Part 1 - Chapter 1
Contents
Reasons for Hope
Chapter 1 opens with questions about grief and anxiety about climate change, and swiftly moves to an argument that the 'shift' coming will be the biggest for 75,000 years. Once again, we are invited to believe that business can be both for the environment and for-profit (in the broader sense than money). To make the shift, we have to change 'who you are, how you think, and how you make meaning' (p. 5). 'Doing differently at this scale requires us to become someone different'.
The argument that 'shift happens' gains momentum and traction. Picasso and Einstein enter as 'key players in the transformation of art and physics' (through pluralism and the use of multiple perspectives). Acting differently required understanding differently, after an 'inner shift' in identity and meaning-making. The perspective that 'the world you are experiencing today [is] inherently unpredictable and emergent' prevents capture of what is evolving by looking at the past and present, because the future is 'filled with inherent, irreducible uncertainty' (p. 6).
Adaptive capacity enters the lexicon of the book - the capacity to navigate contradiction and ambiguity. The authors signal they will use quantum physics and relativity to ask different questions and find better answers. A subjective epistemology is adopted:
p. 7 "All ... meanings are true, at least for you in your reality when you make meaning"
but there is recognition that subjective meaning may not related to the world as it is (an objective ontology). The mix of subjective meaning making and objective reality is expressed as follows (p. 7)
"the reality you experience is shaped by your meaning making, out of the raw material that is actually present"
Describing the release of Nelson Mandela, the argument is made that hope can replace fear in periods of great uncertainty and changes lens and ways of thinking can bring hope.
Emergent strategies are those the focus on maximising the generation of desired outcomes (even if they cannot be seen, predicted or realised in the present situation). (p. 8).
Theory U
Scharmer's Theory U is introduced ('let go of what you know, poke at things, see what happens, and then learn'). In social science, this would be an Action Research (Learning by Doing) strategy. By engaging in (what academics call) reflexivity, chip away are presumptions and get past distortions of 'what actually is' (there's that objective ontology surfacing again).
Emergent strategies, based on Theory U, create prosperous futures through innovations and developing adaptive capacity (not skills and competencies). Back-to-basics is rejected as a strategy, viewed as 'blind faith' not 'grounded hope'. (p. 9).
Successful emergent strategies neither abandon or emulate the past - but it requires giving up hope that you can identify pathways through a single lens/view of reality. Instead, you use multiple lenses to view reality (cognitive/economic pluralism, I guess). It requires integrating different disciplines, working with contradictory beliefs to create generative dialogues (90% listening to stories, and 10% examining 'facts').
Picasso and Einstein
The shifts brought about by Picasso and Einstein can be contrasted with the art of Giotto and the physics of Newton. Both represented reality from a single perspective (geometry in the case of Giotto, and classical mechanics in the case of Newton). The Enlightenment stemmed from the co-evolution of artistic and scientific realities based on Euclid's geometry, and this world view came to dominate all aspects of life.
Picasso and Braque ended this with the revolution of Cubism. They viewed reality as much more than you can see (presenting objects from many sides in the same piece of art), and challenging the idea that any single perspective is privileged (p. 11).
As for Einstein, he wrestled with the anomalies of Newtonian physics in relation to very large/fast objects and extremely small objects. Einstein observed that two moving people do not see, record or understand the same 'objective' event in the same way. Moreover, whilst he could observe the impact of gravity (the fact of its existence), he could not understand why gravity occurred. He created theory that explains how large objects distort the space in which smaller objects exist, and thereby change their behaviour. All behaviour is 'relative' to other objects also in the environment. Extending this to social systems, the authors set out that human behaviour is also relative to other behaviours that exist within a person's domain of existence. A person can not exist and observe in isolation: the 'actuality' of something can never be objective or neutral because its character is shaped by the presence of other things in its ecosystem. In short, the observer affects the observed.
- "Newton simply assumed that an independent observer could measure objectively, without any distrortion or influencing what was observed. Einstein relaised that this fundamental assumption was not valid, that this assumption was why classical theory gave useless, and sometimes even harmful predictions in certain areas."
In place of either/or logic, complementarity can be the starting point for a discipline. Mobile phones, the author's claim, depend on the reality of relativity and quantum physics. In foregrounding the subjectivity of experience, the authors still reject solipsism (the all reality is a project of the mind). In keeping with Relativity, each object affects other objects and therefore the act of observing gives form to the matter observed - it shapes a person's observed reality (through the effects it has on other objects), but reality itself is not a projection of the mind.
The relevance in the context of a book on organisations and organisating is that 'the more detailed precision you have in defining and executing your strategy, the less you can recognise emergent possibilties' (p. 16).
The authors introduce 'pivoting' - learning new ways to be rapidly through improvisation. Pivoting means not waiting until you have a perfect analysis of data, and acting on imperfect, incomplete data. Resilience and antifragility are distinguished. To be resilient is to survive unchanged in the fact o attack, whilst anti-fragility is the capacity to transform, to become more able to thrive because of an attack. The FairShares Commons, combined with adaptive behaviour, is a strategy for antifragility.
Adaptive Capacity
Adaptive Capacity begins with accepting the ambiguity and uncertainty of life, and also that a thing has properties that arise out of its context and relationship with other things, and the paths they have travelled. The same is true of people. (Ubuntu philosophy: "I am because we are" - inter-connectedness is at the heart of what it is to be human).
"Your identity and your path through life is created by each step you take".
The authors introduce Otto Laske's map of maps (Constructive Developmental Framework) and reference it against Kegan's stages of adult development. Adaptive capacity helps to guard against bias and distortion, but there are no 'final' reality that is complete. It is always distorted by the process of becoming. Adaptive capacity enables a person to graduate from linear to meta-thinking (transformational and dialectical in character). Nevertheless there are limits imposed by our DNA and early life-stage experiences. (p. 20).
A characteristic can be both a strength and weakness depending on context (p. 21-22).
Adaptive Organisations
The authors introduce adaptive capacity (anti-fragility) in relation to the United Nations' 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and climate emergency. The characteristics of adaptive organisations are described as:
- seeing clearly what is happening
- seeing clearly the difference between what is important and what is irrelevant
- attaching appropriate meaning to what is happening
- acting appropriately
For more, see Chapters 12 to 16.
Adaptive individuals and organisations is insufficient - a third element (incorporation as a FairShares Commons) is vital for a circular economy of trust.
Society and the Economy
The authors introduce the idea of 'The Economy of the Free' (a regenerative economy). The authors take an instrumental view of economy - as something created by people in society to assist with provisioning members of society. Accepting Polanyi's perspective, the economy is never independent of society.
(Some passages use the language of 'higher' and 'lower' developmental stage, indicating hierarchies of concepts and development pathways).
The authors talk of 'Stage 4' development - up to this point, the stages of development have not yet been set out. Nevertheless, it becomes clear that Stage 3 is one in which self-identity and expertise are so intertwined that an attack on disciplinary thinking feel like a personal attack. At level 3, inter-disciplinary warfare is the norm. Using Steve Keen's comments on Economics, the authors argue for discarding 'expertise' that is 'past its sell-by date'. This leads into arguments regarding 'what comes next?'
Advancing early ideas for a regenerative economy, the authors taken the Ubuntu injunction that "I am because you are" as an argument for the inclusion of multiple stakeholders directly in the governance of enterprises, and for sharing wealth generated.
This brings us back to the meaning of 'free'. Free businesses cannot embrace a property mentality (otherwise they will be bought and sold as slaves). Based on Einstein's relativity, they declare an intention to sketching a 'general theory of economics'.
Drawing on the positive experiences of transforming South Africa into an all-stakeholder economy, hope is offered that 'us and them' can be replaced by an integrated 'us' through active listening and empathy. 'Viable transition' (p. 27) requires listening to 'almost everyone', and a combination of:
- recognising the current paradigm is failing
- ambition to do better
- questioning of the current paradigm
- intimate knowledge of past and present
- willingness to listen to and experiment with opposing views (non-judgemental)
- Willingness to adopt multiple lenses
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