social warmth sculpture: THINKING TOGETHER
This week I facilitated a green mobility summit for a global company in Europe. Seeing how this company, which operates in a very old and traditional industry, is beginning to change really inspires me:
it is
-moving from denial to putting green center-stage
–moving from green technology to green mobility
–and realizing, that green mobility requires new ways of working and thinking together.
When we (about 80 people across all divisions and regions) left the meeting, we all felt somehow elevated—not just because we had dealt with the right topic (green) at the right time (now), but because we had moved during our meeting from individual statements (debate) to a process of THINKING TOGETHER (dialogue). When such a process starts to happen, when a group of people starts the process of thinking together, they achieve a whole new level of collective energy that elevates and uplifts them. Everyone feels present and warm.
The feeling reminds me of a word coined by the late 20th-century avant garde artist Joseph Beuys: SOZIALE WAERMEPLASTIK–social warmth sculpture. If you connect to the deeper levels of the social field you connect to the social warmth sculpture, to a malleable medium and a sense of connection that emerges from the inner energy of people. THINKING TOGETHER, and for that matter the U process, is a movement (and a state of attention) that connects us with that deeper field of awareness…
otto
P.S.: I am not sure that the term WAERMEPLASTIK is translated well here. Even in German most people do not understand this term (which refers to a level 3-4 experience of reality; see Theory U). And whenever I try to translate an abstract concept like that into English I often see blank stares… Can anyone help here? What do you think? Do you know the experience I’m talking about above?
through the eye of the needle
today i had to write a paragraph on leadership for the MIT Leadership Center site. find that paragraph below. what do you think? what is your take on the essence of leadership today?
The key leadership challenge of our time is to shift the inner place from which we operate. As individuals, as teams, as institutions, and as societies we all face the same issue: that doing ‘more of the same’ won’t fix flawed and failed systems. We have to leave behind our old tools and behaviors, and immerse ourselves in the places of most potential. We have to listen with our minds and hearts wide open, and then connect with our deep sources of knowing and self. It’s only when we pass through this eye of the needle–letting go of the old and letting come the emerging self–that we can begin to step into our real power: the power to collectively sense and create the world anew. Theory U describes a social grammar and practical methods for such a transformative leadership journey.
the fourth miracle: transforming attentional violence
i just posted a video that talks about three major miracles that happened in my lifetime: (1) the collapse of the berlin wall (ending the cold war system), (2) the collapse of the apartheid system (marking thepeaceful transition into the post-apartheid era), and (3) Barack Obama taking office in the White House in January 2009. Three miracles. Three defining moments in my generation. And yet, the most important one may still be ahead of us: (4) the current transformation of capitalism from the current 1.0 and 2.0 system to a possible 3.0 form of economy and society. Check out our new website on this.
What struck me is that for the fourth miracle we have to transform all three forms of violence that currently defines the relational space in society: direct violence (terrorism and war), structural violence (misery and poverty), and what in my first blog entry i started calling attentional violence. Attentional violence is to not to be seen and recognized in terms of who you really are–in terms of your highest future possibility. Instead you are only seen in terms of your journey of the past, that is, in terms of the circumstances of the past, in terms of who you happen to be today. Attentional violence is hitting hardest those of us, who live in marginalized groups.
just as the battle of the 20the century geopolitics–the cold war system–was a battle between system and system (capitalism vs. communism), we now move into a new era in which the major battlefield extends into a different theater–the theater of our inner SELF, that is, the battle between self and Self. the battle between (current) self and (emerging future or originating) Self is the central conflict of our time. unless we are waking up to that deeper (and largely invisible) battlefield, chances are that all the political fights between left and right, between progressive and conservative and so forth, will lead us pretty much nowhere–will lead us into a dead end. its the connection of the deeper personal and yet collective playing field with our everyday life and public collective action where the real power of the next transformation is coming from.
The power for pulling off the fourth miracle stems from the capacity to linking all three spheres: the battlefield of our SELF SPACE (relinking self with Self), of our SOCIAL SPACE (relinking “us” with “them”), and of our ECO SPACE (relinking human beings with our planet). its only when we succeed in linking these three spheres we wake up to our real power–our power of bringing forth the world anew.
failed governmental governance–and then what?
copenhagen. new banking bill. new health care bill. three processes — one outcome: failure of addressing the real systemic issues. to say we only deal with the symptoms level would be overstating the positive: we clearly fail of even dealing with the symptoms (copenhagen), or we deal with them in a way that mostly benefits the well organized special interest groups (wallstreet and the health-industrial complex). ok, we knew that (and that they have been the primary campaign donors), so where’s the good news? its here:
copenhagen clearly demonstrated that the biggest crisis of all is the current crisis of leadership. the new leadership and the new global governance that we now need is not going to come from our special interest group driven governments. it can only come through new initiatives in which leaders and people from civil society organizations collaborate in new ways with partners and leaders from governmental, and multilateral institutions as well as from business organizations: cross-sector, cross-disciplinary, cross-generation, and in a way that puts deep human awareness and collective intelligence over and above the straight jacket of narrow institutional imperatives.
so the positive side is that everyone now sees that: if governments cannot pull it off, WE have to do it. we have to rise to a new global movement that is being born as we speak. a movement that is already there: between us. may this year help us to deepen this waking-up process — and to move from being awake to being connected and creative in regenerating our world.
o.
grassroot awareness vs. consciousness of the political class
This week I did a workshop in Torino with the UN Leaders Programme in Torino. Very diverse and interesting group of leaders across all UN organizations from peacekeeping forces to UNDP and UNICEF. Then, the next day i attended a Capitalism 3.0 event in Frankfurt at the occasion of opening the german branch of the Triodos Bank. 350 people came. Entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs. Green people. Lohas people. And other folks with probably wouldn’t fit any of these categories. What links both these meetings, the one in Torino and the one in Frankfurt, is that people basically agree on the same premise: that we cannot solve the our current 21. challenges (3.0 challenges) with old ways of operating (“capitalism 2.0”). What we need is to upgrade our social and economic operating (capitalism 1.0 and 2.0) by creating new forms of collaboration for inventing capitalism 3.0. That’s more or less the shared premise. The issue is not WHETHER—but HOW. Yet, this shared sense is not reflected at all in our current economic-political discourse and the mainstream media. That’s a big gap. A gap between an emerging grass root awareness on the ground and the current consciousness of the political class. Its something we need to work on by creating new 3.0 infrastructures for pioneering our path into future. We can’t just wait until the next disruptive crisis hits. Sooner or later, that’s going to happen anyway…
seeds of change==>challenges of institutionalization
Last week we convened the Presencing-In-Action Lab in Boston. The meeting gathered 26 change makers across many cultures and continents. It was striking to see how all the small the seed projects of the last years are beginning to blossom and grow together into a rapidly evolving field of change. I wrote some of this story up in a paper that I presented yesterday in a meeting with senior leaders of the South African government in Joberg. Eary this week, visiting the Namibian Health Systems project, I saw some great examples of prototyping in the area of maternal health. In my own learning process I am wrestling more and more with the question of how to move from prototyping to institutionalizing. That’s the challenge in Namibia and in South Africa. And also in other projects I am currently involved in. Looking at the larger landscape of Theory U inspired change initiatives and related movements, you also wonder what type of institutional embodiment would lend the best support structure going forward. What is it? A community of practice? A movement? A global action research school in the making? All the above? How to institutionalize a “g.school” –- a green global action leadership school — for pioneering society 3.0, either on campus at MIT or in some other form?
natura
i just returned from a truly interesting visit to brazil. two real highlights of that trip: a visit with some waste pickers (catadores) that taught me about their amazing efforts to self-organize in sao paulo. the other one was a visit to NATURA, a really innovative cosmetics company that blends sustainability, social responsibility, and spiritual awareness in ways that i have not seen before. greatly inspiring people in a greatly inspiring place. 90% of their products are replaced every year. 70% or their revenues in done with products younger than 24 months. they are the market leader in their industry. yet, you will not find their products on any shelf. because their commitment is to sell all their products through a group of one million “consultants” that go directly from house to house. it strikes me that most people i happen to know—particularly people from today’s student generation–would LOVE to work for a company like natura. but in reality its hard to find an organization like this. yet, i believe that the amazing success of NATURA signifies the rise of a new class of business organizations that blend the business purpose with an extended social-ecological, and spiritual mission. i was also surprised to learn that they work with Theory U in both leadership development and in innovation for sustainability…
o.
split between 2.0 system and 3.0 reality
interesting day in vienna with the Minister of Education and 220 school innovators across the whole system (ministry, principals, teachers, students). three take aways from the network dialogue today:
(1) there is a deep split between the real practitioners of innovation in education on the one hand and the national political discourse on education on the other hand. most key innovation practitioners basically agree about what needed to change:
–more autonomy to the schools
–a changed and deepened (eye-ball-to-eye ball) relationship between students and their teachers
–a changed and deepened relationship of students with their own learning process (student centric)
–a federal system that supports the emerging landscape of new forms of learning.
on the other hand there is the national system that still reponds in a 2.0 mode (that is, driven by abstract special interest groups).
(2) the core challenge for the minister and the entire system is how to move from a 2.0 to a 3.0 system, that is, from a special interest group driven abstract political process to a new governance process that is inspired by seeing and adapting to the evolving core process of education in all its different regional and sectoral contexts.
(3) To create 3.0 type of governance systems requires a) a national platform of school innovators and b) a host of regional platforms that link the local and regional innovators with each other and with their counterparts in business and society in order to collectively sense and support the emerging core process of eduational innovation across the entire system (”lerning form the future”).
we also need strong support systems and parallel learning structures for all the innovators of the current school system in order to balance the immune system reaction of the old system.
i was struck by the clear and powerful articulation of that split between3.0 reality and 2.0 system. and that the essence of the 3.0 system is to overcome and heal that split. i bet we have that type of split pretty much across all major systems: finance, health, education, sustainability–you name it. right? how do you experience that split?
Otto
reinventing government/governance
one thing new for me this year is to start working with governments/ministries, something i didnt have the opportunity to do previously. over the last few days i attended a Leadership Round Table in D.C. hosted by the World Bank Institute on reinventing leadership capacity building for governments and societies in fragile states, and a Round Table on Reinventing Capitalism that i hosted at MIT, that was attended, among others, by Achim Steiner, the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and Jeffrey Hollender, founder and chair of Seventh Generation. What struck me in those meetings is something very simple: that we cannot solve 3.0 problems (that require eco-system wide awareness and innovation) with 2.0 responses (that are limited by the ego-awareness of special interest groups that drive the legislative process). i have put my thoughts on reinventing the leadership capacity building in ten propositions: leadership capacity building is not about filling a gap but about igniting fields of inspired connection and action… Jeffrey wrote a nice account on the Roundtable in his blog.
Stitching together a movement in the making
I just return from an interesting meeting in D.C. among various grass root movements for economic and societal renewal (like BALLE, the business alliance for local living economies), advocacy groups, and think tanks that try to research, rethink and reframe the foundations of a green, equitable, regenerative economy. it was a great meeting that will help to build and stitch together the global movement around transforming and renewing the economy. two interesting observations from the meeting. first, the international dimension (non US based networks that do the same thing) was largely absent. second, it felt as if there were almost two different ways of framing and languaging the key issue. one is, from the perspective of the current political discourse, to frame it as a issue of “us” vs. “them,” progressive vs conservative forces in the society. but is that really the best way of framing it? left vs. right?
the other way of framing it is less about “us vs. them” and more about a self-aware and self-reflective way of envisioning a future that we want to create and then to work from that shared intention across boundaries. in that case its more about a shift of awareness from ego- to eco-system. it was apparent that these two approaches really talked different languages that do not connect easily.
have you seen similar situations? do you see a larger movement growing together in other parts of the world? if yes, what is it that you see growing together?
–otto
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