When I blogged earlier on this topic, I was calling for a strike on the root causes of those issues wherein the mass is moved by a call for strike to address the symptom rather than mustering enough muscle to attack the root cause. It is difficult to find the root cause as others causes may look like one and will be difficult to get the like minded people to participate as the causes will be many and diverse.
Yes, the root causes of many evils are not that apparent. Hence, a bit of thinking would help to identify them properly, categorize them properly, organize the movement properly and get the required results – while achieving progress than causing hindrances, achieving the required visibility than a snort by those who were inconvenienced, achieving co-operation than the ill-will and most importantly discover methods that work to set up new standards in seeking co-operation, connecting with right entities for collaboration and acquiring a new status quo within the society which has been deemed difficult to change.
Just as an example let me target the new methods that were introduced to collect garbage from the household. Due to a perceived economic reason or reasons, collection takes place on alternate days. Enough warning on the impending arrival of the garbage collection is announced by means of a whistle, expecting that the maid or those who are inside the house come out to throw their garbage in the vehicle rather than on the streets.
What are the flaws in this method? If the required pre-conditions exist, there may be an efficient and economical collection of garbage and should work like a charm. But then why do we still see the garbage littered at every corner.
We need question the validity of the pre-conditions. What if there is no one inside the house, what if the maid cannot run to catch the garbage vehicle, what if they decide to throw it away from their houses to an vacant spot or a spot perceived to belong to no one? Has anyone thought through these questions? If they have but resigned to the fact that nothing much can be done about them, they are telling you that they are incompetent.
There are economical ways to do this yet remove those pre-conditions. But it needs the co-operation from everyone concerned. If the problem is perceived to be that of not having educated maids to do the right thing, open up a new skill training center to train them free by using the unused and untouched budget amounts. Organize an event for these maids to attend an informal sharing session (in an open park perhaps) to seek from them the best way to collect the garbage and learn the problems they face to commit to the current way of collecting garbage. Establish help lines to advise on what needs to be done when there are exceptional conditions and take a stock of such situations to rework the collection method. If street dogs appear tear the garbage bags at a dump because of non-collection or due to the loopholes of the collection methods, equip the dump with a collection bin high enough in height to avoid the dogs and set them up at places where big trucks can come at regular intervals to empty the bins.
I can go on. If you think using QTIME principles at the core, you will find answers. For every problem, there will be a solution staring at us and may be many more sometimes. But stopping thinking and accepting the status quo will not solve any problems that eventually may aggravate to a point of utter hopelessness to correct, or reach a point of no return.
We constantly hear things like, nip it in the bud, sow as you reap, precaution is better than medicine, fish is rotting at the head and so on and so forth. Why should they be just noises or remain as noises or pushed back to a distant void to avoid hearing them as noises? Why not think of a strike at these social noises before they drown your efforts, drown your methods, drown your innovations and most importantly drown the trust that must be maintained to seek co-operation. To implement decisive changes when situations warrant them, speedy resolutions before conflicts arise, and, most importantly sustain the fabric of the society in tight and well-knit tapestry that becomes worth adoring, worth having and worth leading to set standards to become a new benchmark to improve upon is all about thinking on the root cause and striking to achieve the balance on the social burden that these strikes would otherwise inflict.