I’ve kept a copy of some pages of the International Herald Tribune from my visit to Japan a couple of months ago. The article, on May 16, 2010, was titled: Challenging the king of economic statistics. The article described the sacred cow of GDP, I’ll just quote a bit of it:
High-G.D.P. Man has a long commute to work and drives an automobile that gets poor gas mileage, requiring him to spend a lot on fuel. The morning traffic and its stresses are not too good for his car (which he replaces every few years) or his cardiovascular health (which he treats with expensive pharmaceuticals and medical procedures).
High-G.D.P. Man works hard, spends hard. He loves going to bars and restaurants and adores his big house, which he protects with a state-of-the-art security system. High-G.D.P. Man and his wife pay for a sitter for their children and a nursing home for their aging parents. They do not have time for housework so they employ a full-time housekeeper. The do not have time to cook much, so they usually order in. They are too busy to take long vacations.
All those things — cooking, cleaning, home care, vacations and so forth — the the kind of activity that keep Low-G.D.P. Man and his wife busy. High-G.D.P. Man likes his washer and dryer; Low-G.D.P. Man does not mind hanging his laundry on a clothesline. High-G.D.P. Man buys bags of prewashed salad at the grocery store; Low-G.D.P. Man grows vegetables in his garden.
When High-G.D.P. Man wants a book, he buys it; Low-G.D.P. Man checks it out of the library. High-G.D.P. Man wants to get in shape, he joins a gym; Low-G.D.P. Man digs out an old pair of Nikes and runs through the neighborhood.
By economic measures, there is no doubt. High-G.D.P. Man is superior to Low-G.D.P. Man. hat we cannot really say is whether his life is any better…
The article goes on to say that Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate from the University of Chicago and his colleagues have concluded that assessing a population’s quality of life would require metrics from at least seven categories: health, education, environment, employment, material well-being, interpersonal connectedness and political engagement. They also decided that any country that was serious about progress should start measuring its “equity” — that is, the distribution of material wealth and other social goods…
The fact that author Jon Gertner continually uses “Man” grates on me quite a bit, but I think what he points out is a very useful perspective. Now, add to this conundrum an article from Michael Synder of the Business Insider: The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it. This thoughtful article simply points out how ill-distributed wealth is in the U.S.. Some of the statistics from the article are startling:
• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don’t contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
In other words, G.D.P. further fails as a measure of progress since most of us don’t have enough money to succeed that way anyway! Our world is changing so rapidly we’re like frogs in boiling water.
In the last week as well, there is finally some public discussion about deflation. Close friend and colleague Robert Theobald, a British Socioeconomist was warning 12 years ago that deflation was the real issue to be concerned about, not inflation. That’s certainly been the case in Japan for the last decade where falling prices have taken people and the economy into completely uncharted territory. This article by Paul Krugman: CAN DEFLATION BE PREVENTED? gives a good overview of this new situation.
What seems to be true is that we’re entering a deflationary period with an increasing separation between those who have monetary wealth and those who do not with a system that measures progress by how much we spend and consume. Seems like it is time to take Butan’s inquiry into Gross National Happiness seriously!
Once again I am awake in the middle of the Japanese night. Head and heart buzzing from yesterday’s work. I was invited to join KDI — Knowledge Management Initiative in Tokyo for a afternoon workshop with participants in their new Future Center. KDI was started 10 years ago to work with knowledge creation and realationships to knowledge, building in part on the inspiring work of Dr. Ikugjiiro Nonaka . There approach is one which places emphasis on “individual vitality” and the “dynamic field,” or ba.
Crazy bunch, with titles like “Wild Knowledge Architect, “Ba Conductor,” and “Sexy Works Stylist,” they work together in an almost completely flexible workspace in the middle of Roppongi, the international district of Tokyo. What caught my attention most is where they’re headed. They’ve been looking at the Future Center idea currently being developed in more than 30 locations in Europe. See The Reality of European Future Centres. Last week I wrote about a deep resonance between the work being done by GreenHouse Project and Kufunda Learning Village in Southern Africa and the work of St. Luke’s Health Initiatives. Guess what? The resonance continues.
Future Centers, at least as envisoned by Dr. Takahiko Nomura, KDI founder, are incredibly similar to leadership learning centers in the Berkana Exchange. The core work of Future Centers is to surface the knowledge, wisdom and leadership already present in organizations and to create conditions which all it to be used by all for maximum creativity and innovation. AND, the same four core competencies we surfaced last month at St. Luke’s Health Initiatives show up as core in Future Centers:
- connect and convene
- peer learning
- source of research and information
- strengths based approach
So we spent the afternoon with about 35 people from a dozen or so Japanese companies who are thinking about embracing the Future Center concept, each creating a Future Center inside their company as well as a trans-local network which links these Future Centers as a community of Practice.
I think it is going to happen. These folks are going to step forward and start using all forms of conversational leadership to invite innovation forward. AND, like elsewhere in the world they’re not doing it because it is the next groovy thing to do, they’re doing it because they know their survival depends on it.
I continue to be impressed with the level of receptivity in Japan for new ways of thinking about leadership, creativity and innovation. It is not just thinking about it — it is a yearning to step into new practice fields with new partners.
One last note. We talked about the community of practice work KDI has done over the last 10 years. The conversation is incomplete, but part of what we talked about is how in their communities of practice perhaps the most important thing that’s happened is that people have learned they are not alone. Others have some of the same intentions and ideas they do. We’ve always looked at Communities of Practice as places where knowledge is created. That’s part of their function. What may be more important is that they are places which people discover more about their own identity and step into their own leadership.
Beginning of a fascinating several weeks in my adopted homeland.
I’ve had the chance to come to Southern Africa a couple of times a year for the last decade to work with wonderful people. My work has been as part of The Berkana Institute and our efforts to create the Berkana Exchange as a translocal network of people and places building healthy and resilient communities. Especially for the last couple of years I’ve been working with people from Johannesburg, Harare, Cape Town and Durban about how to find and support the people doing “our” kind of community work. This work is based on beliefs that are resonant with those listed on the About section of Resilient Communities. We find them everywhere (next month my daughter Annie Virnig and I will be talking about these at the 2010 TEDxTokyo — but that is a different blog).
So, what’s cooking? Over the last three months the GreenHouse Project in Johannesburg, South Africa and Kufunda Learning Village outside Harare, Zimbabwe, have been involved in an in-depth Appreciative Inquiry Process with the “Champions” of different community-based work and their partners. They both asked certain key questions:
- What motivates you? What gives you strength?
- What do you value about your work?
- What are you working to change?
- Really Why are you doing this work?
- Where do you see yourself and your work in the near future?
- What do you need to take you and your work to the next level?
- What natural partnerships are emerging and will be necessary in your work?
- What practical lessons have you learned? Are you sharing them with others? How do they respond to your work and the lessons you have learned?
- How is your work and the lessons from it useful?
- What have you learnt from sharing with others?
In a word, these sessions have been amazing! Listening to Dorah Lebelo talk about these conversations with people who are just getting on with getting on — who are changing their lives for the better by working with what they have without complaint — was inspiring. And, at the same time, we noticed the difference in her energy when speaking about this work as compared to her protracted battle with the National Lotteries Commission to release funds already awarded to GreenHouse Project for two major construction projects.
I’m going to link their reports here — the one from GreenHouse Project is over 50MB so it will take a while to download — filled with lovely pictures and well worth the wait! GreenHouse Project Report. Kufunda Learning Village Report. They are amazing, powerful and delightful reads.
As we talking about the learning from this process some different key phrases kept surfacing:
- growing the work while shrinking the institutions
- reclaiming relationships with people, land and food
- learning — doing – reflecting
- finding new meaning, creating new beliefs
At its core this is all really simple stuff. And, most of us have forgotten it.
As our conversations continued we began to speak of the role of GreenHouse and Kufunda in all this. They are hubs, seed crystals, catalysts, enzymes. They play the critical role of helping people and systems see themselves and each other. But what do they really do?
Okay, this is where it gets even more interesting. They do the same things as the people ar St. Luke’s Health Initiatives mentioned in other places on my blogs. Last month, working with SLHI in Phoenix we eventually said they have four core competencies:
- They connect and convene
- They support peer learning
- They are the “goto” place for information and knowledge
- They work from a strengths-based approach.
BINGO. In their roles as hubs and catalysts, this is exactly what GHP and Kufunda do. This is the core work which supports communities that practice what they believe and which aspires to create an influence beyond the immediate boundaries of their work.
Lots more to say about all this, but I’ll stop with this teaser!
Bob is a thoughtful progressive thinker who strives to balance innovative thinking with the practical work of people and organizations in communities. Bob has a unique ability to pay attention to emergent themes within group conversations; this ability requires patience, trusting the process, adaptability, and being responsive to what and who is in the room. If you are interested in having a conversation that is framed with compassion, non-traditional notions, commitment to social justice, and integrates the human spirit you will want to be in contact with Bob.
From when I was in Croatia working on creating Horizon, Bob was always a mentor and friend. Besides his deep wisdom and amazing guidance, Bob was simply one of the best people to work with. He just exerts caring to the point that he’s the only person I know that could call you a “name” and you’d thank him for doing it out of caring for you!