From Me to We--From Thinking to Action

In 2017, I attended multiple conferences,[1] all of which seem to have similar themes of transforming the world to ensure greater equity, dignity, and flourishing for all, including humans, of course, extending these attributes to Nature’s creatures and ecosystems. Of course, these conferences have used different language and approaches to these ideas and shifts. Fundamentally though, they all share the desire to move today’s system from its constant growth-oriented, finance-dominated materialism and consumption-oriented behaviors towards a world where humans all experience dignified lives of wellbeing and connection to Nature, while living in harmony with and respectful of the resources that Nature offers.

Underlying these conferences is a growing recognition that today’s dominant narrative or story is no longer working and that to begin to change the world, we need a new story. Then we need to act to bring that new story into reality. Today’s ‘story’ is largely an economic one. It tells us that all responsibilities are individual (or company) ones, that the purpose of companies solely to maximize shareholder world, to use the words of the late economist Milton Friedman, and that markets not only are ‘free’ but can solve all (or at least most of) humanity’s problems.

That story overlooks important realities. For one thing, human population growth now strains the ability of many ecosystems to provide sufficient resources. The production system that has evolved is largely linear—going from raw materials to production to consumption to the landfill or incinerator in a pattern that is simply unsustainable in the long term, particularly if human populations continues to grow as projected. For another thing, whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we humans are intimately connected to and a part of Nature: everything we have, do, eat, consume, and desire is a product of Nature, as are we. Although it may seem comforting to set humankind apart from nature as somehow special and separate, the truth is that we cannot survive without recognizing and working with our deep and inextricable connection to nature.

Another important thing is that in our reliance on science and technological shifts to improve our lives, sometimes we in the developed world forget about the deeper connections and activities that actually make life worthwhile. Some of these connections are with other people—family and friends; others as noted are with Nature or to particular places, institutions, and communities. Still others are spiritual. All of these connections are as vital to producing a sense of wellbeing as the more material aspects of life that are just about all that are considered in today’s narrative in which economic and financial considerations dominate.

Cumulatively, the multiple conferences that I’ve recently attended on changing the world for the better suggest a few lessons. First, system change has to start with ‘me.’ To get to ‘we’ and, as the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative argues, ultimately to ‘all of us,’ there needs to be a capacity for self-awareness and reflection at the individual level. That self-awareness then potentially allows us in a sense to ‘let go’ of our egos and join in the collaborative efforts that are needed for change and be willing to take whatever risks might be involved in taking relevant actions.

For me ‘action’ means writing, speaking, and collaboratively thinking. For others, it is initiating projects from wherever they sit in the world, doing something to bring about greater equity or more sustainable practices. For business leaders, it can mean working towards products and services that deliver value in harmony with nature’s resources and constraints. For some people acting means bringing collectivities of people together to see how they can collaborate to deal with issues they are facing. For others it is creating frameworks for action, and then beginning to act. For some it means creating art in some form, art that inspires, provokes, or transforms the way we see the world creating new learning and insights. Indeed, one thing that I learned from witnessing the power of art at several conferences is that embodied arts-based initiatives can be really helpful in developing this sense of ‘me’ that allows for the collaborative ‘we’ to emerge…in what is necessarily an unpredictable and emergent process.

Another thing that has become increasingly clear is that the time to act is now. In many ways, several conferences concluded, we already have sufficient knowledge about what needs to be done and even how it might be accomplished. More studies, while important in the long run, need to be supplemented by action—sooner rather than later given the pressing nature of growing ecological and equity issues facing the world. If we can simply connect the dots across the different disciplines and practices that have generated this knowledge, we can begin to move the system. There is a role for thinking and idea generation, and of course new issues and problems will always demand new knowledge. The point is that it is time to take what we already do know, including about change processes and approaches, and begin to take the actions that in our hearts we know are needed.

We know enough about what is wrong to come together collectively and form a vision of a better future that we can (mostly) all agree is needed. We know that climate change is transforming the world in ways that are detrimental to humans not to mention many other species. Some of us recognize that economic divides, with the bulk of financial wealth going to the few, while the many languish, are not socially sustainable in the long term. We know that if, for example, ecosystems like fisheries collapse, or blights hit major crops produced in monocultures, or industrial wastes pollute our rivers and oceans, that human life can hardly flourish in the future. We also know from extensive research that people are actually happier when they have good relationships with others, enough resources to provide for their families, and work or activities that are meaningful and productive.

New insights come from many disciplines and sources, ranging from the sciences to the arts to architecture and urban planning to management and economics. If we hope to solve systemic problems, we need to increasingly draw from all of these sources, thereby fostering multi-disciplinary, transdisciplinary, and multicultural/multi-stakeholder approaches that incorporate the developed and the developing world. Creativity and innovation increasingly depend on such multiplicity of knowledge. That means that knowledge has many dimensions. To get us to acting, we need to ‘embody’ it as Sue Moffat, founder Director of New Vic Theater in Staffordshire and Research Fellow at Keele University, tells us, we need, in a sense, to ‘feel,’ i.e., to grapple emotionally, to grapple instinctually with it, to conceptualize it, and to enact it…and learn from what we have enacted. That kind of knowledge is perhaps best produced collectively, through co-creation and mutual engagement with multiple stakeholders, through relationships, through art, and by using multiple different ways of learning and knowing.

We know these things. What I have seen in multiple conferences is that all over the world, there are people starting initiatives to bring such thinking to life and to start to create the system change that is needed to bring humanity into harmony with Nature. These initiatives need to be collected and connected through stories and sharing of learning, so that they can ultimately be propagated—proliferated in ways that suit each unique circumstances. For example, if we hope to have people understand the need for living in harmony with nature, then perhaps projects that encourage people to understand their own story in the context of nature or of longer-term societal shifts can help. Sustainability thinking—or more aptly, thinking about flourishing in the future—probably needs to be ‘grounded’ somehow in getting us all to understand our own place in the problem and in the possible efforts at solutions. If we tell our own stories and create new narratives for ourselves, we can begin to explore in deeper ways what it means to be human today—and make the changes that are needed for all of us to thrive in the future.

NOTES

[1] Ones I attended include MIT’s Urban Planning Studies group’s workshop on Finance, Geography & Sustainability, 2017; The 1^st Annual Regenerative Business Summit in Boulder, CO; the Fourth Global Forum on Business as an Agent of World Benefit at Case Western University, Cleveland; Transformations 2017 at the University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland; ARTEM-Organizational Creativity and Sustainability International Conference, at ICN, Nancy, France; the International Association of Business in Society annual meeting held in Amsterdam in 2017; and the Academy of Management annual meeting in Atlanta, GA, in 2017, and there are numerous others.