John Renesch: Exploring the Better Future

Modern Day Tyrants – Part Two

[Last month I identified the modern day tyrants as the traders and speculators in the financial markets – those who add no value whatsoever other than generating profit for themselves.This article has been adapted from an article titled “Who Are the Modern Day “Tyrants”? published in the June 2002 issue of my monthly newsletter. This month I will complete my thoughts]

                Thomas Paine

These modern day tyrants value short-term financial gratification more than anything else. Their actions are totally inconsistent with a sustainable world in which people are values and life is affirmed. They create no real value in the world, certainly not in the way most of us think about adding value, such as an exchange of something for something else. Their sole purpose is to make a profit, and to do so with the least amount of capital as possible. They do not invest in companies. None of their cash ever owns a stock or allows any company to expand. None of their cash ever creates jobs. They have no loyalty to any cause or group of people (unless it is their own staffs).

Like it or not, traders are driving the “train of capitalism” – the most dominant economic system in the world. CEOs, directors, executives with vested stock and holding options, investment bankers, brokers, and investors of all sizes are merely passengers on this “train” which traders are driving faster and faster. No longer is it sufficient to own a good sound investment in a company that is producing a decent product. These players require minute-by-minute stock evaluations which drive their decisions (often programmed by computer) which in turn has all the rest of us jumping through hoops. CEOs, directors and major investors sometimes think they are in control but the people most influential in this craziness – those who are really pulling the strings and manipulating stock values – are the growing cadre of day traders who are taking bigger and bigger profits in larger and larger numbers in shorter and shorter timeframes.

How many decisions to remain dependent on Middle East oil are influenced by stock values in publicly-traded companies? How many third world cultures have been violated and how many non-industrialized people have been MacDonaldized because of corporate-wide drivers to maintain stock price? How many traditions have been trampled so more growth can be documented in the annual report? How many weapons need to be sold in order to maintain quarterly projections?

How many lobbyists are needed to purchase special tax breaks so stock value will be enhanced? How many short cuts are taken in manufacturing and ethics to save money and increase earnings in order to maintain optimism on The Street?

How many natural treasures are sacrificed in order to enhance projections for future earnings and, therefore, a better price today? How many children are forced into near-slavery conditions so a trader in Manhattan can make an extra million in one day?

I don’t mean to imply that traders are consciously doing something malicious. But they are having a huge negative impact on the rest of us. What is worse is that they are seemingly oblivious to it. What could be even worse yet is that they are not oblivious and simply don’t care!

The time is here for all of us – traders, doctors, merchants, consumers and teachers – to be responsible for our choices and accountable for our actions.

Few people realize that the “economy” that most of us think about (the exchange of real goods and services) is a mere fraction of the amount of financial transactions taking place in the world every day. More than 90% of the world’s economic activity has nothing at all to do with any exchange of value; it is all about trading – betting on fluctuations and making huge fortunes as quickly as possible. The economy that most of us are part of could be compared to the vending machines income as a part of the total gross revenues of a Las Vegas gambling casino. It is part of the total revenue but a very small part.

Like the kings and queens in centuries past, traders are simply going about their lives taking their nobility for granted – oblivious to any negative impact they might be having in the world. But if you accept that we all have impact on each other – and that we have some impact even if we sit in our room every day and “do” nothing – then what is the impact  these traders have on the rest of the world, particularly those in other parts of the world, who are so heavily influenced by American capitalism?

Some time back, I saw an infomercial on television that was pitching a system which you could purchase and become an overnight stock trader! Doesn’t this suggest that we are rapidly becoming a society of traders instead of investors? So who has to work anymore? Let’s just sit home and trade all day! There’s no sense working at a job making something that people could use to better their lives. There’s no need to leave the house and sweat for a living building a house or providing a service that people might require. Let’s make a few trades and make a ton of money sitting on the couch. Hey, who needs to work anyway?


[NOTE: John recommends The Divine Right of Capital, by Marjorie Kelly (Berrett-Koehler, 2001)]

Another Facet for the Conscious Organization

As I have written many times over the years, you cannot enter a dialogue about human consciousness without including the ego.  Well, you could, but you’d be avoiding a primary actor in the process. For all its darkness and lightness, the ego exists in us all – not as a thing to be exorcised, or be rid of, but to master, transcending the negative and utilizing the positive.

In my writings over the past 25 to 30 years on Conscious Leadership and The Conscious Organization, I have covered various facets of consciousness whereby the negative aspects of ego, or shadow, are minimalized, allowing the positive traits of the ego to better contribute.

I just finished reading the book Egonomics where the authors make an elegant case for three principles that not only require us to do things differently but they require us to be different. These three principles are humility, curiosity and veracity. 

      
It occurred to me that while the authors of the book are largely discussing ego in the individual context, as in a leader, I started thinking of it in the organizational context as in the corporate culture.  Here’s how they describe the first of these principles:

        "…humility is intelligent self-respect that keeps us from thinking too much or too little of         ourselves. It reminds us how far we have come while at the same time helping us see how far         short we are of what we can be."

Imagine an organization having this as a cornerstone to their culture. In his book  Beyond Ego: Influential Leadership Starts Within, Canadian consultant Art Horn  defines what I would call “negative ego” as “the part of you that sees yourself as above, below or against other people or circumstances.” This might be the most succinct definition I have come across for the dark side of human ego.

The second Egonomics principle is curiosity:

        "The highest concentration of curiosity isn’t created by adding an ounce of order to a pound of         openness, or vice versa. Trait curiosity requires equal parts of both."

What the authors call “trait curiosity” is built-in, intrinsic, always there - as opposed to episodic curiosity.

Imagine an organizational culture possessing trait curiosity, always curious, always exploring, asking questions. This reminds me of the “learning organization” that became so popular in the early 1990s after the publication of Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline. At the time, it was a departure from the “know it all” cultures that were so dominant, like the U.S. auto makers’ cultures until the 1980s when Japanese manufacturers started kicking Detroit’s butt. This arrogant Detroit culture could be seen as “organizational ego” run rampant.

The third principle for this conscious dominion over ego is veracity, a word we don’t hear much about these days. Here’s part of what the Egonomics authors have to say about it:

        "Fused with humility and curiosity, veracity…. keeps the capital of the ego working for us rather         than  against us. Veracity means truth. Truth refers to facts or reality; it implies accuracy and         honesty.  Truth is a destination. Veracity doesn’t differ from truth in its destination, but it         differs in action.  Veracity implies the habitual pursuit of and adherence to truth. Both pursuit         and adherence matter immensely; pursuit in arriving at truth, and adherence in making a         change once truth is discovered."

Now imagine all three of these principles embedded in an organizational culture where individuals expressing these characteristics are rewarded, respected and admired for their dominion over ego allowing the organization as a whole to exude that same dominion. After all, if one is alive one has an ego. But a healthy functioning ego takes dominion and mastery so it stays clear of those darker sides – like arrogance, defensiveness and bravado to name a few - that do so much damage.

I find these principles to be a great fit for my model of a conscious organization, where people are encouraged to seek out any darkness and shine light on any dysfunction. Thanks to Egonomics, we have more content on which to build.

Conscious leaders who adopt these principles are leaders who have dominion over their egos  and offer hope to all who work in the public or private sectors.


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NOTES:

Egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Our Most Expensive Liability), by David Marcum and Steven Smith, Fireside/Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007

Beyond Ego: Influential Leadership Starts Within, by Art Horn, ECW Press, Toronto, 2008

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, by Peter Senge, Doubleday Currency, New York, 1990

Standing for an Adult Society

In my latest book – The Great Growing Up - I attempt to make a case for the urgent need for our species to grow into full adulthood, to voluntarily evolve, and to cease our adolescent indulgences that are creating such havoc in the world. Ceasing this immature behavior involves recognizing it, pointing it out and saying enough! Let us stop legitimizing this behavior and insist on adult responses to our challenges as a species. Remaining silent is to condone it. Worse yet, remaining silent gives it legitimacy!

My recent interest in Vaclav Havel’s work and, specifically, his 1978 essay “The Power of the Powerless” has revealed this pearl of wisdom (amongst many others):

    You have to begin with the imperative that you’re responsible for the whole world. And if young     people take that kind of position, there’s a lot of hope. In fact, it is the only hope there is.

This “position,” as Havel calls it, is the ultimate adult stand for humankind’s future – each of us needs to be responsible for “the whole world.”

The good news here is it won’t be necessary for everyone in the world to grow up. But it will take a critical mass to shift the culture so that adolescent behavior is frowned upon, where it is not only unfashionable but socially unacceptable. This requires taking a firm stand for something that is wanted, nay demanded, not a position against something that is unwanted.

Changes of this scale have occurred in our lifetimes so we know we can do it, if we have the collective will to do it.

Women’s right to vote, civil rights, and the environmental movement are all outcomes of mental models that have undergone large scale cultural shifts in the past century here in the U.S.  More recently we’ve seen this in the mass demonstrations against tyranny and oppression in the. Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement.

In closing, I quote Lynne Twist who writes about the distinction between a stand and a position:

    Taking a position does not create an environment of inclusiveness and tolerance; instead, it creates     even greater levels of entrenchment, often by insisting that for me to be right, you must be wrong.

    Taking a stand does not preclude you from taking a position. One needs to take a position from time     to time to get things done or to make a point. But when a stand is taken it inspires everyone. It     elevates the quality of the dialogue and engenders integrity, alignment, and deep trust.

When you find yourself in the midst of it, speak out against silly “acting outs” by politicians, the media you consume and any other places where you observe it. You may have to muster up some courage and risk some criticism but I guarantee you will feel better.


[To see my editorial on Havel – “The Myth of Powerlessness” - from my March newsletter click here]

Conscious Futures

This is my first experience at blogging so my rookie eyes and mind can be easily surprised, I suppose. I just heard there have been 150 visits to my last post of mine and I'm surprised there hasn't been at least one posting. So...since somebody is actually reading these, here's another thought fresh from my afternoon walkabout along the streets of San Francisco.

Envision a future where almost everyone makes each choice with consciousness and full attention on what they were doing. Think of the world we could have!

Look at how we got this far in our survival of the fittest evolution. Most people through the ages have been well-intentioned, passionate, caring folks who were doing the best they could with what they had and knew. A few gifted people did magnificent things with their passions and skills, inventing, discovering, creating art and literature, leading movements and serving humanity. And civilization as we know it has evolved pretty positively despite a relative few dark individuals who were more infatuated with hate and power over others than love for their fellow human beings - as most were.

Considering there has been almost no consciousness in play through the millennia, we've done all right so far! But now, for the first time in history we have a new ability...we can destroy ourselves, annihilate the human race. One person can destroy millions of us thanks to our technological advances.

With great power comes responsiubility say sages through the ages. With this significant increase in our ability to do great harm,  comes a need to be a bit more mature in the choices we make, recognizing the long term impact of our actions and converting all the wealth of information we have available to us to practical wisdom.

If we evolved this far without thinking much about it, merely following invention after invention, discovery after discovery, cure after cure, think of what an exciting, sustainable, peaceful and compassionate future we could have if we stayed awake all the time.