Consuming Thoughts: W

W is for Me, Becoming We. John Lennon: Instant Karma’s gonna get you, gonna knock you off your feet. Better recognize your brothers, ev’ryone you meet. Why in the world are we here – surely not to live in pain and fear. Why on earth are you there – when you’re ev’rywhere, Come and get your share.

I wonder if these were the words dancing through Obama’s mind and the collective consciousness of other heads of state as they watched, helpless, as China systematically eviscerated the Copenhagen accord. China played a key role in wrecking Copenhagen because they are still firmly rooted in a scarcity mindset – our scarcity mindset.

In a growing number of commodities and products including grains, meat, coal and steel China and the Chinese are the largest consumers in the world. And, to paraphrase the Carpenters, they’ve only just begun…China is also one of the largest producers of consumer goods in the world, a growing number of which are being consumed domestically.

In Copenhagen China, and to a lesser degree, India demonstrated that they do not intend to let limits on CO2 emissions hobble their rapid economic ascensions. The problem is their rise is linked to models of straight line consumer spending and growth. To clothe, feed and outfit the burgeoning consumer class of China and India in the “Western” tradition of the last 100 years, requires more resources than we have on this planet. Is this an argument against abundance? No. It is a demand for true abundance-oriented thinking and action.

China is adapting a model development pioneered and perfected by us. At Copenhagen they flatly and consistently refused to deviate from this model. There are other models available. Look at what was accomplished at Kalundborg. Look at how companies like Burgerville are reinventing the business of fast food. Look at what plants like hemp can do to disrupt and reorient agriculture, energy, nutrition, building and manufacturing. Look at how you can go from one can of trash a week, to one can a month, and maybe, to putting out only one can a year.

“Me” becoming “We” is not about putting on birkenstocks, joining hands and dancing in fairy circles in a pollyanna world of ponies and rainbows. It is about self-interest. Self-interest in which our sense of “self” includes and transcends the ways of doing and seeing and being that brought a disingenuous China to the Copenhagen summit.

How dare they deign to beat us at own game? How dare we become passively complicit to a future of scarcity and suffering for our children?

The words of Larry Gopnick the Job-like protaganist of A Serious Man come to mind here: “I’ve done nothing”, he says in limp resistance to the calamities that befall him. And, when he does move in a desperate act of scarcity-minded self-interest, the phone rings with ominous news from the doctor and black, funnel-shaped clouds appear on the horizon.

Instant karma, baby. Instant karma.

Tags: A Serious Man, abundance, Burgerville, China, CO2 limits, Copenhagen, hemp, India, instant karma, John Lennon, Kalundborg, Larry Gopnick, obama, scarcity mindset, The Carpenters

Sustaining Sustainability

Here at the headwaters of 2009 and the backwaters of the first decade of the 21st century I’ve got the crashing power chords of Rush in my head singing: “Changes aren’t permanent but change is.” Da da Da dum. Da da da dum…

The Obama era is ushering itself in and with it a lot of hope and opportunity. However, what are we hoping for? Where is that opportunity going to take us? Is that even, really, an appropriate question anymore? Think about this. Meditate on this. Please.

I don’t think we’re “going” anywhere. “Going” is linear. “Going” is an illusion. 

My sense of things is that we are “happening”. We and everything else is “emerging” just as we, along with everything else is “subsiding”. Change is the name of the game. Change is changing change.

My sense of things is we have to become better at working and playing well with others. By “others” I mean both the people we work and play with on a daily basis as well as the myriad host of sentient beings blessing this planet and universe with their presence. All of God’s creatures. Not just the ones we want on our team, on our plate and in our garden but the ghosts of the Baiji still swimming in the murky hell of the Yangtze River as well.

The Yangtze springs from snowmelt in Tibet, by the way, and may also become a haunting memory one day if the capricious dynamics of global warming have their way…

We need leaders who are more than achievers (although, now more than ever, we need them too.) We need leaders who can ride the wild flux wave creating wakes of opportunity. We need alchemists who can change the leaden, oppresive beat of the industrial, fossil-fueled dirge into glimmering gold sun-shining circles of slam dancing electrons.

We need to re-discover hope. Bask in the warm winter glow of what could be instead of the November drizzle of what can’t. Re-imagine our Selves as the inter-related jewels holding each other in the shimmering embrace of Indra’s net.

Love. Man do we need love. I’m talking about Big Love here (although ain’t nothing wrong with the little one either). The kind of love Morihei Ueshiba was talking about when he said “Aikido is love“. It is the realization of our capacity to open up to and embrace each other, becoming something bigger, transcendent, simultaneously many and one. 

This quote is a good one as well “A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind.”

And, finally, for now, let’s forget about “sustaining” our selves. Let’s set our eyes on the prize of flourishing. Sustainability is sustainable when we are looking out for more than just me. Sustainability is sustainable when we are engaged and interwoven, breaking bread and doing good work with one another. The more we can do to benefit those around us, the more potential for us as well.

Forget green. Let’s go full spectrum.

Tags: aikido, baiji, flourishing, global warming, Indra's net, Morihei Ueshiba, obama, Rush, sustainability, Yangtze river

Sustainable Leadership: Resilience and Responsiveness

「勝って兜の緒を締めよ」(katte kabuto no o wo shime yo)

When you win, it’s time to tighten your helmet straps. So goes a proverb from the samurai. It relates to the practice of 残心 (zanshin), lingering awareness. After overcoming an opponent, one still remains alert, attuned and ready for more. It is the embodiment of Presence in the midst of the din and confusion of uncertainty, stress and struggle. 

The principles of Resilience & Responsiveness mean, essentially the same thing. In Engaging the Core I wrote:

“Stewardship, support, service, maintenance & improvement. Building and maintaining flexibility. Everything changes. At the core of eco-centric, sustainable action is the heart of flexibility and the perceptive wisdom to respond with change.”

In the automotive industry Toyota has exemplified this practice, relentlessly expanding their market share, celebrating milestones and remaining alert, attuned and focused on maintaining, improving and exceeding the excellence already achieved.

In politics Obama took little time to celebrate or rest from his victory. He and his team are vigorously responding with the changes that are taking place on a weekly and, sometimes daily, basis.

What are we doing?

Whether we’re celebrating Obama’s victory or disheartened by it are we remaining alert and attuned to the promise of opportunity in hard times or are we distracted by our feelings of elation and despair?

Are we stuck in our industrial age mindsets or are we building the capacity for flexibility, responsiveness with change and sustainable work and life styles?

Are we waiting for someone else to do something for us or do we have the desire, commitment and accountability to do for our selves and others in the spirit of sustainable stewardship, support and service?

The times they are a changing, my friends. They’re going to continue to change. Get used to it.

Reacting or resistance to change puts us consistently a day late and a dollar short. Ever tried to fight a wave? Just ask the American auto industry.

We win some. We lose some. Do we have the capacity to respond with loss and victory, to tighten up those helmet straps? Are we building the capacity for Presence, opening our selves to possibility, flexibility and opportunity, remaining alert and attuned to what’s next? Can we place our selves in a way to influence what’s next?

Can we be what’s next?

Tags: obama, resilience, responsiveness, sustainable leadership, Toyota, zanshin

Seven Lessons for Radical Innovation

You must read Obama’s Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators. Written by Umair Haque, it is truly astute look at the organizational excellence of the Obama team. Haque identifies seven areas of performance where the Obama organization excelled:

• The Obama organization was self-organizing: Though disciplined and structured they had an extended organization that created opportunities for growth and wealth generation without the need for direction.
• The organization was highly elastic and resilient: I would say it was, at times, downright aiki. When attacked by the McCain camp, it used the attack to generate positive value and wealth generation.
• They minimized “strategy”: Rather than the cunningness or cleverness that often comes with strategy (especially political strategy) they let principles, meaning and hope lead the way.
• They maximized purpose: (I love this quote) “yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things – tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things.”
• The Obama team unified markets: Forget demographic segmentation. Embrace demographic unification. Simply, stand for hope.
• Obama wields thick power: The Bush administration wielded the coercive power of fear. Thick power leverages the capacity to create inspire, lead and empower
• Obama understands the asymmetrical power of ideals: Competitive advantage assumes you’re playing by the same 20th century rules. (Here comes another great quote!) “In the 21st century, there is nothing more asymmetrical – more disruptive, more revolutionary, or more innovative — than the world-changing power of an ideal.” 

Tags: asymmetrical power, obama, organizational resilience, self-organizing, strategy

The Real Work Begins

The election of Obama is an opportunity for those of us with the courage, vision, accountability and commitment to start the Real Work. That is the work of changing the way we think about our selves, each other and the way we see and act in “the world”–A world that lies not outside of us but within and around us.

We permeate each other; life is inextricably connected and dependent on all other life. We must know this deeply and live it authentically.

And as we do…

We will create new economic models that profit from leveraging eco-logical principles. Why? Because these principles are the bottom line principles of exchange, growth, development and change. You want sustainable economy? Go learn from the mountains.

We will emerge new organizational models that do not rely on boxes & arrows, gears and oil.

The new models are organic, self-organizing, fluid & flexible, dispersed yet deeply connected by faith. Faith in our selves, faith in the need to do well by helping others be well, faith that we are co-creating a meaningful future in which our grandchildren and great-grandchildren will flourish, faith in simple acts of kindness and compassion, faith in that which connects and binds us, draws us together.

We will transform from consumers to creators of value, community and wellth.

We will innovate new technologies that actually do no harm, or do as little harm as possible–a six sigma of ahimsa will be born. 

We will live with the awesome power of wind & sun, rain & revel in the joy of compost. Waste will dwindle and, in many places, disappear. C’mon, how many kinds of toothbrush do we really need?

We will do all of this. We’ve already started. We’ve missed you and we need your help.

Please come join us. We are not waiting anymore.

Tags: innovation, obama, self-organizing, six sigma, sustainability

Presidential Presence

There have been a number of interesting articles about body use and language that have come out of the American presidential debates. Karen Bradley, head professor of the graduate program in dance at the University of Maryland, and a Laban movement analysis practitioner, has analyzed the movement of George Bush:

During a State of the Union address, Bush spent the entire speech swaying metronomically, straight down through his lower torso, a movement underscored, unfortunately, by the presence of a large vertical banner behind him. “Each shift ended with this focus that channels toward a particular place in the audience…It’s a little primitive, a little regressed.” The combination of the look, the sway, and the gaze was, to her mind, distinctly adolescent. When people say of Bush that he seems eternally boyish, this is in part what they’re referring to. He moves like a boy, which is fine, except that, unlike such movement masters as Reagan and Clinton, he can’t stop moving like a boy when the occasion demands a more grown-up response.

And recently on the Planet Waves blog the movement of McCain and Obama, Palin and Biden:

PALIN: Whenever she says “I am ready,” she’s really not answering the question. This means she isn’t adaptable to questions, nor is she listening. She’s all about persistence and no content. She’s really not saying anything, but she does it with great conviction.

McCAIN: Completely non-adaptable as well. Whatever is going on, he is not going to move. As maverick and leader of the “Straight Talk Express,” his stance didn’t shift or waffle. He owned the space he was in.　If he changes the message he believes in, he loses his grounding (meaning he verbally spurts, and his body lists like a ship). He wants you to believe he is holding down the fort, but it looks as though he doesn’t believe it himself. No moral center here.

BIDEN: Very consistent. What McCain should have been. He’s pointed, not broad. He’s got depth. He’s like grandpa: sometimes wise, sometimes goofy, but the goofiness is forgivable because he’s got depth.

OBAMA: He’s got challenges. Sometimes he wanders around the stage, but that’s when he is listening and thinking about how to respond. You don’t see this trait in any of the other candidates. He’s a very considerate and a good listener. He doesn’t appear to be impulsive. He decides deliberately. He has a center but also has tremendous range. Kids understand: This man is a grown up.

We like our leaders to have presence. We want them to be people we can trust. What we say with our bodies speaks volumes. And the body does not lie.

Next time you watch an organizational, community, political or global leader “speak” pay attention to what they are telling you with their body, energy and intonation and register. Pay attention to your responses. 

Ask yourself: what am I responding to? Words? Or something else?

Tags: biden, body language, leadership, mccain, obama, palin, somatics