Have you worked for an organization or company that made you feel regimented, limited, mechanized? have you experienced the "faster is better," quantity over quality, and "money is the bottom line" values one too many times? Have you questioned whether your company's products have made a positive impact on the world?
If these conditions have permeated your work life, either as a manager or as a line worker, then consider that you do have the power to do your small part to change the impact of global organizations.
Ever hear of the GNHI, the Gross National Happiness Index? It was first referred to by the King of Bhutan. Yes, Bhutan, not a third world sophisticated Western country. The GNHI, according to the King, is a measure of “the purpose of human life, a vision that puts the individual’s self-cultivation at the center of the nation’s developmental goals,” rather than the GNP.
Peter Senge, MIT’s Sloan School Professor and creator of the Society for Organizational Learning, was a keynote speaker at the International Coach Federation Conference that I attended recently. He has been a genius when it comes to melding values such as sustainability of the earth’s resources with the needs of global companies. In fact, he got Unilever, the world’s largest food producer, and Oxfam, an international organization that creates solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice, talking and planning for how to ensure that the next generations have a viable world to live in.
In the Western world the measure of the GNP translates to “success” as measured by companies and institutions that make more material things. This refers to more money made through using up the world’s resources more and more quickly, by the failure to engage the spirit of most employees, and to the unfavorable outcome of creating more inequality among the world’s people leading to poverty, fundamentalism, and terrorism.
Senge quoted from world renowned business strategist Arie de Geus, who recommended that employers create “living human communities, rather than machines for profit-making.” Living human communities need to take into account the impact of globalization on the whole globe, not just on our ability to buy a melon for $1.50 at any time of the year (an example that Senge gave); this melon purchase means that as the majority of food is produced cheaply by huge food conglomerates, it puts small farmers out of business all over the world.
Whether you are retired, semi-retired, or still employed, can you begin to challenge the prevailing ethos of “using up?” Instead, are you willing to change or live the value of conserving, giving back, creating? If not, Senge and other global strategists warn, our global resources will be used up in time for our children and grandchildren to feel the effects.
If you are at a time in your life when you are concerned about the world we are creating for future generations … if you see yourself as wanting to include all of the world’s people in the culture of having, rather than having not… If you want to experience the positive feelings of affecting the security and comfort not only of your loved ones, but of all the people on the planet, what little piece are you willing to do now to effect that change?
Comment below or write to me at Karma@LifeSpringCoaching.com
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