Beyond Comfort Zone

We all have a different perception of the reality surrounding us. This is normal. We all perceive reality through the lens of our expectations, fears and wishes, our worldview and our prejudices. Our emotions are powerful colouring lenses or even filters of our perception. But it seems the need of getting accepted by others, power, status, ownership, and achievements can lead not only to a strong distortion of our perceptions, but also to a loss of contact with reality. It appears that people who are exposed to excessive amounts of one of the above-mentioned states are living without direct connection to the world around them. The more they get of them and the longer they stay in this situation, the more their perception is based on fiction.
Too many top leaders in politics and business are subject to this distortion because they stay in office too long. One term is enough! Only exceptional leaders can sustain a second term without getting “lost in space”.
One term of a maximum of five years should be the rule for all top leaders. A second term should be linked to exceptional performance. In addition, there should be a break for at least five years before they can assume a new leadership position. During those five years they should either serve as counsellors or go back to their previous jobs. This could help them correct their perception of reality and avoid spending their energy on a second term, i.e. being concerned with reelection. It would also give more people the opportunity to serve the organization or the society.
The U.S. President Obama seems to be one of those exceptions. His strength is his closeness to the base because he has not been involved in top politics for too long and because he has a natural instinct about the needs, worries and dreams of his constituency. He seems to have an intuitive insight about the reality around him.
In addition, we could see consultative bodies being elected for a much longer period of time, but they would not be allowed to become active top leaders.
Too much power, money, status and attention are powerful distortions of perception; therefore necessitating limits on how much power, income, incentives etc, top leaders can receive. Time is another, additional factor. Clear contracts with performance criteria, expected results and achievements, as well as the participation in the up- and downside could correct some of these distortions. This would prevent top managers and top politicians from behaving like entrepreneurs with other people’s money and literally no personal risk. There are enough entrepreneurial talents willing to take up this kind of challenge. The assertion of not being able to attract qualified people is an excuse to increase their own salary. There are enough leadership talents with the right entrepreneurial spirit and the readiness to serve the organization and the society, if they can get a meaningful job. Meaningfulness is a much more powerful drive than incentives. It motivates other kinds of people to take up the leadership challenge. It is time to get rid of those false entrepreneurs who, at the end, only cost a lot of jobs and taxpayers’ money!
It looks like the control mechanisms of the corporations fail to work properly once greed takes over and is fuelled by insane incentives. Maybe a significant part of the advisory boards should consist of customers and consumers?
We need to re-invent the governing bodies and entities of the organizations and set clear limits to avoid distortions due to greed. Those who are unhappy with theses agreements can still develop a corporation of their own.
We need to bring top leaders closer to the reality of the organizations and the society they serve. Leaders with a distorted perception of reality can not only ruin the economy, costing the taxpayer thousands of billions, but they can bring death and destruction as well.

Enough is enough!

Mario Raich, Ph.D.
Chairman of Learnità Ltd, the Innovation Enabler; www.learnita.com
Associate Prof. EDUCATIS (Switzerland) www.educatis.com
Head of the Institute for Strategic Innovation; www.educatisgsm.com
Visiting Prof. ESADE (Barcelona) www.esade.edu

No doubt we are heading towards a serious economical crisis. The question is not if, but when it will hit us, how severe and how long it will be. But what if the crisis is bigger and longer, than expected? What if we will go from recession to a world wide depression?
In 2008 the US- government has agreed to a 700 Billion bail-out to rescue the financial market. In 2009 a similar package for the rescue of the American Economy is approved. Billions for the bail-out of the car-makers in the USA are requested.  We have a growing number of Bank failures, corporate bankruptcies, and private bankruptcies. Unemployment rates in the development countries reaching record levels. Exports are shrinking. Protectionist policies are growing. Similar situation is visible across in other regions of the world.
The governments are trying to avoid an unnecessary panic; therefore they are not willing to disclose too much insider information. But the first cost cuts, massive lay-offs, abandoned or postponed investments and projects, and closed factories are already a fact. The unemployment in the US and several other countries is rising sharply. Even China is experiencing big problems.
After the greed phase, we are now in the fear phase, when rational arguments do not have a big effect. Instincts are taking over. It is a waste of time and money to fight the specter of the crisis. It is already deeply enrooted in people’s heads. Perception is reality!
Never-the-less in the developed countries we are still lamenting on a very high level! Sure it is tough for those who have lost a lot of money, who have lost their company, who have lost their house and who are unemployed. This is a human tragedy. But we have to understand that this is an intrinsic part of the capitalistic economy. We will not solve it as long as we are searching for solutions within the existing system. We can throw as many billions or even trillions into the black hole created by the greed and illusion of unlimited growth; we will never ever be able to fill it up.
Our economic and political leaders have not understood the sings on the wall. This is not just about economy; it is about our way of life. We need to accept that the American way of life has passed its peak. The time when dreams about unlimited growth were part of our world view is over. The time of the throw-away economy is finished as well.  The sooner we will accept it the better. The disposal economy does not fit the existing reality anymore.
Not just the investment bankers, we all have been chasing a dream of infinite growth and have been living beyond our means. Communism did not survive because it has created a culture where the government was living beyond its means. Capitalism has followed with a culture where companies and consumers did the same. The speculative hype at the end of the financial bubble was only the logical consequence of our greed and fear based economy. After the excesses due to the greed based hype we are now suffering because of the fear based crisis. We all are deplorable victims of the mantra of economics called “growth”.
We know that our economics is unsustainable and is leading towards a crisis again and again. We know that someday we may not recover anymore and get chaos and destruction at the end, but we seem unable to overcome it.
We have forgotten that the basis of the concept of growth was ‘progress’ leading to better life and towards a more equitable society, not just towards quantitative growth. We have lost the meaning it.

Today we should accept that ‘growth’ is only a temporary phenomenon only applicable for new companies and developing countries. It serves to reach the cruising speed; once there it is important to sustain it and to focus on ‘progress’ instead. Growth may be necessary only if we have lost momentum.
Just think about any engine being it a car, a train or even an airplane speeding up without limits. Very soon it would either break apart or get out of the planned trajectory. So, what we need is transformation focused on progress keeping our economies alive and on the right track.
We have become victims of the increasing speed in pour life too. We are rushing all the time somewhere, without taking the time to stand still and ask ourselves why we are doing it. We don’t take the time to ask ourselves the fundamental question: “How much is enough?” This is why can never reach the point of satisfaction. We will never reach happiness, because we will be chasing more of the same until the end of our life.

An old very rich man in his eighties was once asked by his Private Banker how much return from his investments he is expecting and by when. He replied: “Infinity, as soon as possible. Very soon I may not be alive anymore.” Well he probably died quite unhappy and dissatisfied about his life because ne never reached his threshold. He just did not decide how much was enough for him.

The present, very serious, crisis is scary, but it is also an opportunity to change the direction of our economy and our culture from focus on the materialistic values towards a balanced portfolio of values including social and future values as well. It is the opportunity to reflect on the purpose of economy and to ask the question “How much is enough?” It is the opportunity to bring meaning back into our workplace and into politics as well.
We should embrace this opportunity and create a new world where most of the people could have a decent life. Create a world where economy would create meaningful values. We have put forward some ‚seeds for solutions’ in our book „Beyond Business and Society in Transformation, published by Palgrave 2008, written by Mario Raich and Simon Dolan. Chapter 3 ‘Planting the seeds of solutions, pp. 103-154

The present crisis could become the transformational moment in our history and in our life as well. Let’s go beyond the existing economy and society!

A few words about my personal transformation related to this project.

The ‘Beyond’ project took me way beyond business oriented entrepreneurship and innovation towards social entrepreneurship and innovation. It brought new meaning into my work. It gave me the opportunity to leverage the partnership experience in my private and business life into new areas. I believe it is leading me towards the search for new ways of life.

The work on ‘Beyond’ was sometime a scary and depressing experience. But it was also a fascinating journey into the depths of the human culture. Today I will share a little bit of these experiences with you.

Before we can explore the view on a new world based on the most important paradigm shift since ten thousand years, we need to take a look at the key issues humanity is facing today. Some of theses key issues are unbelievable challenges and opportunities.

We need to look at the key issues humanity is facing today, before we can explore our destiny allowing the view of a new world based on the most important paradigm shift in society since ten thousand years. We need to understand that we are living in a systematically connected world, where things with no apparent reason can happen, because the reasons can be elsewhere on the planet. Today we need to think and to act on two levels simultaneously: coping with the daily challenges and preparing the future. Our actions and decisions today have a heavy impact in our future! This is true for individuals, for organizations and the whole humanity. Unfortunately we have learned to make our judgments about the future based on linear thinking, a dangerous thing to do in a systemic environment where the linearity may get disrupted anytime by unexpected events.

Mario Raich