ATCA Briefings

Dear ATCA Colleagues

[Please note that the views presented by individual contributors are not necessarily representative of the views of ATCA, which is neutral. ATCA conducts collective Socratic dialogue on global opportunities and threats.]

Richard Thomas Gerber is CEO of Intelegen Inc, a "proof-of-concept" company based in Michigan, USA, now celebrating it's eleventh year; with a current focus on high quality video production, streaming and interactive media development; system development, meta research and predictive analytics derived from data mining the Internet. Richard is also an informatics systems architect with 22 years experience working in the Detroit metropolitan area in the US. He has serviced or acted as an information technology consultant to over 200 clients from a broad range of industries specializing in accounting and finance applications and systems integration and custom development. He has worked for Moore Stephens International and as a consultant for Daimler Chrysler, General Motors and Ford Motor. He also currently hosts and maintains virtual manufacturing environments for several companies with time critical manufacturing operations and multiple physical plant and office locations across the US. He writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Illusion of Energy Scarcity & Abundance in The Universe

While I would not say that I disagree with this ATCA Socratic Dialogue, especially in regard to reducing energy consumption, I would still say that it is not the simple solution.

The problem is that much of the energy reduction dialogue promotes the illusion of scarcity and a lack of energy in the universe. This perspective is a falsehood. There is not a lack of energy in the universe as all matter is energy.

We should be thinking from a perspective of abundance and prosperity. Just because solutions exist does not mean they get implemented. There are alternative energy solutions ready to be implemented, but the causes -- or market conditions -- simply have not occurred for their implementation.

Perhaps it is an issue of consciousness, when the planet's collective consciousness reaches that certain threshold then the new technologies will be manifest.

Best wishes

Richard
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Mark Goyder is Founder Director of Tomorrow's Company, a not-for-profit research and agenda-setting organisation responsible for the business-led Tomorrow's Global Company inquiry whose findings are to be published in June 2007. A business-led think-tank, Tomorrow's Company is committed to creating a future for business which makes equal sense to staff, shareholders and society. After 15 years as a manager in manufacturing businesses, Mark initiated the Royal Society for the encouragement of arts, manufacturing and commerce (RSA) Tomorrow's Company Inquiry, a business-led inquiry into 'the role of business in a changing world'. The objective was to develop a shared vision of the company of the future. In 1995 he founded Tomorrow's Company and, over the past ten years, has inspired and challenged the boards, leaders and managers of leading large and small companies with his clear vision and practical insights into the changing agenda for leadership, governance, and stakeholder relationships, most recently with the publication of Restoring Trust: investment in the twenty-first century (June 2004). A prolific writer and winner of the Institute of Management Studies (IMS) Tillers Millennium Trophy for best speaker, he has addressed audiences all over the world. Mark is also a member of the British Airways Corporate Responsibility Board, the BT Leadership Advisory Panel and the Camelot Advisory Panel for Social Responsibility. He also writes a monthly column in Ethical Corporation Magazine and Accountancy Age.

Tony Manwaring is Chief Executive of Tomorrow's Company. Tony has had a series of management, marketing and communications roles in the voluntary sector with NCH (formerly National Children's Home), Diabetes UK and most recently, the disability rights charity Scope, where he was chief executive for over three years. Before that he worked as head of The General Secretary's Office for the Labour Party, playing a key role in transforming its operational fortunes as it became New Labour. He also has a track record in CSR, working with a number of major companies in often ground-breaking partnerships. Tony has a degree in Economics from Cambridge and an MA in Industrial Relations from Warwick. He has a long standing interest in business, leadership and organisational change, having contributed to a comparative project on labour markets, whilst working at the LSE and the Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin; and also the MIT' study 'The Future of the World Automobile Industry, before taking responsibility for industrial policy at the Labour Party. He is currently completing a project on leadership and change with the think-tank, Demos. They write:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Co-creation of Sustainable Frameworks with Humility

What is fascinating about this Socratic dialogue on ATCA is the way that it highlights the creative tension between the change which individuals can initiate, and the change which companies can initiate. In the latest submission, Aurora Carlson argues powerfully that change starts with each and every individual. The Tomorrow's Global Company (TGC) Inquiry team reinforces that global companies have a unique part to play in achieving that change.

What Aurora Carlson is saying for individuals in their personal lives is exactly mirrored by what the signatories of the TGC report are saying about their potential contribution as individuals with responsibility and influence in their corporate lives. The Inquiry Team start the whole report by saying "We all believe that for companies to succeed into the future they must play a greater role in contributing to solving the problems that society faces, including environmental degradation, poverty and the abuse of human rights."

To survive, they acknowledge, companies have to make a profit and pay a dividend. But the current frameworks in which the market operates are leading to unsustainable outcomes and there are major issues which the market and the political systems have not resolved, and companies now need to widen their role so that these problems are addressed.

Here are two different perspectives on our future. They are both right. Without individuals changing their approach, we will never achieve the sustainability to which we all aspire. Equally, without global companies taking responsibility beyond their traditional space, we will never create the frameworks through which enlightened individuals can be fully effective.

It would be a mistake to see the two perspectives as in any way opposed. If individuals move faster in personal change, there will be more opportunity for companies who share a vision of a sustainable future. If global companies move faster in corporate change to redefine success, embed values and create frameworks, then that will reward and reinforce the efforts of individuals and of civil society. This ATCA Socratic dialogue represents a reaching out between those who would focus on the role of individuals acting as citizens and those (also individuals) who are working in and focusing on large global businesses.

No-one should assume that global companies are insensitive to the seriousness of the problems that we face. This report -- and the people who have signed it -- is clear evidence that many inside global companies are grappling at corporate level with the same issues that Anouradha Bakshi and Aurora Carlson are tackling at individual and civic levels. And one of the things they know they have to change is the frameworks and incentives that -- using the thinking of Anouradha Bakshi -- discourage companies or consumers from putting eco before ego. Solutions will come from weaving together these perspectives -- not from separating them. Sir Mark Moody Stuart's ATCA contribution shows how, from his experience, it can be possible to redefine success, and create new business opportunities that more closely serve the needs of a community. But equally we can learn from the issues raised by Anouradha Bakshi that progress will be impossible without creating the frameworks that will reward the right behaviours by individuals and companies. The best of these frameworks will not be produced by government(s) in isolation but by careful co-creation with concerned businesses and NGOs.

Why should those buying pre-packaged sandwiches and bottled water in the developed nations be able to demand bio-degradable packaging, when people in emerging economies must contend with the results of non-degradable pouches clogging their sewers? Such questions are the 'litmus test' of sustainability. Global companies need to learn from dialogue with those who ask them.

Companies started manufacturing and distributing their products in such packaging out of a desire to make the products and services enjoyed and now taken for granted in one part of the world available to others. Yet their actions have had unintended consequences. That suggests that companies need to think more systemically about what constitutes success. The TGC report gives powerful examples of companies doing this - Dr Reddy's developing improvement programmes to ensure they produce more with less, or Anglo-American who have developed a technique of social and environmental impact assessment and say that it has learned among things that "for the communities concerned, perceptions are realities; independent third parties are important in building trust; it helps to break down procurement tenders to give better access to local suppliers; and that dynamics between stakeholders are as important as each company/stakeholder relationship."

This is the spirit which will be needed to bring together the many 'actors' and 'interests, rooted in a real understanding of each others' perspectives. It is for this reason that the new report identifies humility as a characteristic of leaders in Tomorrow's Global Company. We look forward to more detailed contributions to the Socratic Dialogue from ATCA members and members of the Inquiry Team.

Best wishes

Mark Goyder and Tony Manwaring
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Aurora Carlson is the founder of the Open One Center in Sweden, which is dedicated to teaching holistic health and to raising the level of collective consciousness. She has studied at Bucharest, Stockholm, Uppsala and Halmstad universities and at the Nordic School of Public Health in Gothenburg. She has served as an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) advisor in the mission of rebuilding the Romanian Red Cross after the revolution and has worked for over six years with the Swedish National Red Cross. For four years she has been a teacher at the Ayurveda School in Markaryd and has later developed a program for Ayurvedic counsellor certification. Her main interest is the evolution of human consciousness. For the last six years, Aurora has lectured extensively about spiritual ways to reach maximum individual and collective potential. She is a mother of two and lives on the West coast of Sweden. As an active member of the Alliance for the New Humanity founded by Dr Deepak Chopra, a distinguished ATCA contributor, Oscar Arias and others, she is working on bringing together those individuals who are consciously expressing higher human values. She writes:

Dear DK and Colleagues

Re: Personal Transformation First

I'd like to thank Anouradha Bakshi for a brilliant observation of the ego-system in relation to the ecosystem. I have just returned from a trip to Bucharest, a city I imagine is quite representative for what happens in most developing countries. From what I have seen, the main focus of life there covers a scale from survival (in slums like the ones Anouradha describes) to the race of accumulating material assets. It is an absolutely normal behaviour given the situation.

I have asked myself the same question -- what can be done? If such a huge number of people are to indulge in the same ego behaviour we now realise is so destructive -- how can those of us who can see the consequences take responsibility for our collective future?

My conclusion is that it is about our own transformation, not about the transformation of others. It is about our own values, not about changing "theirs". If we search deep inside, we will notice that evolution has taken us to a point where we understand that the wellbeing of all people is indeed as important as our own. We now understand that everyone's behaviour affects everyone; we can no longer ignore the suffering and destruction we have collectively created, as its results are now implacably affecting us all.

What needs to happen is that we, the people of the richest nations, need to revise the system of values behind our political, economical, social and environmental behaviour and place the wisdom of generosity, understanding, love, empathy, creativity and non-judgment first. The change needs to happen in every one of us, and it is obviously already happening. We are at the point where this movement in human consciousness is gathering momentum. We need to connect, to realise that the best we can do is to cooperate with this global change of heart. We can actively pursue our new values, we can set aside doubts and fears saying that there is not enough good for everyone, we can understand that giving doesn't mean being left with less, but with more of what is truly important for us today.

As I see it, the solution is that we all -- individuals, organizations, businesses, nations -- open our hearts and give our time, money, energy and most of all, our love to those people who need it. Not as a favour to someone else, but as a gift to ourselves. Thank you.

With love

Aurora

[ENDS]