Hahaha!
I hope you had a little giggle at the title, perhaps even the sub-title. I mean, why not? Life is utterly ridiculous. Let’s have some fun as we try to live, love and learn.
Today’s post is directed at folks in positions of power. Specifically those responsible for the governance (setting strategy, identifying and attempting to mitigate risks etc.) of major organisations. It comes off the back of my discussion with Terri Dentry and John Vervaeke. In that discussion, the first I’d had with John (Terri is a close friend), we covered the focus of my work; attempting to design trustworthy organisations.
This work is never as simple or as straightforward as people want it to be. And, as John so clearly highlighted, it’s a seriously tall order given the paradigmatic constraints of today (I cover the basics of this in the contradictory corporation).
Interestingly, John recognised the relation between the work I’m doing and some of what a little known Greek philosopher, some lad named Aristotle, suggested about the cultivation of virtue (I’d add to this my understanding that many wisdom traditions across spacetime have had similar ideas). His suggestion was effectively that I’m attempting to support the equivalent of this ongoing process at the level of the organisation. I’d say he’s about right, and that’s what I’d like to briefly explore today.
Consider this a brief musing intent on opening up the possibility space. It, as is always the case on this channel, is a conversation starter. Think of it as the seed for some saucy dia-logos.
Context
The character of an organisation (corporation, but again, as we discussed on Voices by Vervaeke, it’s harder than most folks recognise to seperate public from private institutions. I won’t get into that nuance today) is largely influenced by it’s teleology or goal orientation. As we’ve discussed, this is pretty narrow. It’s all about shareholder value. There are myriad issues here, namely the internalisation of certain benefits (mostly financial of course) and the externalisation of most costs (social, ecological, cultural, spiritual etc.).
*Goal orientation is, of course, just one of many highly influential system dynamics. It is of course a relational feature of world view etc etc.
The real challenge here - in the context of a hypothetical organisation that is truly benevolent, operates with real integrity and competently delivers on normative value promises - is that what’s needed (a civilisational re-architecture to help raise social foundations while bringing the totality of life back within ecological limits) is way out of whack with what most folks believe (we can continue with something close-ish to BAU). This makes the work I’m trying to do, cultivate the character of a trustworthy organisation in service of said future, if you will, incredibly fucking difficult.
Let me concretise this for those of you that remain interested.
Many folks believe in the value system that capitalism (as an ideology) attempts to instantiate (note I am not suggesting capitalism has only one value or premise. Nor am I suggesting we all interpret / live in relation to the same values etc. I won’t cover such nuances in this post). One belief that may be held by such folks is something like indefinite / ongoing economic growth (if you believe in the old, just 3% year-on-year thing, check in on the impact compounding has…). This, based on the preponderance of scientific evidence today, seems like a biophysically illiterate viewpoint (I call this out very specifically in my critique of the Techno-Optimist Manifesto, specifically in relation to the energy claims).
Unless we see something like ‘sufficient absolute decoupling’, which we are not presently seeing anything close to, then my statement here about biophysical illiteracy stands (I’m not intending to offend, but I do hope to call out certain contradictions in the hope we can go on a journey towards something closer to truth, goodness and beauty together).
But, because this is such a deeply held belief, many folks keep operating in relation to the belief. For organisation’s, the goal orientation remains about growth in a predominately economic sense (with the organisational / operating model continuing to focus on internalisation of narrow-ish benefits and externalisation of various costs).
This makes benevolence near impossible (the organisation exists to maximise benefits for owners, not for the public and not for the planet). Please sit with that, especially if it makes you uncomfortable. It makes integrity deeply challenging, mostly because the values that organisations’ claim are not the values organisations’ tend to prioritise and effectively operationalise. And it makes ‘normative competence’ extremely unlikely because the goal orientation and explicit values direct competencies towards more economic growth (which isn’t normative because it has far too many ecological, social, cultural and spiritual costs, relative to the narrow value it returns) and away from more ‘holistic value’.
It really is quite the fucking predicament. And I think the present reality is basically that most organisations are something closer to net harmful than net beneficial. And looking through a more than financial lens, I’m not sure this is even controversial anymore.
I’m not going to over-explain here. The static format cannot do justice. We need a dynamic, caring and truly curious dialogical process.
Moving on. Very basic context out of the way.
So, what’s a fam (yes, all of us) to do?
I called this out in my RSA article focused on the organisational design work I do.
We need to, especially those of us in positions of meaningful influence, take a hard look in the mirror. We need to deconstruct the narratives that currently guide us. We need to take it all in, sit with the discomfort and ask whether or not we are willing to change what it is that we currently believe and act in relation to.
We need to be willing to biodegrade that which doesn’t support a trajectory towards a better world, a world where everyone has what they need to thrive and where all of humanity collectively operates within planetary boundaries.
We need to move beyond the binary, bullshit narratives or separateness. We need to embrace the nuance of this life. We need to genuinely tap into our ingenuity, directing said ingenuity towards that which is verifiably and holistically helpful.
We need to really listen to one another. We need to engage in deeper conversation. We need to radically embrace the reality that everything changes, always (thank The Buddha for that one!).
Through all of this and so much more I absolutely believe we can live in something like a materially simple, yet immaterially abundant world. A world where what truly matters is what many of us live in closer relation to.
Okay, less waffle.
If what I’m suggesting about such possibilities is directionally true, some organisations will die completely. Few, if any, will exist the way they currently do. But, the people, ideas, skills and resources can be better directed. We can take what we’ve learned, strategically ease our reliance on the less than helpful stuff, while transitioning our orientation and efforts towards more helpful stuff. We can change at the direction magnitude and speed that’s necessary.
This will require those with influence to act with care, courage and humility. It’ll require value-sensitive experimentation, so that organisations can learn how to do what is far more helpful and give good quality evidence of that. As what’s helpful becomes clearer, organisations can as quickly as possible reduce investments / resources in the areas that aren’t. We will start spending money like it truly matters.
Think of this process as organisations working with something like the Three Horizons Framework.
Such a process can orient organisational investments towards a radically better future. It can help them strategically get rid of the stuff that doesn’t exist in service of that directional goal. It can ease the burden and suffering of the transition, and potentially help the organisation avoid imploding altogether.
Are you having these conversations?
As a member of the board, assuming you’re even willing to engage with content like this, I’m deeply interested in whether or not you’re engaging in conversations of this kind?
How often to you step back and consider the value system from which you operate? How often do you consider incentives and discincentives? Have you ever invested in a full organisational lifecyle assessment to help understand your systemic contributions / impacts? Have you ever sat down with an institutional shareholder and discussed the inherent contradiction at the heart of corporatism? Given shareholder returns are tied to resource extraction, production and consumption in most cases, and given that we are bloody running out of said resources, what sort of discussions are you having about expected future returns? What time horizon are you looking at here? How are you engaging your CEO? Are they empowered to have such discussions with their direct reports?
These and related questions can spark conversations that help us cultivate character. Through this process we can better direct energy towards the cultivation of benevolent, integrous and competent organisational character. Through cultivating such an organisational character we can more wisely steward energy such that we increase the probability of a preferable future. Through such a process we can be part of making a better world. Through such a process organisations might become part of the solution, rather than remaining part of the problem.
Now, there’s a lot for you to sit with here. It’s my job to open up the space, not close it down in the form of ‘concrete answers’. That would be unwise and irresponsible.
With that said, if you are motivated to take that hard look in the mirror, question everything and do the work of cultivation a trustworthy organisational character, let’s dive in.
With love as always.
Oh and P.S. I’ve had a few folks pledging. If this is something you’re interested in, I’m happy to spend more time on these musings in an attempt to deliver something like unique value to you. Please let me know.
And in the meantime…