3p Contributor: Saybrook University
The posts on this page represent a variety of voices from the Saybrook community on subjects related to organizational evolution and systems thinking. Please feel free to share them and comment!
Recent Articles
In Times of Change, Go Slow to Go Fast
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
By Jay G. Cone, Ph.D. student in organizational systems, Saybrook University
Three organizations I work with are undergoing restructuring. In one case, the company is being acquired. The other two organizations are spinning off divisions to create new publicly traded companies.
I have firsthand experience of working for a company that’s being spun off. I was a human resources director when PepsiCo divested itself of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC creating a restaurant company now known as Yum! Brands. There are rumors that PepsiCo may be at it again; financial blogs are buzzing about the possible spin off Frito Lay.
A lot of lives get disrupted during a restructuring. Even employees who have been assured they will still have a job when things calm down can feel as though they’ve lost their moorings.
Leaders have a special responsibility in turbulent times to keep people focused on their responsibilities while providing as much stability and safety as possible. A restructuring can be particularly hard on leaders for two reasons:
Five Ingredients to Grow a Grassroots Green Team
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
By Aimee C. Juarez, Ph.D. student in organizational systems, Saybrook University
Creating a sustainable workplace can be pretty easy to do if you’ve got a green team running the show.
Green team members aren’t outsiders you bring in to teach workers how to be eco-friendly. They’re actually members of your staff who learn about sustainable practices as a group so they can work together to develop strategies that will make your workplace a sustainable space.
Five ingredients and a little follow through’s all it takes to grow a grassroots green team, according to research.
1) It starts with involvement.
There is No Environmental Sustainability Without Social Sustainability
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
Valle del Bravo, Mexico
By Kathia C. Laszlo, Ph.D.
Sustainability is a global challenge. But in every place around the world, it requires a local response. The particularity of the problems — and also of the solutions — is connected to the culture and circumstances of specific places.
Some of the work I’m doing in central Mexico involves coaching ecosocial entrepreneurs and designing learning processes to translate ideas into action to regenerate social and environmental conditions. Last summer, I was part of a learning event that was a collaboration between my nonprofit Syntony Quest, the University of the Living Environment in Mexico, and the German social entrepreneurship organization ThinkCamp. The event was a reunion of ecosocial entrepreneurs and other social leaders from Mexico committed to create sustainable solutions. We took the group to three day camping adventure in the woods near Valle de Bravo. The experience was filled with nature walks, conversations around the camp fire, group games and sharing meals. The purpose was to share experiences from the different contexts of our practice with the intention of establishing deeper connections among ourselves and with nature—those connections, after all, are the foundation of the work we do in the world.
The campsite of our event was high in one of the mountains that surround the village of Valle de Bravo, which is pretty far away from modern civilization. The artificial lake of Valle de Bravo is a an important reservoir that provides drinking water to Mexico City, which is just northeast of the area. The health of the forests in the surrounding mountains is a key factor for water catchment and other critical environmental services. However, the many communities that surround the village depend to a great degree from the forests for their survival.
In preparation for the event, I went with one of the camp guides and two other facilitators to scout the site in order to design the walks and conversations in nature. To everyone’s surprise, many of the trails were blocked and seriously damaged from recent logging. It was a sad scene since many of the trees logged were old growth. This camp site belongs to a rural community as an “ejido,” or “common land,” shared by the people of the local indigenous community. This group’s survival hinges on subsidized, monoculture, agricultural practices and from the selling of fire wood.
The Power of Intention to Spark Evolutionary Change
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
By Nancy Southern, Ed.D.
Over my lifetime, I have learned from experience that holding an intention for change can result in creating the desired change. I have seen it work in bringing people and relationships into my life, creating the work I desired, and helping me develop a path forward to create the change. Essentially, I learned that if I could envision it, I could bring it into reality. It has worked so effectively that I know I have to be careful that what I think I want to create is what I really want or need.
It took me awhile to understand why creating an intention and vision was such a powerful process. I learned that once I had a clear understanding and picture of the possibility, I would talk a lot about it. Through sharing it with others and gaining their perspectives and ideas, my vision became clearer. As my clarity increased, I noticed opportunities I might not have noticed otherwise. Sometimes people led me to opportunities once they knew my intention.
Social Entrepreneurship: A Quest to be More Fully Human
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
Social entrepreneurs listen to Kathia C. Laszlo teach a workshop about sustainability at the Universidad del Medio Ambiente in Mexico.
By Kathia C. Laszlo, Ph.D.
Social entrepreneurs are starting new organizations that combine best management practices with a socio-ecological purpose. They are expanding the boundaries of what it means to do business and innovating new organizational structures to respond to the needs and demands of an aching society.
Working with social entrepreneurs in Mexico is a very rewarding aspect of my work. My role at the Universidad del Medio Ambiente (or University of the Environment) in central Mexico is to create learning environments and facilitate processes that support the development of their projects as well as help in the development of these entrepreneurs as leaders.
Last Friday, I was part of an event celebrating the completion of the year-long environmental entrepreneurs program there. The projects this group of Mexican social entrepreneurs developed this year included organic urban agriculture methods, ride sharing to address traffic in Mexico city, environmental education consulting, and a solar energy provider among others.
The success of a social entrepreneur depends on his or her ability to develop a clear and systemic mission and vision, a sound strategy, and a feasible business model that creates financial viability while fulfilling a social and environmental purpose. Through reflective practice and coaching, our social entrepreneurs refine their presentation skills and hone their message, helping them succinctly and powerfully articulate their value proposition—or the intersection between their passion and the social need being addressed.
These skills are crucial. But even with these skills, a social entrepreneur has to face all kinds of obstacles that may limit his or her ability to compete in the marketplace.
An exclusive focus on results will lead us to only appreciate those social entrepreneurs whose projects succeed according to the current rules of the game. A deeper look at the role of social entrepreneurs, however, allows us to appreciate their role as social change agents beyond their enterprises.
Social entrepreneurs embody a new kind of leadership—leadership that bridges vision with action and values with results; leadership that goes beyond “leading others” and starts with “leading the self.” This type of leadership challenges the ego because what matters most is not theira personal sense of achievement, but an ability to contribute positively to society.
In the process of supporting social entrepreneurs, I have come to appreciate their courage and commitment to attempt what, in the past, was considered impossible or questionable: do well by doing good.
The aspect that I cherish the most is the sense that, together, this community of social entrepreneurs and its support network are willing to try with all their hearts to be congruent, to live their values, and to walk their talk. From this perspective, one can say that social entrepreneurs are exploring ways of being more fully human.
Kathia C. Laszlo, Ph.D., is co-founder of Syntony Quest and is also a faculty member of the organizational systems program at Saybrook University. She regularly contributes to Rethinking Complexity, a blog produced by students and faculty members of Saybrook’s organizational systems program. Read more of Dr. Laszlo’s work at: www.rethinkingcomplexity.com.
Why Are So Many People Immune to Change?
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
By Nancy Southern, Ed.D.
A couple of months ago, I came across an article in my local paper entitled, American “Allergy” to Global Warming, Why?”
The article asked why so many Americans remain in denial about climate change when such a great amount of scientific evidence exists that indicates it is our reality. The article reviews some of the scientific evidence and asks why there continues to be little motivation for changing our consumption and production practices that appear to contribute to global warming. The writer notes how the support for and against addressing climate change has become part of the political divide, making it difficult to discuss as a public conversation.
In listening to the Republican candidates’ debates, climate change has not been part of the conversation. Will President Barack Obama consider it dangerous territory when we move into debates between the two presidential candidates? If so, a great opportunity to bring this conversation to Americans across the country will be lost.
Transforming Our Economic System From Egocentric Domination to Ecocentric Real Wealth
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
By Julie Auger, organizational systems graduate, Saybrook University
A reoccurring theme has been emerging in conversations with my friends and colleagues: our economic system.
Does our current economic system work? Who does it serve? Who is it damaging? Is it sustainable? Is there a better way? Can the system be changed?
I’ve wrestled with the underlying purpose of our financial structure for some time. From an ecological and social justice perspective, I’ve never quite understood why we strive for affluence to the detriment of the environment and the majority of the world’s population.
According to statistics from GlobalIssues.org and The World Bank, almost half of the world—more than three billion people—live on less than $2.50 USD a day. Additionally, “more than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening,” GlobalIssues.org noted.
What’s Your Spiritual Footprint?
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
Sculpture by Victor Castro. Image courtesy of Alexander Laszlo.
By Alexander Laszlo, Ph.D.
“Some day, when we have harnessed the power of the sun and the waves and gravity, we will learn how to harness the power of love. And then, for the second time, we will have discovered fire.” — Teilhard de Chardin
We’ve all heard of the notion of an ecological footprint—that measure of human impact on the carrying capacity of Earth developed by Mathis Wackernagel during his doctoral studies. It is often expressed in terms of how many planets, like ours, it would take to “offset” the damage that would be done to the one we’ve got if everyone were to live like we do with our patterns of consumption, waste disposal, pollution, energy use, and resource depletion (both non-renewable and renewable at rates beyond a sustainable regenerative capacity). All this can be calculated in terms of carbon emissions and other quantifiable indicators of sustainability as part of a systemic Life-Cycle Assessment framework. More often than not, we end up with an ecological footprint that suggests we would need three, five, seven or more “extra” Earths for everyone on this planet to live like we do—with the same style of life and standard of living we enjoy. Not particularly heartening.
You may have a sense that at this point in the 21st century, humanity won’t solve it’s way out of this problem. And you are precisely right. The levels of complexity reached by our current extent of global interconnectedness and interdependence are not amenable to rational resolution alone. To frame our collective challenges in terms of “problems to be solved” is to perpetuate the type of thinking that has created the conditions of critical instability that currently afflict all major life support systems on our planet. We can’t engineer our way to the additional planets needed to perpetuate the lifestyles we currently inhabit. We are not going to “fix” this problem. In fact, it’s not a problem at all; once we realize that, it becomes possible to curate the emergence of relationships that foster abundance. Relationships with ourselves, with each other, with our “more than human” world, and with future generations—of all beings.
Heineken: The Red-Star Steward of Sustainability
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
By Dennis Rebelo, Ph.D. student in organizational systems, Saybrook University
Heineken just seemed to be a beer company to me; one with a ripened value due to years of good reputation. I had never thought about the company’s ethics toward profitability or brand positioning until recently when I had dinner with Heineken USA’s VP of Corporate Responsibility and Ethics during a business trip to Washington, D.C.
During our conversation, I made some key discoveries.
I learned how Heineken uses market access to help others. The company, the Heineken executive said, has a responsibility to be “of service” and to teach “Heineken citizens” how to be part of a new way of thinking. For example in sections of Africa, the company works with a non-governmental organization to support the community’s diverse concerns. I am impressed with the scope of the company’s stewardship, ranging from creating innovate child survival approaches to sickle-cell anemia research.
The Not-So-Cleansing Rainfall in San Diego
The following is a guest post by our friends at Saybrook University’s Organizational Systems Program (a 3p sponsor) – designed for students who want to understand the nature of organizations, collaborative practices, and transformative change.
Photo courtesy of CBS 8 San Diego
By: Clay Sellers
Every autumn in San Diego County, we residents gird our loins for the fire season.
While New Englanders are marveling at the rapturous beauty of the changing foliage and its subsequent leaf-raking chores, we on the West Coast are clearing out the dry, brittle brush of our desert environment ensuring that there is as much open space surrounding our buildings as we can provide. It’s a bit of an anxious time, but well worth it to live in paradise.
The devastating Cedar fire of 2003 and the more recent Witch Creek and Harris fires of 2007 are only too clear in our memories. Blackened skeletal trees still punctuate the hills and valleys around the county.
A couple of weeks ago, we were blessed with a rare November rainstorm, which hesitated off the Western Pacific Coast for the early week until it finally moved onshore during the weekend. The dark clouds brought a refreshing coolness and doused the dusty trails and dry road beds, soaking away the multitude of pollens and allergy-evoking bits of plant matter that had been drifting about the winds in the valleys for weeks.
After the rains, the cool, clear air smelled sweet and pure and the world appeared washed clean.
Or was it?
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