What is success?
Success is many things to many people. It depends on who is looking at it. Or put another way, in any given situation, the nature of success depends on the interests of the stakeholders involved.
But it is possible to consider success from a common perspective. And when we adopt such an impartial stance, we discover that success always involves certain key factors, many of which we had not even thought of considering before. To fully understand what drives success, there is a need for a shift in paradigm in the way we think about it.
Over the last few years the world has encountered several global crises that ranged from the momentous to the rare and to the alarming. They have provided us a unique opportunity to learn how such events occur, the forces that drive them, and, ironically, the methods we can deploy to deal with such real-world problems.
To look at success more closely, let us look at the following four recent global events:
- The COVID 19 Pandemic – success here meant finding a solution to the spread of this pandemic, and to prevent its occurrence in the future.
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – success in this case would eventually be an end of the war and the restoration of full sovereignty to Ukraine.
- The European asylum seeker crisis – success here is the finding a solution to the issue of European refugees.
- The January 6th 2021 attack on the US Capitol – success meant how to put the rebellion down and restore law and order.
At first sight, these totally different types of success have nothing in common. But is it possible to find a way of looking at them that is impartial and non-judgemental? Yes there is, and when we use such an Emotionally and Ethically-Divorced (EED) model of success, we discover that success at this global scale generally depends on several key elements, which often co-exist. This EED model provides us with a common starting point that considers all types of success in terms of key elements.
In the final analysis however, one invariably finds that success at the national and global scales is ultimately determined by national priorities. These over-ride all other considerations. And more often than not, the priority that prevails is likely to be an economic priority.
Whose success?
A little thought will reveal that in all the four cases considered above, success really depends on who is considering it. Let’s look at the above cases more closely.
In the COVID 19 case
- The UN and the WHO, who are concerned primarily with the health and welfare of the global population, were interested in halting the global spread of the pandemic using such devices as lock-downs and national border closures as well as the development of vaccines, while
- Big business and industry, who are mainly interested in maximising profits accruing from their enterprises, wanted to ensure that the chosen solution also considered the health of the global economy, which depends, amongst other things, on maintaining global supply chains.
Success for business and industry depends on keeping the national borders open, while in the case of the UN and WHO it depends on keeping them closed. The two drivers are anti-coupled.
The war in Ukraine:
While Zelenskyy would define success as restoring the sovereignty of Ukraine by pushing the Russians out of the country, Putin would be successful only when he achieves his military mission of subjugating Ukraine.
The European refugee crisis:
Success for the European migrants is escaping persecution at home and finding a new home abroad, while for the EU and the UK it lies in restricting the influx of migrants to their regions.
The January 6th attack of the Capitol:
The attackers wanted the results of the US elections overturned even though they had been obtained by (ostensibly) legal means, while the government was intent on seeing the results of these democratic processes upheld.
Finding a common definition
The above examples reveal that the motives for success can vary widely, depending on whose success we are considering. They can be ethically inconsistent with each other, especially in issues relating to national sovereignty such as the case of Ukraine. Surprisingly however, in spite of these differences in motives, it is still possible to find a common definition of success that serves as an impartial and acceptable basis for rational analysis.
Simply put:
| Success is the achievement of a desired goal or goals. |
Once we have stated it in this ethically and emotionally divorced (EED) way, we can see things more clearly. Such an EED model of success allows us to discern between good (and praise-worthy) goals and bad (malevolent and evil) goals. It allows us to treat all goals (whether they are benevolent and altruistic, or evil and/or self-centred) together, using an impartial framework that is independent of any other considerations. We are in a better position to proceed further.
The drivers of success
Whether it is an issue of global proportions as those considered above, or a personal problem such as finding a job or building your first home, success depends on not just one, but many factors. In the case of global crises, five (of the many) important drivers of success are
- Science and the reasoned approach
- The principles of the free-market economy
- The legal-judicial system
- Policies and legislations
- the role of decision-makers
How these drivers determine success can be seen in the following two examples:
Covid 19 and its containment depended on science and reason, as well as policies and legislations.
The development of the relevant vaccines needed science and molecular engineering, and the enforcement of the isolation needed to contain the contagion depended on the closure of national borders, as well as the public health mandates of lock-downs and QR codes. Free-market competition between rival pharmaceutical companies assisted the timely development of COVID vaccines.
The 6 January attack on the Capitol:
The enforcement of law and order by the police and the legal-judicial system, and the on-going court action to bring the attackers to account, were needed to contain the initial situation and ensure the safeguarding of the nation’s democratic principles on the longer term.
Examples of how policies and legislations determine success are abundant. Climate action requires the enactment of global policies (the Paris Agreement) and their implementation at the national scale occurs through government legislations (e.g. Australia’s climate change act 2022). Even the principles of justice and democracy of democratic nations are enforced through policy and legislation (starting from the Constitution – the supreme law that oversees and guides the development of all national policies).
In all the quoted cases, the role of decision-making is paramount. At the national scale, which policies are adopted depends on the government in power. Whether industry and transportation changes to less emitting fuels to mitigate climate change depends on the relevant climate change legislations/regulations, which ultimately depend on decisions made at the cabinet/ministerial level. Trump’s lack of support for the country’s climate change policy was an enormous barrier to progress while he was in power.
The drivers must often be co-existent
Usually, success is only gained if several of the drivers are applied together.
In the case of COVID, science and engineering were needed to discover and develop the vaccines for the new variants, government policy and mandates to impose the lock-downs and border closures, and eventually the decision by the WHO to declare and end to the covid emergency on 5 May 2023.
All this also demonstrates that success often requires a trans-disciplinary approach, and a paradigm shift in the way we normally solve problems. Thus, climate change action requires the combined application of policy (the Paris agreement and net-zero strategies), science and technology (the science of climate change and the development of zero-emissions technology), and good decision-making on the part of politicians.
Whenever success depends on several drivers, it is not achieved by the application of each driver of success on a stand-alone basis, but by applying them together in a unified and contiguous manner. It is the combined application of these separate disciplines that works – a combination that (to all intents and purposes) forms a separate discipline in itself. This may, for lack of a better word, be termed the users discipline.
Who wins?
In the final analysis, all decisions are made by the decision-makers. It would appear therefore that those in power always possess the ultimate key to success. But this is not quite so.
At the national scale at least, what actually occurs in the end is determined by the national priorities, and these are most often the economic priorities of the country. In the end therefore, it is the national priority that wins (for better or for worse).
Take the example of the climate change crisis, where the solution, as advocated by the UNFCCC, is to reduce emissions to net-zero by 2050. This involves reducing fossil fuel use by replacing them with renewable energy.
But fuel is indispensable for our livelihood, in particular for the purpose of generating our electrical power and providing transportation. As electricity and transportation are two of the highest priorities for our everyday existence, there must be enough fuel for these essential requirements of a country at all times.
Consider the scenario where a country finds that it is not on path to net zero emissions. This means that it is still using too much fossil fuels, i.e. not using enough renewable energy in our power generation and transportation fuel mix . Because electricity supply and transportation are amongst the highest priorities of the country, it will simply mean that the country is forced to continue using fossil fuels excessively to provide the required electricity and transportation. It will therefore have no alternative but to ignore its NDC emissions reductions quota, and continue to emit excessively in order to meet the national priority. The need for essential power and transportation will thus over-ride the country’s climate change goals.
That is, the economic priority will over-ride the climate change priority. Put another way, because we need the electricity and transportation at any cost, we will simply have to ignore our commitment to climate change mitigation (and let the global temperature rise). The people will demand this action from the government! This includes nice people like you and me!
Can we avoid such a situation developing? A few years ago, I would have said maybe. Now, we don’t know.
End.
Recent Comments