Should we invoke some boogeyman to prompt people into action?
This is a strange question, but it’s not an illegitimate one.
There’s ample evidence that people are prompted to take action they wouldn’t otherwise if they perceive a threat. This is true across many conditions, settings, and issues. Yet, a threat is, by its very definition, something that poses an unpleasant or unwanted risk to someone.
The ethical issues of inducing a false threat aside, the idea is a compelling one as part of a thought experiment.
Frogs, Boiling Water, and Anticipatory Change
The parable of the frog in the boiling pot (sometimes it’s a lobster) is often invoked when we think of threats like climate change. In this parable, the frogs only realize that the slowly warming water is boiling when it’s too late.
Were they adequately threatened earlier, they might have got out.
That’s us. We’re the frogs. But we’re not just frogs; sometimes, we might want the water to get threatening. What if we induced hot water to help us change?
I’ve been thinking about this concerning preventive or anticipatory innovation. These are scenarios where our ability to change ourselves ahead of a threat we anticipate down the road. Yet, we don’t do this.
Emergency Preparedness, retirement savings, or lifestyle regulation (food, drink, movement) are all things that can creep up on us if we don’t take care of them long in advance of when the benefits of such actions are realized. I’ve struggled with this personally and with my clients. Why won’t they invest in what will pay off down the road? What if we could invent a threat to keep people moving toward the goal?
We can.
Future Selves
The Future Selves approach is useful in this regard — a more gentle version of invoking the boogeyman.
A useful technique is using your future self as a guide. Ask yourself: what would you have to do today to become the person (or organization) you want to be in the future? For example, if at 80 years old you want to be able to pick up grandchildren, walk to the store, and live independently, you might need to do certain exercises and body care today to achieve that.
The threat in this case is lack of function. The time horizon might be 20, 30 or 40 years.
I’ve used this to enable my clients to engage in the kinds of futures thinking that they need to see things. But I often wonder what this would look like if it were more threatening. Reduced mobility for yourself 30 years into the future — no matter how visceral one makes that image — is far less threatening than going out of business in six weeks or six months.
With issues like climate change, the threat might be 30 years in the future, but the real effects will be far more catastrophic. We need to invoke the boogeyman. But how?
That’s what I’m wrestling with. How about you?
Thanks for reading.