Solving ‘Super Wicked’ Problems with LACE-Gaia Model

By obsessing with ‘super wicked’ problems such as pandemics, war and genocide, global warming, ecological destruction, financial control, traffic jams, air pollution, farming crises you only make the problems bigger.

Leave aside the ignorant and evil, what amazes me is why so many of the ‘good’ folks are not good enough to realise that solutions are available to every damn problem in this world, however wicked or super wicked.

We only need to find them, organise and implement them. I feel their pain and anguish over how these problems are causing misery and deaths but simply fail to understand why they would not focus on the solutions instead.

Wake up folks before it is too late.

LACE-Gaia Model is one comprehensive solution framework to the ‘super wicked problems. It meets all the four additional criteria for solving ‘super wicked’ problems. I happened to see this coming, by God’s grace, nearly 25 years back as I share in this email y’day to my former super boss at Mastek Ashank Desai Founder-Chairman and founder of two important centres – Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay and Centre for Leadership and Organisation Development at IIM Ahmedabad.

Sudhakar Ram, Group CEO and MD and fellow IIM Calcutta alumnus, was my boss. Unfortunately, Sudhakar who had the prescience to see the merit of the bold and futuristic MobilityXS solution in 2003 as I refer in the email, died in 2020. In 2004, I presented this solution in a paper at the Intelligent Transport System World Congress in Japan.

“In a sense, you could call this the era of profound confusion. We all know that more material possessions do not lead to happiness, yet en masse we pursue unending growth in consumption.”

We all know that our well-being is inextricably tied to the health of the larger natural systems within which we live, yet to date our response to the accelerating decline in key ecosystems around the world is woefully inadequate. We all know that relationships define our lives and sense of well-being, yet we study and work in institutions like schools and businesses driven by competition among individuals.

As a student recently expressed poignantly: We are more and more ‘connected’ and yet more and more separate.” Reconciling this strain of thought with practical applications on how to change the way we view the world and live in it, is Sudhakar Ram’s debut book, The Connected Age.”

Peter Senge in his foreword to Sudhakar Ram’s The Connected Age

Date: Sun 11 Feb, 2024, 6:30 PM
Subject: Solving Super Wicked problems with LACE-Gaia Model
To: <ad-clod@iima.ac.in>, <chr-adclod@iima.ac.in>, <ncn@iitb.ac.in>

Dear Ashank,

Hope you remember. I worked with Mastek in Intelligent Transport Systems in the year 2003. I later joined TCS.

Little did I realise that despite the warm and enthusiastic support I received from Sudhakar Ram for my solution framework for Mobility-as-a-Service ( I called it MobilityXS), the problems of traffic jams, road accidents, air pollution and land degradation that it was attempting to solve are now called Super Wicked problems and have monstrously grown to threaten human extinction in the intervening 20+ years. 

Hearty congratulations on setting up the Centre for Leadership and Organisation Development at IIMA and Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay. I come back to you with lots of hope and enthusiasm for your help and support. I have shared the email with Prof Vohra and Prof Narayanan for their kind attention.

I would like to meet you in this regard to present the LACE-Gaia model that I have developed as a comprehensive solution framework for ‘super wicked’ problems. I need your help to frame this as a global research program and to communicate it to concerned people and organisations for its further research, development and implementation.

Kelly Levin, Benjamin Cashore, Graeme Auld and Steven Bernstein introduced the distinction between “wicked problems” and “super wicked problems” in a 2007 conference paper, which was followed by a 2012 journal article in Policy Sciences. In their discussion of global climate change, they define super wicked problems as having the following additional characteristics:

1. There is a significant time deadline on finding the solution – Needs urgent resolution as Emergency Response. LACE-Gaia model provides a global framework for localised abundance and circular economies in every human habitat around the world. Refer: https://chandravikash.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/local-is-the-future-sustainable-cities-congress-in-australia/

2. There is no central authority dedicated to finding a solution – Needs a World Government – Global Federation of Gaia / Earth Sansad Refer :  https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/multimedia/better-way-chandra-vikash-gaia-earth-sansad/

3. Those seeking to solve the problem are also causing it – Needs leaders with higher consciousness and spiritual practice

4. Certain policies irrationally impede future progress – Needs high level skills for analysis and integration as there are a large number of variables with trade-offs.

I would like to meet you to present the LACE-Gaia framework that I have developed. I need your help to frame this as a global research program and to communicate it to concerned people and organisations for its further research, development and implementation.

—

Best regards,

Chandra Vikash
Founder-Mentor
MaaS Movement Pvt Ltd
Delhi NCR
www.maasmvmt.com
chandra.vikash@maasmvmt.com