The Political State

 

"I have to say I thought she was a very intelligent premier with her own vision... on a day like today you kind of forget the reasons why this happened and you just feel kind of bad for the person and their family."

 

I remember a story I was told early on in my political staffing career as a sort of warning as to why it was important to be both mindful and cagey about connecting with the outside world.  The story was about a Minister in the Mike Harris government who'd gotten a bit too entitled to their entitlements and been caught with their hand in the till.

 

The story was about this Minister being hounded from the Legislature, down the tunnel between the Leg and Whitney Block and right to his office by reporters asking if he was a pig at the trough.  The fella's kids were apparently teased at school, the wife looked at with derision when out and about in town.

 

This was a story told almost with relish.  No surprise it was told by a war roomer who may or may not have played a role in pushing out the negativity of the story to the degree it was.

 

That's the thing about highly aggressive, elbows-up politics.  It is a bloodsport and if you are thinking of participating, be ready to get bruised and expect a little collateral damage.

Which is not to say politicians don't do things they should be held accountable for.  But as the case with a constantly-punished child, if you don't feel you can do anything right, what's the incentive to try?

 

Not a very welcoming environment for someone less interested in partisanship than policy, is it?  Or pols with families who want a division between personal and work lives?

 

It used to be the case that there were open and closed doors when it came to political sniping.  You could disagree with someone's actions or opinions, as it were, without demonizing their character.  As politics becomes more partisan, more focused on the win than policy, this is changing.

 

People don't matter.  Individual talent is judged only in its ability to serve The Party.  The Party -

not the constituents, not the Parliamentarians - hold the reigns. 

 

As such individuals are thrown under buses, are character assassinated, are subject to false, overblown and cherry-picked claims by opponents that long to see them bleed.

 

Nothing personal, don't you know - it's just business.

 

I understand very well that this is how politics functions and know all the argument in favour of aggressive, cut-throat partisan bickering.  I just also know that this is why politics isn't working and why we have a democratic deficit.

 

The aggressive, competitive, kill-or-be killed partisans aren't preventing a problem in their attempts to demolish their opponents - they are the problem.

 

At the very least, it's something to think about, no?

 

And I think every single legislator, every caucus member, every part volunteer whether in the Progressive Conservative party or across the aisle from the Progressive Conservatives needs to think hard about that.  Needs to think hard about how our systems of party politics keep great people from doing great things, regardless of where you are.  And I hope that at the very least this will start us in a conversation about that.

 

Sweet Home Alberta, Where the Ground's A Slick Hue

Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard old Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember
The CPC don't need him around anyhow

Neil Young has made some headlines of late.  He's declared the Alberta Oil Sands a man-made disaster, going so far as to compare Fort McMurray to a Hiroshima-like wasteland.

This was a bit over-the-top; Hiroshima was a crowded city that was flattened with the intent of massacring everyone in a demonstration of force to cow the Japanese military machine. 

Comparisons between the Oil Sands and Mordor are far more appropriate - it is a landscape rendered inhospitable by activity designed to grow profit and power.  Nobody (no human being, at any rate) was living there, so no direct effort to harm people has been at play.  

The Oil Companies are doing what they are supposed to do - finding easy ways to profit and maximize their profit through the cheapest means of production possible.  Alberta is benefiting from the oil-generated wealth, so from an economic point of view, they're happy.  

The Stephen Harper Government of Canada is determined to slay the deficit, reduce public services and get everyone focused where they should be - on profit and consumerism - so they're all for expansion in the Alberta Oil Sands.  Drill more, sell more, diversify markets, get all Canada working in the natural resource sector - what can go wrong in this picture?

Well, a lot, actually.  Lots has been written about the impact of Oil Sands development on the flora and fauna of the region (what was there before, not so much now), but it's the leakage and potential impact on people that's of gravest concern.  Since 2009, for instance, there have been correlations made between higher-than-usual cancer rates in First Nations communities around the Oil Sands development region.  It's taken years of intense lobbying to even get to a point where studies are being done on this correlation to see if and how a connection might be made.

This probably annoys the Feds to know end; they're trying to get out of the healthcare business and focus on the economy and all this health-and-oil stuff is a big inconvenience.  Like a dentist-weary patient with a growing cavity, it's one of those things best ignored in the hopes that the problem will just stay as it is and not get in the way of extracting all that black sugar.

So, through a spokesperson, Stephen Harper weighed in with his response to Mister Young:

"The resource sector creates economic opportunities and employs tens of thousands of Canadians in high-wage jobs, contributing to a standard of living that is envied around the world and helping fund programs and services Canadians rely on." 

It's so true.  If Albertans weren't making good money off the Oil Sands, who could the provincial government tax to pay for cancer treatments for First Nations folk?

Team Harper has gone on to criticize Neil Young as being a bit of the pot calling the kettle tar-black; 

"Even the lifestyle of a rock star relies, to some degree, on the resources developed by thousands of hard-working Canadians every day."

This is also true.  Just look at Mike Duffy, former fundraising superstar for the CPC - you think that sort of lifestyle comes cheap?  The same, incidentally, applies to former Ontario Conservative MPP Peter Shurman; his boss Tim Hudak wanted to keep Shurman's high-wattage star in Thornhill despite knowing he lived in Niagara; that kind of star power demands a certain privilege.  

If you want to talk about Canadian celebrities, though, even Neil Young has nothing on Rob Ford.  Celebrities are supposed to attract attention and catalyze opinion (Ford or against).  

Toronto's Mayor has become the world's most famous Canadian and loves the attention he gets; the problem is, being a a celebrity is really disruptive to the work of Toronto's Council.

More time is spent discussing Ford follies, more media ink is wasted on following the latest scandal than is being spent addressing the critical issues addressing the city - and the country.

Toronto has been repeatedly paralyzed due to the celebrity of its Mayor, much as Canadian Politics is often mired in the notoriety of its Senators.  Scrutiny is a good thing, but it's only part of the role of Parliaments and Councils - weighing the public's varied interests and setting direction and policy, one would think, are at least as important.

Yes, Neil Young has generated headlines over his comments.  Yes, policy makers like Stephen Harper are telling him to keep his nose out of business that's not his.  But the Oil Sands aren't just about the economic opportunities for Oil Companies, the province of Alberta or federal coffers; it's an environmental and health issue as well.  

In a democracy, such things are the public's business.  Given how cynical and disengaged Canadians have become due to the cynical spin of politicians and their spokespersons, any fan of transparency, dialogue and citizen engagement should welcome the intervention of non-political celebrities like Neil Young.

Love him or hate him, agree or disagree with what he says, Young's turning focus back to where in needs to be and catalyzing a conversation that our political celebrities and the Oil Companies themselves have failed to do.

So I hope Mister Harper will remember
As he puts old Neil down
That Canada's about more than money
That we're built on common ground.

Economics Vs Social Economics

 

The first is Albertans — which is mildly puzzling, given their acute economic need for greater immigration to cover deep labour market shortages and the election of a Muslim mayor in Calgary. It may be a reflection of the same phenomenon that we saw in Toronto earlier in the nineties when rapid immigration produced short-term, very strong opposition — which has largely disappeared since.

 

If the only thing that mattered was profit, this trend wouldn't have happened, would it?

 

People aren't rational - they fear differences.  Stigma is an anxious reaction, the same kind of feeling you'd feel giving your first presentation to a big audience.  Like any perceived phobia, regular, contextualized exposure with positive outcomes reduces the perception of threat and builds resiliency.

After, being tough isn't about building walls or firing people - it's about rolling up your sleeves and tackling challenges head on. 

It's a another thing our Economist PM could stand to learn.  As the Toronto example proves, its one Alberta will learn - and which will change their perspective in interesting ways.
 

Women In Poliltics, Diversity in Society

“If that vitriolic anger that we see directed at women is collected in one place for all of us to get a chance to talk about, I think that’s a major contribution that women in public office will make to our country and to our civic life. Because this happens to women every day in offices, and workplaces all across Canada.”

 

 

Anger is a reactive emotion, as is fear.  Both serve a purpose - to motivate people to respond to threats through either fight or flight.  The problem is, these limbic reactions paint with a pretty broad brush - we will feel equally uncomfortable around someone with a physically manifested contagious disease (like Ebola) as we will around a burn victim.

 

So, we fear things that our reactive brains perceive as threats to our health, safety or ability to promote ourselves - our status.  Even when they're not really threats to begin with.  Even when they might just be opportunities for growth, instead.  The more competitive, combative we are as a society, the more prone we are to potential threat identification, which is basically what stigma is.

 

Women in politics increases the pool of potential competitors in an already narrow field.  If you're hyper-combative, anything that whittles away your odds of getting a seat or, more broadly, a job in general is seen as threatening your chances.  The same applies to laws that make it easier for New Migrants to vote or seek work. 

 

Like any fear, we are only controlled by it so long as we refuse to recognize and confront it.  When we do so, we realize that FDR was right - fear itself, not the thing feared, is the problem.

 

For this reason it was incredibly smart of Kathleen Wynne to confront head-on her gender and sexuality right out of the starting gate.  Consider it a kind of inoculation that helps people get past their fear and instead, focus on solutions to the broader challenges society faces.

 

Which is a non-combative, strategic approach to politics that perhaps plans more than one political generation ahead.  While I agree that it is great that a rising number of women in Canadian politics is giving society cause to address gender prejudices, don't short change women the wealth of other contributions they bring to the table.

 

This isn't the first glass ceiling women have had to break through.  It takes a hell of a lot of persistence and planning to change a society, yet it's continues to happen, doesn't it?

 

Progress is like water that way - one way or another, it'll change the landscape.

The Conscious Revolution is Catching

Mental capacity, and the lack of it, was much discussed in and around Ottawa last week.

 

The word "crazy" gets bandied about with alarming regularity, considering how poorly defined it is.  You can use crazy in the sense of nonsensical, bold, aggressive, reluctant, petulant, ignorant, dumb or even as a descriptor for an actual condition of cognitive impairment.  Given its vagueness of meaning, crazy is really a poor term to use as anything other than an insult.  If you want to actually give a situation, a condition or a person meaning, you need to refine your terminology a bit.

 

 

Hence, Rob Ford's functional fixedness is being considered through the lens of a recognized cognitive behaviour suite, obsessive compulsive disorder.  There are plenty of other politicians who could be diagnosed as having a "mental illness" and indeed, many have come forward, admitting to battles with neurologically-originated conditions like depression or alcoholism.  In fact, the study of the political brain has become trendy in science and journalism  Now, we're still in that phase of the game where we look to use labelling of cognitive ability as a stick to beat opponents with; there has been a lot written of late tying social conservative beliefs to our "reptilian" brain, with the implication being that one end of the political spectrum is dumber or less open to new ideas than the other. 

 

 

But there are a couple other things happening at the same time that, whether we see it clearly are not, are wholly connected to this phenomena.  One, the mental health crisis that, while not prominent on the radar these days due to the focus on our economic doldrums, still lingers.  It is the economy, though, that reigns supreme - along with questions like "how do you motivate innovation to grow new economic activity?"  Innovation, artistic creation and that nebulous concept of crazy are rightly intertwined; innovation is equally a function of our grey matter.  Then, there's health care, specifically the unsustainable nature of our existing model.  There's a huge mental health component to that Gordian knot as well.

 

 

Who makes decisions about our health care, our economy, our services?  Those people who get it into their heads that the world needs their leadership to function properly - a delusional belief if ever there was one.  Just because it takes a bit of delusion or narcissism to think you're that important doesn't mean that it isn't true; exceptional individuals, for better or worse, do change the world.  It's these outliers who, given the right opportunities in life, will build the better light bulb, cure cancer or develop a health care model that is adjusted to the realities of modern society and demand.

 

 

There is a lot of crazy in politics, but we need that crazy to move the ball forward.  Even if you're a status-quo libertarian who thinks of progress as inconsequential, you can't deny the historical reality of manic, motivated people developing followings and nurturing change.  It's just the way things are, the way they've always been.

 

 

In service use, in labour but especially in politics, we are beginning to peel back the layers; instead of simply accepting "that's just the way it is" we're asking "what makes them that way?"  In the days of colonialism, anthropology was a tool used to help Western powers understand (and better manage) those that they colonized.  The corollary of that process was the absorption of bits and pieces of indigenous culture into Western society.  Today, there's almost a reversal of that process emerging; through the studies of organizations like Samara or the information exposure efforts of Wikileaks or 404SystemError, it's now the average citizen who's peeling back the layers of political motivation, reverse-engineering the behaviour of our pols to understand it better.

 

 

As the public becomes increasingly inquisitive about the cognitive capacities or our pols - and as we have ever-expanding access to every breath they take, every move they make - there is more and more thought being given to how we can read, choose and motivate our political class better.  This trend ties in to the notion of managing cognitive labour to greater results, reducing external service dependence, de-medicalizing mental health and of course, getting more out of life.

 

 

This notion of maximizing human potential and of creative destruction in our society at all levels through systematic change is not a new one, nor is the idea of sudden bursts of civic activity, demanding more of society's leaders.  In fact, you could say it happens with startling regularity, with each iteration allowing people at all levels to climb the pyramid a bit further.

 

 

We're in the bust part of one of these cycles now; there will be hard times for those at the lower echelons of society that will trickle up, in degrees, to those above them.  As the wheel turns, though, both sides will realize that to reach their end goals, middle ground needs to be found.  It's that balance between executive function and systematic reaction that at some level, we are constantly striving to achieve. 

 

 

What all this focus on mental capacity at all levels does is allows to pursue that goal more consciously.

 

 

The Spatial Genetics of CRM

Although many studies have investigated how spatial patterns arise, precise temporal control of gene expression is less well understood.

Of course, when the average bear refers to CRM, they're thinking customer relationship management - not cis-regulatory modules.  When you strip away the context and look strictly at the content, though, is there much difference?

Whether your business is genes or people, the same rules apply - you're looking at an organic system that functions in organic ways across a temporal map.  We like to look at the world, relationships, time, etc. as being along a line - poverty is a separate issue than gun crime, mental health is a separate issue from labour, politics is separate from behaviour, so on and so forth.

While this might be easier for us to understand and allows us to "strip away the fluff" and focus on core messaging, we do ourselves no favours when we ignore complexity because it makes us uncomfortable.

Life isn't a time - it's a map.  You can't effectively navigate your way if you don't know the terrain.  Perhaps, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, but whoever sees with both eyes is the navigator.

Politics: Game of Power

                                "You don't fight with honour."

                                "No.  He did."

There's been another shooting in Toronto. 

I used to live a ten-minute walk from that park.  My son and I have played there many times.  I know some of the families that would have heard the gun fire and I have a very good idea of what living in fear does to one's ability to focus on anything other than survival.  In a climate of fear, there are only two escapes; to hunker down and stay as isolated as possible from potential threats or become the feared and take what you want by force.  Anxiety and aggression; that's how survival of the fittest really works.  That's what's happening with these shootings.

We really shouldn't need to explain this to Rob Ford.  By all indications, he exists in a near-constant state of cortisol-fueled reactiveness himself.  He doesn't like to be managed, says his former Hand who also used deceit to eliminate a potential threat to Ford's ascendancy to the throne.  Now holding the chains of office, Ford feels harassed by media and wants to retreat to the safety of his castle and even increase his holdings if necessary to feel secure there.  Along the same theme, he bans access to reporters and outlets he doesn't like, or whole retinues if people he doesn't like are in the party.  Beat that, reporters.  Meanwhile, Ford himself is hyper-aggressive; chasing jouranlists down halls, giving the finger to drivers, snipping at TTC drivers.  Argue all you want about his justification; he's got a track-record of escalating problems. 

There's the rub - he keeps suggesting people should just go along with him and things will work out, but people don't go along with him, creating mounting problems.  Council won't fall in line?  Ford focuses on how to get rid of them next election instead of working with them now.  He's Mayor, after all, he should be able to do what he wants.  Gang violence in the streets of Toronto?  Get rid of them, too.  "...I want them out of the city. Go somewhere else, I don’t want them living in the city anymore.”  His solutions is to get rid of problems or pass them on to others - not solve them. 

Run 'em out of the city.  How do you do that, exactly?  How do you get people with guns out of the woodwork?  By toughening sentences?  All that does is make criminals work that much harder to avoid getting caught.  See, they don't want their rights trampled, either.  They want to do what they want; consequences are for those without control.  People who kill other people are really the pinnacle of survival of the fittest - they remove the competition, proving just how tough they are.  They're the boss - they get to do what they want, so long as they reinforce their power.  The only way to tackle that approach head-on is through escalation.

Which is exactly what Stephen Harper is doing.  With what I'm sure he feels are the best intentions, he is reducing opposition to his reign and increasing punishment for those who don't fall in line.  He's also a fan of firewalls; building moats around his castle to keep the barbarians at bay.  Barbarians within the realm need to be removed, either directly or indirectly.  It's all in the name of free market capitalism, he'll tell us with a nod to his economic background.  Regulation, special interest groups, unions are all impeding prosperity.  Without rules, the law of supply and demand takes over.  Am I picking unfairly on Tories?  Well, how 'bout this - it was the other guys who introduced the concept of the War Room. 

Politics isn't about supply and demand.  It certainly predates a money-based economy.  Politics is about the obtaining, retaining and the hereditary passing on of power.  Politics is selfish, tribal and focused on doing whatever it takes to win -  be it treachery, manipulation or the surest way to force compliance, violence.  In a battle of strength, it's he who has the most destructive weapons and the largest army that survives; but you need money to buy these things. How do you get them?  People consumed by power don't bargain or negotiate for what they want; they take it by force.  They oppress challenges to their power through force.  To things not directly connected to their power, they say "so what?"  Which is what Toronto's gangs, or drug cartels in Mexico, or any extremist group tries to do.  Sadly, it's what our frame-the-message, define-the-ballot-question political agents (Parties, sectors, everyone) tries to do, too.

The narrower our wedge of focus becomes, the more we miss the external factors that create threats.  Issues like poverty or civil rights are "minority group" issues; if they're not going to support you anyway, and their causes are in opposition to the causes of your voter base, ignore them or use them as wedge issues to foster more support on your side of the scale.  Sustainable economies and productivity; those come second to the rights of the brotherhood.  What are the populations that fall through the cracks through this approach?  The poor, the disenfranchised, those who are more likely to take up arms, join gangs and get what they want at the margins of civil society, where regulations aren't enforced.  Pirates, brigands, gangs all gestate in this social gap, eventually creating problems for those at the other end of the spectrum.  What happens to those in the middle?  Fear is only sustainable for so long, before it turns to anger.  Angry people have this habit of taking to the streets.

What happens when civil society comes into conflict with feudal politics?  Take a gander at Syria for an example.  While we will see an increase in violence across the Western World and the need for more militant intervention in the face of unacceptable violence, we aren't going to have a civil war, nor repeat World War II.  I don't say that out of whimsical hopefulness, but out of an understanding of history.  War might make a profit for some, but not when it's being fought in your backyard.  In terms of stable profits, you need stable society, which means compromise solutions.  Those with capital will tire of the hits instability inflicts on their wealth and will use their resources to reign in the politics. 

Private sector interests facing loss want regulation, they want stability, they desire order.  Nobody is imposing this on them; it was people of means that gestated our current system of governance in the first place.  People of means will also proactively support stability and market generation; charity, education, micro-credit, whatever are all means of enhancing the labour pool and expanding markets.  With stories like Davos and Goldman-Sachs we see a proactive-approach to emerging threats that the private sector is hoping to proactively resolve, before it's too late.  They talk about this lots, but what action do we see taken?  

  

Action might be directed from the top, but it always comes from the bottom.  The foot soldiers of any movement are the rank and file of society.  How do you motivate every-day folk to risk their lives?  It helps if their lives are already miserable and they have little to lose, but the best motivation comes from believing in something that is bigger than the individual; the tribe, honour, a better world.  Here's a vision that would help convince a guy like me to take up the sword:

Peace, order, good government - and opportunity.  Not for me; I'm part of the first generation in a while that's being told to expect a lower quality-of-life than my parents.  If the world is contracting around us due to the narrow vision of some, it'll take a generation to broaden our horizons.  As I contribute to a better world, it's for my son and, by association, all the children that will be adults around him.  I would rather none of them in this increasingly-integrated world grow up in poverty, surrounded by gunfire and without hope, because I know what sort of behaviour that experience fosters in the long run.  History provides lots of examples.  I'm even willing to give up a bit, personally, to foster that world.

Power is about control - drawing resources to oneself and gaining the ability to do whatever one wants.  The only way to acheive power is through manipulation, be it verbal or by force.

The opposite of power is not powerlessness.  It's sacrifice; the willingness to put collective interests ahead of individual interests.  Sacrifice is not something that can be forced from without; it has to motivated from within.  Honour isn't something that must be shed for accomplishment; it's something that must be obtained to maintain it.  By empowering others, everyone gains something.  It's this thing called society.  We can live together, or we can die alone.

Real Leaders Stand with their Troops

Ask yourself - how many leaders, be they business, community or political would fall on their sword, vs asking their troops to do the same?

When we ask those whom we lead to deal with the realities of risk, rational persuasion and legitimizing tactics just won't cut it. Leaders need to role model the character they want to see in others. Stakeholders at all levels want to know that their risk is your risk, too.

The greatest risk we face as leaders is the violation of our own team's values and beliefs. Are you fit to lead others through risk? Do you have skin in the game? Does your character increase or reduce risk? Look those you lead in the eye and you'll find your answers. Remember, whether in the military or in business, someone bears the consequence for every risk we take.

Jason Kenney and the Importance of Apologies

“I say a definite ‘no’ to Lukaszyk. I don’t think it makes sense to create a precedent to do a special caucus meeting for every visiting minister from the provincial government. Plus he is a complete and utter asshole.”

Words that Jason Kenney is probably wishing he never wrote – not necessarily because he wasn’t feeling them at the time, but because of the consequences he is facing now.

Still; a Harper Tory, Kenney has a whole Party track record of never being wrong, of defaulting to reactive attack or defense positions, not so much conciliation.  The emotional right (which is found in all Parties) has a lineage of instinctive behaviour; one might even say it’s genetic.  There’s a reason why the right sees the world through a polarized lens and solves problems by declaring a war on them.  War-declaring just sounds so authoritative and definite; it’s so much simpler to see the world as kill or be killed.

Once you’ve staked a position, even if you come to realize it’s the wrong one, it can be very hard to back down.  This whole “face” thing comes in to play – confidence, decisiveness, never accepting blame and the “strength” to never blink first are all associated as leadership traits.  The ability to step back from the abyss gets harder the closer to the ledge you get.

Which only makes it all the more impressive that Kenney has backed down, at least privately to the wronged party, and said sorry.  To apologize is to take ownership, admit culpability and, as a consequence, recognize responsibility to think things through at least a bit the next time.  We tend to mistake dominance as leadership, which isn’t the case; leadership is about vision and empowerment.

This is no small feat, and one Kenney should take pride in.  Apologizing for a silly mistake isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a demonstration of rational thought – which should be desirable in any leader.  If I were on the Oppositions benches, I would certainly make a point of mentioning this fact – not as a club to beat Kenney with, but through genuine respect at the gesture.  You encourage good behaviour by acknowledging what is right, not by punishing what is wrong.  that is, if you’re goal is a stronger Canada, not partisan interests.  That latter approach seems to be working well these days, doesn’t it?

If you can teach Kenney and, more broadly, Team Harper that there is much to be gained through ethical behaviour, you can perhaps encourage more of the same.  Lord knows there are policy directions that need to be changed quickly if we’re to avoid complicity in some very bad consequences.

Because no matter how comfortable one gets with saying sorry, it’s far more efficient to just do the right thing the first time around.

An Era Exploding - in Opportunity

"If a recession arrives, the great fight in Ottawa will be between a Conservative government reluctant to pile on tens of billions of dollars in new debt, and an NDP opposition that demands just that to combat unemployment.

It would be an ugly debate, fought on the backs of suffering workers and stricken businesses. We can only hope the Europeans find a way out of the mess that they’re in danger of dragging us all into."

This is true, though it needn't be.  We aren't being backed into a corner by economic challenges; the social challenges that are mounting in response to the financial ones aren't a nail in a coffin.

Instead, we have an unparalleled opportunity to break the mold, rethink the way we do business, govern, and participate in society. 

We can have staff transition strategies.  Governments can coordinate shared service models empowered by one service platform that is open sourced.  Businesses can create new markets, empower employees and reduce the barriers that constrain productivity and lead to mounting insurance costs, but also broader health care costs.  Online training can be expanded and students given more power, twinned with more mentorship, throughout their ongoing studies.

It's all there for the taking - we just need the will to think it through and make it happen.

Welcome to the Conscious Society.

Creative Destruction: Motivating Employers

You can lead a horse to water - but you can't make it drink.  So, lead two horses to water.

Most employers don't understand work.  They don't understand employees, either.  Like domineering parents or dictatorial heads of state, they don't feel the need to - he who has the gold, after all, makes the rules.  Those who want access to the fruits that gold can supply simply have to fall in line.

Ironically, the history of work suggests it's actually the reverse that happens.  It's not the people with power who have innovated, created and marketed new opportunties that have made and remade the rules, redefining and adding to what defines status.  It's the people in the middle.  As they rise up the pyramid, the water hole shrinks; divisions over resources lead to social friction and conflict.  This ends up burning off the dead brush of the old models, creating space for new, innovative growth. 

Call it Creative Destruction.

The new water hole looks a bit like this - an aggregate of  complex, counter-intuitive understandings of the nature of work, motivation and creativity and turning them into easy-to-understand slide-presentations and video clips.

How do you get today's leaders to take a drink?  By advertizing the crap out of it via social media.  The early adapters will climb on board, setting positive exmples their teams can tweet/Facebook/Pinterest to the high heavens about, building demand for effective leadership elsewhere.  Those who don't will find it a lot harder to compete.

Creative destruction is just as integral to the evolution of social systems as it is for the continued growth in the ecosystem. 

It's those who adapt that will lead the way.

The Conscious Revolution: Peering Into the Looking Glass

Globally, the economy is in a precarious place.  The traditional models of wealth generation and circulation are proving unsustainable at all levels.  People on both ends of the increasingly polarized social spectrum need to take a hard look at what they value, what they feel they deserve and what their commitment to society should be on the macro and mirco levels.

There’s a mental health crisis that’s been recognized internationally, too – suicides, anxiety and depression, increased awareness of and empathy for those suffering from conditions ranging from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia to ADHD and post-partum depression.

Social media is connecting the world in hyper-kinetic ways.  As of right now, we really do have a networked intelligence – the question is, how consciously and effectively can we harness it?  How well are we leveraging our global information transfer network?

Everyone is talking about the challenges and need for significant change in our economic, political and social institutions.  The classes that have led the Capitalist system through boom and bust are trapped in models of yore, uncertain what to do next.

They are turning to social entrepreneurs (the creative types who see money as a base-line for sustainable living and are more interested in creating social meaning with their work) for solutions.

The models that are successfully empowering and promoting social entrepreneurs (Google, CSI) take an active approach to workplace wellness and cognitive workplace design – there’s a whole emerging field just starting to crackle that will combine psychology, kinesiology and interior design in developing the cognitive workplace, spaces designed to enhance creativity and productivity.  

Globally, the increasingly focused (and centrally coordinated) efforts to address mental illness are going to collide with the economic and social challenges in ways that might be surprising.  Poor work design and an education system that focuses on mass-produced rote-learning actually foster anxiety and depression, while not developing the practical skills needed for success in tomorrow’s economy.  At the same time, we are still feeling our way through alternative cognitive ability diagnoses and accommodations, with a long way to go before we get it right.  We can’t afford to be losing productivity and having so many people reliant on the healthcare system.

What we need to start doing is tap into these potentials effectively; we can no longer afford to have the future Steve Jobs’, Albert Einsteins and Winston Churchills succeed by luck of timing or geography – we need everyone to reach and harness their full cognitive potential.

Society is being forced to change the way we view work and education to support the latent talents that will fuel the Knowledge Economy.  The natural source of inspiration and ideation for this cognitive revolution will be the social entrepreneurs – people who on the whole are concerned about the environment and looking at sustainable practices that also create business opportunities:

-          Increased integration through social media

-      A shift towards shared, networked-learning that encourages students (and employees) to be active participants in planning and executing their education

-          Increased critical thinking in politics, vs model-based partisan loyalties

-          A growing reliance on social entrepreneurs and horizontally integrated idea-sharing as a vehicle for growth and policy directions

-          Mental health care begins to become more proactive, with appropriate accommodative measures built into work, education, etc.

-          The Cognitive Revolution, like the Industrial Revolution before it, will reshape our society around a more conscious Capitalism.

Welcome to the 21^st Century; welcome to the Conscious Society.

Taking a Bite Out of Original Sin

For some Christians, evolution would, if true, completely shatter the doctrine of Original Sin. After all, if humans evolved, then there wasn’t an Adam, there wasn’t a Garden of Eden, and there wasn’t a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. If that’s the case, these Christians believe, then there wasn’t a Fall and there wasn’t a reason for Christ to be crucified. Thus, in their minds, evolution is completely incompatible with Christian teachings.

For me, “original sin” is a way of offering a pre-neurological explanation for selfish, reactive behaviour.  I therefore think that the most ardent religious extramists (of any religion, or any ideology for that matter) are actually the embodiment of that which they purport to stand against.  This isn’t reason to fight or ostracize them, though, but an opportunity to share the spark of understanding.  Sin, the Tree of Knowledge, Adam and the expulsion from Eden are all metaphors for the development of individual and social consciousness.

Does that make you feel uncomfortable?  Then you see my point exactly.  Answers are challenging, they force us to re-evaluate and to grow.  The truth was never handed to us – it’s up to us to discover it.

The truth will set you free – when you’re conscious of it.