Hi 

 

Thank you for being a reader of Transition Edge. Please feel free to forward it to friends who you think might enjoy it too.

 

I’m Grant Symons. I convene Transition Edge to help us understand how we can transition to a low carbon sustainable world using leading thinking and practices.

 

The last 300 or so years have been packed with examples of extraordinary human ingenuity, innovation, organisation and spirit. Great conquests, economic growth, scientific and technological breakthroughs, harnessing of all that nature can give, industrialisation, financialisation, globalisation, forever rising stock-markets and expanded government and social systems and services...it has been truly incredible.

 

What hasn't there been to like about the world of more? More stuff, better stuff, more money, rising asset prices, more places to go, things to do, things to own, bigger houses, more opportunities and conquests to win. Better social safety nets, standards of living and longer lives. At least for those that could participate in the world of more, which is all of us reading this. This is probably a moment to reflect on how lucky we have been to have been born into this developed part of humanity, especially if you are American.

 

This is our normal. It is what a child would now reasonably expect to continue for their lifetime, right? It is what us adults that have had a hand in creating and would expect too. Right? Although boomers might remember times when there was more latitude and acceptance, and folks had their important phone numbers in their heads.

 

Unless our internet connection is 99.99% reliable we are up in arms (except maybe if you live in Sydney, where it is known to be awful) and if that parcel doesn't arrive on the due date, we get worried. It there is no WiFi coverage or the gas station runs out completely...we now find these things completely unacceptable. And that night of your dinner party at home and the power went off, what the heck?! 

 

Business strategies and plans that have to work out or folks lose bonuses or worse, get moved on. Business cases now have to be so right, voluminous and reviewed multiple times, by the time they are signed off the risk or opportunity, for which they were intended, often no longer exists. Financial metrics and stock-market expectations that are so entwined and fine-tuned that the slightest deviation triggers a downgrading and or sell off. Things are finely tuned.

 

There is something worrying about what is going on. We seem to be missing or losing something. And the prospect of more automation, the use of artificial intelligence and increasingly pervasive technology in our lives, including in government policy setting and the delivery of health services, is possibly thinking a bit ahead of the game?

 

The people and institutions perpetuating all of this 'progress' seem to be on a relentless march towards total predictability, efficiency and control.

 

And isn't this what we want too? Isn't this what we expect now?  

 

Everything working out just right? Costing as little as possible to design, produce and deliver at break-neck speed? That there is a relentless increase in our house or farm value? All while our balance in our super account, or salary, revenues or profits all increase as well...we now seem to be wired to expect it to all happen like clockwork. Interesting perhaps?.

 

Has this all become a deadly default?

 

 

 

With organisations now looking like clones, with clone structures, clone systems, clone policies and clone practices, are we surrendering our human capacity and adaptability? 

 

Is our drive to be right all of the time, avoid risk, preserve positions of power or status, not rock the boat and deliver on all of the finely tuned expectations, actually helping or are we missing something?

 

When we are programmed to just do business as usual, 'crank the handle' and get rewarded for doing that efficiently, with the expectation that we get rewarded for that, this increasingly looks a lot like auto-pilot mode, we:

• pay less or no attention to the big picture
• get lazy
• expect our position to be protected forever
• perhaps get arrogant
• develop blind spots
• oversimplify or avoid things we intuitively know will be challenging
• look busy, interested, important
• go along with the crowd
• keep an eye out for the next career move opportunity

 

Have you had a chance to see the movie TopGun Maverick? Well, even if you haven't experienced some of the most exhilarating high speed fighter jet action caught on camera, it might be time to think about a choice we all have.

 

Imagine we are in the cockpit, five minutes out from contact with hostile forces. Do we ready ourselves for action, have every possible setting checked for maximum response...or do we switch the craft to autopilot, stretch back with our hands behind our heads and expect a smooth return home?