Brexit Means Biscuit

Let me give a little background before explaining the title. For me it is an important life lesson that everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler.

The truth is that Brexit, regardless of where you sit on the problem/opportunity spectrum is hard. The claims that it would be simple, quick, easy with no downsides have fallen by the wayside as the process has unfolded. The phrase " Campaign in Poetry, govern in prose" has never felt more apt. Simplicity is great for campaigning but can be a killer for delivering positive outcomes.

I have read numerous articles in print and online to try to understand the mess we are now in. A number have articles left/right leave/remain have argued that the May deal is the opposite of what people voted for. My reading suggests that we have around 6, maybe 8, opposites. We are no closer to consensus than we were in 2016. At some point we will need to move on, but I suspect that any outcome from where we are will not satisfy a majority and that healing will be a slow, fractious and uneven path.

The problem, for me is that if the May deal falls next week that the proposed plan Bs Norway + and Super Canada all suffer from the same underlying problem. That is, no-one knows what Brexit means Brexit means and there is no coherent way to describe a succesful outcome that can command majority support IN or OUT .

So where do the biscuits come in? 30 Years ago I Sat in a workshop with a very talented facilitator. He had a senior management group of a company that was succesful and worked well together. At the start, he asked how numerate they felt they were. All had A level maths and all degrees. Half had an undergraduate maths component.. With this knowledge he split them in 2 and gave each group of 4 a box of biscuits. Before opening them he asked them to estimate how many biscuits they thought their might be. He then set them the task of agreeing a single number, the number of biscuits that were in the box. Easy?

Well once the boxes were opened it became apparent what the problem might be. The boxes contained chocolate covered animal shapes. One box had a rogue biscuit, a digestive with no chocolate. The other had a chocolate as well as the biscuits, but not on a biscuit. One biscuit was broken into pieces but all the pieces were present. One biscuit had a piece missing. Another was largely crumbs.

What was explained as a one minute exercise ended up discussing such items as "what is a biscuit?", " is half a biscuit a biscuit?", " Are different types of biscuit counted as the same?"

The lesson was clear. They had agreed to a project because they thought it was easy and the had over simplified the task without clarity on the method or outcome. Now if 8 people can't agree how many biscuits are in a box of biscuits, what is the chance of a country of over 60 million agreeing what Brexit means, let alone delivering it.

The clock is ticking. Throwing resources at "it", whatever it might be, won't solve the problem. Nine women can't have a baby in a month!. Understanding and acknowledging the critical path to delivery is the first step.

If we get as far as the transition period, we need to change the way we tackle the challenge.

The biscuit exercise was an introduction to the concept of Operational Definitions. We have to acknowledge the complexity of the challenge and translate the rhetoric "global Britain", "Take back Control" and so on from campaigning slogans into deliverable programmes. If we don't Brexit will run for a decade or more with no satisfactory outcomes that can unite. A recent poll suggested that half the population think No deal means that nothing will change.

This is too important to screw up with the level of sloppy thinking and planning we've seen since 2016.