Election Reaction - The Audacity of Resilience
The Audacity of Resilience - A Call to Communities
Fred Presley - November 5, 2008
As Barack Obama gave his victory speech last night, I couldn’t help but be moved by the historical significance of the whole event. Electing the first African-American President in US history is an amazing accomplishment for a country that only 4 years ago seemed to be slipping further away from tolerance rather than being drawn towards it. I also found it appropriate that this 2nd US President to come out of the State of Illinois is African-American, while the 1st President to come from that State ended slavery. Like Lincoln, Obama faces a country in a crisis that will require sacrifices from all of us to overcome. His platform for change and hope provides us all with great opportunity and responsibility to rise to the occasion and be the change we so desperately need.
This change will require new ways of thinking about old problems. It will require the elimination of the old industrial mechanistic systems of governments and organizations and the creation of new adaptive and resilient systems that can respond to the complexity of the rapidly changing world in which we live. Having a President of the United States who can embrace this change (and I believe we now will have that person in Obama), is a great step in the right direction but the change must come not just from the top but from heart of society - its communities.
The cities, towns, and villages of this nation must answer the call and recreate the hope, energy, diversity, creativity, connectedness and wealth that once defined this country but has been dwindling in recent years. Communities cannot sit back and wait for county, state, or federal government to solve their problems. In the current economic reality that just isn’t going to happen, nor should it. A new era of civic responsibility is required. This responsibility needs to extend beyond the often arbitrary geographic borders of towns and states. Here the role of state and federal entities can be to help facilitate the relationship and remove unnecessary barriers that inhibit the exchange of information and resources. But it must be the communities themselves and all of the interconnected and interdependent organizations, companies and individuals within those communities that demand more of their government, more of their planners, more of their education systems and more of themselves.
A year ago, I made a bold move for my family and myself. I decided to leave public service after 8 years and begin a career in private consulting. I did this not because I wanted to finally cash in on my years of experience. No, I did this because along the way I was introduced to a new way of looking at government systems, planning and resource management that actually worked. After 8 years at state and local government jobs, first working for the environment and later as the Director of Planning and Economic Development for a local community, I had been extremely frustrated by the sheer inability of the systems that were in place to deal with the complexity of the issues that they were supposed to address. More often than not these systems ultimately exacerbated the problems they tried to solve.
Then I had the good fortune of being involved in a coastal resources project facilitated by an Australian man named Larry Quick. Larry took the group through a process that seemed on one hand foreign and abstract yet somehow intimately familiar and true at a deeper level of understanding that I would only over time appreciate. When I went to work as Director of Planning and Economic Development for a local Rhode Island community, I called Larry and asked what he thought about using this process around community planning and economic development. He loved the idea and off we went.
What became clear to me over the coming months was that the organizations and people were not the problem. The problem was the systems they were working with and processes (or lack there of) they used to deal with changing conditions. A new way of thinking was needed. This process that Larry brought offered a process that people could use to change their thinking. And it worked! So when local political disruption moved me to leave public service, it did not take long for me to realize my path. This is the change that communities and organizations needed. And I know it works. The more communities and organizations that we can get using this process, the more rapidly we can get real needed change happening.
Over the last year, The Resilient Futures Network was born. It was born from the thinking that Larry had developed over his many years of business strategy, economic and community development, and complex adaptive systems thinking. I joined up with Larry as did as did David Platt, Paul Houghton, and Todd Davies to round out a diverse and passionate group of thinkers whose mission is to change the world by changing the way that leaders, companies, organizations, communities and nations think and act in this rapidly changing world. And ultimately, to move the world toward a resilient future.
Listening to Barack Obama last night reinforced in me the reason why I left the security of government employment and turned down high paying corporate positions: the change we, of the Resilient Futures network, are trying to create is desperately needed. It may take some time and effort (and sacrifice) to get people, organizations and communities thinking in ways that will create this change but it is too important not to try. As Obama stated last night, the challenges we face are “the greatest of our lifetime — two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. ” To face these challenges we must become resilient. The Resilient Futures Network definition of resilience is whole systems, proactively self-transforming in a flow with changing conditions, and prospering. The process is not simple or easy but real change seldom is. We need to ‘change’ how we do business. Let’s all be that change!
Get engaged in the thinking. Join the Resilient Futures Network RSS feed today. Join the discussions and bring others into the conversation. Yes We Can!
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November 6th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
I was flicking through Peter Senge’s book - The Dance of Change last night and was struck by his definition of leadership - “the capacity of a human community to shape its future, and specifically to sustain the significant processes of change required to do so.”
I was struck by the parallels between this defintion, the narrative that Obama has used during his campaign and the language and philosophy of the Resilient Futures thinking and process.
I agree totally with Fred’s sentiments - It’s truly inspiring stuff.
November 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Great stuff Fred and Todd.
I think it is valuable to parse out some of the highly engaging, iconic messages that Barack’s campaign have bought to the fore.
Yes We Can! As Tom Friedman’s column in the New York Times of Nov 6th stated - “Obama’s campaign tapped a dormant civic idealism, a hunger among Americans to serve a cause greater than themselves, a yearning to be citizens again.”
Fred’s comment - “Let’s all be that change!” reminded me of a great Gandhi line: “Be the change you want to see in the world”.
All of this I think is a wonderful thing, and much needed - especially for creating momentum.
But I would add another Australian political campaign statement. That of Gough Whitlam in 1972 with: “Its Time”.
Yes we can. Be the change you want to see in the world. Its time.
All three ring a sound truth, and the ‘time’ element for me is a critical element in any device that the Resilient Futures Network and others are moved by.
The exhilaration of this moment, and the idea that in electing Barack we can now somehow relax I think is a deep concern. Complacency is what allowed us to endure the scandal and loss (at every level) of the past ten years. And, that same complacency could still exist if we think that complacency isn’t a root evil of a modern society that has taken so long to respond to the potentially terminal conditions humanity faces. Especially given that the biggest loss of the last ten years has been in time.
In working with the image of Barack, we must bring a message of time, and the fact we are running out of it, or at least, the window of subtle change is fast closing in the next two or so years. Given the time it takes to change organizations and nations - there is little and precious time, and every day counts.
The Resilient Futures Network is a wonderful idea that is only worth the result it produces as it grows to ‘be the change we want in the world’, because ‘yes we can’. But such a statement is not worth the tapping of the keyboard unless our individual, team and network effort cements a place in history of making a difference, in time.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Every day Obama names a new cabinet member. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. he is appointing Wall St and the killers. No change coming.