I wrote the scenario below --called "Dependent America" -- back in June as one of four possible 15 year futures --worlds of 2023 -- in which we'd be struggling to sustain the middle class. I'll share the other three in subsequent posts.
The project uses a powerful and fascinating technique -- scenario thinking -- in which you develop four plausible stories about the future in order to stretch your thinking about what is possible, and so that you can plan for the unexpected. (For more on scenario thinking see my website ; also check out http://www.gbn.com/ -- where I was trained to use this tool).
As I look back over these last few months, it looks truer and sooner than I expected.
As you read through it, ask yourself -- what do you see unfolding that seems to support this scenario? what about it seems most or least plausible? how would your work change if this scenario were to develop?
Dependent America: 2023
This is a world in which America’s example and vibrancy to attract global talent and investment is severely diminished. Its military power and reach have declined significantly, but government plays a larger role than it has for many years – both in regulating and providing. Globalization has slowed overall, but China and Europe have pulled ahead, having been the first movers on alternative energy and bio-sciences innovation, respectively. The U.S.’s historic role as a haven for migrants from around the world has shifted, and now more highly educated Americans are moving abroad in larger numbers.
The U.S. is a fine place to live – with higher levels of equity and a lower level of material consumption. "Simple" and "functional chic" were choices at first, when the "green tipping point" led some people to move off the grid in order to diminish their carbon footprints. By 2015, "functional chic" was a necessity, increasingly mandated by government, along with mandates about healthier eating and ownership.
ZipCars arrival on the scene in the early 2000s were viewed as a novelty, but in 2023 many people have forgotten what it was like to own their own car; vehicles are now generally shared by several families. By 2023, simple and low consumption was a way of life. Anyone who longed for the "good old days" of materialism or fast-paced, innovative business culture had to go abroad, most likely to Asia. They are now helping support families and favorite social causes back home.
While acceleration of life had once seemed inevitable with Moore’s Law and 24-7 trading, the world of 2023 is slower. Striving for success is no longer valued as the only pathway to a worthwhile life. "Slow down, don’t compete" became a popular catch-phrase. In part, this is because Americans can no longer compete with other global super-powers. But the slower-paced life is also driven by strong norms against consumption, as well as opposition to the whole ethic of innovation that had once been so pervasive. The U.S. government, in an attempt to recover an edge in innovation, is aggressively trying to attract highly-educated workers, both American ex-pats and non-Americans. One of its main recruitment strategies is an advertisement campaign in global newspapers touting America’s "multi" culture where anyone of any culture can feel at home.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Want to jumpstart your effectiveness and creativity? Invest in capacity building
We use the somewhat deadening word "capacity building" to refer to some of the most important and undervalued aspects of organizational work: helping ourselves and the people who work with or for us to access their most creative, collaborative and effective selves. And, dare I say it, tapping into our sense of passion and purpose.
Capacity comes from Middle English roots meaning roomy and to hold. "Build" means to establish, increase or strengthen.
We analytically trained people, who do policy, advocacy, writing and strategy work, tend to think we have all the capacity we need -- mostly in our heads. We have our natural talent, no increasing or stengthening needed, thank you.
But why are we willing to invest in acquiring more and more knowledge, or learning to ski, but not to tap into our best selves? Why are we willing to endure less than productive meetings and thinking processes and participate in them over and over again?
A few questions to ponder as you think about whether you need to do this:
How can you expand your thinking -- and explore it in all its roominess -- to hold the most possibilites you can? How can you make room in your day to connect with your sense of purpose? How can you help your people or your organization to hold even more of your collective energy and creativity? What will you lost if you don't do this, particularly during these challenging times?
Capacity comes from Middle English roots meaning roomy and to hold. "Build" means to establish, increase or strengthen.
We analytically trained people, who do policy, advocacy, writing and strategy work, tend to think we have all the capacity we need -- mostly in our heads. We have our natural talent, no increasing or stengthening needed, thank you.
But why are we willing to invest in acquiring more and more knowledge, or learning to ski, but not to tap into our best selves? Why are we willing to endure less than productive meetings and thinking processes and participate in them over and over again?
A few questions to ponder as you think about whether you need to do this:
How can you expand your thinking -- and explore it in all its roominess -- to hold the most possibilites you can? How can you make room in your day to connect with your sense of purpose? How can you help your people or your organization to hold even more of your collective energy and creativity? What will you lost if you don't do this, particularly during these challenging times?
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Honor your creativity, don't drown in it
I can say from experience what it is like to be an entrepreneurially minded person: I'm in one of those moments now -- they happen every few weeks; at times every few days: I look around and realize I'm excited to be pursuing about ten ideas when all I can handle is one, at most three. I surf from one exciting possiblity to the next idea that is too fascinating and too good to put down.
Before I know it I am lost in a cloud of more and more ideas, moving and an ever faster pace, swirling around with no center. I am stuck.
Entrepreneurs, a wise person once told me, can either move mountains or burn out in despair. I do have a technique for getting out of this, if I remember to use it. You can use it too.
Buy a notebook and label it "good ideas." Use it as a place to note ideas as they come along: honor them. Write a few lines so you are sure you remember what's there. And then take the ones that have traction and leave the rest behind. You will not have lost them. They'll be there in a year or five when their time has come.
Before I know it I am lost in a cloud of more and more ideas, moving and an ever faster pace, swirling around with no center. I am stuck.
Entrepreneurs, a wise person once told me, can either move mountains or burn out in despair. I do have a technique for getting out of this, if I remember to use it. You can use it too.
Buy a notebook and label it "good ideas." Use it as a place to note ideas as they come along: honor them. Write a few lines so you are sure you remember what's there. And then take the ones that have traction and leave the rest behind. You will not have lost them. They'll be there in a year or five when their time has come.
Monday, November 3, 2008
How to Break Free of Group Think: Challenge the Crowd
Why is it that we pay so little attention to the impact of psychology in our policy discussions, when it is psychology -- in this case, of the policy makers, experts and pundits themselves -- that so often leads our smartest and most talented people to achieve less than they should?
I'm happy to see that some pundits are coming around, and that we are beginning to see a conversation about the human thoughts and feelings that shape the pronouncements of experts -- with sometimes dire consequences.
Yale economist Robert Shiller recalls Irving Janis' classic book "Group Think" in his insightful article in yesterday's New York Times Business section as a way of explaining why more economists did not foresee the financial crisis. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/business/02view.html
The idea is that often experts fear that "if they deviate too far from the consensus, they will not be given a serious role. They self-censor personal doubts about the emerging group consensus if they cannot express these doubts in a formal way that conforms with appraent assumptions held by the group."
Schiller goes even further though in his analysis of what keeps economists in particular from believing warnings about bubbles. He points to another social-psychological phenomenon -- that economists do not have the tool kit to understand psychology by virtue of their training, even if in casual conversation they regularly speak about the kind of mass psychology that can lead to speculative behavior. They prefer to focus the discussion to things they understand well.
Furthermore, those who are drawn to the study of economics, with its technical and mathematical character, tend not to be attuned to psychological nuances -- particularly those that may lead to massive errors in judgement.
This is why the new field of behavioral economics, that has so influenced Shiller's own work, continues to be marginalized by the field of economics, even as those titles move to the top of best sellers lists.
Until we focus on the humans behind the ideas, and shift the culture of the social sciences, we'll be stuck with experts who cannot lead.
How can you build your tool kit to become a thought leader?
1) Learn to recognize your assumptions: do a self assessment (design this)
2) what do you really care about: what is your vision for your personal impact?
3) When was the last time you said: "that can't happen" and been wrong?
4) Have you been willing to take outliers in your field seriously? Identify those people in your circle who challenge conventional wisdom and take them to lunch.
I'm happy to see that some pundits are coming around, and that we are beginning to see a conversation about the human thoughts and feelings that shape the pronouncements of experts -- with sometimes dire consequences.
Yale economist Robert Shiller recalls Irving Janis' classic book "Group Think" in his insightful article in yesterday's New York Times Business section as a way of explaining why more economists did not foresee the financial crisis. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/business/02view.html
The idea is that often experts fear that "if they deviate too far from the consensus, they will not be given a serious role. They self-censor personal doubts about the emerging group consensus if they cannot express these doubts in a formal way that conforms with appraent assumptions held by the group."
Schiller goes even further though in his analysis of what keeps economists in particular from believing warnings about bubbles. He points to another social-psychological phenomenon -- that economists do not have the tool kit to understand psychology by virtue of their training, even if in casual conversation they regularly speak about the kind of mass psychology that can lead to speculative behavior. They prefer to focus the discussion to things they understand well.
Furthermore, those who are drawn to the study of economics, with its technical and mathematical character, tend not to be attuned to psychological nuances -- particularly those that may lead to massive errors in judgement.
This is why the new field of behavioral economics, that has so influenced Shiller's own work, continues to be marginalized by the field of economics, even as those titles move to the top of best sellers lists.
Until we focus on the humans behind the ideas, and shift the culture of the social sciences, we'll be stuck with experts who cannot lead.
How can you build your tool kit to become a thought leader?
1) Learn to recognize your assumptions: do a self assessment (design this)
2) what do you really care about: what is your vision for your personal impact?
3) When was the last time you said: "that can't happen" and been wrong?
4) Have you been willing to take outliers in your field seriously? Identify those people in your circle who challenge conventional wisdom and take them to lunch.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Looking back
One of the images most present in our minds during this financial crisis is the depresssion that began with the crash of 1929, almost eighty years ago. We talk about its causes, the institutions that were created to avoid repeating it, and the pictures of employment lines and Grapes of Wrath type migrations.
One comfort during these times is the FDIC --which guarantees that savings won't be wiped out when banks get into trouble. We look to this protection with pride about what our government will do for the good of Americans and congratulate ourselves for successful learning.
What learning or institution will we look back to with pride eighty years from now? What will come out of this crisis, which is arguably more significant given the degree to which our economy is now globalized?
Creating new institutional protections and prohibitions on profligate risk taking is a no brainer. I hope that this will be a turning point of a different sort. I'd like to look back to the crisis of 2008 and remember a cognitive and behavioral shift in our very habits of decision making.
Looking back from 2089, 2008 will be the time when leaders and ordinary citizens alike learned to imagine futures very different from the ones they expect. This will be when we learned to adjust our thinking and judgment to an inherently uncertain environment; when adhering blindly to status quo thinking became archaic, like holding court with kings or relegating women to the home.
Rather than an institution like FDIC, we will have created an institution to focus the nation on building capacity to think the unthinkable, to develop personal resilience, and to know how to survive and thrive at a time of discontinuous change.
Just as we now see information technologies as essential to every aspect of our lives, by 2089 we will have developed social technologies that allow us to exercise and train our minds to think the unthinkable and to have the emotional intelligence to maximize our collective potential.
This is just a snippet of a much longer thought. We need to begin to focus not just on rules, regulations, and protections, but on the cognitive and leadership capacities that will support the new rules. If we don't, they will be empty, like the rituals of a religion we go through by rote. And we'll continue to move from crisis to crisis without much progress.
One comfort during these times is the FDIC --which guarantees that savings won't be wiped out when banks get into trouble. We look to this protection with pride about what our government will do for the good of Americans and congratulate ourselves for successful learning.
What learning or institution will we look back to with pride eighty years from now? What will come out of this crisis, which is arguably more significant given the degree to which our economy is now globalized?
Creating new institutional protections and prohibitions on profligate risk taking is a no brainer. I hope that this will be a turning point of a different sort. I'd like to look back to the crisis of 2008 and remember a cognitive and behavioral shift in our very habits of decision making.
Looking back from 2089, 2008 will be the time when leaders and ordinary citizens alike learned to imagine futures very different from the ones they expect. This will be when we learned to adjust our thinking and judgment to an inherently uncertain environment; when adhering blindly to status quo thinking became archaic, like holding court with kings or relegating women to the home.
Rather than an institution like FDIC, we will have created an institution to focus the nation on building capacity to think the unthinkable, to develop personal resilience, and to know how to survive and thrive at a time of discontinuous change.
Just as we now see information technologies as essential to every aspect of our lives, by 2089 we will have developed social technologies that allow us to exercise and train our minds to think the unthinkable and to have the emotional intelligence to maximize our collective potential.
This is just a snippet of a much longer thought. We need to begin to focus not just on rules, regulations, and protections, but on the cognitive and leadership capacities that will support the new rules. If we don't, they will be empty, like the rituals of a religion we go through by rote. And we'll continue to move from crisis to crisis without much progress.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Swamp problems
It was about ten years ago now that I heard the term, coined by Donald Schon, "swamp problems" to refer to messy, confusing problems that defy technical solutions. Schon pointed out that the problems of greatest human concern lie in the swamp, rather than on the high ground, where we develop most of our technical knowledge and apply the rigor of research.
Ron Heifetz talked about this kind of problem as an "adaptive," challenge as opposed to a technical challend and in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers, developed an approach to leadership in a world of adaptive challenges.
The problem is our social problem solving approach is still stuck in technical, rather than adaptive mode.
Check out the May 19 2008 issue of the New Yorker and Bee Wilson's review essay called "The Last Bite" for a doozy of a swamp problem. He is writing about the need to radically change the system of Western food production, "right down to the spinach." According to Wilson, as of 2006, there were eight hundred million people in the world who were hungy, but they were outnumbered by one billion who were overweight. As he puts it, "Our ability to produce vastly too many calories for our basic needs has skewed the concept of demand, and generated a wildly dysfunctional market."
This complex and interconnected challenges, which includes food producers, large food companies, consumers, advertisers and a host of other players, will be difficult to solve. It was created in part from a failure to develop the habit of looking at the pieces of the problem as a whole -- as a system where a solution in one place may create an unanticipated problem in another.
A place called the "Sustainable Food Lab," is trying to back out of this mess, http://www.sustainablefoodlab.org/overview/ by taking a different approach, and acknowledging this as a swamp problem. Check it out to see what they are up to.
More in subsequent posts.
Ron Heifetz talked about this kind of problem as an "adaptive," challenge as opposed to a technical challend and in his book Leadership Without Easy Answers, developed an approach to leadership in a world of adaptive challenges.
The problem is our social problem solving approach is still stuck in technical, rather than adaptive mode.
Check out the May 19 2008 issue of the New Yorker and Bee Wilson's review essay called "The Last Bite" for a doozy of a swamp problem. He is writing about the need to radically change the system of Western food production, "right down to the spinach." According to Wilson, as of 2006, there were eight hundred million people in the world who were hungy, but they were outnumbered by one billion who were overweight. As he puts it, "Our ability to produce vastly too many calories for our basic needs has skewed the concept of demand, and generated a wildly dysfunctional market."
This complex and interconnected challenges, which includes food producers, large food companies, consumers, advertisers and a host of other players, will be difficult to solve. It was created in part from a failure to develop the habit of looking at the pieces of the problem as a whole -- as a system where a solution in one place may create an unanticipated problem in another.
A place called the "Sustainable Food Lab," is trying to back out of this mess, http://www.sustainablefoodlab.org/overview/ by taking a different approach, and acknowledging this as a swamp problem. Check it out to see what they are up to.
More in subsequent posts.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Habits and culture
Stephen Covey, in his 7 habits of Highly Effective People, was one of the first to put forward the idea that being effective in today's and tomorrow's workplace requires intentionally creating new habits of thinking, communicating and acting. Covey defines a habit as "an acquired pattern of behavior that often occurs automatically."
Habits are unconscious ways of being -- we use the phrase "get into the habit of..." going to the gym regularly, for example. Or we talk about "breaking the habit of..." -- for example eating all the potato chips that come with your sandwich at lunch.
Personal habits -- what we do with our bodies for example, are only one kind. Alexis De Toqueville talked about "habits of the heart" to refer to the particular norms of American culture that make Americans different from Europeans and American civic culture so robust.
Widely shared habits -- how we think, talk and communicate -- can add up to shared culture. Once these habits are shared, largely unseen and made more stubborn and enduring through their use in schools, businesses and politics, cultural change becomes difficult. Some would even say it is impossible.
The emerging conventional wisdom in neuroscience would suggest othewise. The idea that brains are more changeable than was originally understood -- what's called brain plasticity -- may well make a big difference for what kind of culture change is possible. While there are grooves of thinking -- literally ruts along with nueral signals travel -- that are unlikely to change, it is possible to create new neural pathways, that can run along side the old, and become habitual themselves. Kind of like the super highway built alongside the old and slow country road.
Janet Rae-Depree had an interesting article in the New York Times business section two Sundays ago (May 4). While we tend to see creativity and innovation as coming from habit breaking, increasing numbers of brain scientists, coaches and others who work with people and organizations to develop innovation and creativity are saying the opposite. Innovation comes from habit-making. We can, writes Rae-Dupree "create parallel synaptic paths and even entirely new brain cells that can jump our trains of thought onto new innovative tracks."
All of this has great implications for how we as a society go about solving our most pressing social problems. What kind of habit making and habit breaking do we need when it comes to addressing climate change? Or fixing our educational system?
More on that in later posts.
Habits are unconscious ways of being -- we use the phrase "get into the habit of..." going to the gym regularly, for example. Or we talk about "breaking the habit of..." -- for example eating all the potato chips that come with your sandwich at lunch.
Personal habits -- what we do with our bodies for example, are only one kind. Alexis De Toqueville talked about "habits of the heart" to refer to the particular norms of American culture that make Americans different from Europeans and American civic culture so robust.
Widely shared habits -- how we think, talk and communicate -- can add up to shared culture. Once these habits are shared, largely unseen and made more stubborn and enduring through their use in schools, businesses and politics, cultural change becomes difficult. Some would even say it is impossible.
The emerging conventional wisdom in neuroscience would suggest othewise. The idea that brains are more changeable than was originally understood -- what's called brain plasticity -- may well make a big difference for what kind of culture change is possible. While there are grooves of thinking -- literally ruts along with nueral signals travel -- that are unlikely to change, it is possible to create new neural pathways, that can run along side the old, and become habitual themselves. Kind of like the super highway built alongside the old and slow country road.
Janet Rae-Depree had an interesting article in the New York Times business section two Sundays ago (May 4). While we tend to see creativity and innovation as coming from habit breaking, increasing numbers of brain scientists, coaches and others who work with people and organizations to develop innovation and creativity are saying the opposite. Innovation comes from habit-making. We can, writes Rae-Dupree "create parallel synaptic paths and even entirely new brain cells that can jump our trains of thought onto new innovative tracks."
All of this has great implications for how we as a society go about solving our most pressing social problems. What kind of habit making and habit breaking do we need when it comes to addressing climate change? Or fixing our educational system?
More on that in later posts.
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