Vishaal Lutchman
This article explores the phenomenon of dissonance, with a specific focus on cognitive dissonance. The primary hypothesis is that such dissonance is a contributing factor preventing the alignment of ideologies towards progressing an initiative. Cognitive dissonance is a theoretical concept that has been widely researched in the discipline of politics, leadership, humanities, business science and economic strategy.
The rationale for bringing this to the fore is to create a sense of awareness in the construction and built environment sectors, to achieve a single objective. The objective is that professionals serving the industry should not seek to exacerbate the situation through cognitive dissonance; creating considerable noise and disrupting progress. How this noise impacts socio-economic progress is the main purpose of this article.
Cognitive Dissonance is a disconnect or inconsistency between one’s belief and one’s behaviour. It is a multi-layered phenomenon that bears on an individual, a group or community, and even between nations. One could make a case that the war in Ukraine gives merit to the argument. In support, it is easily argued that all people, both Russians, Ukrainians and the world that is observing, believe that war and consequential damage to life and property are not acceptable.
The actions are showing that the war has been ongoing for over a year and seems to worsen with severe socio-economic consequences. South Africans could argue that we agree that our energy solutions had to be actioned some time ago, which we also agree did not happen. One of the reasons is being unable to reach common ground on the energy mix, now woven with “Just Energy Transition”, a mode of procurement of energy and political grandstanding, all of which saw initiatives such as nuclear and nearshore portable power solutions thwarted with drastic actions such as high court interdicts preventing such solutions coming to the fore.
Such approaches only seek to delay the provision of much-needed energy. We remain conflicted on the viable baseload solution until today as a result of cognitive dissonance which also ensures that we will not have solutions in time to come. A possible solution lies in our ability to acknowledge
The phenomenon becomes relevant as we progress with our elusive growth strategy. The energy case study indicates that a community of South Africans is disconnected from many initiatives which leads to initiatives remaining in planning mode without implementation. It is hypothesised that this phenomenon of cognitive dissonance plays out in both the public and private sector agencies to varying levels of significance and impact.
Hence, the argument is that should we realise that all the effort put towards causing such misalignment could be put towards a positive constructive outcome, which includes learning will enable progress on any plan implementation. A retrospective look at the course of events will reveal that time passed, decisions were lacking and the implementation can be kicked down the road. The cognitive dissonance that occurred will fade in our memories leaving us perhaps confused about why we did not progress.
As this article seeks to create awareness of the phenomenon, in addition, it seeks to postulate possible actions to reduce the negative impacts of cognitive dissonance which may assist in freeing our time to focus constructively and progress any initiative small or big. The first contribution is knowledge. Any debate has to be informed by knowledge of the topic. We may agree that many decision-makers do not have content knowledge. It is argued that a leader does not need content knowledge and can be effectively surrounded by those that do.
Our last decade and a half of lackluster development may not support such an argument. Perhaps we could resolve that a decision-maker should have knowledge allowing for an understanding of complexity which at a minimum allows for the asking of the right questions.
The second contribution explores the rationale of conscience resistance to concepts. Decisions are not supported for various reasons. An obvious one is that the solution is not fit for purpose and is clear to see as it has not taken the relevant constructs into account. Another is that the solution may not serve which may conflict with the concepts of fairness and ‘doing the right thing.” If the decision maker has been given a mandate, he is not able to deviate at the bargaining council for example.
Often business structures are conflicted with teams set up to compete intentionally or not, which will remain with negative consequences. Culture, therefore, has dissonance woven into the behaviours. Teams work for a single benefit rather than that of a collective.
The long-term effects of a silo mentality can hurt the sustainability of the business. Political grandstanding may have severe consequences on service delivery and the provision of infrastructure which we agree is severely lacking for economic growth. If political ideologies are different, there is a tendency to disagree for the sake of disagreeing in keeping with prevailing posturing.The last contribution to cognitive dissonance is the attribute of ego and how it plays out in the forums.
The ego plays out in all, but the extent to which it does so can hurt decision-making. We have seen the turbulence caused by elections with new administrations discarding people and plans of the previous regime just because. Some of these behaviours can be attributed to the forceful ego suggesting that the previous administration may have been inadequate. It leads to projects being cancelled, and suppliers remaining unstable whilst society waits for the same promised services.
This article ignores additional factors of socio-economic hindrances such as corruption, incompetence, and historic circumstances, for example, to highlight the impact of cognitive dissonance. In this concluding paragraph, a possible set of solutions are presented for consideration to support minimising the impact of cognitive dissonance to go back to the point where we find common ground. Spending time gaining an appreciation for the concept of promoting social-economic growth should be and remain the focus of why we need to work as a collective and converge on the initiatives that have an improved chance of success.
Realise that we need to stay true to such an intent in the discussion. Such a convergence does not mean businesses cannot make profits and so too with the SOC which has the mandate to do so. As a collective which is constituted of many stakeholder groups which have arisen due to dissonance will all need to decide how much “give” is required to converge on a decision.
The current trend is one of rigidity in beliefs, mixed with emotions, perhaps misinformation and a general wish to show up the failure of another. It should not be the case simply because irrespective of leadership the mandate of government is clear and that of business well-understood. It is not the point of departure, but the point of convergence.
The realisation of many years of poor growth in which we all play a role, we need to converge without being dissonant to live the commitment to improve society, create the impact that makes for leadership role models, energise (no pun intended} communities, youth and workplaces to all contribute to building a nation in a positive story without controversy, struggle, hardships and most of all a sense of sincere hope that we will be better off tomorrow and it will be ok.
