-23 • In which way does your NPM include skills of cultural analysis in training programmes for monitors? 2.7. Look at failures in the system, not in persons Meaning of the principle - the basic idea The invisible structures and cultural patterns, analysed under 2.6., are not only important as such. Systemic thinking highlights that they play a particularly important function: they make a system stable, they guarantee that the system/organization ‘works’ and ‘survives’. This fundamental function of structures and cultural patterns also means that individuals only take on a role that is negotiated within and assigned by the system and serves to maintain it. Many know this common phenomenon well: exchanging a person within an organisation or hiring a new person does not necessarily solve an existing problem and achieve the desired results. Rather, a new person is likely to adopt the same behaviour as her/his predecessor, acting out the role which is assigned by the ‘systemic forces’. Therefore, a systemic perspective looks at the stabilizing factors that exist within a system and tries to identify possible failures constituting systemic risks, i.e. structures and cultural patterns that produce human rights problems and that are particularly difficult to change. This also means that the analysis of problems is not focused on person and personal dispositions but primarily on situational and structural factors.35 This principle serves to counteract the well proven human tendency of blaming persons rather than seeing the effects of situational and systemic forces. Application of the principle in preventive monitoring This principle helps to better understand the situation at hand and guards us against falling into the trap of personalizing problems, with three key positive consequences: • It helps communication with authorities as it avoids the pitfall of “blaming” language. Thereby it facilitates the development of a constructive relationship with decision-makers, the understanding of 35. This is strongly supported by insights from social psychology; see Philipp Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect, Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House 2007) [hereinafter: Zimbardo]. Systemic Thinking in Preventive Human Rights Monitoring