FEATURED ARTICLE
Challenges that confront and confound efforts to bring about institutional change
by Robert A. Letcher, PhD
“Is there anything in all of that to suggest a way forward?” We! contributor Jerry Lobdill posed this question to me in his comment #20 of 25 pursuant to the conversation following my “infrastructure” essay. I had just mentioned Mancur Olson’s “logic of collective action”. This essay responds to Jerry’s questions by interpreting two anecdotes through Olson’s logic: both anecdotes involve short-sightedness, and in very different ways the US Postal Service. One anecdote involves my own personal short-sightedness, dating back to the mid-1980s when I applied “technology assessment” consulting job with the then US Post Office,. The other dates back to early February 2009 and involves the Postmaster General’s proposed remedy $3-4 billion operating loss incurred this year for the now US Postal Service’s.
Back in the mid-1980s, I applied for a job that would have involved me in helping the US Post Office prepare itself for the digital age. Importantly, although I didn’t realize it at the time, “prepare” was to be understood in a very broad sense. As I thought of myself as being a broad thinker, I thought I was a shoe-in for the job—but I was wrong! I let my own preferences constrain my imagination. For example, I loved to handwrite letters with my fountain pen. My aesthetics blocked my view of the future of e-mail, and that limited my preparation for the interview – and I didn’t get the job. As I’ve since allowed myself to learn, “digital” has expanded far beyond e-mail in its implications for me and for the Postal Service. Read more »
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