thenewconstructs’s blog

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack”. - Rudyard Kipling

The old lion, a couple of lionesses and three playful cubs were just a few yards from our Jeep. The lion and the lionesses lazed in the sun, probably after a sumptuous meal of a zebra or wildebeest. The cubs strayed near a herd of wild buffalo, fifty yards away. Our guide told us that the buffalos had poor eyesight but if they caught the scent of the cubs they would kill them on the spot. We waited anxiously, hoping that the cubs would come to no harm.

A few tense moments later, we heard their mother calling out the cubs, ambling towards them. The cubs looked at her and made their way back – back to the strength of the pride.  All of us heaved a sigh of relief — realizing, however, that it was only a matter of time before one or more of the cubs would be killed, if not by a buffalo then probably by a rival lion. Barely one in ten cubs survives in the wild, our guide told us.

Our family had a wonderful safari in the national parks of East Africa over the holiday season. It was refreshing to go back to nature – almost unspoiled by human development and encroachment – and observe the natural order of life. The herbivores lived in complete harmony among themselves, disturbed once in a while by a hungry lion or cheetah.

Even among the carnivores, there was a generous sharing of the kill, not just among themselves but also scavengers like hyenas, jackals and vultures. It was amazing to see the zero-waste design of nature; scarcely a morsel of food was wasted. There was no greed, no hoarding and no wastage in the jungles. Is this not a great model for living in a connected age?

We had an opportunity to visit a Masai village – home to the native tribe of the region. The village had a headman, and the entire village was his family – his seven wives, their children and grandchildren. We were invited into their mud-walled huts, dark confined spaces that house each wife and her young children. The wealth of the Masais is their cattle, which they depend on for food – milk, blood and meat.

Most Masai have never eaten cereals. They rely on plants and herbs to treat their illnesses. The Masai men we met were all tall, lean and muscular. Nowadays many of the Masai children go to a nearby primary school, which is free, but few are able to afford higher education. The Masai men get married to women from nearby villages, paying a dowry of 10 heads of cattle for a good bride.

We got talking, separately, to two of the many sons of the headman. One of the sons had aspirations of following his dad as the headman. He was comfortable with the Masai way of living and was likely to follow the traditions. The other son sounded more militant. He felt that the Kenyan government was exploiting the Masai in order to take over and develop their traditional homelands. He felt the tribe was being forced to move off their longtime homelands within game parks and into settlements outside the parks. He felt that even this land eventually would be taken away by the government.

This second son, educated and fluent in English, said the Masai’s salvation would be to get more children educated so they can become professionals over the next couple of generations. With his secondary-school education, he knew he was handicapped in dealing with lawyers and government officials on his own. I thought he was probably more articulate and capable than many of the public officials – in Kenya, India, the US, anywhere in the world – but he was also probably correct that he would have a struggle against bureaucrats and bureaucracy.

This entire trip left me with a question. Here was a piece of the earth that was preserved in its pre-agrarian, pristine glory. Is there any way these people could gently transition to a new age without having to pass through the environment-wrecking industrial age? Does our current situation really represent progress over the natural beauty and simplicity of what’s there? Is human life on this planet strengthened and supported when a billion people are way ‘ahead’ of the pack and a billion people way ‘behind’?

What can we contribute to the goals of enlightened village governance? Please do share your own thoughts and ideas.

The New Constructs is an initiative to examine our beliefs and assumptions - about life and living - that we need to reinvent in order to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. It is an opportunity for each one of us to connect, collaborate and co-create the world that we will rebuild for posterity. Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter

“3M earnings helped by swine flu mask sales”

“Bottled water global sales to cross $85 billion by 2011”

The entire family had been looking forward to the Disney World experience, and we were all excited on the plane trip from India to Florida. My daughter Samvitha, who was 8 at that time, was especially eager. But almost as soon as we landed, she took ill. This was a few years ago, at the height of the SARS epidemic, and my wife and I were very concerned.

Our daughter was bedridden our entire week in Orlando. She suffered no lasting problems – beyond the disappointment of not getting to meet Mickey and Goofy and go on the many rides – but I often think about her illness today when I exit a plane with breathing difficulties or read about the threat of the H1N1 swine flu epidemic.

From the beginning of time, we humans have taken clean air and water for granted. No more, especially in densely populated areas such as the cities in India where movie theatres, shopping malls and schools have been closed to stop the spread of the flu. Whether in the enclosed space of an airplane or in a crowded market, we are right to worry about air quality. And water quality, too: just look at the increase in demand for bottled water all over the world in recent years.

These concerns over air and water – the most basic necessities of life – are leading us to think in new ways about what is valuable in our lives. Adam Smith talked about the paradox of value, also called the diamond-water paradox. He made a distinction between “value in use” and “value in exchange.”  The things that have the highest value in everyday use, such as water, often have relatively little value in the commercial marketplace. Conversely, things that have the highest value in exchange - such as diamonds - have little practical value in terms of use.

Over the last two centuries, the Industrial Age, with its focus on scale and efficiency, has centralized agriculture and farming, bringing prices of food down quite significantly. But this is not without its costs. According to Bill McKibben in “Deep Economy,” concentrated agriculture makes us sick on a fairly regular basis.

Seventy-six million Americans fall ill annually from food-borne illnesses, 300,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die. For instance, the cheapest way to raise hogs is all in the same place; one worker can take care of tens of thousands of animals. But this concentrates their waste in one place. Instead of being useful fertilizer to spread on crop fields, that concentrated waste becomes a toxic threat – and increases the chances of swine flu.

While it is fortunate that countries like India do not have this level of concentrated farming, globalization makes up for it. We are affected by the H1N1 threat in the same way we have been affected by the sub-prime crisis and the financial meltdown.

It is time to step back and take stock. As we look at reinventing our fundamental constructs, our idea of economic value needs close inspection. Should we start valuing what’s really valuable to our lives on this planet rather than what just makes us feel good or look good?

Should our decisions on centralization and decentralization be driven by considerations of what drives true value, rather than just efficiency? How global is too global – what global governance mechanisms do we need when we deal with systemic and globally interrelated issues like pandemics, recession etc.? These are but a few questions that we will dialog on this site.

The New Constructs is an initiative to examine our beliefs and assumptions - about life and living - that we need to reinvent in order to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. It is an opportunity for each one of us to connect, collaborate and co-create the world that we will rebuild for posterity. Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

“Success is a journey, not a destination.” - Ben Sweetland, author.

As humans, we have a need to be successful in our own eyes and in the eyes of society. Our definition of success – or more accurately, society’s definition of success – is what drives our behavior. If we need to change the way people think and act in the Connected Age, we need to redefine success.

Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, declared that if every individual operates out of his own self-interest, an ‘invisible hand’ will ensure the good of the society as a whole. This has been the fundamental premise of free markets and capitalism for over two centuries. The sheer simplicity of having one basic measure of success – money — has enticed mankind to focus on wealth creation and economic prosperity. Personal wealth, market capitalization and GDP have been the dominant measures of success driving individuals, corporations and governments.

On reflection, Adam Smith was only partially right. The persistent pursuit of self-interest has helped a billion people on this planet tremendously. However, it has also left a billion people in penury and the environment in distress. It has widened income disparities and left even the rich unfulfilled in many ways.

How many famous people are rich in money, but poor in terms of love, happiness and health? The disproportionate emphasis on material growth overshadows the basic human need for all-round development – physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. The focus on money makes people dull, unimaginative and boring.

We need to rethink financial wealth as the primary measure of success. How, then, do we measure success? In Emerson’s beautiful words “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you lived; this is to have succeeded“.

To me success is about living life fully – exploring, experiencing and enjoying the possibilities – including the challenges – that life throws at you. It is about life-long learning with the curiosity of a child. It is about loving and caring for as large an extended family as your heart can encompass. It is about connecting and collaborating with people across the globe, sometimes remotely, to make a valuable contribution by leveraging each others’ innate talents.

Corporations need to rethink, too.  Our current paradigm assumes that corporations exist primarily to enhance shareholder value. Indeed every board is exhorted to represent shareholders by maximizing their returns. Executives are granted stock options to make sure they share the goal. Without a larger purpose and/or adequate controls, small wonder that the business world has been dominated by unbridled corporate greed, blind pursuit of growth at great risk to the enterprise, and the ensuing financial meltdown leading to the overnight demise of bastions of the corporate world. Shareholders, employees and the entire economy has been left in shambles.

Perhaps it makes more sense to think of companies more like living organisms. In his book ‘The Living Company,’ Arie de Geus says: ”Like all organisms, the living company exists primarily for its own survival and improvement: to fulfill its potential and be as great as it can be”. De Geus and his team of corporate planners at Shell studied why the average Fortune 500 corporation survives for less than 50 years while some companies, like Nokia, have flourished over centuries.

In sharp contrast to a ‘soulless’ economic entity that exists for the sole purpose of enhancing shareholder value, the Shell researchers found that the ‘living’ company has a strong sense of identity and purpose and is able to learn, adapt and contribute in tune with changing times. Size and profitability were not major factors for the long-surviving companies. Neither was maximizing shareholder value.  

Companies, like people, need more than pure growth. They need well-rounded development. Corporations have the ability to survive, contribute and develop over hundreds of years given the right vision, leadership and direction. Like people, they need to have soul. They need to have character. And they need to have a conscience.

For companies to become immortal institutions, they need to have a clear purpose in terms of their relevance and contribution to the world at large. Gandhi said, “No deserving institution ever dies for lack of support”. The key, then, is for companies to become deserving in the context of the world.

At the level of nations, using GDP / GNP as a measure of success has probably distracted governments from their real purpose: to secure the rights and freedoms of individual citizens. Governments do not create wealth. People do. The role of government is to provide good education, health care, infrastructure, security, and law and order to all its citizens, thereby giving them a platform to flourish as individuals. Governments have to focus more on the bottom 20% of their citizenry, providing a leg up in terms of development and growth.

As Confucius said, “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of”. Global consensus and widespread adoption of an appropriate alternative to GDP along the lines of the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, Gross Happiness Index or the Genuine Progress Indicator would go a long way in reorienting governments to their core purpose.

Interestingly, President Sarkozy has endorsed the recommendations of a committee of economists he had set up on going beyond GDP to an Index of National Achievement that includes environment, equality and contentment measures.

In a country like India, many of the intended beneficiaries of government support programs never receive their due because of ‘leaks’ in the system. It was appalling that, recently, 5 families died of starvation in Bihar, simply because the dealer – claiming shortage of food grains – refused to supply them grains against their BPL ration cards. This is but one example of a system, rife with corruption, that uneducated and downtrodden villagers are unable to confront.

The business of government is complex. It will be worthwhile for the Government to focus on benefit delivery to the common man, eliminating all bottlenecks in the process, rather than opening up several fronts to ‘stimulate growth’. Development, rather than growth, should be the mission of governments.

Mankind has paid scant attention to the well-being of the planet. We have not come up with any measure of success to preserving the planet for future generations. We need to develop new measures of success to protect our children and their children, to make the world a safe and healthy place for them to live.

Perhaps we – as a world – need to think about living off our income rather that our wealth. We need to think about how to maintain bio-diversity, and ensure ecological balance and sustainability. We need empowered institutions at the helm of affairs of this world, institutions that are chartered to conceptualize and implement programs that will ensure the longevity of life on this planet.

The New Constructs is an initiative to examine our beliefs and assumptions - about life and living - that we need to reinvent in order to create a more inclusive and sustainable world. It is an opportunity for each one of us to connect, collaborate and co-create the world that we will rebuild for posterity.

Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter. Please share. Stay active, stay engaged.

“The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards”. - Anatole France

The purpose of education is to create responsible, productive and socially contributing citizens – people who can provide for their own families as well as contribute to their communities. As Toffler says, education in the 21st century should allow people to learn, unlearn and relearn. But I am not sure our schools and colleges are committed to this.

Education is one of the most unscientific human endeavors. You do well in school to get into a good college and earn a good degree. A good degree is supposed to be a passport to a good job. Based on your educational qualifications, you can climb to a reasonably high position without having to demonstrate any exceptional ability.

Beyond that, however, you may have problems. There is no established link between your performance in school and your performance in a job. Even more importantly, there is no link between your performance on the job and your performance in life.

To be true to purpose, education should support a child develop three fundamental capabilities:

1. Discover, develop and continually evolve a vision to become a useful member of society:

Many of us have an advantage – our parents envision our future for us, driving us to work towards achieving this vision. However, this is not as common among the poor. The education system has to step in to help everyone create this vision, and to build even the poor child’s confidence to pursue the vision.

Balaji Sampath, who runs Eureka Child – an NGO committed to improving literacy and math ability in government schools, told us a touching story in this context. Coming back from the US to do something meaningful in education, he immersed himself in local issues by spending a few months in a village. He was in a village classroom when a child asked the teacher whether it was possible to travel to the moon. “You and I cannot fly to the moon,” the teacher answered. “But scientists in the U.S. can…” We must stop robbing our children of goals and dreams.

2. Understand that questions are more important than answers:

Our education system places undue emphasis on providing answers – often to questions that children do not have. In other words, too often we teach children concepts without context; we need to show them why learning is important. We need to focus on awakening kids’ natural curiosity and teaching them to love learning. A good way to do this is to place children in natural experiences or in games where they can ask questions. In these settings, learning is immediate and strong. Learning can be a structured discovery process, offering students varied learning outcomes – just as our situations and decisions later in life offering different outcomes.

For example, an NGO in Mumbai went to schools with an experiment to teach students about water conservation. The pupils measured the amount of water consumed while brushing their teeth with the tap open, and then again with the tap off. Imagine, if we all learn this type of lesson in school, how we can apply the principles to so many other aspects of our home and work later in life.

3. Learning to Learn:

The world is evolving too fast for schools and colleges to keep up. What is being taught is inadequate and outdated, or will be soon. It is important that children are encouraged to discover answers on their own – through the Internet, through experimenting and by having access to experts on the cutting edge of every field.

It is important that students learn the scientific method –

(a) creating  a hypothesis based on observations,
(b) designing and conducting experiments to prove or disprove these hypotheses and
(c) arriving at conclusions while recognizing that the conclusions could change with additional information.

With the level of knowledge available in the world today, it is also important to exercise judgment what to learn, and how and when you need to learn it. We need to teach kids when to rely on their own judgments,, and when to rely on the expertise of others.  Our children must learn that even when you outsource the effort, you retain responsibility over the result.

What do you think? Do you agree with these ideas about the critical capabilities that our children need? Is our educational system addressing this? Do share your thoughts and experiences with all of us.

The New Constructs is an initiative to leverage Connected Intelligence in realizing the Connected Age. Please feel free to comment. We look forward to your active participation. Join the discussion on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

INDEPENDENCE - THE FIRST STEP

"Independence is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to general idols and fetishes." Mark Twain

Based on my studies, my experiences and my own reflections, I see human development as a journey ' a steep climb from dependence to independence to interdependence to transcendence.  This lifetime journey begins at birth, when we are dependent on our parents and other loved ones.

The process of becoming physically independent is almost automatic with age. It is a natural part of growing up, and for most of us it comes easily. As we pass through childhood and adolescence and become adults, many of us also manage to become financially independent ' and that usually takes some concentrated effort. We take up jobs, move out of our parents' homes, get married and have children ' steps toward taking responsibility for our own lives as well as for the family members who are now dependent on us. For many, our quest for independence ends here.

However, being human is not only about physical and material development. We need to develop emotionally and intellectually.  Emotionally, many of us remain dependent ' letting situations around us control our emotions. We cannot claim to be independent when we still allow ordinary events ' traffic jams, forgetful spouses, colleague missing deadlines at work, unreasonable clients ' to trigger feelings of anger, frustration, helplessness or despair. If we are not masters of our emotions, can we really be masters of our own destiny?

Emotional maturity or independence is not about trying to control what happens to us. Rather it is about how we respond to what happens to us. It is freedom of choice in how we react to adverse circumstances. We can lash out, as we might have done as children, or we can choose to be reasoned and thoughtful and positive about moving forward. In my workshops on discovering one's true calling, I borrow a tool from 'The Art of Possibility' by Ben and Rosamund Zander. I ask participants to invoke the feeling of 'How Wonderful' whenever they are in a bad situation. For example, imagine you are late to an important meeting because a flight was delayed. Can you experience it as a wonderful moment? Imagine your child is embarrassing you by throwing a tantrum in public. Can you see that as wonderful?

Most participants  look at me as if I'm crazy. "That would be like lying to myself," the say. "Even if I say a situation isn't so bad, it's still a bad situation. It doesn't go away." As we workshop this idea further, they concede that they are more likely to come up with creative responses when they are in a good mood than when they are angry and upset. They also see how a frustrating situation could actually be a wonderful opportunity to learn something new or generate some creative ideas. They walk away thinking, "Hmm, I wonder if that might work. I'm going to try it "

Moving on to intellectual development, de Tocqueville remarked on how Americans have so little independence of mind but so much freedom of discussion. I don't think this lack of independence in thought is unique to Americans. It's a worldwide phenomenon. Starting from our schooldays, we are taught answers to questions that we don't even have. We are led to believe that there is one right answer and that there is some expert somewhere who has figured it out. As we grow into adults, we are brainwashed by the media, the marketing messages and the political propaganda; we live in the comfort of never having to exercise our intellect. In the Middle Ages, religion forced humanity into a set of beliefs. In today's times, we accept the supposed wisdom of scientists and pseudo-scientists - like economists - without much question.

Intellectual independence calls for applying discerning thought to how we interpret the world around us. It calls for accessing our moral compass and fundamental principles, as Mark Twain said, in generating the appropriate actions. It calls for integrity and alignment in thought, word and deed.
New Constructs is an initiative to promote independence in all facets of life in our journey to create an interdependent, connected world. How are you progressing through your life? What suggestions do you have for the rest of us in our lifetime journeys? Please share. Stay active, stay engaged.

Long live the earth,

Sudhakar Ram

Lead Anchor

www.TheNewConstructs.com