Kalle reflects on the World’s situation

Whether we are on the Titanic or not doesn’t matter to the enlightened self-interest of systemic, systematic and strategic leadership (FSSD). The short-sighted knee-jerk objection to such leadership is that this idea can only be rationalized if the endgame would eventually prove to become a sustainable global civilization. Nothing could be more wrong for the individual organization, let alone how this flaw of thought is counterproductive to a sustainable global civilization as well. Regardless the endgame for all of civilization, systemic and systematic and strategic leadership of the individual organization pays off from upfront, and throughout its developments.

More in detail: That “it looks dark” today is no secret. The mass media is completely dominated by the two wars that currently affect the industrialized West the most. Over and above the wars’ violations, upstream, of all 8 boundary conditions for sustainability (see FSSD reference at the footnote), the media’s attention of the wars suffocates even worse threats to civilization related to un-sustainability at large. Political and public discourses are less interested in the largest threat to civilization ever. We and many others warned that this could happen already when the Russia-Ukraine war first broke out.

Perhaps the most important aspect to know is how paralysis, which is due to a feeling of resignation, defeatism, can be motivated in leaders who think wrongly. The short-sighted objection to strategic leadership towards sustainable, attractive and possible futures is that this idea can only be rationalized if the endgame would eventually prove to be sustainability at the largest possible scale, the global civilization. And since we don’t know if that will ever come true, a relying on this rational for thinking and planning would be ill-advised. “Perhaps better to wait and see what the world’s leaders will agree on at the next summit? And only get going if all others are forced by political decisions to doing it too?”

One flawed thought after the other, leading to very dangerous conclusions amongst an unconstructive leadership.

A Titanic analogy comes in handy here. Leaders today typically do not realize that even if we eventually would reach chaos in a completely crumbling civilization, “hit the iceberg”, it is still about leadership onboard a journey on the way there. And a strategic-minded leadership would still capture huge organizational advantages on this journey to the imagined bitter end. Strategic leaders will…

· … systematically reduce their costs for decisions that do not consider the basic boundary conditions for sustainable (re)design[1] – higher and higher costs of fuels, materials, wasteful use of metals, declining social trust. These costs will explode due to natural laws and logic, as everyone’s room for manoeuvring decreases (the FSSD “Funnel”).

· …realize that the markets for survival solutions and Innovations will increase. Right now, we are all in a funnel with dwindling resource space for good lives and good business. What different parties currently feel about this is of secondary importance.

· … systematically increase their revenues from step-wise progress towards innovations that are scalable in the “funnel” that is the increasingly narrow space we find ourselves in. And they will avoid solutions that only provide short-term gains without serving as strategically chosen steps on the way to what is scalable. The strategic overall advice is to not change too fast, because then the ROI decreases for each innovation. And not too slowly, because then you lose out to those who gradually mine gold at a more skillful strategic pace. Here you either need to steer towards an imaginary organizational vision of complying with boundary conditions for sustainable re-design. Or rejoice in the belief that all of civilization will eventually do the same. From the perspective of enlightened self-interest to individual organizations, these alternatives do not matter much.

To return to the Titanic metaphor, we do not yet know whether the leaders that think and do the right things will make it to the ship’s bridge in time, in sufficient numbers, to convince the captain to change course for the benefit of the whole global civilization. But what we do know is that skilled leaders (who think, analyze, plan, measure and communicate consciously or intuitively according to FSSD) will get to ride first class on the entire trip. With superior bottom lines and reputation all the way. While the other type of leader will experience a decline in travel class and eventually ride in the propeller room. And again, regardless of whether we collide against the iceberg or not.

As a bonus for the strategic leaders, when paradigm changes do happen, industrial history tells us that they tend to do so faster than anyone imagined. In this case the funnel really forces the emergence of a growing FSSD-informed leadership (via value chains, success stories, and sometimes even a far-sighted public that together creates geo-political influence). These processes accelerate change that we are already seeing, i.e. one innovation after another that may exist in the future because they are scalable: we electrify traffic, learn to save and store energy in advanced ways, develop new ways of forestry with smaller clear-cuts and lighter machines, integrate the planning of forestry with the planning of agriculture, create value chains that grow food and manage green spaces sustainably, use hydrogen in the reduction of ores, think about how technology and new business models can lead to almost 100% recycling of metals and figure out global cooperative plans to merge forces around those challenges. In this way, the good examples, not least those driven by enlightened self-interest according to FSSD, succeed in changing the discourse of society[2]. This happens because of funnel dynamics and regardless of what happens on average in the world. But if it is to happen fast enough, so that we can avoid the iceberg at the civilization level, the ‘ABCD in the Funnel’ as an operating system will probably have to spread faster with more active methods than today.

Can an AI-assisted FSSD Global platform help us? Stay tuned, developments are under way! All Kalles reflections are reviewed through its Operative system as a lens. To learn more, see the two references below and please take a look at the rest of the Reflections.

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[1] See review article about the indisputable rational for gradually moving towards compliance with boundary conditions for sustainable (re-)design; A framework for strategic sustainable development Göran Ingvar Broman, Karl-Henrik Robert; Journal of Cleaner Production 140 (2017) 17-31

[2] See article about enlightened self-interest in analyses and planning; Prisoners’ dilemma misleads business and policy making by Karl-Henrik Robert, Göran Broman; Journal of Cleaner Production 140 (2017) 10-16