Noble prize winning economist, Dr. Herbert A. Simon determined that decision makers work under three unavoidable constraints, which he termed bounded rationality:

1. only limited information is available regarding possible alternatives and their consequences,
2. the human mind has only limited capacity to evaluate and process the information that is available, and
3. only a limited amount of time is available to make a decision (Bounded Rationality, n.d.).

Additionally, his research identified “satisficing”: aiming to achieve only satisfactory results because this position is familiar, hassle-free and secure, whereas aiming higher would call for costs, effort, and incurring risks (Satisficing, n.d.).

Examples:

Maintaining the “status quo” use of chemical fertilizer verses making advancements toward greater use of natural fertilizer,

or settling with reverse osmosis (RO) verses exploring biodenitrification to treat nitrate in groundwater, as do the European water agencies.

I find this quote most fitting for today. I am told that Mr. Churchill made this statement at a very critical time during World War II…  

Is this a critical time in our history? Maybe; only time will tell.  

A war? Hopefully not with external adaptation, but concerning decisions requiring change, a battle of the minds usually exists within group internal integration.  

Our environment is changing – one week the discussion is about expanse of the suburbs, supermarts and Yahoo; the next week, it’s exurbs, megamarts and Google.  

Information technology (IT) systems such as Google require tremendous amounts of energy to operate their“server farms” and these farms require water as well, not in the traditional sense.  

According to Robert Glennon (2009) “one server farm, AT&T’s Ashburn, Virginia facility pumps 13.5 million gallons a day for four immense ‘chillers’”(p. 58);  

“the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy calculates that ethanol plants consume more than four gallons of water for every gallon of ethanol produced” (p. 53),  

and “for every gallon of potable water produced by a home reverse osmosis filtering system, between two and four gallons of water goes down the drain” (p. 75).

How did we get to this point? Hindsight being 20/20, there is much that can be learned from society’s evolutional change regarding the decision-making concerning water resources. The pre-industrial period’s populace locale was mainly rural and the economic sector of agriculture, timber, mining and fishing had a minimal negative impact on water resources. With such a dispersed population the waterways zones of degradation were miniscule in comparison to the zones of recovery, and decisions were driven by a traditional family-based culture. The advent of the industrial period, culturally driven by economic growth, with energy as its technology changed things considerably. The populace locale became mainly urban, increasing density and the need for infrastructure to provide water resources to the economic sector. Manufacturing and processing increased water use and contamination, while adequate technology did not exist, it forced decision-making to be limited and extremely bounded. As technology improved, the prior decisions made based on economics proved to have serious environmental impacts on the water resources, which prompted the passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974.  

In today’s post-industrial society our State is faced with major decisions concerning sustainability, as well as how to right the ship left at the dock from the industrial period. How will Maryland successfully navigate the implementation of its Watershed Implementation Plan ll and its PlanMaryland? What will it require for the 2007 Stormwater Management Act to accomplish its purpose? Two decades ago, at the first Maryland Ground Water Symposium, that existing culture may have seen these topics as the concerns of others, not ground water professionals. The reality is that how decisions are made concerning these and almost all water related issues will somehow impact groundwater, to include climate change.

Daniel Bell (1973) in Chapter 4 of his book The Coming of the Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting, in the early 70s discussed two major competing societal thoughts:

1. The Economizing Mode: Corporation's maximizing of profit, obligated only to stockholders.

2. The Sociologizing Mode: Corporation’s, as benefactors from society and nature, have a social obligation to all stakeholders.  

I believe that the environmental milestones needed in Maryland can readily be achieved as change happens in our societal culture to promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) through incentives that will result in the maximization of corporate profit.  

Groundwater professionals are major stakeholders in the sustainability movement, as are farmers, homebuilders, developers, municipalities, Counties, regulators, legislators, environmentalists and private citizens, we all have a role to play in this success. From the freshman legislator seeking to fund legislation to the 5th generation farmer attempting to determine how the land is to be put to its best use, to the local operator performing quality and quantity testing on a drinking well in the piedmont, the information that is gathered in the decision-making process is critical.  

As Chair of Maryland’s State Water Quality Advisory Committee (SWQAC), administratively, my purpose became to manage the organization’s environment in order to be an asset and not a liability in this challenge that confronts Maryland. The question was, what would that translate into for an advisory “think tank” group? Whatever the organization’s purpose, there are six prime responsibilities leading to successful change. According to Beach (2006), they are: 1) assessment, 2) culture, 3) vision, 4) plan, 5) implementation, and follow-through. Of the six, the two most critical being assessment and culture, with the latter driving all organizational behavior.

Concerning External Adaptation:

Assessing SWQACs external environment was no different from any other organization. Beach (2006) states, “most organizations’ external environments can be divided into five sectors (economy, government, society, industry, and research) each of which can affect them and over which they have only limited control” (p. 7).

Concerning External Adaptation:

Concerning Internal Integration:

Internally, SWQACs representation and expertise is quite diverse. This made it important for its members to work with others in the organization to understand its culture, and when the culture hindered change, SWQAC had to change the culture appropriately (Beach, 2006).

Schein (2004) defines organizational culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions that has been learned by its members as the organization solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems (p. 17).

Concerning External Adaptation:

Understanding culture matters in an organization because culture defines its primary importance, prescribes how resources will be utilized, establishes the expectations of its members and determines the standards of measurement of an organization’s successes and failures (Beach).

Organizational culture evolves through a three-level process that can be fashioned to the high-order considerations of the organization, especially where change is necessary. Level 1, artifacts, consists of the visible organizational structures and processes. Level 2, espoused beliefs (concepts accepted by the mind that something is true or real, often strengthened by an emotional or spiritual sense of certainty) and values (principles or standards of a person or a group), makes up its strategies, goals and philosophies. Level 3, underlying assumptions, is the unconscious, taken-for-granted beliefs, perceptions, thoughts, and feelings (Schein, 2004).

It is human nature to question or even resist any suggestion to change shared standards that have become underlying assumptions, making it extremely difficult to accomplish. However, the change can be successful by incorporating positive outcomes such as:

Security: Increase demand for an individual’s skills;

Authority: Increase allocation of additional decision-making discretion;

Self-satisfaction: Provide for a greater sense of achievement and challenge;

Less time and effort: Ensure change will improve operational efficiencies (Palmer, Dunford, & Akin, 2009).

According to Beach (2006)
“For both evolutionary and revolutionary change, the key lies in changing activities first and then allowing the culture to adapt. This means that the focus, rather than being on the culture itself, must be on getting the organization’s members to accept changes in their routine activities and the immediate goals of these activities” (p. 43).

With this in mind, SWQAC set out to redevelop its culture through the process of formalizing its activities to best serve the group’s purpose. To ensure better decision-making, tactically SWQAC implemented a number of initiatives directed at very concrete, immediate goals concerning:

1. the functionality of each subcommittee,
2. relationship building with SWQACs external stakeholders, such as The Department of the Environment (MDE) and The Department of Natural Resources, and
3. limiting focus to two water supply issues and two water quality issues for the short term.

These activities provided the opportunity to incorporate positive outcomes for the membership through:

• Increased demand for an individual’s skills;
• Increased allocation of additional decision-making discretion, and
• Providing for a greater sense of achievement and challenge
  (Palmer, et al., 2009).

To successfully communicate change within groups, no matter the size, two major sets of problems must be attended to:

1. Survival, growth, and adaptation in their environment; and
2. Internal integration that permits daily functioning and the ability to adapt and learn (Schein, 2004, p. 18).

The key is to establish influence, internally and externally, and that begins through effective communication. To communicate effectively means to produce an idea, a concept to be acted upon, knowing when to act—timing, done correctly creates and builds momentum.

Keep in mind that the action has to be such that it is able to be empirically tested, to evolve into a new belief or value. Once tested and accepted, momentum is established, resulting in recognition. At that point, the new espoused belief and value is being transitioned into an underlying assumption that automatically influences behavior, internally and externally.

As a result of change, SWQAC has been able to demonstrate that when innovation, creativity and diversity become active participants in an organization’s decision-making, good things happen. Without a single dollar for an operating budget, SWQAC was able to secure funding through its alliances and partnerships to produce a recently published report on acid mine drainage remediation. According to C. Edmon Larrimore (personal communication, January 6, 2011) of MDE’s Mining program,

The Benefits of Acid Mine Drainage Remediation on the North Branch Potomac River, prepared by Downstream Strategies for the Maryland State Water Quality Advisory Committee (SWQAC), is a comprehensive and thorough review of the economic activity that has developed in Maryland’s North Branch Potomac River watershed since the initiation of our acid mine drainage (AMD) treatment program, and according to MDEs Mining Program, Bureau of Mines and the Abandoned Mine Land Division (AMLD) “…the AMLD has already distributed the report to the Office of Surface Mining, our federal oversight agency, so that their public relations office will give the report national exposure. It is also our intention to present the findings of the report in September, 2011 at the National Association of Abandoned Mine Land Programs annual conference in Lake Tahoe, CA”.

What SWQAC has taken away from this experience regarding cultural change within its internal and external environments is the importance of trust-building, empathy and respecting diversity and how each impacts the decision-making process. The experience also prompted changing the approach that was taken with regard to the methodology taken toward Agency issues. While SWQAC’s purpose is to advise, SWQAC has also transitioned into partnering with the Agencies to combat the external sectors such as economic downturns by searching out innovative decision-making opportunities for funding existing and recommended water quality and supply programs.

As I close, what SWQAC hopes that other Maryland stakeholders will take away from this experience, is that in this post-industrial society, unlike our predecessors, the industrial society, we are without excuse. While economic times are hard, innovation and creativity are not.  

Case in point, SWQAC is not opposed to natural gas drilling, simply put, we advocate:  

1. As a result of the process, that there be a zero (0) negative environmental impact.
2. That corporate resource (CSR) supplement the funding needed to implement the Wolman Report recommendations, at the very least, in the impacted areas, if not the entire piedmont.  

Society has the needed technology to minimize satisficing and bounded rationality. With tools such as the new Maryland Assessment and Scenario Tool (MAST), providing that all Maryland stakeholders share in the quality and quantity of information gathering, Maryland has an opportunity to right the ship.