Look for a video to follow this in the not so distant future...
Back Story
I'm currently in an ethics class in school. We are learning that one of the pitfalls of management decisions is that the future is often discounted. Look at some of the problems that we face today. Many of these are problems that have been around for a long time. Sometimes we make decisions that don't take into account the big picture.
Sometimes these shortfalls in looking at consequences in our decisions lead to ethical problems. I recently read about an article about the Ford Pinto. These cars were killing people in low speed crashes. Ford knew that there was a problem, but concluded that the incidents were infrequent. They also assumed that no one would find out the real problem because there were other variables involved. Ford also discounted that people would care about safety. They assumed this wasn't a top priority of people over saving money. By only examining part of the big picture it was decided that the problem didn't warrant a recall. The Ford Pinto killed people, and in reviewing the incident it is clear that by ignoring the consequences an unethical decision was made.
In this improvisational act I would like to introduce decisions into a scenario and show how their effect doesn't work in a linear fashion.
The metaphor that I'd like to use for the scenario is rainstorm (decisions), a large river (TIME), and ripples (Effects). The rain hits the water and causes small ripples that travel across the surface and interact with other ripples. This is all happening while the water's surface is in motion. I think that this metaphor illustrates that the decisions we make can cause effects that are infinitely hard to keep track of. The illustration here is of course to make us think a little bit more about our actions and their long term effects.
What do you think?
What would be a scenario we could try this on?
What kind of people should we involve?
Thanks,
Derek Dowsett
