In 1973 two professors at the University of California published a seminal paper and introduced the idea of ‘wicked problems’ into the vocabulary [1]. Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber proposed that the search for a scientific basis for confronting problems of social policy was bound to fail because of the nature of the problems themselves. They termed these ‘wicked’ problems. Rittel’s field was the science of design and Webber’s, city
Back in 2015 I wrote a book (which was reviewed here and here). Sample download here. The book was written with lawyers in mind - lawyers everywhere - but the feedback I've had from non-lawyers has been that the life lessons have been helpful generally. So, with the generous agreement of my publisher, I've updated and blogged short extracts from the book. (Click on the page titles in bold below).
What's to be done? The 2015 report commissioned by the UK Bar Council concluded with a number of practical proposals for enhancing wellbeing at the Bar [1]. In my view the ideas are equally applicable to other branches of the profession and I have been mindful of them in writing this book. The suggestions include: 1 Cognitive style The report recognises that lawyers have a perfectionist streak and sometimes have
The process of unfreezing, moving and freezing is disruptive. We met Isabel Menzies Lyth when we were thinking about nurses’ experience of vicarious trauma [1]. Writing after several decades working as a consultant advising on organisational change in the health service, she made a number of observations about the managing process of change in institutions [2]. (The wisdom below is Isabel’s; the alliteration is mine). (1) Coping styles Whether
Heuristics Three years after William Beveridge’s report, George Polya, a Professor in Mathematics at Stanford University in California, published ‘How To Solve It’ [1]. His immediate concern was to help students tackle mathematical problems. In the work he outlined a number of ways in which the problems could be addressed. He adopted a ‘heuristic’ approach. As we touched on earlier, this book adopts a heuristic approach. It looks at a
Change is an excursion into the unknown. (Isabel Menzies Lyth) When I told one of my lawyer friends that I was thinking of writing a book about mental health and wellbeing in the legal profession, his terse encouragement was, "Good luck!” Words are imprecise labels and meaning is always conveyed by context, intonation, and assumptions of common understanding. I knew his encouragement was shot through with scepticism, if not
