I like it - it’s instantly explanatory and a positive phrase rather than another “not-for”.

What do you think?  Would you like to say you work in or support the citizen sector?

As I reflect on my life, I know that I have been “lucky” to have supportive environments:

For over a decade I’ve run a small business and I have been nourished by a number of networks of supportive colleagues.

On the sports front, I have been part of groups that have supported me to achieve my sporting goals.

And in my home life I have been supported and nourished by a loving husband and together we have created a beautiful home environment for us, our families and our friends.

So what’s next?  More opportunities to create nourishing environments in the social sector and promote corporate volunteering. And the beauty of volunteering is that ultimately it is a very self-serving act - it feels great to help others.

More soon.

Check out the videos sponsored by RSA Animate (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).  I especially like the Dan Pink Drive video and the Jeremy Rifkin video on the Empathic Civilisation and Paul likes the Powers of Time video and keeps asking if I have relatives from Sicily.

Also check out Andrew Park the brilliant artist (visual scribe) whose work is portrayed in the videos.

I loved the warm words from John Seed (Deep Ecology), Susan Murphy (Zen Open Circle) and especially Uncle Max Harrison (My People’s Dreaming), who have the passion and the courage to get up every day and show the rest of us a different way.

I know that I have a tendency to think ‘its all too hard” but I came away from the event thinking “it might be hard, but its worthwhile”.  So here’s to more focus on the sustainability aspects of our business and to developing sustainable leadership and sustainable business processes in Australian businesses as soon as we can.

“Dr. Amy Smith is a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, where she runs the Development Lab, or D-Lab, a lab organized around simple and cheap engineering solutions for the developing world.

Among the rules of thumb she offers for building in that environment is this: “If you want something to be 10 times cheaper, take out 90% of the materials.”

Perhaps this is also true for the social sector, i.e.  what can we automate, so that we can devote our limited labour resources to what really matters - quality interactions between people?

Kahneman explains that the research from the USA shows people’s moment to moment feelings of happiness increase as their income increases, until it hits a level of $60,000, then it ‘flat lines’.  This means that above that level of income more money doesn’t buy a happier life for the ‘experiencing self’.

But, according to Kahneman, we don’t tend to pay a lot of attention to our ‘experiencing self’ and this is what has confused both economic and psychological research.  We have another self he calls the ‘remembering self’ or the ‘reflecting self’.  This self keeps score, but isn’t good at counting all the individual moments of happiness, so it uses short cuts by counting the changes and significant moments.  Thus, our remembering self tends to be more satisfied with life to the extent that we keep earning more income and we keep achieving goals.

What is the key to happiness for the experiencing self?  Kahneman says that it is primarily comes from “spending time with people that we like”.

For Kahneman the differing measures for the two selves reflect some of the dilemmas for USA and to a great extent Australia:

- some of us don’t have enough income to live on so we experience unhappiness and dissatisfaction

- some of us are experiencing a happy life - living and working with people we love - but on reflection think that we are not “achieving goals and earning more”, so we are dissatisfied with our lives

- some of us are earning and achieving and think we are happy, until our loved ones or employees leave us

- some of us have got the formula right - we aim to earn a modest but always slightly increasing income and we set goals for more and better interactions with those with whom we love, work and serve.

What a fabulous way to live!

“Development is an increase in the desire and ability to satisfy one’s own needs and legitimate desires, and those of others“.

This definition supports my quest to move beyond the concept of leadership and behaviour change.  Changing behaviour is problematic because there is usually a positive intention behind the behaviour that leaders will fight to maintain.  This definition allows leaders to engage in a robust discussion about behaviours that will allow them to increase their ability to satisfy their own needs and the needs of others.

The comments were quite helpful for me as a consultant promoting new social and sustainable business practices, as well as the engineering colleague at our table, who is working with clients to develop closed loop sustainable business models.

For more on this topic, check out Roger Martin’s website library of books, articles, videos and blogs, including his new book ‘The Design of Business’ - available through Amazon, or Dymocks in Australia.

(more…)

Bill believes that climate is even important than “vaccines and seeds” and is challenging us to “innovate to Zero” emissions.  I love that he is using a positive word like innovate - rather than a call to wage another war.  Bring it on I say and let’s see who can compete best and quickest in service to the planet.