Jacques Pelman and Nathaly Rodriguez

Problem: If you are the Chief of Police for Afghanistan, what solution would you develop to pay the cops that are actually working, reduce corruption, and boost their morale.

Solution: I would propose a three-part solution to fixing the corruption of the Afgan police. This problem is a systemic issue that will need a large amount of time to fully eradicate.  The first part of the solution I would implement is asking my allies that have less corrupt police forces to help me come up with a plan to train police officers and maintain healthy domestic law and order. This would also include updating the infrastructure at the police stations with radio tracking software that can provide a log of what exactly the policemen are doing and help figure out who to pay for doing work.  The second part of the solution would be to have more education investments, this would increase literacy rates among the entire population not just for the police and I would have the police take a test to make sure that they are fully literate so they can effectively communicate with the population that they serve.  The police that are already serving their hours would be cute for them to take classes to improve their literacy and communication ability.  We will hire more officers that are fully literate in the meantime to make up for the hours lost. The last part of the solution is to have a huge infrastructure investment heavily on the internet and force police to wear body cams that connect to the internet so they can be tracked when they work. This will slowly decrease the number of ghost policemen in the system. 

 

Tenet 1: Interdependence

• The mutually beneficial and reciprocal relationship between systems;
• Positive Interdependence: The increasing literacy of the entire population including the police which promotes better communication between the police and the people.  Getting police training from culturally similar countries with less corruption allows for great training and better foreign relationships which may promote free trade and increases in living standards of the entire population. The investment in the internet infrastructure will allow a better living standard for the people and will allow the government to track the police who are working and to slowly get rid of ghost workers.  
• is the interactive effect of tasks, goals, and feedback combinations
• Solutions that depend on one another 

Tenet 2: Holism

• The parts of any large system can only exist and be understood in their relationships to the whole
• The whole is always greater than the sum of its individual parts
• Afghanistan is currently corrupted in various ways.
  • Ghost police contribute to the corruption
  • Decreasing illiteracy rates will result in a decrease in corruption 
  • Decreasing the amount of ghost police will increase the overall well being of citizens
  • Literacy rates and ghost police are separate entities, but both part of a greater whole 

 

Tenet 3: Multifinality

• Designing a system in which the individual actors and inputs, the subsystems, and their interactions all meet their own goals while the system as a whole also meets its own (multiple) goals
• Solution
  • Part 1 Designing the training system with a culturally similar country: Creating a solution would upgrade the police tactics and communication.  This will make policing less corrupt and better for the people which is one part of the goal.  This would also include updating the infrastructure at the police stations with radio tracking software that can provide a log of what exactly the policemen are doing and help figure out who to pay for doing work.
  • Part 2 Internet infrastructure:  Creating this solution will allow for the police to be easily tracked while on the job which will allow the government to catch ghost police not working and make it easy to purge them from the payroll.            
  • Part 3: Literacy grants:  Creating this solution will make the police more literate and the people more literate.  This will facilitate easier communication between people and police making the police force more effective in doing their jobs.   

Tenet 4: Equifinality

• Attaining the same desired output through several different channels/inputs 
• You can reach the same goal by various means 
• Our ultimate goal is to decrease corruption within the police force while also creating a more effective policing system that benefits the police officers that are working
  • Boosting Morale
    • With the addition of body cameras for the police officers, they will be forced to question their morale when doing their job. 
    • The better tracking of the cop’s movements will give another reason for the cops to question their morale while doing the job.
  • Reduce corruption
    • Through the investment in the internet infrastructure to better track the work of police officers this will allow the chief to identify who is working. This will lead to a decrease in corruption within the police system.
    • Through the literacy program, this will reduce corruption as more people will be able to make informed decisions.
      • Requiring police to increase their literacy abilities will also set a means of reducing corruption
  • Pay the cops that are working
    • The various tracking systems that will be set in place will be used to benefit the cops that are working, instead of focusing resources on the cops that are not working 
    • The literacy test is also a measure to take to see what cops are willing to put in effort towards their work.

Tenet 5: Differentiation

A method of identifying individual components of a large system

Differentiation lies at the heart of both interdependence and holism

• • To use this tenet we broke down our solution into three components.
    • Education system/regulation investment to decrease illiteracy rates 
    • Investments in tracking devices and internet infrastructure  
    • Communicating training system strategies  with similar countries with less corruption

 

• Literacy tests to determine who is exactly illiterate and who to train. 

 

Tenet 6: Regulation

A process of ensuring intrinsic feedback to bring about the desired operation of the system to meet the desired goals (and to counteract entropy)

• For the tracking of reports thru radios as the data in the database increases, we can see who to pay more, who to pay less, and who to fire.  With this increasing amount of data, we would be able to see examples of police doing their job properly which will be easier to compare other police to.
• For the internet infrastructure and tracking police, we can see where the police go and if they are not doing their jobs properly and look to fire ghost policemen.  This will increase our budget from less wasted salaries to invest in more infrastructure and pay the police who are working more.
• For the literacy test/ educational investments, we will have more information about figuring out who is literate and who isn’t and focus our spending on the illiterate officer to get them up to speed.
• For designing the training system with a culturally similar country with less corruption we would see the increased effectiveness of the police with positive feedback from the community and the variation in policing statics.        

Tenet 7: Abstraction 

Extracting the underlying essence of a concept…and generalizing it so that it has wider applications! (or vice versa!)

Solution: many entities that are impacted by the solution care about different parts of it.

• The government: they want as low-cost a  solution to the problem as possible.  They will be impacted by the increased revenue in the long run from purging ghost policemen and less crime within their country
• The police chief wants the police to be more effective.  This will happen with a combination of the literacy test/educational investments and the training system with a culturally similar country.
• The policemen want respectable pay.  This will happen with the purge of ghost policemen from the internet infrastructure.  
• The citizens want a safe neighborhood and their tax dollars to be used effectively.  This will happen with the increased effectiveness of police and the purge of corruption from the police system.     

 

Tenet 8: Leverage Points

Places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything!

• The country which is impacted by the policing system and its citizens
• The police station/ policing system is one part of a larger community, a small shift in decreasing the corruption would result in huge changes around the community.
• The market for government infrastructure is impacted by government contracts.
• The community (including future generations) will have a higher quality of life from increased safety and better infrastructure. 
• Corporations will supply the products and services for the solution and these corporations will feel safer investing in the country in the long term.   

Problem: “If you are an entrepreneur, what multi-final solution will you develop so that you succeed, your venture succeeds (takes water hyacinth off the lake), and the people living along the lakeshore also walk away happy. Please be specific on how your solution might function and precisely whom you would work with. For example, refrain from including vague stakeholders like entire communities. Water hyacinth infestation is a major problem on the shores of Lake Victoria. The moss doubles every month and blocks the fishermen’s access to the lake. It also results in the spread of disease and hence they want it removed at all costs. An entrepreneur has figured out that she can take the hyacinth, crush it, and use it to make compost and briquettes. She hires four people to cut the hyacinth, crush it with manual machines, and bring it to her workshop. “

Solution: As an entrepreneur, we want to make, while giving back to the community. To do this we will teach members of the community, specifically those most affected by the hyacinth, to create compost. They will have the choice to sell the compost or use it for their benefit. The entrepreneur would transfer the workers not needed to cut the plant to teaching the community how to make compost from the plant.  With the plant, she collects from the works that she has left she will still be able to create briquettes.  She will supplement her income with the compost she is buying from the community.  

 

Tenet 1: Interdependence

The mutually beneficial and reciprocal relationship between systems

Positive Interdependence

• There are many mutually beneficial relationships throughout the process.  The entrepreneur will be able to continue selling briquettes to a lesser extent allowing her to spend less on staff.  This will free up part of her plant cutting staff to teach community members how to create compost.  The community won’t feel left out and will be able to make money by selling compost to the company.  The company will also save money in processing by having the community members create compost where they live.  This will also increase freedom within the community because people have the choice of growing food with the compost or selling the compost.  This will diversify the company’s portfolio making them more resistant to economic downturns by not having their entire sales based on briquettes.  The fishermen will have a plant-free lake and be able to fish in peace.  

    

Tenet 2: Holism

The parts of any large system can only exist and be understood in their relationships to the whole. The whole is always greater than the sum of its individual parts

• The current state of the community is the system being looked at. The factors contributing to the overall whole are the new business from the entrepreneur, the hyacinth, and the feelings of the community members.
• Hyacinth is causing the community dependent on the lake several issues as it is prohibiting them from being able to travel and work. To combat this an entrepreneur has created a sustainable way to make compost and briquettes. However, the initial solution did not look at the community as a whole, instead, it focused only on the usage of the hyacinth. With the new solution all the components, the people(the fishermen, general community members, employees), the hyacinth, and the business are taken into consideration.

Tenet 3: Multifinality

• Fishermen: the removal of the plants from the lake will allow for them to fish.
• Workers: Even though the company will not need as many workers to cut the plants because it is giving back to the community these workers will at least have a part-time job teaching the community members how to create compost.
• Community members who make compost:  Their problem is solved because they now have a way to easily create wealth from their natural resource
• Company: With an initial investment they can teach the community to create compost and thereby reduce their overall cost by not being in charge of the means of production.  Diversifying their revenues will allow them to be a much stronger company.    

Tenet 4: Equifinality

Attaining the same desired output through several different channels/inputs. You can reach the same goal by various means 

• The overarching issue is the hyacinth expanding across the river. The two main solutions (channels) that combat this are the business provided by the entrepreneur and those within the community who learn how to make the compost. Both are using the hyacinth in a sustainable way that also decreases the amount of it in the river. 

Tenet 5: Differentiation

• We used this tenant to break up the solutions for all those who are involved in this situation.
  • Compost creating to create community wealth
  • Plant removal for easy fishing for the fishermen
  • Compost teaching job for the workers who aren’t needed to cut the plants
  • Cheap, efficient, and diversified revenue stream for the company

Tenet 6: Regulation

A process of ensuring intrinsic feedback to bring about the desired operation of the system to meet the desired goals (and to counteract entropy)

• The creation of compost will be measured in the amount of compost that is purchased from residents.  This is slightly inaccurate since the residence can use the compost for other things like growing vegetables.
• Plant removal can be measured by the increases in fishermen’s efficiency.  Fishermen’s efficiency can be determined by the number of fish caught.  
• Compost teaching can be measured in the same way compost creation is measured.
• The overall business growth in the long term. 

Tenet 7: Abstraction

• Extracting the underlying essence of a concept…and generalizing it so that it has wider applications! (or vice versa!).Solution: many entities that are impacted by the solution care about different parts of it.
  • Employees: they likely do not want to lose their new jobs. This leads to finding a way to repurpose their skills and connection with the business. 
  • Fishermen: they do not want to miss out on profits. The hyacinth plant is invading the lake, decreasing their access to the fish. From their perspective the solution cannot be to block the entrepreneur from accessing the hyacinth, making them likely to support the idea of having both residents and the entrepreneur harvesting the hyacinth. 
  • Residents by the lake: they want access to the lake, however, they do not want others to profit from their community if they are not also profiting. From their perspective, the solution needs to be inclusive of their needs and provide them with profits. The solution allows them to not only learn a new skill, composting, but also profit since the entrepreneur will be buying from them. 
  • Entrepreneur: wants to help the community while making a profit. They do not want to be blocked from the supply of hyacinth and they do not want it to continue growing. From their perspective, the solution needs to be something that can be implemented effectively and promptly, which will resolve any issues the lake residents have.
  • The government/ environmental organizations: they do not want to spend a fortune trying to clear the hyacinth from the lake. From their perspective, they want a solution that is low cost and sustainable. 

Tenet 8: Leverage Points

• The fish economy is impacted by fishermen’s efficiency. 
• The community’s economy is impacted by the value creation of its members. ( fishermen and community members)
• The company wants more profits and to help the community.  It is impacted by the different types of revenue it can make using the natural resources found within the community.
• The workers want stable employment. They are impacted by the prosperity of the company and the need for their labor.