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Sustainocracy – not a choice nor a process
The fact that sustainable progress is not a democratic choice nor a transformative process was a true revelation to me these days. It is an act of taking responsibility. If I take responsibility I can ask others to so too, even institutionally. And if they do not take responsibility I can ask them to justify their reasons and even ask justice to speak out. Wow! Will the near future look like that?
I came to that revelation while wrapping up my new booklet on “the new society” with my conclusions. My model takes a complex issue (a human value s.a. health) in a region and asks business, government, science and the civil community to take responsibility together. Purpose driven, multi-disciplinary ventures appear s.a. AiREAS or STIR (initiatives that I started myself). Today I am still relying on the voluntary choice of an institution to participate despite the value driven purpose.
Taking responsibility together for sustainable progress
“Sustainocracy” defines the new model for society. The word is a fusion between Sustainable Progress and Democracy.
Sustainable Progress is in my view not a democratic choice but an imperative mission of humankind. The imposition on all of us to work together on a healthy, vital and safe human community seems very logical to me. New leadership in this new society is represented by someone who takes the initiative to create new age purpose driven venture based on that moral imposition. Why would a single person take such complex initiative? Because no one else can, not institutionally anyway, because of the way economics works.
My own awareness came when I was challenged to make an instant decision of human value. The safety of my children or my money driven career? There was no middle way. For me it was no choice, I was given no transition time, I had to make up my mind instantly. My decision was to bring my children into safety. What else? Would I at that instant be at ease with myself if I had made the other choice? Once a person is aware the decision is not a choice anymore, nor a process. It become an instant change of mindset, taking responsibility at once. After that moment, the consequences are huge because the process of no return starts when the new responsibilities need to establish and organize themselves in one’s life while letting go the old securities and way of life. But there is no way back. The new mindset was instant, the decision made and the consequences are logical and permanent.
This is key. When someone who is aware and has taken responsibility for sustainable progress and subsequently takes a seat on that line of sustainable progress in my model, starting to invite government, business authorities, scientific institutions and civil individuals to join him and take responsibility too for a complex local issue around human health, vitality or safety, can any such authority decline their participation? On what grounds?
In my own experience so far the institutional excuses have been as varied as:
- Not our main priority
- No people, time or money available
- If you have no budget we are not interested
- Don’t how to contribute
- Not taxable so we cannot support them
- My shareholders won’t let me
It is amazing that in the fragmented, consequence driven, money dependent organizations, the corporate interests have no connection at all to sustainable issues. Else there would be no issue to join the venture, would there? They would be honored, but they are not. Amazing! And even more appalling is the fact that this attitude is considered normal and legally supported. Right now our common focus is on the economies of growth without any interest or even awareness of the consequences of such mentality. Even the genuine invitation of participating with corporate talent and authority in value driven ventures is treated with apprehensive policy choices.
Sustainocracy is dictatorial from a perspective of a common human goal, and democratic in how to achieve it. Democracy by itself is inclined to sum up the self-interest up to a point of self-destruction (Club of Rome warns for this already from the 70s). It is necessary that we accept the greedy nature of humankind but also acknowledge the wisdom that sustainable progress is mandatory, not by human choice but by universal logic. A simple modification in our global systems of justice, defining that all institutional hierarchies should commit to sustainable progress by taking responsibility, could help reform instantly our global wellness expectations. This is of course wishful thinking at this stage, however while precedence with the new model grows the pressure on institutions to take responsibility will grow too.
Important for everyone to know is that sustainable progress can be instantly accepted everywhere in the world. It is now not a political choice anymore, nor a transition process that takes many years. It is a simple moment of instant truth in which we take responsibility or not. This decision is not made through voluntary choice but instant awareness, an act of consciousness that opens up our eyes to universal truth. When this occurs individually the consequences are personal and demanding. But can we expect this responsibility and awareness from our institutions? Yes, of course we can. They are not more than instrumental to human progress. We can demand from them to be constructive and not destructive.
There is not one single reason that would justify the lack of our participation, individually or institutionally, in human health, vitality and security improving missions defined by sustainable progress. It is up to ourselves to open up our eyes, take responsibility and expect others to do so too.
Urgency
When we live our life today we find that we need money to survive. If we take away money we have no access to the seeming abundance that surrounds us. We would have to create it ourselves. Our lifestyle is so complex and filled with gadgets that 100% individual self-sufficiency cannot create the same abundance. We would have to totally change our lifestyle or change way we gain access to the things we cherish in our daily life. This means that for an equivalent lifestyle we would have to transform our society into a new complexity. This only takes place when we start with ourselves.
When I became aware of my own vulnerability in a money driven dependency I needed to learn a whole new set of competences in an attempt to become more and more self-sufficient and therefor independent from money. With my university degrees and 8 spoken languages I could perfectly well get by in the money driven world that valued these talents in a globalizing world of financial speculation and supply chain efficiencies. But when I wanted to grow tomatoes in my back yard I was a total nitwit. In fact, from massive consumer to an independent self-sufficient producer was a frustrating encounter with my own uneducated discapacity.
It became clear to me that a global transformation would go from a highly complex, well organized world around systems of greed into an idealistic world of wellness that did not yet exist. Not because we do not want it to exist or even see the logic of it. Not because we do not have the insight, awareness, scientific knowledge or technology to shape it. We have it all.
No, simply because we lack the personal competences to get it organized. This new society, that needs to provide us with abundance with our direct involvement, is still totally empty. We all need to be re-educated, taken by the hand to show us how it is done, with a new mindset, a new mentality and a new motivation. This I can do for myself because I have the freedom of choice to a certain extend. But 7 billion people mixed up in financial, religious, state and other dogma’s will not come to insight together to stand up and start the change.
Meanwhile our financial markets and dependencies are leading to a point of overall collapse which is eminent. The abundance of today is unsustainable but the sense of urgency to transform is not there. Chance is that our current system collapses even before we have started to shape the new, value driven society. In fact, it has started to collapse already and many people around the world are suffering the consequences. Instead of learning from it and applying the proof to our own circumstances and start the change while we can, we sit back and let it all happen. When we go to the supermarket and find that we have no money we will not be able to buy our bread. But maybe we go to the supermarket and find that there is no bread anymore, even if we have money to buy it. The few remaining pieces of bread will cost a fortune and will feed someone for a day. And then it is over.
The sense of urgency is not just to gain awareness, we need to change our dependencies through self-leadership, acquire new competences and learn how to work together in new complex, value driven systems. And we need to do all this with the opposition of the old systems of dominant power that try to keep us away from taking such actions. This is virtually impossible. Even in the most favorable situation of individual, collective and institutional insight, the transformation will take many years (decades) to take place. And if so then we would need to put all our wit and talents together to avoid immense human suffering around the globe.
“Can do” is not just relative to “Undo” first but to “Let do” and our commitment to join forces and make it happen. Fast in this case is never fast enough. Experience in AiREAS shows that under the right circumstances human co-creation is virtually instant, with instant results. Knowledge how to do it is available, now find the right circumstances.
Note: the right circumstances are – when a local regional government (city, province) is willing to let go of control, including public money, making it available for an independent responsibility (purpose) driven coalition of that same government, scientific institutions, creative innovators and the local population.
Business and Spirituality – The Pyramid paradigm
Today I received the news that my paper on the “universal working model for sustainable progress” was accepted for the “Sustainability and Spirituality” conference in Hungary on Sept 21-23 2012. It is great to gain some international exposure for a method that I worked out in theory and also put into practice in my own living laboratory (The city of Eindhoven and the The Netherlands).
Many of the individual people involved in the related processes do it whole heartily. The institutions that I involve have still a strong dependence in the economic world and often lack sufficient backbone to show a sense of value driven responsibility. Here we encounter the true complexity of the paradigm shift from a money dependent society to a value driven one. The first is packed with institutions that have learned to uphold themselves artificially by the chain of financial dependencies, forgetting often the true original purpose of their existence. The value driven community of my model demands from the entities a commitment based on their true identity and contribution through application of competences and responsibility to the results we seek.
There are two moments when institutions become aware of their mismatch with sustainable progress and their confrontation with their lack of genuine and meaningful identity:
- When they fall over when their financial stakeholders withdraw their support in a crisis,
- When they get involved in value driven, co-creative processes and get blamed of incompetence due to internal bureaucracies, hierarchies and lack of capability to commit to true results.
We see this in most institutions, business, government and public services especially. In the second situation they “may” develop the awareness at senior executive level to transform into something that has a deeper meaning then just financial survival. In fact they start looking for genuine meaning and purpose, which is spiritual process. To take this executive action out of the sphere of abstraction I created the practical and measurable pyramid for multi-dimensional, value driven identity development and positioning of any institution.
Modern 21st century organizations are truly value driven along business and spiritual lines.
When a company or institution remains at the traditional ground level in the base of the bottom triangle, it will develop and maintain an old fashioned a deteriorating strategy of financial dependencies. When it starts rising into the pyramid it will include much more value driven commitments that keep the organization alive and connected to a daily reality. The company become more sustainable if it finds a meaningful link with the surroundings.
To develop a true multidimensional value driven image (i.e. moving up the pyramid) represents a complex transformative process that affects the entire structure of the organization and all people related to it, internally and externally in the surroundings. As the value driven processes reposition the organization in society it will encounter a huge amount of organizations that are trying to do the same. The shake out is intense, driving organization to the kernel of their existence with a challenge to excel in their commitment to values rather than financial growth. Money becomes no issue anymore nor profitability. Profit becomes much more relative to results than just financial benefits.
From a multidisciplinary co-creation perspective only such companies will survive and link with value driven ventures in a sustainable way. It are not the products that make the difference but the set of values the company represents. Since these values represent the multiple inner meaning providing purpose to the commitment there will no customer relationships anymore but partnerships with other competence and responsibility driven institutions compatible with one’s own ideas.
Spirituality involves the profound understanding of a cosmic reality (matter, energy, purpose, finite limitations and abundance, her and now, eternity) and an evolutionary reality (dependence and independence, leadership, adaptability, sustainable progress). Business based on profound spiritual meaning is called multidimensional entrepreneurship. The difference can be summarized as follows:
The difference between traditional and multidimensional entrepreneurship is business spirituality
