to see if the policy had worked. On the surface it looked as if it had – single use bag usage was down by a fifth. However, a deeper analysis of the use of plastic bags in general was less reassuring. In fact, it would seem that a lot of people use bags for life just as they did the single use bags. What’s more, the majority of bags for life sold were also plastic of a much heavier type, so in fact, as one supermarket managing director admitted, despite an overall reduction in the number of bags sold, the amount of plastic used overall had increased!

It is also the case that single use bags are fully recyclable (not all bags for life are) and all major supermarkets would accept them back to send to be recycled. The real problem was that many people didn’t recycle them and so the bags were discarded into the environment through landfill and litter. Many people didn’t know that supermarkets accepted them back for recycling. Also, the additional cost of bags for life and their general lack of quality meant that they weren’t valued as significantly different from single use bags. Therefore the real problem seems to be more about public awareness and behaviour than about single use bags themselves.

Not such a success then. An unintended consequence.

When I read about this, I couldn’t help but wonder what thinking styles might have been behind the policy. Were there particular metaprogrammes that led to the unfortunate outcome? My initial thoughts are that perhaps the policy was developed by people with a high Detail metaprogramme. This could lead to a focus on the initial reported problem of single use bags in the environment and so decide that the question to be answered was “How do we reduce the number of single use bags handed out?”. In contrast, people with a high Concept metaprogramme might have instead asked “Why are there so many plastic bags in the environment? The first question focuses firmly on the very specific problem observed, whereas the seconds seeks to see the bigger picture. Perhaps there’s also an involvement of Procedure and Options too – with an Options thinking style being more aware of the existence of alternative, and not necessarily favourable, outcomes.

Another metaprogramme that might be involved is the direction of motivation. The focus might have been so much on getting Away from the problem of single use bags, that little work was done on what the possible consequences could be. In contrast, a focus on moving Towards reducing the amount of plastic used in shopping bags overall and increasing recycling of those that were used might have avoided the situation we are now in.

I know from experience that it is not uncommon for policies to produce unintended consequences. Perhaps an understanding of thinking styles would be helpful to policy making groups and committees to avoid these. It would also enable such groups to consider the behaviours behind such problems too.

There are probably other metaprogrammes at play too – what do you think the thinking styles behind this unfortunate outcome were? Are there ones that I’ve missed, or ways in which the ones I’ve thought of might work differently? As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

New year resolutions – could understanding thinking styles make them more successful?

Every January the gyms become busier, the supermarkets’ salad section gets depleted and so-called slimming products fly off the shelves. Magazines (online and off) are filled with advice about goal-setting and making change. Yet, every year, everything’s back to normal by February with very little to show for early January’s enthusiasm. Most New Year resolutions are abandoned before January is even finished. Maybe next year…

So, are New Year’s resolutions worth making, or not? With such a high failure rate, is there really a point to them? I think it all depends on a person’s perspective and the way that they view the goal they are setting themselves. Understanding which meta programmes could be contributing to a person’s failure to achieve their resolutions could enable the switch in thinking patterns needed to bring about success. Here are some examples I’ve come across:

Procedure and Specific metaprogrammes
One problem with New Year’s resolutions is that for some people they are often just that — something for the new year. With this perspective, the resolutions are approached as if they have to be started on 1st January and executed perfectly until successfully achieved. As soon as the person falters, they view that as a failure, decide they can’t do it and give up.

My initial take on this is that perhaps these people are running strong Procedure and Specific metaprogrammes, possibly with a strong Blue (Order) Graves Drive. In such cases the problems lie with the belief that to achieve a goal you need to go from start to finish in a straight line, in a certain way with no hiccoughs, pauses or detours. Anything else is seen as disheartening and a personal failure. This means that those with such a perspective are bound to fail as the vast majority of things worth achieving take time, effort and involve learning about what works and what doesn’t along the way.

Strengthening the Options and General metaprogrammes might enable this person to see the broader picture and find more ways than one to achieve their goals.

Change and Present metaprogrammes
Another thing that some to abandon their resolutions is that some people become disheartened when they perceive that their progress is slow and gradual. Perhaps this is due to a strong desire for noticeable results to happen quickly – a high Change metaprogramme, especially if coupled with a Present perspective.

In this case, strengthening Development and Future metaprogrammes may enable the acceptance of gradual progress to future success.

External Locus of Control
Thirdly, many abandon their resolutions because they feel that events around them get in the way. Often this is due to a high External Locus of Control and the resulting discounting of their own ability to take control of their behaviours and decisions.

For these clients strengthening Internal Locus of Control can enable them to make the decisions and changes they need to in order to achieve their goals, whatever is going on around them.

These are just a few of the ways that understanding thinking styles can enable us to achieve our (and our clients’) new year goals. Other metaprogrammes can also be at play in this situation of course, and the analysis provided by a MindSonar profile in this context can help us determine these.
Do let me know your thoughts and experiences on this – I’d be interested in what thinking styles you find are a help or a hindrance with your new year resolutions.

Time Perception in the Mindset: Sometimes crucial in Therapy

One of the Meta programme sets that I have found can have a significant role in the thinking patterns of my therapy clients is that of Past/Present/Future. It seems that if any one of the three is very strong in the context of how they view their life, it can contribute to the issues which have brought the person to therapy. As with all Meta programmes, the rest of the profile is important and certain combinations of Meta programmes seem related to specific therapy issues. However, the time perception meta programmes are of particular interest to me in some clients. Below are some examples of how each of the time focus meta programmes can contribute to a client’s issues:

Future

I often see a very strong Future focus, usually coupled with the Mismatching programme, in clients suffering from anxiety. These clients constantly worry about what might go wrong in the future and rarely take any time to appreciate what is actually happening in the present. They often do not learn from their past experiences. Part of the therapy work therefore is to enable the client to look back and identify both good and neutral things that have happened in their past. This enables them to recognise that the things they were anxious about in the past rarely, if ever, materialised and that, if they did, they were not as catastrophic as they had imagined and they had coped and survived them.

Past

I frequently see a strong Past focus in clients experiencing depression. Most often I see this along with a Mismatching meta programme. Such clients look back and remember almost everything that has gone wrong for them and every mistake they believe that they have made. This, of course, reinforces their depression and the accompanying low self-esteem. By moving first to a stronger Matching pattern, they can begin to recognise times of good fortune and personal success in their past and so see that not everything has been a bad experience. Doing this in combination with strengthening both Present and Future Meta programmes can have a really positive effect on their depression as they start to feel less negative about their past life experiences whilst becoming more positive about current and future events. .

Conversely, some depressed clients have strong Past Meta programme combined with a strong with Matching metaprogramme. These clients view the past through rose-tinted spectacles and believe that all the good times are over. They tend to believe that everything was better in the past, both for them as individuals and in the World in general. They remember all the good times they’ve had and forget any hardships and conclude that those times exist only in the years behind them. Again, coaching to enable them to achieve a more balanced profile across Past/Present/Future can bring about improvements for them,.

Present

Less often, I see a problem resulting from a very strong Present metaprogramme. Such clients tend to struggle with planning and can end up in difficulty when unprepared for events or unable to meet commitments, including financial ones. These clients also often do not learn from past experience and fail to predict what they will need to achieve the things they want or need to. These clients can often identify areas or times of their lives when they have been able to plan, and learn from past experiences. Using this enables coaching to strengthen Past and Future thinking appropriately.

Of course, as with all our work with clients, we need to consider the MindSonar profile in its entirety and work with the client’s priorities. However, as our time perception has a powerful effect upon how we perceive our life in general, I think that this particular Meta programme set worth looking at very closely. Maybe that’s true for all of us – not just our therapy clients.

Have you any experience of the time perception Meta programmes helping or hindering you or your clients? Please share your experiences in the comments box below.