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Tim Gieseke ... Managing the 'Governance Paradox' is the next frontier in our nation's efforts to improve its watersheds.

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

'Uberizing' Watershed Governance

Tim Gieseke ... Managing the 'Governance Paradox' is the next frontier in our nation's efforts to improve its watersheds.

The Governance Paradox states: Resolving complex social issues (such as watershed management) requires involvement from numerous diverse organizations, yet when they converge around an issue new conflicts and an increase in confusion and inefficiencies arise.

This paradox is illustrated in the map the Minnesota River Basin, an area populated by 700,000 people, thousands of farms, some industry, many small towns and a few urban centers. The Minnesota River is a 332 mile long tributary of the Mississippi River and drains about 17,000 square miles (44,000 km2). The organizations imposed on the map began converging en masse during the last two decades bringing their policies and programs to the 'big fix'. But despite this extensive investment by governments, corporations, citizens' groups, environmental and conservation organizations, significant progress and the vision of how the 'big fix' will occur remains elusive.

The issue of watershed governance has been in the making for nearly a century.
... 1930-50s – The USDA instituted a Technical Strategy to address the nation's soil erosion issues through the Soil Conservation Service.
... 1960-80s – The environmental movement initiated a Scientific Strategy to study why many of our nation's waters remained toxic.
... 1990-2010 – With this new scientific knowledge, organizations advanced a Policy Strategy to address each of their objectives.
... 2010-2016 – As multiple sectors and organizations converged to address sustainability supply chains, convene watershed-wide projects, evaluate drainage lawsuits and support emerging natural capital markets, it is becoming apparent a Governance Strategy is needed.

Each of these strategy eras achieved significant progress toward the objectives they set out to accomplish, but each strategy then reached their limits as a new era of society and its issues were ushered in.

The New Issue: Never before in the history of society has so many diverse organizations worked side-by-side on achieving common objectives. It is for this reason, that collaborative governance is a topic whose time has come.

The Collaborative Governance Solution: To align and combine organizational assets and activities using a collaborative governance platform rather than addressing common watershed objectives using separate policy and program pipes.

Pipe to Platform. This is the Uber way. Prior to the Uber business model (called multi-sided platforms) most everything was delivered via a pipe model. Transportation was delivered from a taxi company, news was delivered from a news agency, electronics were delivered from a big box retailer and room accommodations were delivered from a hotel chain.

Tom Goodwin, Senior VP at Havas Media, summed up this shift from pipe to platform delivery in this intriguing 2015 paragraph:

“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something special is happening.”

What is the 'Something Special Happening'? The something special is what professionals try to do all the time - that is align the assets and activities of people and organizations so that they may achieve their objectives in the most expedient way. The multi-sided platform business model enabled the governance of those industries to realign from a top-down hierarchy model to a network governance model. The Collaborative Watershed Governance Platform takes a similar, but different tactic. Rather than realign the whole 'conservation delivery system', it creates a shared governance model that includes all types of organizational governance models. It is disruptive innovation that is not disruptive, as landscape sustainability must be inclusive.

Why the shift from Watershed Program Pipes to a Collaborate Governance Platform: There is a tremendous amount of untapped resources, assets and activities of the several hundred organizations and people identified on the Minnesota River Basin map. It is easy to recognize how organizations with common objectives and complimentary resources are never able to connect, share and succeed. It is also easy to understand why many organizations, particularly the smaller ones with members closest to the land are not able to be heard or participate at the level they desire. These small organizations and people are very important, or perhaps the case could be made they are the most important stakeholders on the map as they directly influence the outcome. The policy and program pipe strategy, just like the technical and scientific strategies, will always be part of the watershed landscape sustainability, but we are now in a new era where a collaborative governance platform is a necessity and we have the tool to enable it. That is something very special.

Tim Gieseke lives and farms in the Minnesota River Basin. His business, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC has developed a Collaborative Governance Model to accomplish the blog's objectives. His recent book, Shared Governance for Sustainable Working Landscapes (2016) uses a governance compass to describe how governance actors and styles are the building blocks of collaborative governance frameworks and the means to address the pending and looming governance paradox of watershed management.
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Report this Tim Gieseke Tim Gieseke President, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC 24 articles 7 commentsNewest
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3mo John Borg, II Strategic Sustainability Management Leader What would be the key assets to enable this? Uber has cars they don't own. AirBnB has space it doesn't own. Issue applying here is the equity one. I'm not sure this metaphor applies so well to water governance, despite being multi-sided. Also, I'm betting nothing happens without agriculture at the table! LikeReply13 View previous replies (1)

3mo John Borg, II Strategic Sustainability Management Leader Tim Gieseke Yes, but not globally a la Uber. LikeReply

3mo Tim Gieseke President, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC John Borg, II Not so sure about that. What this provides is a resolution for a socially complex wicked problem. It is based on addressing the three fundamental characteristics of all wicked problems. It is kind of the E=mc2 of socio-eco-commerce ttansactions...aka the strategy for the commons. LikeReply1

3mo Tim Gieseke President, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC thanks I will follow up in near future. I know I am a novice in the platform arena and so seek out my defiencies, but I also know I am the only person at this time that has a simple method to describe governance of complex social systems. I have also developed a scientific method to assess wicked problems in situ. Too many people believed Webb and Rittel when they claim… See more LikeReply1

3mo Charles Moore Managing Director, System Architect | Technology Strategist | Business Analyst I assert that even with access to close to infinite resources, it is technically impossible to detect bad actors within any arbitrary or even closed group or society in general. Hence any governance framework must be predicated on this fact, only the delusioned expect to identify a bad actor within. Also be careful with statements like 'know I am the only person' one ca… See more LikeReply

3mo Charles Moore Managing Director, System Architect | Technology Strategist | Business Analyst Don't like the Uber reference alonside governance.. There is zero governance in Uber, it is a form of commercial dictatorship and is predicated upon exploitation of 'idle' resources and the under employed.. A better model is Ebay and other social networks, not commercial exploitation wrapped in social good.. Beware of what one seeks out to emulate. Governance without ethics, is not governance in any form I support or deploy. We need to agree on the definition of Governance we are all seeking.. Here is my definition.. 'Governance is a specific form of relational dynamic, based on the assumed equipotency of its participants, organized through the free cooperation of equals in view of the performance of a mutual activity within a community, for the creation of a common good, with forms of decision making and autonomy that are widely distributed throughout the members of the the marketplace.' You can replace marketplace with any scope and acheive the same objective, I try and limit the scope of any system I design and deploy otherwise all is just a thought.. Enjoy.. LikeReply15

3mo Charles Moore Managing Director, System Architect | Technology Strategist | Business Analyst Tim Gieseke I also hate the distortion and exploitation of english 'nouns' for purely marketing purposes. Ethics is a essential part of any Governance framework, see the section on Governance models in this link for the details and analysis, it very basic stuff. It basically demonstrates mathematically ( yes it a model) that trust once lost is very hard to gain, in essence at least at the same rate as it is acquired.. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/block-chain-governance-charles-moore LikeReply1

3mo Tim Gieseke President, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC Charles Moore - yes I read all your stuff on blockchain, slowly trying to absorb what I need to know. And I appreciate your blunt comments on all posts. LikeReply

6mo Nigel Howard Principal at Clarity Environment Tim, Thanks for sharing - I don't have relevant expertise in this field but goood luck with it. For me Global Warming is our existential threat and our only global governance is UN and it doesn't work very well. At national level I try to influence my local MP and ministers and try to confront dissonance wherever I see it and engage in protest to make the issue prominent in the public mind and an election issue. For corporations (where I think the most rapid change will come before politicians actually do anything), the most successful initiative by far has been divestment which I advocate very strongly for. Divestment from fossil fuelled supply chains IS changing the corporate compass and gears our natural selfishness and greed to doing the right things. (My divested pension out-performed the average 3-fold last year and this is likely to be repeated as folk progressively realise the extent to which their financial future is at risk if invested in fossil fuels.) Fossil fuels MUST become stranded assets. LikeReply1

6mo Suzanne Rhees Conservation Projects Coordinator at MN Board of Water and Soil Resources Raises some fascinating questions -- like how do statutorily mandated organizations (state and local agencies) share or delegate those statutory authorities? Would love to read your book, but $125 is a bit more than I can rationalize as a state employee -- will it be available via inter-library loan? LikeReply32

6mo Tim Gieseke President, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC Suzanne Rhees - Thanks for the question and interest. The definition of shared governance; “where partnerships, equity, ownership, accountability and value occur at the ‘point of service’ “does not necessitate transferring authority. And as someone that has worked in multiple public and private sectors, I would not expect entities to delegate their authorities for several reasons, with self-preservation and accountability being near the top of the list. The reason I see a shared governance platform as inevitable for “Working Lands” is, as the map illustrates, that it is currently impossible, not just to align the assets and activities of the organizations, but to even know which ones have an interest for a particular ‘point of service’. And these “unrealized values” are very important to motivate better landscape management. Because, while there are regulations being imposed on working lands, they still represent a small percentage of the “sustainability” value being demanded by corporations, NGOs, utilities, insurers and other government agencies. In the book, I described the governance frameworks of 11 case studies (state, regional and national) and compared the extent of shared governance used to achieve their objectives. Whether it was for food, watershed goals, biomass/biofuel, ecosystem services, regulatory certainty, supply chain sustainability, drinking water or eco-markets, there was a general shift in governance styles from hierarchy, to the more nimble market style and to the more inclusive network governance styles; with the latter encroaching on a shared governance model. But even with the most inclusive network governance frameworks that are emerging, they are not able to fully capture the assets and activities of the entities smattered across the map needed to achieve their objectives. Hence the proposal for a shared governance platform. LikeReply

3mo Charles Moore Managing Director, System Architect | Technology Strategist | Business Analyst Suzanne Rhees, quite simply they don't? 'Delegated democracy' of all forms, was an old world solution to a scaling problem, which no longer exists within a modern interconnected digital world.. In essence all forms of centralised command and control, become obsolete within an appropriate Governance framework designed for a modern digital world, this does make it a placebo for all forms of governance, but it is suitable for many of our day to day activities.. In particular the below link is for a Global Marketplace, coming to a local marketplace near everyone in 2017.. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/block-chain-governance-charles-moore Enjoy.. LikeReply

6mo tong duyen Quotation at Smart-Shirts Thank you, Mr.Tim. I am tremendously impressed by your view. 'Uberizing' Governance, I always think about how to create 'Uberizing' Agriculture Governance in Vietnam. May you please share me more about LLC? LikeReply

6mo Steve Polski Business Strategy - Supply Chain Transformation - Pricing & Revenue Management - Accelerating Growth Love this one Tim. Something here for certain. LikeReply11

6mo Tim Gieseke President, Ag Resource Strategies, LLC Thanks - It's big Steve - I have the pieces of this puzzle laid out. Now that you responded, I realize I don't have Cargill on the map. It is incredible about the organizational resources we are leaving on the table that this model is able to enable organizations to interdependently put together. I think Elinor Ostrom would be intrigued.