Home » Posts tagged 'Society' (Page 3)
Tag Archives: Society
Effective keeping of human beings
Now that Sustainocracy is positioned and put into practice as new paradigm of societal complexity, affecting everything, it becomes interesting to reflect openly on the different ways of reasoning from the different worldviews. This may be a critical view because paradigms are based on totally different values. Someone who has lived both (money driven economics and value driven sustainocracy) can distinguish by experience and choice. Yet someone active without point of comparison inside the old paradigm will consider his or her views as the only truth.
Let us take this article for instance, that has been tweeted around the world today by many people, published by Forbes on Nov. 21st, 2012, written by a SAP specialist, Ray Rivera. It is titled: 5 Myths Of Human Resource Management (even though the link to the article refers to Human Capital Management) http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/11/21/5-myths-of-human-capital-management/
The article is a valid reflection about general practices in traditional business hierarchies. Seen through my old eyes of chief executive officer in a multinational I would most certainly review our internal policies with my HRM after reading the article. I remember our internal global policy back then to provide 10 training days per year to all our personnel. It was a hell of a job to find those days and get people motivated to do something with it. From a performance point of view it was useless, cost a bucket full of money and created constant absence in departments that needed to be filled up with people doing overwork.
All other remarks in the article are also valid. Take those of the financial incentives as perceived motivators. I remember sales people that tried to trick the system by submitting fake orders at the end of the year to collect their bonus. The fake orders were cancelled early the next year. In times of a crisis taking away any of the incentives becomes a burden. People leave a company simply because another one offers a nicer car. There is no commitment nor loyalty, just self interest. In fact, that is exactly what such hierarchies and policies attract: people with an individualistic, opportunistic, selfish attitude, equivalent to that of the company itself.
In a previous lifetime these issues were indeed of my concern. That was 20 years ago and they are still being published as novel and tweeted around as of general interest. Now, after crossing over to a new paradigm, the entire article becomes a reflection on what a Dutch author called “effective keeping of human beings” in a similar way as keeping chickens, pigs or cows. A particular sentence in the article struck me especially:
“How human capital becomes transformed into business value is still a black box”
When we look at the current world of business entities, performing around financial goals, we can easily recognize the “human farming” attitude. In the traditional paradigm this is normal and even worshipped by media, trading floors and governments. Human resources is a modern way of slavery where the business value of a human being is expressed by turnover per person or something equivalent. Such organization does not get the best out of people but the worst. Surrounded by short term financials, greed and more greed one becomes greedy and selfish automatically.
In the new paradigm there are no financial goals but purpose driven objectives. It is not the workforce that is asked to take responsibility, the company does, providing some kind of true added value to society. People do not come to work, they contribute. They do not need training because they train themselves. They do not need an incentives because the work itself and the achievements are a driving force already. People do not work in a hierarchical structure, they have a functional responsibility in a result driven team. The goals of the company are measurable through external progress. New people in the group assume responsibilities but change when the balance of the group requires the repositioning of the members, even when dealing with functional leadership. Leaders step back into the pack when they are done or when the group takes another direction for the benefit of the company and the purpose in persuit. There is equality and trust, no judging departments just connecting values among professionals for effective teamwork. People correct eachother.
Now that I know that such different types of organizations exist it is my choice to decide where I feel safest. Even if a sustainocratic organization is not yet functional in my neighborhood I can still behave accordingly and become the change that I want. I can also decide that I prefer such culture of hierarchical demand on me. Important is that one has a reflective choice when one knows.
Just like the other tweet today of someone claiming that it is nice to know that he didnot know certain things. One only knows that it would be nice not to know when one knows. This phylosophical reflection in reality states that when you do not know you cannot be held responsible for your actions seen from another paradigm. When you do know you may wish you didn’t, just to avoid responsibility. Now you know that different paradigms exist. What do you do? What responsibility to you take?
What makes education “sustainocratic”?
Education today is a fragmented part of our lives. Compulsory at an early stage and voluntary later on, mostly concentrated on ratonal transfer of information. In my view this is no education. It is an exercise of memorizing stuff. True learning occurs when information is gathered triggered by emperic experimentation and purposely reflected upon with use of existing resources and learning guidance. A person is a complex being that gathers awareness through a lifelong learning process, not just using rational thought and memorized information but also dealing with sensory information, culture, emotional feedback, spirituality and physical abilities and disabilities.
One needs to learn to deal with failure and success, individualism, teamwork and the general adventure of growing up in a self aware situation. Human beings have the tendency of wanting to dominate their environment out of self interest but the dynamics of this surroundings, human and natural, also dominates our lives back. It is an art of living life to deal with this successfully.
Life patterns follow five lines of personal evolution, referred to as “quotients”. These are: IQ (intelligence), EQ (emotional), SQ (spiritual), PQ (physical) and AQ (awareness). All 5 together form the evolution of the individual consciousness as the individual experiments with life. Most educational support is given in the early phases of a lifetime, up to the initiation of early adulthood, just to give a person basic abilities and some direction, often influenced by a dominant culture or worldview. A young person has generally little to no awareness of the complexity of life. It is a newcomer that experiences the adventure of a lifetime as it comes. After the physical growing up phase the real learning process starts, mostly without guidance anymore other than the support and advice of friends, family or collegaes and the pleasure and pain of one’s own choices in life.
From a cultural perspective one is surrounded by a local situation that is determined by many factors. One can address these as a matter of fact but also challenge it through one’s own growing awareness. Today we find many people breaking through a glass ceiling referred to as the higher consciousness. This is a high level of awareness that allows people to look at one’s own situation from a timeless universal point of view within the complexity of humankind and its evolution. Knowing this as a point of reference at a later age, after living an adult life for some time, the aspect of education changes. Higher awareness is a significant within the future perspective of human evolution also at society level.
In sustainocracy education is seen as a lifelong process and integrated in the value driven processes of human sustainabe progress. Top level education should therefor become available to anyone, at all times, guiding individuals and groups in sustainocratic challenges.
In an economized world financial awareness and growth is dominant, also in education and the educational system. Its value is determined by its level of uniqueness and practical desire in “the market”, available to the highest bidder or subsidised by “the system”.
In sustainocratic processes education is measured against the sustainable achievements of the group. Excellence should translate in abundant returns of cooperative work which in turn fuels the education for renewal and forward driven processes. The success of the alumni in purpose driven cooperative work is also the success of the academy, termining also the reciprocity for continuation. In a money driven world this compensation is translated in money too. In a sustainocratic world other direct local values can be used also, such as housing, food sharing, energy, safety, etc.
The day after economics
Economics is out. We cannot keep progress or wellness away from people who cannot afford it. We cannot morally play with lives of millions or billions of people to fill the pockets of a few deadly soles. The era that this was tolerated is ending fast. We are entering a new era of wealth, the one that is not based on economics but on something else. I have called it Sustainocracy, just to give it a reference to talk about. What is the difference?
Modern economics is “the financial science to deal with shortages”. It has to do with money that is spend to purchase material goods, valued against the degree of desire and scarcity of the object. Entire nationwide economies are based on this system that places the availability of resources in the hands of people who make it available only to the highest bidder. Maintaining shortages raises the economic perspectives and it has become a game to deal with this in a globalized world for the benefit of those who can control certain material elements. We see this in commodities, housing, energy, food, loans, etc. This automatically means that people need money to gain access to wealth. Money is only made available to those who have work and work is only valued with money if it fits in the robotics of the system. In an other blog I already asked why the care taking activities of a housewife with small children was not valued in a money system while the labeling of packages in a logistics process is. Is the one more valuable then the other? Of course not, but the system determines what gets paid and what not. This regulated choice creates a society and the morality in it. The woman with small children gets no money and has not right to access wealth and the factory worker does. It is a choice and this choice needs to be turned around because it does not suit the general purpose anymore of sustainable progress. On the contrary. Extremely talented people necessary in all kinds of human needs are forced to work in the system on positions that contribute to problems simply because the system is organized that way.
And if you have no job you are obliged to get a debt in order to maintain a degree of wealth or wishes to survive, no matter what talent one has. Some do not even have access to the debt system and perish, supported by this inhumane system.
Dead end
The system of economies that are based on speculation around shortages are making our lives unsustainable, expensive and unstable. These systems collapse and receive a growing opposition of the general public that is willing to rise against those who block abundance to the masses. We simply have to recognize that economics has reached a dead end. Economies of growth only mean that they expand further the disaster just to finance the unbalanced debts of the past. The debts of countries rise simply because they produce only costs and no value anymore, despite the massive amount of talented people they contain.
There is a desperate need to deblock these human talents and make them work together on sustainable progress. That is what I call “the day after economics”. What is this other option?
Sustainocracy
We need to recognize that our resources on Earth are finite, but our talents grow in abundance. The more finite the material resources (food, water, oil, etc) are the more valuable they would become for all people if we want to sustain a minimum of living standard or even survival. We cannot sustain a financial system that speculates on the availability of resources in scarcity. It becomes a source of blackmail, not just over the pockets of the people but also playing with their lives. Capitalist economics are likely to become the genocide of the 21st century where certain people are willingly, for their own benefit, to keep life supporting and saving resources away from the public by pure financial speculation, causing death, war and disaster. We have already seen the consequences of this in commodities like grain, wheat, water, oil, etc. and the effects on global stability.
Sustainocracy therefor represents the “science of talented abundance through cocreation”. This meand that human scientific knowledge, productivity and progress is owned by the species and not members thereof. Human talent is value of humankind and should not be dealt with in confinement of scarcity but in abundance for progress. This means that every invention, every insight should reach all members of the species not just a selected few.
In Sustainocracy only one continuous goal is important for all members of a community: sustainable human progress, according to the definition described in a previous blog:
“continuously working together on a healthy, vital, safe and dynamic human society within the ever changing context of our natural local environment”.
This statement allows no political debate or speculation since the goal is for all members of the global community. Everyone can take responsibility for this sustainable progress by contributing with one’s own competences, talents and energy. All elements of such society are measurable, feeding in open reflection the interaction of people in the community. Application of knowledge and personal energy is key to address the changes provoked by any change that is being made. It gives a common purpose to a society.
Sustainocracy is Talent + Energy + Purpose = Sustainable Progress
The community based on sustainocracy does not necessarily need money to produce progress. Resources are used but only become valuable when introduced in the result driven processes. The results are delivered to the benefit of everyone in the community. There is no need to speculate with scarcity of resources since the community will become creative, using the local means that it has available to it. Communities become cohesive in human interaction on a local for local basis trying to avoid dependence on other communities. If such relationships are needed to exchange material resources then reciprocity is organised in exchange of talents. Payment in times of needs are not done in money but in talent which will help communities to deploy automatically the human and material resources needed to assure community progress and intercommunity relationship, even if particular communities have scarcity of resources but abundance in talents.
Money could be used to value the individual contributions to progress making the variables of “talent” (competences, knowledge and creativity) and “energy” (motivation, teamwork, involvement, etc) instruments of value that can receive recognition on individual level and maybe some sort of adhered status. The level of value can be determined by the community in a democratic process.
In all cases the local for local communities would become small local pearls of self sufficient centers in which sustainable progress would be carried by all members of the community. A woman who gives birth would as important as a man who helps to build a house. Community choices would be prioritized according the level of sustainable progress everyone desires, lead by the circumstances, not greed.
Sustainocracy represents peace and progress, a modern new way to step up the human evolution using our accumulated abilities and levels of awareness for the benefit of all, starting with the future perspectives of our children and the way we educate them today on how to take responsibility using talent and energy.
Sustainocracy has become the system to value talent and reciprocity in Sustainocratic processes)
Sustainocracy, the new democracy 