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ISBN: 978-15-439719-7-2
Dedication
For Liam, Megan and little Brooks
And for the worlds children, all of whom deserve a clean, healthy, flourishing planet and a just, fair and prosperous life.
Introduction: Why This Book?
We are in deep trouble.
For the first time in its history, the human race is facing the existential and disastrous threats of climate change, severe income inequality, and a frenetic pace of technological development. And yet societies continue to sleep in ignorance while our leaders ignore or exacerbate these conditions.
While the global Paris Accord on Climate Change in 2015 made significant progress, it is insufficient to address the challenge. Let us praise the real progress made while we loudly and clearly tell our leaders that goals are not actions, pledges are merely promises, and time is running out. We must build on Paris to strengthen the pledges and implement the policies to realize them. We must organize against the counter-reaction and denial already underway [italics mine].
Scientists agree that should we fail to hold the current increases in temperature to less than 2oC, the consequences will be both devastating and irreversible. They estimate a window of eleven years to do this. The current US Administration has no plan to deal with climate change, largely because they deny its risks.
A 2017 US Federal survey disclosed that 40% of Americans cannot withstand a $400 emergency, and 25% stated they have saved nothing for retirement. Four hundred American families own as much wealth as the bottom 150 million citizens. Globally, twenty-six people hold as much wealth as the bottom 3.8 billion people in the world. Income inequality around the globe is at Gilded Age levels known to destroy democracy.
Innovative technology companies around the world forge ahead at a blistering pace in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), despite warnings from experts that we should first pause to debate potentially dangerous consequences of runaway AI, and decide proper global standards and regulation to guide the process so as to avoid disaster.
We are standing at the most critical crossroads of human existence. It will take broad awareness and intentional cooperation among all of us, and especially business and political leaders, if we want to avoid the worst case scenario: Extinction.
For fifty years, misdirected, surreptitious and sometimes sinister, forces in government, business and media have quietly and irresponsibly shifted away from important safeguard regulations. By gradually unwinding protective legislation and implementing policies and practices that placate lobbyists and maximize corporate profits, politicians and businessmen have slowly created the conditions that now imperil our very survival.
Unfortunately, societal complacence and ignorance permit it to continue. With a few notable exceptions, the quality of our leaders leaves much to be desired. In fact, in many cases they are simply dangerous to the greater good. As our serious challenges continue to mount, our government and business leaders continue to obsess and squabble over oil, geo-political dominance and quarterly earnings per share. They are simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while we seem oblivious to even being on the ship.
There is an old adage about the boiling frog, which claimed that if you dropped a frog into a pot of boiling water, it would immediately jump out. But if you placed it in cool water and gradually raised the temperature to a boil, the frog would slowly cook without realizing it. True or not, the metaphor is powerful, and in my view, does describe well how many things have gotten to this critical point and how crucial it is that we jump out of the water. We must wake up, shake off our indifference and take action.
Its worth pausing here to ensure youre not offended by the words complacency and ignorance in this books subtitle. Though sometimes used as pejorative terms, by definition, neither is. Nor are they used that way here. Complacent simply means self-satisfied and unaware of a danger or full implications of a situation. Ignorance simply means lack of knowledge or information on a given topic. We are all complacent some of the time, and by simple math we are ignorant of far more things in life than those of which we are knowledgeable. No one can know everything. But as well later see, complacency and ignorance related to our leaders and their activities has had, and continues to have, serious and debilitating consequences. We must guard against both.
In trying to decide how I might best contribute to a solution for this serious dilemma, I felt compelled to write this book. It struck me that whenever I spoke to people about these troubling, sometimes sinister patterns in business, politics and social behaviour, their muted responses were not so much due to indifference, as to an understandable ignorance of what is really going on. I realized that with incredibly busy lives, most did not have the time, inclination, or energy to follow closely the crazy pace of change occurring in just about every sector of world events. They are just too tired and distracted with their day-to-day lives. Its easily understandable. And yet, we simply must act, and quickly.
The goal of this book is to inform, inspire and call to action.
The time to act is now, and this book will tell you why and how.
You will read a concise, objective summary of what is going wrong in the world and what our current leaders are doing (or not) about it. You will find useful information, exemplary stories and actions we can individually and collectively take to create positive transformation and a safer future. If we act now, we still have time to avert disaster and together create a much better world. An imperative part of the solution is to elect better leaders and hold them accountable. In some cases, maybe we ourselves will feel the call to step up into a leadership position.
Although Ive studied leadership since the mid-Eighties, since the financial crisis of 2008 I have closely followed global business and political events. I have read dozens of books on such topics as business, strategy, finance, economics, organizational development, neuroscience, positive psychology, conscious awareness and mindfulness, and Quantum Science. I noticed some intriguing convergences. I am convinced that we have reached a place where simply tweaking our current systems and behaviours is no longer sufficient to solve our problems. We require the proverbial paradigm shift. In the following pages, I will share with you what I see as the most important developments in those fields; how they can help you and your networks to decide there is a better way than the status quo, and that there is a very real sense of urgency to act now within our own spheres of influence.
"That is the true genius of organizations: they can lift groups of people to punch above their weight, to achieve outcomes they could not have achieved on their own. Frederic Laloux
I have attempted to be objective, factual, and constructive when explaining how changing relationships between leaders and followers are a significant and primary cause of what is happening to us, why we need to be concerned about it, and finally, to offer a challenge, and a call to action for leaders. I hope you will consider responding in a meaningful way.
