Globalising Trusteeship

Jem Bendell visiting Jallian Wala Bagh in April 2009

On April 13th, ninety years ago, a British General ordered the firing on people peacefully protesting the repression of India. Mohandas K Gandhi was so moved by the massacre in Amritsar that he called for a special week to be observed every year – a Satyagraha Week. “Satya” means truth, “Graha” means both ‘involved in’ and ‘global’. Gandhi used satyagraha to describe a non-violent way of life, that does not participate in oppression wherever it occurs, and challenges it in non-violent ways. It became synonymous with India’s liberation movement.

Due to the work of Varsha Das and her colleagues at the Gandhi National Museum I was reminded of Gandhi’s teachings, and began re-reading what he said and did about life, politics and economics. As you probably are yourself, I was familiar with his famous phrases including that “we must be the change we want to see in the world’. But as I read on, I realised his views are very relevant to the current global economic crisis and the work I do on sustainable enterprise and finance.

The recent G20 failed to launch a deep reconsideration of the global economy, and some of its precepts, such as current concepts of property and a consumption-led economy. I suppose the pressures on the leaders for more-of-the-same were immense. But it has become clear that is up to us to begin a broader dialogue. Gandhi called for the Satyagraha Week to be one of fearless yet convivial dialogue about the truth of society and to redouble our efforts to live by that truth. Reading that affirmed some of the work I did this past year, with the Global Finance Initiative. After consultations with finance professionals and stakeholders in dozens of countries we concluded with a recommendation that dialogues on changes in financial systems are required that are:

• Foundational, addressing profound questions about the purpose of the financial system and the principles that direct its actions;
• Comprehensive, encompassing the connections between accounting systems, currencies, regulatory systems, economic structures and all parts of the financial system;
• Inclusive, with processes reaching beyond traditional insiders, to engage responsible investors, multi-stakeholder groups working on finance issues, asset owners, labor, NGOs and critical academics, and be truly global;
• Systemic, connecting financial stability to the real economy, social equity, and environmental sustainability.

This dialogue could be part of a global truth-seeking — a ‘Global Satyagraha’. Beyond his views on dialogue and truth-seeking, MK Gandhi’s views are relevant to the future of the global economy and our work on responsible enterprise and finance in at least four ways: economic equality, appropriate technology, self-reliance, and trusteeship.

Challenging both the caste system and negativity between religions, he promoted the equality of all peoples, which meant non discrimination in employment and economic affairs. He also believed that technology could be good if did needed work, but bad if it put people out of work. This philosophy led him to spend many hours working on the spinning wheel, a technology that was appropriate to the economic level of villagers across India at the time. Another important aspect of the spinning wheel was how it generated self-reliance. Gandhi spoke of ’swadeshi’ or economic self-sufficiency, as the only way that India would achieve self-determination. He called on his country-people not to pay into the system of empire by buying foreign clothes. In our current context the implication here is not simply that we produce for ourselves, but that we seek to become independent of systems of exploitation for our own livelihoods and lifestyles.

Jem Bendell at site of MK Gandhi assasination, March 2009

These aspects of Gandhian economics are well documented and discussed. Like many business folk the world-over, many Indian executives do not see the relevance of these approaches to modern business, viewing them as anachronistic. Yet, in a resource-constrained and climate-threatened world, where hyper-inequality fuels violence, the need for principles and practices of equality, appropriateness and self-reliance to pervade business is clear.

What stunned me was the resonance of his views on ‘trusteeship’ with the latest thinking within the corporate responsibility movement. More of us have come to understand that we need to redesign the systems of corporate governance and finance in order to create more sustainable and responsible economies, and that business executives can and should engage in public policy debates to promote that redesign. In my latest book, I develop the concept of “capital democracy” to describe an economic system that responds to this understanding. I write:

Corporate Responsibility Movement, Bendell et al, March 2009

“In a democratic society, property rights should only exist because people collectively decide to uphold them; they are not inalienable but are upheld by society as a matter of choice. Therefore, if society confers us the right of property, then we have obligations to that society. Today property rights have become so divorced from this democratic control that they are undermining other human rights. A reawakening to a basic principle is required: there can be no property right without property duties, or obligations. From such a principle, it should not be left up to the powerful to decide if they are responsible or not, or if they are carrying out their obligations or not. Instead, the focus shifts to the governance of capital by those who are affected by it” (Bendell, et al, 2009, Pg 33 to 34).

The Mahatma’s view of trusteeship is the same, but elegant in its simplicity. It arises from an understanding that everything is owned by everyone, and wealth is owned by those who generate it. Thus the one who controls an asset is not an owner but a trustee, being given control of that asset by society. Gandhi wrote “I am inviting those people who consider themselves as owners today to act as trustees, i.e., owners, not in their own right, but owners in the right of those whom they have exploited.” In the Harijan paper his views on trusteeship of property were later documented to clarify “It does not recognize any right of private ownership of property except so far as it may be permitted by society for its own welfare” and “under State-regulated trusteeship, an individual will not be free to hold or use his wealth for selfish satisfaction or in disregard of the interests of society.” He also wrote that “for the present owners of wealth… they will be allowed to retain the stewardship of their possessions and to use their talent, to increase the wealth, not for their own sakes, but for the sake of the nation and, therefore, without exploitation.” All those years ago the Mahatma was proposing an economic system that many people are only beginning to conceive of today. If you have my book, I apologise for my prior ignorance of Gandhi’s trusteeship concept. If you don’t have it under your trusteeship yet, hey, it’s still worth reading!

Sangeeta Das of the Gandhi Smriti Museum revealed to me how some Indian industrialists supported many of Gandhi’s ideas and applied some to their own business. Upon reading the views of some current Indian business leaders I see the concepts of equality and trusteeship have informed their voluntary corporate responsibility efforts. However, I am left with a sense that the concept of trusteeship has much untapped potential as an economic system, codified into public policy and regulation. The current crisis demonstrates the need to globalise trusteeship, or capital democracy, as an approach that can be debated and interpreted into new principles and policies for economics, finance and enterprise. In addition it is clear that concepts of appropriate technology and self-reliance have much more to offer both to corporate strategy and public policy than currently the case. I wonder whether Indian business leaders could play a role in bringing this insight to the world.

The life of Gandhi is important not only for his views on economic systems but also on how to bring them into being. In my book I argue that the global challenges we face mean those of us who work to make business better must start thinking and planning like a movement. “The corporate responsibility movement is a loosely organised but sustained effort by individuals both inside and outside the private sector, who seek to use or change specific corporate practices, whole corporations, or entire systems of corporate activity, in accordance with their personal commitment to public goals and the expectations of wider society.” (Bendell, et al 2009, pg 24). As a movement leader, we could learn from Gandhi’s mastery of symbolic communication combined with personal authenticity, his embrace of both dialogue and direct action, his respect for people no matter the differences, and his demonstration that we must ourselves disengage with systems that uphold a lie. More of us can mobilise our networks and knowledge for transformative ends. And if it means changing our lives to be less economically dependent on the status quo, then that’s what we must do.

The recent violence from authorities against protesters and bystanders (and the truth) at the G20 is yet another reminder of the need to learn how to engage in a transformative non-violent movement that provides people diverse ways to participate while sucking energy out of violent systems. On the 90th anniversary of the hundreds who died in Jallianwala Bagh, we can remember how their memory inspired millions in the pursuit of truth and freedom.

I will be discussing some of these ideas in a webinar, online, and seminar in Geneva, called: “The Corporate Responsibility Movement: Where are we going and why?” Seminar: Thursday May 14, from 12.30 to 14.00 Swiss time, Uni Mail, 40 bd du Pont d’Arve, Geneva, room MR 150 (ground floor, opposite the cafeteria). Register: csr@unige.ch.  Webinar: Tuesday May 19, from 16:30 to 18:00 UK time, organised by CSR International. Venue is “online”. Register: clemence@csrinternational.org http://www.csrinternational.org/?p=273

The Corporate Responsibility Movement, Jem Bendell et al. March 2009 ISBN 978-1-906093-18-1
http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/productdetail.kmod?productid=2767

Thx to Suzy, Satjiv, Inderpreet, Nandita, Varsha and Sangeeta for unwittingly guiding my serendipitous journey in India.

Questions to Christians

Over the years I have sometimes discussed religion, faith and spirituality with people at parties. I was asked to follow up with someone on this recently, and rather than providing explanations and references, in the first place I am writing down the questions I normally put to someone of faith. I pose these questions to explore with them the depth of their spiritual inquiry.

• How can you be happy going to heaven knowing others have gone to hell?

• Might your assumption or yearning for yourself to have an independent existence after death, worthy of being called or experienced as “you”, be a projection of ego consciousness, showing a fixation on your separate identity?

• Given that you are not meant to worship material idols, why do you worship the bible, or sentences in it, when it is made of human invented things called “words” referring to human invented things called “concepts”

• In a world of billions of people with their own histories cultures and belief systems, how can you believe you know the one right way, based on divine revelation to one group of people at one moment in time, without being racist or accepting that your God is racist?

• Given that archaeological evidence from the past 100 years have highlighted how key elements of the biblical story, such as a ‘virgin’ birth, the numbers of disciplines, and some key Jesus teachings, were actually popular myths prior to the supposed lifetime of Jesus, how can you not wish to explore the historical and cultural origins and inventions of your religion?

• Given the role of the roman empire in influencing what was chosen to be in the bible or be excluded, around 300 AD, shouldn’t you explore not only what was left out of the bible but also what the interests of the romans were in challenging existing spiritualities across europe at that time?

• Given that those pre Christian European spiritualities, like many other non-Abrahamic spiritualities around the world, did not see a separation between the natural and spiritual realms, might that separation have been functional to forms of organisation and control that enabled those societies using Christianity to conquer more peoples and lands?

• What might have been lost to our sense of self, community and world, due to that new understanding of natural-spiritual separation, which might be at the root of some of our problems today?

• Why does your personal sense of joy and peace when you decide that doubts about your religion are mere tests of your faith, and that god transcends human understanding, validate your views and subsequent actions?

When I have some time in a week or two Ill write up the way the discussions normally go, and then the references I can recommend to help people follow up on the issues raised. Usually the questions do require a lot of explanation of the history of spiritualities, the development of religion, and Western notions of concepts and words.. and then alternatives that are as enriching, empowering and socially positive, as a feeling of being loved by “God”.

The Law of Distraction

Heard about the Secret? I watched the DVD at a meeting of a ‘book club’ in Geneva. After an hour I started to get a bit uncomfortable… and as others got excited about it, I wondered how much of a party pooper I was going to be. Something just felt really wrong about this DVD… especially so given that it featured brilliant people like Michael Beckwith saying some great things, but weaving it all together in the most selfish and compassion-free worldview possible.

The film has became a publishing phenomenon — helped by being featured on two episodes of Oprah, I guess. And the use of Da Vinci Code style branding. It reached number one on the Amazon DVD chart in March 2007. A book version, also called The Secret reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list. For much of February through April both the book and DVD versions were #1 or #2 at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.

I thought ‘The Secret’ was a commercialised and hocus-pocus repackaging of the simple fact that we see things as much as we are as they ‘actually’ are. This has never been a secret. “We see things as we are not as they are” is in the extremely non-secret Jewish Talmud.

The implications of this are taken much further than ‘the law of attraction’ does, in Buddha’s teachings about peace and happiness arising from our transcending the need to bring anything into one’s life at all, because flow and change is inherent in all reality, and so suffering comes from becoming attached to things that will inevitably flow away. Another dimension to Buddha’s teachings are that things are ultimately one. The ‘law of attraction’ as presented in that film doesn’t approach this properly, being stuck in the selfish separative ego mind of the individual that wishes to receive more and more from the outside world for their own purposes. Indeed this hyper-egoism is illustrated by the idea that everything in the world happens because of us… i.e. we think good things, we get them, we think bad things, we get them.

Both Buddhism and ‘law of attraction’ approaches can fall into spiritual solipsism… meaning that we think that our own state of happiness means that the world outside our minds is doing fine, or is irrelevant. When spiritual teachers sometimes imply that we should ignore the negative, like famine and war, they are focusing on a separative view of humans. It is another thing to focus on why we don’t like famine and war, and frame our concern as an aspiration for what we do want. But that still means that the pain of reality at odds with your aspiration is still present. The goal is then for a sense of peace to persist while one is engaged in what is an often painful world. We need spirit in the world, the messy troubling reality of the world, not spirit found away from the world, on top of a mountain, in a corporate self-help course, or in front of a DVD.

Faced with problems we might unfortunately move from denial to despair. Neither is positive. However, we need to move from denial to action. For those who are not able to make the choice to act on problems facing humanity, it can be easier to block these out, and to chose to believe that this blocking out of others pain is somehow ‘right’ in some spiritual way… for instance by suggesting that we will even make more hunger occur by focusing on it! Nuts.

That is the real danger of the ‘law of attraction’ stuff – it offers a way of removing ones subconscious sense of guilt for turning ones back on the world and focusing on ones mental peace. In this sense the message of The Secret almost appears as the ultimate temptation – called ‘the devil’ in some cultures. So perhaps it highlights a ‘law of distraction’ – that people seek to distract themselves from their fundamental unity with everything and the inevitable passing of every pattern they identify with, including their own lives.

Don’t bother buying it. Use peekvid.com or somesuch to check it out. If you want to buy a DVD combining spiritual wisdom and the latest science, I’d recommend “What the Bleep do we know”… a bit cringy, but worth those moments of grimacing. see: http://www.whatthebleep.com

These vids might indicate a trend… spiritual tv. Which makes me wonder… I live in Geneva, the Rome of the Reformation. We host one of the first English language bibles ever, next to the church I can see from my window. It was the printing press that made the Reformation possible… it meant the translations could be shared around Europe rapidly and cheaply. The internet is as important a communications leap as the printing press. So…. the conditions are right for a spiritual renaissance, a transformation of assumptions concerning our place in the universe. I’m quite excited.

The Secret was well produced and wonderfully marketed. And the exposure it gave its producer Rhonda Byrne, helped us to see just how nutty and superficial her view is. In an article on how to lose weight, she wrote: “If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17317691/site/newsweek/page/2/. Yeah, fat boy, get out of my face, you’re expanding my waist!

That article came out the same week Newsweek ran a story on climate change being a hoax. If only by forgetting about climate change it would go away. If only. Sadly it won’t. And, sadly, neither will The Secret, or Rhonda or her secret-suckers if I just ignore them. But it’s tempting…

Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(2006_film) for more on the saga of the Secret.

 

There’s alrady a whole industry out there in helping people apply this stuff. For starters, there’s the “6 Week Extreme Life Makeover” e-book that aims to “Flood Your Life With Riches, Fulfill All Of Your Hearts Desires, And Start Living The Life Of Your Dreams – In Just 6 Weeks!”, closer followed by the “Revolutioniz” which says its “The Most Complete Resource On The Law Of Attraction And Reality Creation” and the more sober sounding “Reality Creation Secrets” which provides the “Most Powerful Knowledge In The World About How To Create The Perfect Reality You Desire And Manifest Super Riches, Total Freedom And Extreme Happiness!” Nice. Perhaps they’re even more nutty than the Secret. If you check one out, let me know.

Poetry in Hiking

Last week, after 3 days hiking in the Alps, sitting with a view of Bleumlisalp, I made my first attempt at poetry…

Water moods

Like the avalanching snow

Or the rushing streams

You like your moods

Like the glacier melting

Or the cool mountain clouds

You like your moods

Like the meadow below

Or just trampled snow

Do I like your moods?

Like wind, like air

Do you care?

Like water, all that water

Should we?

 

Thank You Sun

The rays through the clouds

The pink light at dusk

Sun, may I thank you?

Perhaps that’s pointless

As you’ll burn on regardless

But now, you burn through me

I see the rays as beauty

I see the pink and wonder

I’m being thanked for being

And for knowing you are there

So thank you too, Sun.

copyright jem bendell, july 27th 2007

What’s an NGO to do?

Around the world entrepreneurs are saying they can end poverty and save us from climate change, while turning a profit. Meanwhile politicians are often saying more radical things about wellbeing, quality of life, and a new direction for humanity than most mainstream NGOs. And recently the mass media and entertainment worlds aren’t ignoring the seriousness of key social and environmental challenges. In such circumstances what is an NGO to do? Over the last 20 years we have seen more advocacy from NGOs who recognised you couldn’t end child labour or tropical deforestation project by project, one factory or forest concession at a time, and so sought to influence government, intergovernmental and private sector policies. Perhaps the current responses, at least at the rhetorical level, indicate some success with advocacy by ‘global civil society’. Yet some suggest it means charities should step aside, because they aren’t competent to work at technical levels of implementation on issues like financing, auditing, and good governance. Many NGO people have agreed, perhaps, with their feet, by joining businesses, consulting firms and financial institutions.

It’s time for NGOs to work out their new niche. Some are nervously moving back towards a charity mentality of saying to people “give us some cash and we will feed those people or protect this animal”, or asset stripping their own brand through big bucks partnerships with companies that don’t address how the corporations internal practices worsen the problem the NGO is meant to be solving. This isn’t the way. Instead, its time to be more ambitious and more systemic. To see how the new interest from business and government can be leveraged for broader and deeper change. To try out new ways of solving problems and propose fundamentally different ways of organising things. Unfortunately lots of senior managers in NGOs don’t see that, or are scared of it. Some seem almost scared of their members, worrying that being more ambitious might upset them, lose them. Others just don’t have time for any creative ideas, as they are busy with time sapping form-filling to demonstrate to big donors how they’ve been good at following proper procedures. All this promotes a culture that doesn’t want to risk failure, and settles for projects that can help tick the boxes for funders. “The revolution will not be funded”, as Incite aptly put it in their book published in April. http://www.incite-national.org/

This was the basic thinking about the need for new NGO approaches which I brought to my work with WWF-UK, as a senior strategic advisor to their work on business, trade, finance and international development. At the start the crucial thing for me was to work out ways for WWF to leverage other sectors, which have a lot more power than even the world’s largest environmental NGO, to transform markets so they function in ways that create more just and sustainable outcomes. Going back to the old model of merely moaning about stuff wasn’t an option. Engaging other organisations to reduce barriers and create incentives for systemic change was my main aim. Yet seeking to engage organisations poses its own set of conundrums. It’s key for an NGO not to fall into the trap of being a cheap consultant to industry or government, or get access by selling out the brand to a ‘partner’. And it’s key to have a strategy rather than just get hooked on a particular method or tactic. We shouldn’t think that partnership with a company or a company attending our meeting is a sign of success. It ain’t. Change is. Too many NGOs think you chose just one club to play a round of golf. Nasty reports and column inches – thats the 7 iron. Stakeholder dialogue and happy reports – thats the putter. But the clubs aren’t the game. You have to respond to the terrain. And so what is that terrain? Its society, stupid. So, NGOs have to get more savvy with their understanding of what society is and how it changes. I have a simplified model in my head based on integrating some insights from extremely boring social and political texts about things with pompous names like structuration theory and neo institutional theory. I see society as about people interacting with things and each other in ways that can be helpfully describe in 4 categories: assumptions, beliefs or norms, rules and resources. It’s a bit farcical that often people in the social change profession don’t have a sense of the terrain or a strategy for changing it. It leads to people becoming addicts of a particular approach, thinking that working only on values, or only on new ideas, or only on regulatory reform, or only through dialogue and networks, or only through protest, is the way. Dumb…. which wouldn’t be any of my business except when they take up scarce resources in organisations that should be innovating change.

Is this all easier said than done? Yep. But one way to illustrate what I’m saying is to give examples of the projects I helped set up at WWF, before I returned to Lifeworth Consulting.

1. Stopping stupid lobbying: I worked with SustainAbility and Blueprint to shape up a project that would look at whether investors are asking companies to be coherent and progressive with their public affairs and lobbying activities. The aim being to encourage this in the investment world and thus in the corporate world and hence reduce the short termist and ideological crap we hear from some companies and trade associations on needed regulatory innovations to promote more long term real value creation (not just a derivatives bubble). And promote good lobbying too, like some are doing on climate change. The report has come out this week “Coming In from the Cold” and a range of follow up activity is being planned with investors who get the idea we need to see companies supporting value creation across an economy, not externalising costs onto other companies in their same portfolio. See sustainability.com for more info and talk to Seb Beloe there. Great clarity and style.. just like the head honcho.
2. Getting money where it’s needed: I created a partnership with UNEP Finance Initiative to explore how to reduce the risks of investing in SMEs in the global South, and make it easier to do so. If we come up with ways of using philanthropic and government schemes to then leverage billions of dollars of private funds into clean tech in Africa which also creates lots of jobs and cash into the local economy then Ill be happy. So Im pleased to still be working as a consultant on this project. We even generated 40K funding from the Geneva government and then got nominated for a prize… already (www.obsfin.ch). See www.unepfi.org for more info on our event on September 26^th 07 and talk to Inderpreet Chawla there. A real spiritual warrior bridging the consciousness of his “rustic” Indian upbringing with global IT, finance and UN life. Love also to Jen Morgan, Andrew Gaines and Oliver Karius for helping bring this project to life.
3. Getting corporate lobbying on the agenda in India: With the deputy director of UNRISD, Peter Utting, we devised a project researching how Indian firms are lobbying state and federal government and the implications for sustainable development. This will end up as a programme paper sent free to academics around the world, and hopefully some decent media coverage in India in order to put this issue on the agenda. Then, perhaps, once everyone has the info, we can help Indians to stop stupid lobbying in their own country, and promote more transparent and accountable lobbying. After all, what happens in a country with about 17% of the worlds population is more important than what happens in a country with about 1% (India vs UK). UNRISD are hosting a conference on these issues in November 07 in Geneva. See www.unrisd.org for more info. Your contact there is Peter Utting, a rare species in the UN system… which one? Perhaps an elephant… big brain, long memory, higher view, and always returning to the same ground of basic truths about power and democracy… so needed amongst a flock of sheep.
4. Getting iconic brands and celebs to promote sustainability in emerging markets: The world needs sustainable consumption to become sexy in Asia, and fast. Otherwise we will all be stuffed by an inflationary resource crunch and climate chaos. What to do when NGOs really aren’t very sexy or known in much of Asia? Encourage iconic brands, celebrities and the mass media to do the job. So, one sector that is powerful in shaping aspirations, and using a lot of celebrities and advertising, is the luxury industry. Fortunately it’s also a sector known by decision making elites in very hierarchical societies. So, we have been looking at commercial reasons why the luxury industry might want to become champions of sustainability, and then how to engage celebrities with that. I’m pleased to be leading this project now with Lifeworth. We will launch our report on the future of luxury in November 07, along with an industry initiative bringing together those in the sector who want to lead change. More information will be coming soon at www.brandfutures.net. The chap championing this now at WWF is sustainable brands guru Anthony Kleanthous. Got even more style than Seb. Whatever do they teach them on that environmental course at Imperial? But if you think you can help with this project, please contact the much less stylish me.
5. Enabling more transformative partnerships: Sometimes partnerships between business and NGOs are piecemeal and hinder not help broader change. Its time for a greater focus on partnering to achieve change not just within the partners but within wider society including market frameworks. So I created a project with the UN System Staff College who teach UN and NGOs and business people around the world about partnering, which is looking at the last ten years of learning on partnering and will provide strategic planning tools to help people plan more transformative partnerships. I’m glad to be putting in some pro bono work to co write the final report, which should be out by November 07. Hmm… that month is beginning to look a bit hectic. Your contact at www.unssc.org is Dr Partnership himself, David Murphy, a man who taught me how to write and helped launch my crazy portfolio career.
6. Enabling more big picture planning by NGOs: All those projects are external, but there is also an internal need in WWF to help the staff be strategic in their planning… and to work towards deeper and broader change. I thought systems science would be useful for this so brought in systems illustrator Rupesh Shah to help people with this approach and come up with some tools. Ajay Barai at WWF-UK is your contact for that project. A man who puts the echo into eco tourism if the photos of his bar nights at his own resort in Tioman are anything to go by: http://www.bagusplace.com/en/html/rest_bar2.html. Was there in April…. wow…

 

For me all these projects are about promoting sustainable international development. But you won’t read anything about this kind of work in the development journals at the UN where I work as a Visiting Fellow. It’s as if the development profession prefer to think non westerners have only livelihoods not lifestyles, and that to promote a just and sustainable form of world development you’ve got to fly somewhere hot and poor like a modern day missionary… or perhaps tourist with ‘refined’ tastes.

I was only working with WWF part time and had to do lots of form filling and internal blah, as well as deal with the helicopter tragedy and then restructuring (see blog posting in September 06), so didn’t get to work more with them on public policy issues, responsible mass media, emerging markets, or business education reform. On the latter issue I’m pleased to be working with the Globally Responsible Leaders Initiative in my role as Associate Professor of Griffith Business School. The aim is to promote a transformation in business education offered by business schools. i.e. the institutions that too often turn out hardnosed hard hearted management robots. Lots of work to be done there then. See www.efmd.org

If you are interested in this issue of how NGOs can carve out a new niche in their advocacy and bring a new level of professionalism to their social change work, let me know. The project I’m doing with UNRISD is looking at how NGOs work through networks to influence policy. Im planning on integrating the findings from this, the UNSSC Partnerships work, and my internal strategy advisory work at WWF, into an NGO strategic planning 1 day workshop. I will offer this in Australia in March 08 and London and/or Geneva in May 08. Ill be presenting some of the initial ideas to the strategy group of Global Action Networks Net in Geneva in November 07. See www.gan-net.net and your contact there is the effervescent Steve Waddell. He’s the Pope of new international community organising. Or perhaps the Madonna.

Thank you Jill

On Monday 25th, at the start of my first day in the WWF-UK office, the death of WWF-UK’s Director of Programmes, Dr Jill Bowling, was confirmed along with 23 passengers on a helicopter in Nepal.

Jill was the reason I joined WWF. I have mixed feelings about NGOs, given the tendency for big egos to badly manage, sometimes confusing their public purpose and the values from which this arises, with their own status or that of their organisation. But Jill embodied a different approach. In the three times I met her, and few times we discussed on the phone, I found someone who was focused on the imperative of positive change for people and planet. Someone who wanted to support and enable talented and decicated people to achieve more than they could on their own. I was really looking forward to working with and learning from her.

Jill was in Nepal to mark a historic event, which illustrated both the need for and practicality of people living in harmony with nature and with eachother, to gain welfare, wellbeing and meaning from our living planet. “This historic step is an important landmark in the history of biodiversity conservation in the country… the devolution of power to local communities, especially with regard to natural resources and equitable sharing of benefits,” a press statement issued by the WWF Nepal said.

There was a memorial service in the offices of WWF-UK for Jill and Jenn Headley who had also worked at WWF-UK previously and died in the crash. Jill was a trustee of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation (www.arcworld.org) and a representative lead the service. To the staff he said of Jill: “you are her memory, you are her future.” Part of Jill’s legacy will be expressed though how we embrace the message of people-planet unity that underlay the important work in Nepal that she was there to celebrate.

This blog was meant to be about my random attempts at understanding things, and where failing that then just musing or laughing. With such sad and shocking news the only option is to seek some learning, some truth, some implication… thankfully Jill’s life is fertile for such lessons and legacy.

The week before, from the airport on her way to Nepal, Jill called me and apologized that she was not going to be in the office on my first day. Those little things speak volumes, don’t they? Thank you Jill.

Why was she there? An historic event: http://www.nepalmountainnews.org/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1158998430&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&do=news

WWF book of condolences: http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/crisis/helicopter_crash_nepal_2006/book_of_condolences/messages/index.cfm

How to Begin? On consciousness and foot massage

How should I begin my own blog? Its going to be a mix of work and life. I want to use it partly as my own diary or journal, and use the informal setting to write more freely than I do in my publications (which, by the way, plug, are available via www.jembendell.com, end plug). So it will reflect what I think about. This summer, during a July of 30+ heat in Geneva, I spent time reflecting on what my worldview is today… I had some decisions to make about future work and where to live. Ive made those decisions… more on that later, but for now, this is what Ive come up with…

What is my belief system? I don’t think I have one… other than the importance of foot massage (well I’d had a hard weekend walking in the Jura.). I have hopes, about the way things might be, and know how I would like things to be, but not beliefs. I see beliefs as those things we say are so, despite evidence to the contrary. Instead, my ethos is partly informed from experiences of consciousness, combined with reason.

I take inspiration from peak experiences, momentary states of consciousness which can be called ‘universal love’ consciousness or spiritual consciousness, where the sense of separateness of oneself from everything else melts away. For me these are important in 3 respects.

a) Insight into reality. This consciousness suggests that there is a reality that is non-separate. That there is some unity of being that we do not always perceive in daily living. This consciousness happens within my brain-and-body, and so could be either entirely bounded within that, or could involve my mind connecting with something outside it. I do not know. Anyone who says they do know are probably just speculating in ways that reflect their emotional needs, social conditioning etc.

b) Experience of the experiencer. This consciousness can release a great sense of joy. That joy comes, I think, from all the fears we have that arise from our separateness and fixation on forms not flows e.g. how we fit in, whether we are good, that we will die, that things or people we like or love will change, disappear, suffer. Joy itself has value.

c) The effect on interpersonal relations. This consciousness CAN, but not necessarily WILL, create mutually supportive interaction between people, leading to more people self-actualizing in harmony.

None of these interpretations of the meaning, importance and implications of peak experiences or higher states of consciousness are complete: we should not just focus on one aspect.

The memory of these peak experiences can motivate people to act in ways that are

i) self-expressing in ways that correspond with a greater more connected self and

ii) self-effacing (and even self-harming) in the sense that the acting or ways of thinking involve subsuming the self to the other.

 

Some people think that ii is of higher worth in terms of transcending self-interest, whereas some think that ii is a pathology, not a spiritual quality. I believe that both self-expression and self-effacing are essential aspects of a life arising out of the knowledge and experience of higher consciousness, and that one and not the other is not complete.

From realizing that in a night club, in a church and by a lake I have had these moments of higher consciousness, I do not see this consciousness as purely material, purely supernatural and religious, or purely natural and ecological…. I even feel like this a bit when I spend time with good friends. It was great when Adam and Fay popped in for a surprise visit to Geneva. (OK, Fay and Adam I wasnt overwhelmed by the holy spirit, but it was nice to see u).

So I’m beginning the blog with consciousness. Appropriately perhaps, because “in the beginning there was consciousness.” That’s how I understand the opening phrase of the bible “In the beginning was the Word”. The original word was “logos” and this doesnt mean “word” but alludes to thought, concept, or, consciousness. In this way the Abrahamic religions correspond with Eastern philosophy on consciousness preceding matter. Its just that in the West we have got too attached to and proud of language, worshipping the false idols of ink on a page and sounds from the mouth. Im not sure whether moments of altered consciousness are moments when we connect to that original universal consciousness… That would have to be a belief. But it certainly seems experientially as if there is a fundamental unity being connected to.

I’ll leave it there for now.. not bad for a first blog post to reveal both post-christianity and forays into the chemical world. Speaking of which… how DOES Dave keep doing it? Wild show at Paleo from Depeche Mode this summer… loved it.