The setting
The setting for the study was the island of Lesvos, and the specific areas of interest were in the northern part of the island (Molyvos, Eftalu and Skala Sikamineas) which, during the peak of the crises in 2015 and 2016, were the main places of arrival for refugees and forced migrants and, at the same time, are the areas on the island most dependent on tourism. The complexity of the situation grew over time as the situation not only affected the forced migrants stuck in limbo on the island, but a secondary crisis evolved for the tourism-dependent local communities. From an emergency in 2015, the situation has grown steadily into a long-term problem, where distrust and conflict within civil society on the island is proliferating, undermining the resilience for coping in an unknown future.
Lesvos has a rich history, and its geographical location has made it a target for the powers since early antiquity. It also has a long refugee history. So, while the scale of the crisis was new, it was not unusual for migrants to be arriving on the island. The 1923 agreement between Greece and Turkey forcibly relocated Muslim Greeks to Turkey and Christian Orthodox Turks to Greece (Fig. 1).
Half the population of this island are refugees. They came from Minor Asia so they know how it is to be the refugee. In our DNA is refugee.
Interviewee #2, August 2016
Developing the model
Making civil society visible in the public value triangle
What is the role of civil society? This is one of the core questions in the public value context, when applying the framework for promoting the potential of networked governance [75]. Such an approach reflects the idea of a shift in the locus of control of governance away from the state and towards civil society. However, a networked governance implies that there is (a) governance and (b) a structured network. This resonates with the original public value concept which assumed orderly, usually democratic societies, where the need for an agreement about public value outcome is fairly clear, or is reached through existing and functioning social structures [54].
On Lesvos, in 2015 and 2016, in the midst of the refugee crisis, there was neither alignment nor agreement; on the contrary, there was conflict and institutional void.
There was a complete void. The government did not step in to do anything. It was private initiatives and the NGOs who needed to step in to do something.
Interviewee # 10, August 2016
The challenge, thus, is to align civil society and bring forth an agreement with respect to the crisis reflecting the diversity of public life, including all those affected. The agreement is not that everyone should be alike and think the same—quite the opposite. Hence it would be more appropriate to call it “the (struggle for) agreement”. A recurring challenge is the role of civil society legitimacy [13]. According to Ulrich [82], “[i]n a civil society, the ultimate source of legitimacy lies with the citizen, hence a reflective professional practice that is grounded in an adequate concept of civil society should give citizens a meaningful and competent role to play. Reflective practice then depends on the component citizenship.” This reflective practice takes into account “the interdependence of boundary judgements, observations, and evaluations. The facts we observe, and the way we evaluate them, depend on how we bound the system of concern. Different value judgements can make us change boundary judgements, which in turn makes the facts look different.” The “creation of a well-informed ‘public’ with the consciousness and the capability to engage actively in democratic dialogues” is at the core of co-creation and public value [7].
Knowledge of new facts can equally make us change boundary judgements, which in turn makes previous evaluations look different [82]. Hence, an effective response has to be grounded in an understanding of the root causes of the problem. Therefore, system thinking and the implicit CLDs provide a structure in which hypothesised causal connections in the system can be discussed. For tackling complex problems, deliberation for alignment is key to identifying joint actions which can lead to solutions fit for purpose. Often joint actions and experiences are the first step in the dynamic process of alignment.
You need to really understand where they [the local communities] are coming from because their point of reference is X, so until you find the ways of changing that and changing it, you can talk till you’re blue. It’s not going to happen. You need to create an environment where the experiences are such that changes the frame of reference or show them something that’s in their interest.
Interviewee # 4, August 2016
The need for an inclusive agreement
In a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD), several variables and arrows can form closed loops. Figure 2 is a very high-level model of how to create public value outcomes. To make the agreement (finding) explicit in Moore’s strategic triangle, a fourth variable to Moore’s three-legged strategic triangle, the public value agreement (PVA) (4) is added, and connected in a causally different way. Public value outcome (PVO) (3) no longer directly impacts the authorising environment (AE) (1), but goes through public value agreement (4) (see Fig. 2). Outcome is strengthened if operational capacity (OE) (2) increases through the authorising environment and a public value agreement is strengthened, all else being equal.
For example, in Fig. 2, strengthening PVA creates more public value outcomes (i.e. solutions to a problem), which, in turn, strengthens the agreement. A process that feeds on itself—colloquially known as a virtuous cycle—is established, which amplifies over time an initial change in any of the variables that make up the loop. Note that this closed loop can also become a vicious cycle, namely, when the initial change in any variable is a decrease, or is weakening. The “more” PVO, the “stronger” the PVA. The aggregated PVO is composed by a number of PVO, which need to be collaboratively agreed upon. However, if the PVO favours one segment of a society unreasonably more than another, the polarity flips: the more PVO (for one segment), the less PVA. Conflict ensues. For example, on Lesvos the humane treatment of refugees (PVO-1) came, quickly und due to the enormity of the task, into conflict with the well-being of an island dependent on tourism (PVO-2). Some would even argue PVO-1 came at the expense of PVO-2. In any case, a PVA must be created that accommodates both PVO-1 and PVO-2. Once such a more inclusive PVA exists, AE and OC are similarly extended to serve the needs of all relevant segments of society, delivering both PVO-1 and PVO-2, making the entire causal loop once again unambiguously self-reinforcing.
Therefore, it is important to note that “the agreement” must be an inclusive one, i.e. bridging different groups. Only then can the agreement strengthen both the authorising environment and the public value outcome. If it is not inclusive, i.e. if the agreement is only accepted by part of those affected by the problem, it can become divisive and a source of conflict. Imagine, for example, that an agreement about how to deal with a refugee crisis was made only with the forced migrants without considering the local population—or made only with the local population without considering the forced migrants, or in a sub-group of either, or the decision was made externally, without either. Then the likelihood of a lasting solution for all would be severely compromised.
The public value agreement (PVA) needed is not based on coercive powers, but on a joint transformative experience. They are conflictual spaces, within which people and organisations with competing and conflicting interests can use “agonistic” pluralistic negotiation [58] to create coalitions with a common purpose. However, over time, an alignment for purpose is essential for producing physical public value outcomes that can address the problems. It is not based on a search for the right answer or the best solution, but on a process of agreeing on solutions that address the problems. Those solutions then deliver public value outcomes (PVOs). These processes are context- and time-specific.
Over time initiatives to coordinate the humanitarian response on the island through e.g. weekly stakeholder meetings were efforts based on more traditional aid-oriented leadership models, encompassing neither the local community nor the refugees. These meetings, where some of the NGOs participated as well as the municipality, were not only far more limited in scope, but also their initiation, climate and purpose differed. Neither was the UNHCR program on Lesvos called “communicating with communities”, perceived as forum for dialogue.
That’s one of the things that it's basically started last year trying to do things for the community as acts of appreciation. This has very frustrated because it’s a program and this is like always, I’m very sceptical of programs because what I see is that people understand very quickly that yes communicating with communities is good and right but it's not actually getting different peoples' perspectives and listening to each other.
Interviewee # 16, September 2017
On Lesvos, an agreement was needed for the humane treatment of forced migrants (PVO-1) without compromising the well-being of local islander dependent on tourism (PVO-2). Although outcome 1 and outcome 2 are two different situations, they are intimately intertwined.
It’s critical. It’s absolutely critical that we start creating win-win situations and changing perceptions, that we bring people from diverse communities together not with a view of, “Come so we can interact.” But with a different spin to it, the people feel comfortable and want to embrace it. So for example music and sports are the obvious choices, right? In general, but the biggest problem here is economy and tourism.
Interviewee # 15, May 2017
...there is this collective holding of breath. Well, it might happen again, and if it happens, it's not going to be the only chaos of the refugees, it’s going to be inside the village also. Chaos about the soul of the villages and not only those but it's probably the North part of the island. so that's another thing. If it does happen again, what's going to happen?
Interviewee, # 8 August 2016
The extended strategic triangle—a hypothesis for the emergence of public value outcomes in an institutional void
The model presented in Fig. 3a can be used to distinguish between three very separate pathways of creating public value outcomes. The model is then described in sections and loops (Fig. 3b–e) to arrive at a causal understanding of how adaptive leadership can be a core element and a generative mechanism of social change that creates public value in institutional voids. This is based on the situation on Lesvos identified during 2015 and 2017.
Public value is being created when a public problem is being solved. The overall problem that needs to be solved is the development of the dire situation on the island. In the CLD, it is not specifically indicated, but the dire situation is a flow. It feeds into a stock—long-term problems. Stocks accumulate flows over time. Problematic as the dreadful situation is at any time, if not solved, it develops into a long-term problem. The situation is dire, and becoming more so (positive connections are drawn as solid lines with no sign at the head of the arrow) because of the unprecedented numbers of arrivals of forced migrants in a short period of time, as a result of Lesvos’ physical proximity to Turkey. Lesvos is an island that depends on tourism. The situation is exacerbated by the deteriorating living conditions in the refugee camps and the rising levels of conflict between various groups [18].
Unaligned efforts trying to solve long-term problems
Figure 3b reflects that the only way in which to reduce long-term problems is to solve them, i.e. this is public value outcome creation. This is a flow, leading away from the stock. The better society is at creating and delivering solutions fit for purpose (i.e. public value outcome), the smaller long-term problems become, until, ideally, they disappear.
Thus, the better the operating capacity, the better problem solving i.e. more public value outcome creation occurs. Operating capacity is fed by solutions fit for purpose and by the authorising environment. The latter means that in a given situation it is easier (more effective) to operate when the operations are supported by an inclusive and accepted authorising environment.
At this point, one could follow the causation backwards in many different directions. First, this could be done when the following solutions fit for purpose back to acting to solve a problem. How do solutions emerge? One way is through trial and error; in other words, by people simply getting up and doing something. This can be triggered both in the short term, when people respond quickly to the dire situation, and in the long term, when people address the long-term problems. The solutions offered may be haphazard and uncoordinated, but some will actually help to solve the problem: a closed loop has been established. Furthermore, a balancing loop is created: triggered by the dire situation as well as the mounting of long-term problems, people spontaneously act to solve problems, thus finding solutions fit for purpose, increasing and improving operating capacity, and creating public value outcomes, thus reducing long-term problems. This is a process that takes place over time. At any time, people act within the situation as it is, thereby changing the situation to a new state, which then becomes the framework in which new actions are possible. And so on. This is a concrete example of Archer’s morphogenesis [4, 5].
Without the guiding framework of a (collaborative) agreement in the larger system (i.e. without bridging social capital) and a legitimate authorising environment (i.e. in a void), solutions fit for purpose emerge by chance, since individual actors will implement their particular ideas and experiences, which may or may not be appropriate for the situation at hand. If solutions require resources, as they usually do, actions within a void become inefficient and ineffective, at best, and lead to conflicts over resources, at worst.
Increasing the likelihood of finding solutions fit for purpose
Solving problems through doing
When looking at Fig. 3c and following the CLD backwards from solutions fit for purpose to the public value agreement, it is indicated that public value agreements can be reached through courageous conversations and/or by “generating agreement by doing (the right thing)”. Doing the right thing means solving the problem. The latter is the easier one. If actions taken (through the operating capacity) actually do solve (some of) the long-term problems, others will take note and do the same: this can be seen as learning by mimicry [79], where ideas are replicated.
In 2017, the Starfish Foundation initiated NeedsHub, a platform for aligning the many organisations working on the island. These were all organisations with a similar mindset, and the initiative was an example of a social innovation as a product, creating an opportunity to support refugees on Lesvos in a streamlined, efficient manner, and ensuring that the most urgent needs were addressed.
Then what will happen now is that then, slowly, other donors who want to donate things can go on there [NeesdHub] and they can see who’s working where, and they can research them out a little bit now.
Interviewee # 17, May 2017
This alignment by NeedsHub is creating bonding social capital. It refers to “trusting and co-operative relations between members of a network who see themselves as being similar, in terms of their shared social identity” [78]. A self-organised subsystem was developed over time, due to the prevailing institutional void in 2015, where individual persons and civil society groups, where the pre-dominant actors in trying to solve the problem.
Hence, over time, self-organisation took place and a structure developed for a specific sub-system. This alignment within a bonding network relates to the notion of Westley [87] that scaling out new solutions, is about engaging more people; it can also cover a larger geographical area, meaning that the international arena of like-minded persons are actors in this process.
Although this process takes time, as indicated in Fig. 3b by the double lines of the arrow connecting public value outcome creation with generating agreement by doing. It is a collaborative process that in comparison to the diffusion explained in Fig. 3d is fairly prompt. If a shared purpose (within the group) is already implicit, then this route of scaling out, as in the example of NeedsHub, is fast. But joint activities and “doing” are also an opportunity for changing relationships and creating bridging social capital, in the dynamic process of enabling a public value agreement. This causal perspective also picks up Weick’s [86] argument that people find a way forward because they “begin to act, they generate tangible outcomes in some context, and this helps them discover what is occurring, what needs to be done and what should be done next” [86].
A self-reinforcing closed loop has been established: solutions fit for purpose strengthen operating capacity, thus creating public value outcomes that solve the (long-term) problems and are, over time, picked up by others as the way forward, generating agreement on what works and what does not, and crowding out “solutions” that are not fit for purpose. However, this generates agreement only if the (long-term) problems are solved. Otherwise, it will further erode trust.
There was a point they were up to 80 or more NGOs on the island. If anything, I’m not going to get into the concept or whether or not they were doing a good job. I’m going to get into the point of overlapping jobs. If you coordinate the help that each of these organisations can provide, you can maximise the outcome for the benefit of everyone. What you need to do is get people to work together. But when the money is involved and when they’re receiving donations and they need to justify what they’re doing to people, it’s difficult to coordinate efforts with other organisations. This is where things go wrong.
Interviewee # 9, August 2016
Some of them are at risk of becoming what Stroh [76] calls “fixes that backfire”, because they are solutions which are well-intended and might solve a problem in the short term (somewhere in a system), but later on there are unforeseen consequences of the solution that either make the original problem worse, or lead to other problems, particularly by undermining trust. In this situation creating PVO-1, can be perceived as creating public value for the forced migrants while undermining the creation of PVO-2 for the local community.
Because there are some organisations that they started handing out food, clothes and heaters to the locals. Who are they to decide who needs it and what about those of us who never got considered? … I want to believe that when all these things happen they do it because they want to do something good. It’s with a good heart, but they’re missing the target and they are creating, how do you say, it’s like they are adding fire to the splitting of people.
Interviewee # 7, August 2016
Also external events like the well-intended nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize have has not been a solution to the island, but instead further undermined a joint PVA.
The distrust which happened between people, even the distrust that happened because of the Nobel Peace Prize nomination. As soon as that happened it became the “well why not me or why her and not me?” So you have this on a very local level like between friends and then sometimes cases between families and then you have the villages against villages and then Greeks against foreigners and in some cases, I would say … because there, of course, there have been people who have profited off this.
Interviewee # 16, September 2017
Solutions are smart actions! Smart actions are the actions which would unite the people, not separate them.
Interviewee # 12, August 2016
Solving problems through formalised structures
Figure 3d shows the pathway to solving long-term problems through formalised structures, arising from a legitimate authorising environment. Such a system, where solutions fit for purpose are developed through formalised structures, has the potential to bundle the scaling-up and scaling-out new solutions and ideas. This is often when new ideas are becoming the norm. For the authorising environment to be legitimate, however, it must rest on the public value agreement. Otherwise, it undermines the possibility of solving the problem. This was the situation on Lesvos when there was no alignment between the locals and the many NGOs and initiatives emerging in the winter of 2015 and 2016.
There was no connection to the locals. It was the ones they were coming with attitude of salvation of the locals and rescuing them, local society and refugees or only refugees and there was strange feeling. Also, it was the first time that we had so many NGOs. It was so many, more than 150, I don’t know, 200 and independent volunteers. There was lack of co-ordination. It was like being in a third world country.
Interviewee # 3, September 2016
In the hypothesised model reaching “the agreement” implies that many different groups are involved negotiating and compromising, so that the emerging authorising environment represents a form of bridging social capital. As mentioned earlier, already in its informal incarnation, the authorising environment supports any operating capacity deployed to create public value outcomes, i.e. solving long-term problems.
Over time initiatives to coordinate the humanitarian response on the island through e.g. weekly stakeholder meetings were efforts based on more traditional aid-oriented leadership models, encompassing neither the local community nor the refugees. These meetings, where some of the NGOs participated as well as the municipality, were not only far more limited in scope, but also their initiation, climate and purpose differed. Neither was the UNHCR program on Lesvos called “communicating with communities”, perceived as forum for dialogue.
That’s one of the things that it’s basically started last year trying to do things for the community as acts of appreciation. This has very frustrated because it’s a program and this is like always, I’m very sceptical of programs because what I see is that people understand very quickly that yes communicating with communities is good and right but it's not actually getting different peoples’ perspectives and listening to each other.
Interviewee # 16, September 2017
Over time—another example of a morphogenetic process—authorising environments become formalised and at that stage become effective enablers for the search for solutions fit for purpose. For example, on Lesvos, anti-human trafficking laws prevented taxis and commercial buses from transporting the newly arrived refugees. It was also forbidden for private individuals to drive asylum seekers.
How do you deal with it by yourself? So, you do what you think is right. I don’t know how many laws we broke. I know for sure by just transporting them [the forced migrants] we broke a big law, but we were by ourselves. What are we going to do? Because supposedly it’s an illegal immigrant, that you’re not allowed to transport them because then you could be accused for trafficking. It’s to go against trafficking, basically. I don’t know when this law was from, but I’m saying that it's old laws that are binding us today, which means change them.
Interviewee # 7, August 2016
Greece then altered the law, so people helping refugees by giving them a lift in their cars were not criminalised.
The fact that an authorising environment, once it exists, can lose its legitimacy over time, and what it needs to do in order to re-establish that legitimacy has been highlighted again and again in the problem-driven iterative adaptation (PDIA) approach [2]. According to the PDIA approach, the agreement is not fixed for all times, and once people have made a commitment to the espoused purpose and identified leverage points, they need to reassess the extent to which current goals, metrics, incentives, institutions and funding structures support or undermine the achievement of that purpose. Hence, this continual revisiting is needed to ensure that the structures and institutions are still needed. It is important for ensuring that institutions created by the authorising environment are still fit for purpose and also support the structures needed for the operational capacity. In this situation creating the PVO was aligning both the needs of PVO-1 and 2, creating public value for the forced migrants without hampering the PV for the local communities, improving the situation for both.
Another example for a PDIA discussion is the general institution of migration camps. “They [the camps] were probably an innovation when they were introduced, some decades ago. At that time, they were indeed a solution. But I am afraid that later, when they became the indisputable solution, they became in reality part of the problem. Unfortunately, instead of a new, the involved and relevant authorities and organizations keep being focused on a model that produces modern concentration camps and arenas where a number of human rights are violated, along with human dignity” [73]. Still “the internment camp”, whether in the safe areas policy or detention centres, “has become the routine solution for the problem of domicile of the ‘displaced persons’”, as Arendt [6] observed 50 years ago.
Solving problems through collaborative governance
Figure 3e explores how having a public value agreement that was reached through a broader collaborative process, in which boundary judgements have jointly been explored, creates coalitions with a common purpose that increase the likelihood of creating solutions that are fit for purpose. These solutions further enhance the operating capacity (manpower, knowledge and practical public value outputs) to fulfil its ultimate purpose, namely, to solve the long-term problems in acts of public value creation. Besides strengthening the original agreement through a flow called generating agreement in doing, solving long-term problems also initiates a new round of adaptive leadership [36] subsumed in the need to build trust.
The causal links of an adaptive leadership approach are indicated in Fig. 3e through bold arrows or the rest being greyed out and focus on leadership as a reflective, social learning [39] process. This is because solutions that are being developed through co-creation, and in a process where there has been alignment on the purpose across a wide array of different people, are most likely solutions fit for purpose, and most likely to solve the long-term problems. Solutions fit for purpose fulfil the notion of a social innovations in the definition of Nicholls and Ziegler [60]: “The development and delivery of new ideas and solutions (products, services, models, modes of provision, processes) at different socio-structural levels that intentionally seek to change power relations and improve human capabilities, as well as the processes via which these solutions are carried out.”
Westley [87] characterise the dynamics and pathways of scaling social innovations, whereby “scaling up” aims to affect everybody who is in need of the solution they offer, or aims to address the broader institutional or systemic roots of a problem. This requires the creation of bridging social capital. It refers to relations of exchange, respect and mutuality between people who see themselves as unalike. In Fig. 3e, the bridging capital which is being created through the courageous conversations is not being explicitly indicated. However, it is key in the long-term process of identifying and assuring solutions fit for purpose. Such a process asks deep questions: Where are we going with the agreement? Who gains and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? Is this development desirable? [28]. It serves the purpose and reflection and changing boundary judgements, i.e. gaining a broader and deeper understanding of the system. Knowledge of new facts can equally make us change boundary judgements, which in turn makes previous evaluations look different [82]. A core aspect is also to understand the impacts of one’s activities and the effects that they have.
The advantage of building a shared purpose is that it makes collaboration and developing solutions fit for purpose easier. It works independently of supporting frameworks like the state, institutions, marketing or charismatic leaders. Thus, this type of development of new solutions is sustainable because it draws its strength from itself; in systems language, it is a self-reinforcing loop. But this is also the potential downside. Unless people in this loop actively seek outside advice, information and viewpoints, there is the real danger of becoming ideologically self-sufficient, with all the problems that accompany this. Hence, it is always important to recall Flyvberg’s [27] plea for Phronesis—that only a holistic evaluation of the situation can tell us what is right to do.
Rather than asking “what works?”, one can also reach an agreement by asking “what is the ‘right thing’ to do?” As we shall see, this route is longer, but once established, it is the true source of transformational change. The right thing relates to the outcome of a reflective practice, taking into account “the interdependence of boundary judgements, observations, and evaluations” [82].
Answering the question “what is the right thing to do?” requires courageous conversations because the process tests, questions and extends established (power) structures, habits and behaviours. Engaging in courageous conversations requires trust, which must first be built in institutional voids. And this can sometimes start with having a coffee.
I mentioned the Archbishop of Nazareth. A Palestinian, orthodox and he said, “You know, you westerners come to the Middle East and you say you’re going to help us with dialogue. What you do is you help us find out all the things we didn’t know we actually disagreed upon. We get all caught up in the details of our disagreement.” Dialogue to me is that I have a cup of coffee with my Jewish neighbours, with the rabbi …, and have a cup of tea with my Muslim neighbours and Imam. That is dialogue and that’s where it starts.
Interviewee # 16, September 2017
Trust is part of a self-reinforcing causal loop: the more you trust, the easier it becomes to build further or deeper trust. Note, however, that self-reinforcing loops are also the drivers to destruction: the less you trust, the harder it becomes to trust at all—a downward spiral.
In theory, we know what to do: dilemmas should, according to Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars [33], be reconciled (win-win) rather than compromised (lose-lose) to achieve synergy.
… Just finding what is the common interest or what is the common platform that we need to come to, even if the reasons and ideas that each party that is participating in that platform is different. If you want to help your community, help your community even if you hate each other and it’s finding what is the common interest of people. And even pitching it in that way. We need to find solutions so that we can work together even if we hate each other.
Interviewee # 16, September 2017
A human approach by simple means can initiate the process, although it can be the hard part:
… get people to sit down and have an ouzo or cup of … coffee … or a meal and suddenly they, through that time, you can get people who didn’t want to talk together to talk to each other and then they realise they’re not – they actually understand each other more than they thought.
Interviewee # 16, September 2017
At first glance, a simple activity, such as drinking coffee together, or providing children with chess classes, which is in fact one of the activities organised by volunteers for refugee children, can have profound transformational impact.
Chess is education: people who play chess are trying to think about next steps. When children learn it – in the beginning they always say it is someone else’s fault when they lose, as it is human to give the blame to someone else, but after two months, even if they lose they are thanking you for a good game. They learn how to think ahead, but also to lose. I think children who learn to play chess will be better citizens.
Interviewee # 2, August 2016
This often requires the help of a convener. On Lesvos, the local priest took on this role at the height of the emergency in Skala Sikamineas.
… Part of that had to do with the fact that there was Father …, he was kind of a liaison between – he was a UNHCR stage two coordinator. He was in charge of stage two. He’s uniquely positioned because he speaks English. He’s American. He lives in Norway, but he also is a Greek orthodox priest. He’s known in the communities, respected. He’s been here for a very long time, so the people already knew and trusted him, and he speaks fluent Greek. He had the ability to coordinate between all of these different players in a way that no one else quite did …
Interviewee # 17, May 2017
Over time, one is re-building trust among the people on Lesvos by engaging in debates about what the public value is that needs to be created.
In the model, building trust can occur in three ways: triggered by a convenor [30], if there is a clear need for trust, and if trust already exists. Trust is destroyed if long-term problems fester. In fact, when trust is destroyed, conflict between groups increases, adding to long-term problems which in turn destroy trust: a classic vicious downward spiral (and, technically, a self-reinforcing loop).
Of course, there will be a big scar because this is also an emotional [experience]. You know what happened. There was a lot of people that used to spend Christmas together and to have holidays together. Because of this [the situation on the island], they don’t hang out anymore.
Interviewee # 13, September 2017
Building trust when (some) trust already exists is another concrete example of morphogenesis: Any existing level of trust is the framework in which individuals can take (smart) action to increase trust, bringing the level of trust to a new stage, which then serves as a new framework for individuals to engage in actions to increase trust.
It’s absolutely critical that we start creating win-win situations and changing perceptions, that we bring people from diverse communities together not … with a view of, “Come, so we can interact.” But with a different spin to it, the people feel comfortable and want to embrace it. So, for example, music and sports are the obvious choices, right? In general, but the biggest problem here is economy and tourism. So how do we create impact through tourism and economic development for the locals that they see that and embrace that?
Interviewee # 4, August 2016
Once enough trust is established, courageous conversations are possible. At the end of those conversations, “an agreement” can be reached about what is needed for the islanders and for the forced migrants on the island.
The longer we keep locals and refugees apart, the longer the misperceptions and media is going to start saying all these negative things because media only reports negative things and the tension just boils, boils, boils and then explosion and it’s happening.
Interviewee # 7, August 2016
If the long-term problem on Lesvos is to be solved, the refugees and forced migrants on the island as well as the host communities need to be jointly involved in searching for solutions fit for purpose. Locals need to be engaged in a double role: one, as participants in the innovation process to develop new solutions, and two, as beneficiaries of the innovations, along with the refugees. Hence the need to also innovate for and with the local communities.
I am a proponent 100% of using that story for good. I think that you would get people to come here because of what’s happened here. I would come here if it were me. I would say, “God those people they have got to be amazing people look at what they’ve done and they could use tourism dollars so I want to go to Greece”. I want to go be in that atmosphere it’s amazing.
Interviewee # 15, May 2017
Reaching a public value agreement, especially in situations of institutional void, is a process in which citizen participation and new forms of deliberative, collaborative and participatory decision making are at the core. Once such a more inclusive PVA exists, AE and OC are similarly extended to serve the needs of all relevant segments of society, delivering both PVO-1 and PVO-2, making the entire causal loop once again unambiguously self-reinforcing. To manoeuvre within that space and to orchestrate a solution in this space requires adaptive leadership, which is one established form of collaborative governance [34].