And if you want a concrete example here it is:
NYC realized their highway and road system is F’d with traffic. A ton of lobbyist and politicians called for action. A totally unqualified mayor was elected because he focused on this problem. Countless reports were made. Major media outlets talked constantly for years about the problem.
But NOTHING was done.
Then Captain Johanssen at SUNY Maritime drove around the city in a boat and started interviewing people and asking hard questions. He found the most critically broken part of the system. He recruited the best minds at SUNY, USMMA, NYCEDC, UNIONS and other stakeholders.
They the team PUT ON THEIR BOOTS, went to that broken facility and spent weeks on the ground in that location just interviewing people with hard questions. They interrogated buesiness owners, truck drivers, DOT officials. They investigated problems. Then they returned to SUNY Maritime and strategized the problem and next steps needed.
Like me, they offered NO soultions but they did challenge every assumption.
They wrote a report then held a confrenece where everyone was instructed to “Tell it like it is”. People told the truth. At one point the CEO of McAllister berrated the goverment and, instead of taking offense, the Mayor’s office took notes. Huge banks and hedge funds sat in on the conference.
Then they took these facts to albany and issued $60M in grants. They also passed laws to cut red tape.
Then they teamed up big banks with startups and unions with anti-union companies and had stakeholder meetings and invited mortal enemies. And shit got done.
Now, in truth, they tripped and fell on their face at the finish line but you can’t expect 100% success on the first go.
The point is it got very close to working real solutions.
And they didn’t do it by asking mariners to contribute PAC funds to invite congressmen to softball podcast interviews. They did it by getting and publishing the facts.
Now if we use that success and fix the final mistakes we have the outline of a plan that will work.