Seeing the Woods for the Street Trees

Are GPs under-valued in a world seeking solutions to specialist and specialism silos?

It’s a common issue we can all face – not being able to see the woods for the trees – especially in busy, information heavy, digital working environments with multiple channels of constant digital ‘communication’ vying for our attention.?The evidence would suggest that this is a difficulty for many of us at the best of times. (1) But there are some kinds of minds, and some kinds of ‘specialist’ practitioners who seem better able to understand context than others. And that's important.

A little like a GP – as opposed to say, a hip surgeon. The GP is often looked ‘down on’ by the Surgeon for being a non-specialist.?But a good generalist can be worth their weight in gold.?That matters if we are to find practical opportunities in complex situations – which must surely be one of the keys to interdisciplinary working? Signal matters in a truly noisy world.

Signal matters in a truly noisy world.

Landscape architects, ecologists, and hydrologist (rather than drainage or flooding engineers), from my experience over the last 30 years in helping to change places, seem well equipped with those skills – if indeed they are skills to be learned rather than aptitudes to be cultivated.?Perhaps like ‘empathy’ and the ongoing debate amongst nursing professionals, the jury my still be out on whether some of these things can be ‘taught and learned’.

But there in, is the opportunity perhaps for collaborative mind sets – walking the talk where folks with complementary skills, experience and aptitudes work together, making the sum of the parts, greater than the whole. Teamwork.?The beehive minds.?Call it what you will.?We evolved to cooperate in social and enterprising groups. Yet this is contrary to the West’s predominant consumer narrative over the last 80 years (2) and the culture of ‘survival of the fittest’ - the cult of the individual.

So, what pragmatic ways can we seek to rise to the opportunity of crisis and indeed, crises? To see the light at the end of the tunnel.?For until we acknowledge we have a problem, we will struggle to seek new positive ways forward. ?

Local Place Plans are being talked about more and more across Scottish communities as potential solutions, or at least part of the solution to the challenges of our time. Enlivened by the multiple crises of; cost of living, food price inflation, ecological, biodiversity and climate emergencies, health and well-being and of course anger at the abject failure of ‘macro-economic’ leaders to realise sooner, why values more than simply reductivism and monetary value alone, are important to a healthy and most importantly, a sustainable society.

There’s a definite crisis in confidence in our general population as anyone who carefully engages with communities will testify. Cynicism is thriving.?And no wonder.

Yet there are always reasons to be hopeful – beyond populist, over simplistic optimism.?In crisis is opportunity.?But those trying to help might be wise to realise that by applying the same thinking demonstrated in #CommunityActionPlans being ‘rebranded’ with a different title of ‘Local Place Plans’ on the cover is, by definition, at risk of questionable sanity.?For doing the same thing with a new name and expecting a different result, is indeed one definition of insanity. At the very least, it increases the risk of increased cynicism. And this is, in my humble opinion, unlikely to help.

As history is our guide, it’s true that conventional and received wisdom is hard to challenge.?It takes courage to stand out and to ask questions of those established minds.?Those entrenched habits of thinking. The Clan ‘McWillnae’ are a stubborn bunch. In most of our engagement workshops or public speaking events (I have worked with communities and businesses for the last 27 years), lots of folks will ask questions – but most are reluctant to be the first to raise their hand and speak up.?Someone else must go first. It’s quite natural to fear standing out in a crowd. But how? and why? We must question. It’s vital to progress. And the conditions for this require a sense of safety. Not bravado. Not ego. And certainly not competition.

Perth and Kinross Council, like a growing number of us, recognise that we need to find new ways of working.?Necessity is the mother of invention - especially in straightened financial times. We need new ways to do things differently.?And that’s in the DNA of creative design minds. We need critical thinkers.?Problem solvers and folks who can communicate data through visualization and make research both accessible and relatable.?This can be the route to see opportunity in new ways of co-working. It’s happening already across the UK.?Folks pulled together in desperate Covid times. We need more of that – not a return to 'business as usual'. The 'Place Principle' was already well developed and is being threaded through more local policies and practice such as the Perth and Kinross Offer. But changing our culture and meaningfully empowering people needs supportive environments.?Environments where relationships can be cultivated, and trust can be nurtured.

Local Authorities already have a pool of dedicated, yet hard pressed staff – most of whom care about more than their own self-interest.?They have folks working within communities already with aptitudes and empathy.?An ability to listen and to co-learn. If knowledge is power (which it is), then we need to support local decision-making, through locally responsive, place-based governance, and use those technical research and analysis tools in a way which helps across multiple project and multiple minds to see things differently.?For in our ability to celebrate our differences is our humanity.?And in working together is our resilience.?

Local Place Frameworks are not rebranded Local Action Plans.?They are different. And our emerging evidence is, that they support collective, coordinated decision-making through co-learning and co-shaping that brighter future.

Notes

(1)?????The Organized Mind – clear thinking in an age of information overload, Daniel Levitin et al .

(2)?????Citizens – Why the key to fixing everything is all of us, Jon Alexander et al.

Note on the author: Jonathan Clarkson Bdes (Hons) PDip (Urban design) FRSA, member of the UDG, is an interdisciplinary designer, teacher and place-making practitioner with over 27 years of experience using design as a tool for, analysis, collaboration, solving problems and adding value.?Jonathan has publish a number of design articles and is a visiting lecturer and tutor at both Edinburgh School of Art and the Mackintosh school of art in Glasgow.