Thrivable Leadership : Interview with Kevin A. Clark

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Each Wednesday, we post an interview with someone who is living, exploring, or championing aspects of thrivability – people at the forefront of cultural, organizational, or individual change.

Kevin A. Clark is an award-winning brand strategist, experience designer, author, and transformational catalyst.  He is President and Founder of Content Evolution LLC formed in 2002 to provide leadership in brand behavior and experience strategy.  In early 2009 Kevin retired from IBM with 30 years of service.  He is Program Director emeritus, Brand and Values Experience, IBM Corporate Marketing and Communications – responsible for discovering and creating new ways for people to experience IBM.  As a business metaphysicist, Kevin also is a member of the North American Thrivable Network.

Todd Hoskins:  In your experience how are the impacts, methods, or requirements of leadership changing?

Kevin A. Clark:   Yes, there’s definitely a shift.  John Perry Barlow says the role of the manager is changing from telling people what to do, to helping them make sense of things (so they can act on their own).  Leaders need to move from directing to enabling.  Governance at the board level needs to move to enablement too, and environmental scanning.  This is part of the resilience and adaptive function leaders need to embrace.

Business schools are creating technically capable professionals, yet they are not delivering two things you get promoted for:  leadership and judgment.  Leadership gets some air time mostly by case study, yet more focused on outcomes than the journey.  Judgment hardly at all.  We need to find better ways to provide learning environments to hone good judgment – both inside the enterprise (the federation in my case) and the classroom.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter at Harvard Business School said two decades ago the new deal with employers and employees is:  We can’t guarantee your employment, but we can guarantee your employ-ability.  I like that deal.  It means you take full advantage of being the best you can be as a lifelong learner and professional, and it places the burden on the organization to find ways to hold on to you.

Todd:  There is a collapse of disciplines/silos that we see happening, which also seems to point towards the more thrivable whole.  Business leaders are no longer just reading business books.  You are influenced by Don Beck, Ken Wilber, Dave Snowden, Carl Jung, Dan Ariely, among others.  What is happening here?

Kevin:  Business leaders are beginning to act as authentic selves in all contexts as opposed to acting situationally.  Situational management techniques lead to multiple personality disorder; and organizational schizophrenia.  If you treat all the people in your life with respect and don’t become another person when you go to work, you start to understand how to play non-zero – or more ways to play in an increasingly win-win world.

I believe we’re also inheriting a new generation of people who are broadly networked and think in bursts (texting-minds), combined with short attention spans and a width of broad knowledge.  I see imprinting and collective consciousness moving toward bite-size interaction with implications for short-burst projects and direction.

I work with companies in other parts of the world that have 100 year plans and accompanying scenarios – we have a shorter time horizon in our Western left-brain linear processor world.  We need to embrace the non-time-dependent, holistic side of our thinking to be fully ready for economic forces emerging that have a much longer term and more comprehensive outlook.  There is also a perceptual and cognitive readiness emerging that makes it possible to both collaborate and compete simultaneously.  It is the “I” and the “we” held in dynamic tension – not canceling out each other, but amplifying the strengths of both.

Todd:  Is business planning changing?

Kevin:  Business planning is changing from simply doing “well,” to doing well and doing “good” for a number of stakeholders.  We encourage an understanding of the full spectrum of resource acquisition and resource allocation, making provision for alternative futures and preparing for them.  We look at monitoring emergence, and understanding both the permissions to operate freely and unconstrained along with the behaviors that will trigger regulation and customer defection.  These are all needed by the contemporary business planner.  Spreadsheets will no longer be the primary planning tool.

Visual models accompanied with explanatory narrative and a financial business case will be needed to deliver competitive resilience in the future.  The planning cycle will also have to move from annual or quarterly cycles to continuous modes with selected deep dives.  This will provide new insights and help eliminate the unjustified assumptions which can deplete the energy of companies through unnecessary activities and operations.

Todd:  Content Evolution is a global “non-holding” company.  I know you’ve called it a “federation.”  How do the companies relate to one another?

Kevin:  Content Evolution functions as a global ecosystem of member companies – we work together to organize intention around marketplace behavior.  Much of this is done by exposing members to each others’ capabilities, participating in joint business development activities, and global teleconferences.

We have a business development commons that brings together the sales and development executives from the member companies and provides a safe environment for them to collaborate and quietly do horse-trading.  We also have an annual conference for our 40 companies worldwide – last year at Interbrand headquarters in Manhattan – and this coming year in the spring at Jack Morton Worldwide in Boston.

Todd:  How does this model represent a shift from the old “if you can’t beat them, join them” model of compete or acquire?

Kevin:  We collaborate.  I’m reinvesting the 30 years I spent in the corporate world and taking my professional relationships and federating them into something integral that hasn’t existed before.  It’s also better being a global mentor than being a traditional manager – just like it’s better to be a grandparent than being a parent!

Content Evolution as a member federation has no debt, since no one acquired anyone.  We have more capabilities than the largest of the marketing holding companies, spanning customer and market research, product and service ergonomics, business and thrivability strategy, brand strategy and management, and customer and constituency experience design and strategy.

Todd:  What have you learned in pioneering this federation?  What mistakes have you made?

Kevin:  I have made no mistakes (says the ego).  “Ha!” says the rest of my consciousness.  I like to move in several different directions at once.  Some of my experiments failed, such as working on a collaborative book (too much effort for too little collective reward).  We refocused our group energy around driving revenue rather than driving early visibility.  The recognition we’re here is growing – commensurate to our practical contributions to solving client problems and adding breakthrough value.

Our strategic selling method: listening, just like I’ve needed to direct less and listen more to the members.  Today we’re working together better than ever and thriving as a group.

Todd:  Anything else, Kevin, that can help us thrive in the New Year?

Kevin: Be intentional!

Todd:  Thanks, Kevin.

People-Powered Innovation: Interview with Robin Chase

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Each Wednesday, we post an interview with someone who is living, exploring, or championing aspects of thrivability – people at the forefront of cultural, organizational, or individual change.

Robin Chase is founder and CEO of GoLoco, an online ridesharing community.  She also founded and leads Meadow Networks, a consulting firm that advises city, state, and federal government agencies about wireless applications in the transportation sector, and impacts on innovation and economic development.  Robin is also founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world.  In 2009, she was included in the Time 100 Most Influential People.  Robin lectures widely, has been frequently featured in the major media, and has received many awards in the areas of innovation, design, and environment.

Todd Hoskins:  Robin, you’ve been looking at the possibilities of using excess capacity for quite a number of years now.  What is compelling about excess capacity?

Robin Chase:  Excess capacity lets us tap quickly and cheaply into resources that already exist.  We don’t have to pay for the asset, place it, maintain it.  I think about excess capacity very broadly: assets, physical space, temporal space, experiences, expertise, and networks.

Some obvious examples of making use of excess capacity are Wikipedia (excess mental capacity and expertise), eBay (excess junk), Flickr (other people could use your photos), LinkedIn (ditto for networks), CouchSurfing (beds).

Less common examples are Cyclovia in Bogota, Columbia, where excess road space on Sunday mornings led them to shut down 121 km of roads to car traffic and open it up for pedestrians and bikes.  From 7am to 2pm 1.3 million residents go out and play, dance, exercise, and meetup.  It has been an enormous success.  All for very little money and implemented very quickly.

Todd:  Are we cooperatively enabled to apply this excess capacity?

Robin:  Ah, technology!  I love it.  We may or may not be cooperatively programmed, but that is beside the point.  All of the examples I listed don’t require cooperation in the way we usually think of it.

With Zipcar, for example, 450,000 people are using 7,000 cars.  But it is painless.  No one is waiting for someone else or waiting their turn. Through the miracle of technology the sharing is easy and frictionless.  Of course, there are lots of examples that do require some cooperation.  My point just is that this is not required.

Todd:  You are serving on the National Advisory Committee on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and advising on policy issues.  How can our governments possibly become more adaptive and less rigid?

Robin:  Innovation is a country’s lifeblood.  Imagine if our lives stayed exactly the same.  The 1980s forever! (or choose your decade).  On the other hand, people hate change because they can’t quite see the future so it is unnerving.

Big companies and governments (who occasionally respond to their constituents who like the status quo) are not that easy to change.

By enabling innovation — 1) creating a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship; 2) reducing barriers and costs to experimentation; and 3) reducing the costs of the innovation inputs — government can make it possible for people to do the changing themselves.

This committee is specifically looking at ways to improve K-12 and university education to change the culture and provide more opportunities to innovate, making sure that government-funded research that has the potential for commercialization is easier to get at.  We are looking at reducing the effort and time to participate in the US government small business programs and procurement programs, and changing capital incentives for investing in startups.  Lastly, we are looking at ways of celebrating innovation and entrepreneurship.

I am particularly interested in getting more value out of government technology policy and procurements so that we maximize its potential for repurposing by innovators and businesses.  The government is about to make huge investments in smart transportation, smart health, smart grids, smart education.  We can unlock the excess capacity found in government purchases by making them more open.  Open as the default.  Closed proprietary single-purpose purchases need to be argued for.  Open data, open devices, open spectrum, open radio, open networks should be the norm.

Todd:  If we cannot rely on government or big business to facilitate change quickly enough, who can we turn to?

Robin:  People! I think of it as people-powered innovation: collaboration production, collaborative consumption, collaborative infrastructure, collaborative financing.  The excess capacity of individuals (their expertise, networks, assets, time) beautifully leveraged and joined together on the internet will be the most powerful force for change in the next 20 years.

Together, we get incredible speed and scale, at a fraction of the cost, and using resources of all kinds efficiently.  Beginning examples of this — we are in our infancy of this idea right now — include Airbnb and Etsy.  Smart phone apps are an example too. Based on the excess capacity made available in these devices over the last 2.5 years, we have seen 500,000 applications built — primarily by individuals.  Yes, Apple has made out like a bandit, but Android is surging ahead with its reduced tolls.  And hopefully, some of those innovating engineers are making a living and starting some interesting new companies.

Todd:  You’re currently living in Europe.  What are you seeing and experiencing that you would like to bring home to the US?

Robin:  It is totally intriguing to experience firsthand the differences that result from very different government spending priorities. Both systems are imperfect.  France has really terrific transportation, road, rail, and airport infrastructure compared to the US. My ability to move around this city without a car and having so much choice (walk, bike, metro, bus, high speed train, etc) is a great pleasure.

On the other hand, the amount of duplicate forms to be filled out and mailed places — back and forth — is pretty amazing. The value of some of the bureaucracy around opening a bank account, getting an apartment, signing up for a transit pass eludes me. This frustrates me to no end since I’ve experienced the same transactions so easily and quickly in the US.

Todd:  Robin, thanks for making the world a more thrivable place!

Something Great Together Again

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Thrivability is participating in something great together again.

Thrivability asks us – what might we achieve together that is great? What might we do to flourish? It asks us to move beyond the contraction and fear that resides in “sustainability” framing and create something fun, engaging, lively, creative, agile, resilient, enduring, and evolving.

We teeter on the precipice of the now, look back at all human culture and evolution itself has generated. Do we level up? Or do we fall over? Do we have it in us, together and individually, to co-create something worthy of that legacy? Or are we shame-faced at the errors of our past and retreat from our own creation and the consequences thereof?

If we step forward together, what is it that we create? How do we use what we have to create something more than what is there now? And do so responsibly? Responsibly to our ancestors? Responsibly to our future? Responsibly to each other? So we can collectively gaze back in the mirror on some future day and say we are proud of what we have done?

  • Did I connect people in ways that enriched their sense of meaning and purpose in the world?
  • Did I give them the information they need to make the best choices for our collective outcome?
  • Did I make a meaningful contribution to society? Did I improve the human condition?
  • Was I and am I a part of the breakdown or the breakthrough?
  • Did I dance gracefully with my follow beings and bring laughter and delight to human existence?

I have many questions. The answers are given each day, by each of us, knowingly or unknowingly.

Expansion and Movement: Interview with Leilani Henry

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Each Wednesday, we post an interview with someone who is living, exploring, or championing aspects of thrivability – people at the forefront of cultural, organizational, or individual change.

Leilani Henry is an Educational Kinesiologist and pioneer in bringing innovative whole brain strategies to personal, professional and organizational transformation.  In addition to running her own business, and being an artisan, Leilani is a member of the North American Thrivable Network.

Todd Hoskins:  You’ve said thrivability involves embracing the dangerous parts of ourselves and our world.  What does that mean?

Leilani Henry:  It is difficult to acknowledge that we are afraid.  So many things are the opposite of what they seem to be.  For example, letting go of control to allow things to emerge gives you a different type of control.  Admitting we are not perfectly strong makes us stronger.  To be vulnerable could feel dangerous, but opens up new possibilities.

There is a dot of yin in the yang, and yang in the yin.  There is a bit of safety in the danger, and danger in the safety.  We need to reframe danger.

Todd:  In an organizational setting, what are the dangers we need to embrace?

Leilani:  Risk is often the danger because we are oriented towards security.  How much risk are we willing to take?  Are we willing to shake up our relationships with stockholders or customers for long term benefit?  What will we do for the greater good?

Risk is evaluated on the continuum between opportunity and danger. The flow stops if you don’t take any risks.  If it is an opportunity, there may be danger involved.  We learn through mistakes and failure, so a thriving organization does not play it totally safe.  Think fragile balance!

We contract because of fear, both as individuals and organizations.  How do we train our talent, engage in our market, make investments, and expand when everyone else is contracting?

This is an essential part of thriving – to expand within contraction.

Brain cells are not given the chance to work in contraction.  We can either be creative as a choice point, or be fearful and submit to fight or flight, locking up our brain cells.

Brain cells are a metaphor for the organization.  Employees have ideas and want to change things, but if fear and contraction are ruling the organization, the brain cells will not be activated.  A thriving organization must be able to open and trust its people, just like a person must be able to open to the contraction and trust his or her brain cells .

Todd:  What are we learning about the brain?

Leilani:  The brain has plasticity.  It used to be believed there were a finite number of brain cells.  This is not true.  We continue to learn, change, and grow.

Habits create ruts in your brain.  In order to change a habit, you have to create a new neural pathway.  That requires the body, and new research suggests movement helps forge these paths.

We need to be moving more often, even if it is only stretching or doing neck rolls in your chair.  This is not just for the good of your body, but also facilitates brain activity.

The brain likes sensory stimulation.  Kaleidoscopes are loved not just because they are pretty, but because they enliven the mind.  Smells, colors, tastes – all rejuvenate brain cells.

Todd:  You talk about “embodying change.”  How does change move through the body?

Leilani:  We often freeze in situations of fear.  We stop breathing.  We contract physically.  We have a choice to move into expansion with curiosity.  To breathe consciously and move consciously is to encounter the possibilities of change in new ways.  We can move toward the object of our fear and explore it.  Or we can back away with a neutral stance.

By allowing the body to move and be aware of our inner state, new possibilities can emerge.  We release stress in our muscles.  We see our situation from a new perspective.  We learn from our body, and our bodies help us learn.

I use movement in workshops.  People often respond with varied combinations of joy and resistance.  It can be a polarizing experience.  I’ve learned to integrate it more effectively. Organizations need to think about how they can breathe and move as well.  It’s not just the people who contract.  An entire organization can contract as well.

Todd:  Anything else?

Leilani:  For change to be moving freely we need to move consciously more often.

Todd:  Thanks, Leilani.

You’ve said Thrivability involves embracing the dangerous parts of ourselves and our world. What does that mean?

It is difficult to acknowledge that we are afraid. So many things are the opposite of what they seem to be. For example, letting go of control and allowing things to emerge gives you a different type of control. Admitting we are not perfectly strong makes us more strong. Getting to vulnerability is dangerous, but opens up new possibilities.

There is a dot of yin in the yang, and yang in the yin. There is a bit of safety in the danger, and danger in the safety. We need to reframe danger.

In an organizational setting, what are the dangers we need to embrace?

Risk is often the danger because we are oriented towards security. How much risk are we willing to take? Are we willing to jeopardize our relationships with stockholders or customers? What will we do for the greater good?

Risk is evaluated on the continuum between opportunity and danger. If it’s an opportunity, it’s probably not that much of a risk. The flow stops if you don’t take any risks. We learn through mistakes and failure, so a thriving organization does not play it safe.

We contract because of fear, both as individuals and organizations. How do we train our talent, make investments, and expand when everyone else is contracting?

This is an essential part of thriving – to expand within contraction.

Brain cells are not given the chance to work in contraction, the body does most of it. We can either be creative as a choice point, or be fearful and submit to the danger, locking up our brain cells.

Brain cells are a metaphor for the organization. Employees have ideas and want to change things, but if fear and contraction are ruling the organization, the brain cells will not be activated. A thriving organization must be able to open and trust its people, just like a person must be able to open to the contraction and trust his or her brain cells.

What are we learning about the brain?

The brain has plasticity. It used to be believed there were a finite number of brain cells. This is not true. We continue to learn, change, and grow.

Habits create ruts in your brain. In order to change a habit, you have to create a new neural pathway. That requires the body, and new research suggests movement helps forge these paths.

We need to be moving more often, even if it is only stretching or doing neck rolls in your chair. This is not just for the good of your body, but also facilitates brain activity.

The brain likes sensory stimulation. Kaleidoscopes are loved not just because they are pretty, but because they enliven the mind. Smells, colors, tastes – all rejuvenate brain cells.

You talk about “embodying change.” How does change move through the body?

We often freeze in situations of fear. We stop breathing. We contract physically. We have a choice to move into expansion with curiosity. To breathe consciously and move consciously is to encounter the possibilities of change in new ways. We can move toward the object of our fear and explore it. Or we can back away with a neutral stance.

By allowing the body to move and being aware of our inner state, new possibilities can emerge. We can release stress in our muscles. We can see our situation from a new perspective. We can learn from our body, and our bodies can help us learn.

I use movement in workshops. People often respond with varied combinations of joy and resistance. It’s a very polarized experience. Organizations need to think about how they can breathe and move as well. It’s not just the people who contract. An entire organization can contract as well.

Anything else?

For change to be moving freely we need to be moving.

Network Thinking: Interview with Valdis Krebs

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Each Wednesday, we post an interview with someone who is living, exploring, or championing aspects of thrivability – people at the forefront of cultural, organizational, or individual change.

Valdis Krebs is the Founder, and Chief Scientist, at orgnet.com. Valdis is a management consultant, researcher, trainer, author, and the developer of InFlow software for social and organizational network analysis.  Valdis is also part of the North American Thrivable Network.

Todd Hoskins:  What is social network analysis?

Valdis Krebs:  Social network analysis [SNA] is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, computers, URLs, and other connected information/knowledge entities.  The nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes.  SNA provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships and forms a basis for improving the relationships and connections in the social group.

Todd:  How does understanding the network relationships contribute to thrivability?

Valdis:  Some network patterns support a thrivable outcome and others constrain it.  A network map shows you an “as is” picture of where you are at.  You know your goal is thrivability and the network map says “OK, you are here now.”  The community leaders, coaches, or weavers then have to figure out how to get “from here to thrivability.”

Creating or building the network for thrivability is not following a blueprint and building a house.  It is more like getting in shape for a marathon, or for rock climbing – you get the system ready for maximal performance in the space you are in.  You get ready, but there are no guarantees of success.  You can be in great shape and still run a bad race today.  But, you probably beat all of those who are in bad shape and ran a bad race today!

Todd:  What structures or prescriptive approaches have you seen that promote a thriving network?

Valdis: The structures that maximize emergence, learning, agility and adaptability.  Those structures that prepare you for the unknown — after all we can NOT predict the future, but we can partially influence it and be ready for it.

One big item is each person’s network awareness — do you know what is happening around you?  Who is involved and how they feel about and contribute to what is going on around you and them?   Do you know who needs help?  Who has the answers?  Who needs to be connected or introduced?  We can only keep so many relationships in our heads and in our software — how do you best utilize that limited number for yourself and others?

Network awareness depends not just on your connections, but also your connection’s connections.  How do you create a close, comfortable network and still have it wide and reaching, so that you can be aware of non-local events and knowledge?

Todd:  You have written that we need to build creative combinations of similarity and difference in order to foster interdependence?   How does a network not become homogeneous?

Valdis:  Yes, birds of a feather flock together!  And if we do not pay attention, and just let things go naturally, we will build highly homophilous networks.  It is easy to build a network of similarity.  It is more difficult, but much more useful (for ourselves and others),  to build a network that utilizes both similarity and difference and thrives on the interplay.

We don’t want too much of either – similarities or differences –  we want a nice combination.  Enough similarities that we feel comfortable and can communicate with each other, but also enough differences that we can innovate and turn each other on to something new and different.

Todd:  So, it requires intention?

Valdis:  Yes, intention and attention!  Know what you want to do and be aware of what has been done around you.  We are always self-organizing, and so are others around us.  With a group of similar intention we will build a thriving network to support that intention.

Todd:  Speaking of building groups of similar intention, are leadership structures changing?  What is emerging?

Valdis:  Yes, leadership is often emergent in networks, and also different depending on need.  Most people don’t think of networks as having leaders — they think everyone is equal in networks.  That is not true.  Some people always have better connections than others in some situations.  Person A may lead in situation 1, but person B takes over in situations 2 and 3, and then in situation  4,  a third leader emerges.   It is usually not one leader all the way through as it is in most hierarchies.

A thrivable community recognizes expert and situational leadership and allows and encourages it to happen.  Even co-leaders are fine.  Whatever implements the intention.

Todd:  If recognizing the power of networks is a valuable lens through which to look at our communities, groups, and organizations, how can we all become better network thinkers?

Valdis:  First step is to recognize that you are embedded in multiple networks:  work, family, friends, hobby, sports, religion, neighborhood, etc.

Second step is to “Connect on your similarities and benefit from your differences.”  Think of the introductions you can make to benefit those around you, including yourself.

Third, is practice simple network weaving.  You do this around triangles — social triangles.  A knows B and C knows B.  B realizes that A and C could benefit from  knowing each other and makes the introduction.  This is called “closing the triangle” — all three people, A, B, and C now know each other.  Look for opportunities to close triangles around yourself.  Don’t introduce everyone to everyone else — just make those introductions that have a plausible positive outcome for the community.  At the same time you are closing existing triangles, open up new ones by making connections outside of your immediate circle of friends and colleagues.  This will open the network to diversity and possibility as new people with new ideas and knowledge now interact within your community.  Anyone can close and open triangles — they do not need anyone’s permission.  This is grass-roots, bottom-up network building.

Todd:  Thanks, Valdis.  I look forward to seeing you at the next workshop!

Savoring Optimism: Interview with Lonny Grafman

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Each Wednesday, we post an interview with someone who is living, exploring, or championing aspects of thrivability – people at the forefront of cultural, organizational, or individual change.

Lonny Grafman is an Instructor of Environmental Resources Engineering and Appropriate Technology at Humboldt State University; the co-founder and instructor in a summer abroad, full immersion, Spanish language and appropriate technology program in Parras, Mexico; and the executive editor of the International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering. In addition, he is the President of The Appropedia Foundation, sharing knowledge to build rich, sustainable lives.

Academically, Lonny seeks ways to increase knowledge of the world through exposure and synthesis, highlighting that science, culture and language are inextricably linked. He seeks to demonstrate this connection through service-learning based education, working to improve existing conditions by leveraging local knowledge, materials, wealth and labor through transparency and stakeholder participation. Professionally, Lonny supports and develops tools to thrive, catalyzing and strengthening networks of positive change, to help us be better ancestors.  Lonny is also an advisor to Thrivable.

Todd:  Lonny, you are a teacher, facilitator, designer, consultant, non-profit president, international program director, and editor.  What ties all these roles together?

Lonny:  I love to see projects that make the world a better place manifest.  The way a project manifests from inception, brainstorming, researching, creating, testing, iterating, promoting, etc. always fill me with wonder and excitement.  There is no one way that it unfolds, but my favorite ways to be part of are those that are collaborative.

My different roles allow me to take part in multiple aspects of how a project unfolds . . . and they all feed back into each other to make me more effective at each.  In the end, I think that for most people “roles” are exiguous boxes that don’t justly describe their capabilities.

Todd:  As someone who is not just a sustainability advocate, but involved in the design and implementation of projects, what do you see as the difference between thrivability and sustainability?

Lonny:  As an individual I do not see a difference.  But I think that sustainability has a common connotation, especially in poor communities, that we are sustaining the status quo.  Or at the maximum trying to be zero impact – minimizing our footprint.  I see thrivability as engendering a sense that we are trying to go past minimizing our impact, instead aiming for a positive impact. Sustainability is about conserving resources and thrivability is about savoring them.

Todd:  How does “savoring” fit into thrivability?

Lonny:  Conserving is about limiting the use of our resources because it is the right thing to do.  Savoring is about really enjoying the use of our resources, because it is, well, enjoyable.  Access to dependable energy, clean water, healthy food, fun and connected transportation, etc… is incredible.  We should all be so lucky to have it.  And by lucky, I mean work hard to secure it.

Todd:  What reasons do you have to be optimistic about our future?  Why should we be positive?

Lonny:  Every day I am surrounded by people making their world better for themselves and their descendants… striving to be better neighbors and ancestors while enjoying an improved quality of life.  So it is easy for me to be optimistic because of the nature of my work.  Be what you want –  positive, negative or otherwise – but be part of a set of solutions.

Todd:  Appropedia is a project you for which you have a high level of passion.  What positive impact are you seeing from its growth?

Lonny:  So many. . . My favorite is that I am seeing people make new errors instead of the same old errors on projects.  I have visited rainwater catchment systems and asked where they learned to put on a first flush, and the response was Appropedia.  I have seen a new level of projects from students each year as they learn from the projects of the students that came before them.  Appropedia has helped provide much needed knowledge to projects all around the world. We are approaching 19 million pageviews and 150,000 edits.  Now there is a source of optimism.

Todd:  How can people on any corner of the globe be oriented more towards solutions, not just talking about best practices?

Lonny:  They already are.  A lot of the solutions are happening on small scales, by people to busy working to start documenting.  I think that we need to partner the people that have the energy to discuss, document and just be on the computer, with those people that have the energy to draw, plan and get their hands dirty.  Not that people can’t be both, but the more collaboration of those abilities the better.

Todd:  So, we need witnesses?  Storytellers?  Ambassadors?

Lonny:  Absolutely.  If you have a lot of energy, and not much experience, talking about your ideas is great… but helping other’s document their projects can have much more lasting, tested and useful impact.

To that end, Appropedia has started a travel internship program. In the program, bright ambassadors head out to document effective community projects. Recently we have had two interns in Latin America.  They have documented dozens of projects and techniques that have never been on the internet before.  The projects (natural wastewater treatment) and techniques (e.g. testing methods for improved cookstoves) are now available for others to learn from and adapt.

Todd:  Thanks, Lonny.

Breakthroughs for a Thrivable World Part 2

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Entry Point 1: Individuals

What is the story we tell about people in this Darwinian world where capitalism dominates the ideology? Traditional western economics, dating back to Adam Smith describes humans as rational self-interested creatures. Being kind to others is assumed to be driven by selfish motivations, for example, creating obligations of reciprocity. However, neuroscience reveals the phenomenon in the brain around empathy and generosity. Humans are wired to be kind. The fields of behavioral economics and positive psychology radically alter the story of who we are as individuals and how we interact together. A thrivable world is more possible when we operate under the belief and assumption that people care, act from a place of empathy, and seek meaning-making. We also become self-aware of how predictably irrational we are, allowing us to adjust our systems to nudge us toward the outcomes we consciously want. The increased wisdom in how irrational we are allows us to be more intentional about how we do what we do.

Behavioral Economics

We are driven by much more than greed and profit. In fact, we are predictably irrational, easily swayed, nudged, and influenced. What we may learn and adapt about ourselves is priceless. We even discover new ways to navigate cheating and stealing! (video link)

Dan Pink tells us in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (video also) that while financial rewards may motivate better performance on mechanical tasks; they don’t on creative tasks. Instead, we are driven by our desire to be autonomous, masters of our work, and full of purpose. We do things for a reason we believe in. We like to get better and better at things we do, and we want to be self-directed. If we know this about ourselves and others, what will that enable us to do now that we could not do before?

Iain McGilchrist describes the consequences of how our brains work and what that has produced in the world with his book, The Master and His Emissary where he points to how left-brained linear rational actor thinking has led to the world we have now. Dan Pink also talks about a Whole New Mind, naming six right-brained abilities we need to evolve for the economies of the future. They are: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning.signaling (animated)
Creative Commons License photo credit: Genista

Positive Psychology

After ages of focusing on illness, psychology has refocused (at least in part) on positive psychology (the scientific study of human flourishing). Recent research reveals more about altruism, The Compassionate Instinct, and authentic happiness. In fact, Jonathan Haidt proclaims that we are Wired to be Inspired.

We also understand more about the conditions we need for productive and joyful work or flow experiences from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and the Evolving Self. (video also)

Multiple Intelligences

For a century or more, Intelligence Quotient (IQ) has been a primary measure of a person’s potential. However, it has both shown that high IQ does not produce happiness or success. It has also been shown that emotional intelligence and other forms of knowing also influence an individuals potential. Howard Gardner’s work on Multiple Intelligences point to many ways intelligence appears in individuals. Dan Goleman focuses specifically on Emotional Intelligence, although more recently he has written about Ecological Intelligence. Recently science has shown that brain cells are not only located in the head, but this tissue is also present in heart, gut, and other areas of the body. What world can we create when we acknowledge the full spectrum of our intelligence and awareness? Does the recognition of multiple forms of intelligence entice greater curiosity and creativity? Learning how to make our brains more plastic fosters transformation through increased flexibility, growth, and integration. What thrivable world becomes possible with these expanded and acknowledged capabilities when we honor and embrace them?

Conclusion

Understanding ourselves as empathic and connected beings in search of meaning and purpose enables us to design our world in new ways. While there will still be zero-sum games and times when we act from greed or scarcity, there is a growing possibility of acting from trust, altruism with autonomy for a greater purpose operating from a place of abundance. We tap into a greater sense and breadth of our intelligence. And we know more about what makes people happy and fulfilled.

Economic Crisis & Transparency: Interview with Scott Reynolds Nelson

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Each Wednesday, we post an interview with someone who is living, exploring, or championing aspects of thrivability – people at the forefront of cultural, organizational, or individual change.

Scott Nelson is Legum Professor of History at the College of William and Mary.  He is an award-winning writer, lecturer, and student of economic and social history.   In 2008, National Geographic published Nelson’s Young Adult book about historical research (co-authored with Marc Aronson), entitled Ain’t Nothin’ But a Man.  It received a full-page review in the New York Times, won 7 national prizes, and was named a best book of 2008 by Publishers Weekly among others.  His current book, Crash: An Uncommon History of America’s Financial Disasters, will be published by Knopf in 2011 or 2012.

Todd: You have recently completed a book called Crash, looking through history at economic crises.  What can we learn from the past?

Scott: Well, crashes are more than financial downturns.  They demonstrate a general sense of uncertainty about institutions, what I call semiotic doubt.  Is this dollar worth what I think it is?  Is this debt going to be paid?  It’s a deep problem with objects that represent wealth as well as fears or concerns about the institutions that create them: banks, mutual funds, or states.

Todd: In what way is the current crisis different than the rest?

Scott: Well, it’s very different from 1929 but more like 1837 or 1819.  In those crises banks were at the center of the controversy – there was a general sense that banks were not pillars of the nation but (in the words of one Senator from 1819) caterpillars.  That is, institutions that ate up everything in front of them.  Bank-centered panics tend to be much more about liquidity, and tend to draw much more concern about the future of banking as an institution.  Now there is lots more rage at banks, too.  There was a little of that in 1929, but not as severe as in this crisis.

Todd: You have written that transparency is often an outgrowth of a crisis.  How has this happened in the past?

Scott: In the 1857 panic, Elizur Wright pushed most for transparency, and he’s really responsible for much of the transparency we see in business now.  He was a socialist, abolitionist and an actuary (no lie) and he was one of the first to apply mathematical analysis to business firms.  He coined the term “return on investment” in the US.  He was angry about how opaque big insurance companies were and pushed Massachusetts to regulate them – effectively to list all their investments and make their books public.  The companies resisted it, but he won his battle in the depths of the 1857 panic.  In later panics his accounting requirements became generally demanded of all publicly-traded firms.

Todd: Transparency seems to be a buzzword, but it is often not clarified, “What are we being transparent about?  And to whom?”  What is called for now?

Scott: Openness of books, transparency, clarity aren’t just things that are nice to have – they can make or break any institution that relies on trust to function.  That includes banks but also NGO’s, funds, etc.  Much of the internal workings of banks for example had been invisible to most folks.  The so-called “stress test” that the federal government used on the banks in 2009 exposed some of the problems with bank operations.  It turned out that many banks had much higher reserve ratios than they claimed.  Likewise many of the big banks were forced to take off-the-books vehicles back into their firms for accounting purposes.  In banks, anyways, that transparency can remove that semiotic doubt.

Todd: Are oversight and legislation sufficient to address the system’s failures?

Scott: No, the institutions really have to change from within.  Legislation can push an institution to make certain numbers visible, but we all know that books can be cooked.  In Countrywide, for example, there were regulators, risk managers, and accountants who were supposed to prevent the firm from taking and reselling the “liar loans”.  But the structure of that firm was such that the folks who were supposed to regulate were the last to find out about an operation.  They had to sign off or be sidelined.  Likewise the biggest banks like Bear Stearns and others found ways to pressure the “regulators” like the bond-rating agencies.  That’s generally why open books are better than what firms call transparency and transparency is better than legislation-mandated rating organizations.

Todd: What do you see as the new context in which institutions or organizations can thrive?

Scott: Well, part of this might be restructuring from the ground up: making internal review of procedures an integral part of the operation of a firm.  Any institution can be stress-tested.  The time to do that is now, when times are tough.  One thing about the 1929 troubles . . . There was a stock market crash in 1929, but the depression arguably came in 1931 when banks carrying lots of foreign debt proved unable to survive once German borrowing institutions failed to pay their debts.  Many of our banks are still sitting on toxic assets that they haven’t marked-to-market yet.  This may be a prologue.  Stress-testing is essential.

Todd: What role can the people and organizations who are not associated with the financial system play in the revamping of the system?

Scott: For years many of the big corporate institutions that I know about modeled themselves on banks.  The CFO really ran the place – he or she made all the important decisions.  Now we see the problem with that environment.  Other organizations need to make themselves into models of the next banking institution we will have.  What will that new organization look like?  It’ll likely be more open, more flexible, and thus more fundamentally trustable than the institutions we have now.  If they aren’t, then we’ve gotten nowhere.

Todd: Thanks, Scott.


Breakthroughs for a Thrivable World Part 1

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The purpose of this series is to frame the shifts culture, business, and the world move through now. We present a story about how we arrived here, what breakthroughs we notice, and how this creates the greater possibility of a thrivable world at this time. We invite your feedback, because, as we will explain later, feedback enables generativity.

Introduction

We are working under the assumption: We humans are driven (by our nature) to increase choice and evolve our complexity through creativity and innovation. This requires balancing creativity, collaboration, and self-regulation. (Nods to social philosophy of the Ostroms.)

What you won’t get here: dire predictions. Yes, there is a gritty reality to face. And foundationally we believe you (and us together) will be creative and resourceful beyond measure. We enter an age of transformation, of intentional evolution. Welcome. Play in possibility. Manifest your utmost potential.

Backstory

Modernism: Order, Structure, and Form

Western culture opened the 20th century with modernism: a belief that we could reduce the world to its parts and create formal taxonomies. Truth was knowable. It was a self-conscious era. Recognizing the world as complex, many attempted to make sense of it through reducing the complexity to its component parts. While it brought us major advances in culture and science, it also had limits.

Post-Modernism: Inside-Out Structure, the Formless, and Chaos

Post-modernism laughed with a hearty right-brained playfulness (and in some cases deep cynicism) at this attempt to create order, fought the concept of a single global narrative and objective truth, and turned structure inside-out. While Post-modernism has run its course of criticism, a coherent -ism about (at least Western culture) current and future precepts has not been named and generally adopted. We may have troubled the assumptions of Modernism, but we still haven’t formulated a broad pattern of what replaces it. Is there a global narrative? Or have we fractured through identity politics into a plethora of narratives, tribes, and truths? Post-Human criticism posits:

“The posthuman is a being that relies on context rather than relativity, on situated objectivity rather than universal objectivity, and on the creation of meaning through ‘play’ between constructions of informational pattern and reductions to the randomness of on-off switches, which are the foundation of digital binary systems.”

To answer questions about our global narrative(s) and intersubjectivity, let’s review emerging ways of perceiving ourselves and the world (which influences what we notice and take action upon).

First, a simple demonstration of how reductionism fails and Complexity Science begins to explain.

Toasters, Cats and Snowflakes While we can take a toaster apart and put it back together – thereby understanding it, we can not do so with cats. The modernist/reductionist approach to understanding ever more granular parts fails in organisms and systems that are greater than the sum of their parts. Parts do not produce aliveness.

Complexity Science

Systems with a lot of interaction between interdependent nodes are called complex because the non-linear variations go beyond the scope of our mathematical tools: the sheer size of their potential behaviour defies brute force computational attacks to get a glimpse of the possibilities. They show emergent behavior (not possible to predict its behaviour by studying its components ) and surprisingly adaptive behavior when circumstances change. Markets, genetics, social interactions, maybe even life itself may be a result of complexity.

Human interactions are more complex than we had imagined in the 20th Century. Fanatical about science as a route to objective truth, metaphors from science permeated modernist culture. A vital part of the cultural narrative was constructed around Darwin’s Survival of the Fittest. And while few read his writing, many touted competition and predatory activity as nature’s great process! All the while, culture urbanized, shifting from rural farm communities to more competitive environments of the city and the marketplace. While capitalism freed man from his “destined at birth” status, the meritocratic approach encouraged individualism and zero-sum games. Where there is conflict over resources, one of us had to win and the other had to lose, like a game of tug of war.

There are games that don’t generate zero sum outcomes. Or more directly, there are games in which we win and lose together. Non-zero sum games seem, at first, nearly invisible in capitalistic systems. Issue like Climate Change, at their highest order, become non-zero-sum. Collectively, we will address climate change and everyone wins, or we won’t and we all lose. Collectively we take care of our common pools of resources like water or air quality, or we all lose access to healthy water and air. Over and over again, at the upper level of a system, we win together or lose together.

Today

The world seems riddled with catastrophe thinking. We have focused on what is going wrong (and thus been drawn into it). We have measured what is wrong (and noticed then the rise in that). We face catastrophic failures in our systems with convergent crisis environmentally, financially, and culturally. Disaster planning, risk management, and even sustainability planning focus on increasing our resilience as the world we once knew falls apart. Some of our greatest breakthroughs in these times contribute to the breakdowns we face. For example, John Perry Barlow (co-founder of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation) spoke at the Personal Democracy Forum in June of 2010 about how the internet and social media which helped Obama get in office – these very models are what flood the tiny District of Columbia, adding to the US government being overwhelmed and breaking down.

Like a boat without a rudder, the last 40 years of post-modernism have focused on moving away from what doesn’t work without providing a vision to work toward. We paddle frantically to get away from the rocks of crisis, while having no consensus or vision of where to direct this spaceship earth to.

Thus, we offer thrivability. A vision of integrating the breakthroughs, building on what works, and moving toward a world we want.

As we move toward a more thrivable world, what does that mean? Can we see the breakthroughs helping us move even as we feel the breakdown of our past financial, cultural, and environmental systems? There are breakthroughs on the individual level, the collective social level, and the system level. These are uplifted and expanded by breakthroughs in our ability to reflect on ourselves using metrics and feedback as well as breakthroughs in our process of innovation, increased understanding and capability in creativity, and greater rates of generativity (compounded by breakthroughs at all three levels). The next sections explore each of these five points and the relevant breakthroughs, we believe, to the emergence of a thrivable world at this critical time.

Incubating Entrepreneurs

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I am picturing some very driven inspired individuals under a warming light. But we know it takes a lot more than that.

Co-creating the world we want and doing so in new ways takes a network of people and some great mentorship, resource sharing, and support. This weekend we will be incubating some social innovation through COSI10Chicago. We will tell you all about our intense weekend with the warming light of collaborators soon.

If you are in or can make it to California, you can help entrepreneurs succeed (and pay forward how you have been helped) by attending Incubate 2.0, November 17-18, 2010 at the HP Executive Briefing Center in Cupertino. And Thrivable offers you a discount for Incubate 2.0!

What is the purpose? Answering the critical question: “How do I help my entrepreneurs succeed?”

Who should go?

  • a local incubator
  • an angel network
  • an economic development agency

How Incubate 2.0 tells the story:

Over the last decade, entrepreneurs have not only created successful businesses but applied their understanding of technology, their vision of the future, and their passion for growth to help fellow entrepreneurs. The innovations that entrepreneurs have created for each other include global mentoring programs, angel funds, massive networking events and virtual incubators, etc…

Incubate 2.0 will showcase the most cutting-edge programs that help business founders start and grow startups. Join us on November 17-18, 2010 at the HP Executive Briefing Center in Cupertino to gain insight into what works and what does not, meet the founders of these programs, and meet business leaders that have turned them into a global successes.

More at www.incubate2.com