Creating a compelling need to change within.
By Salinda Jayawardena
Regenerative Leadership; sounds all anew, refreshing and promising. In a time where people across the globe entangled with a chaotic mindset and bewildered why the power of Mother Nature is still largely mysterious and supreme over the superficial human supremacy, which could not stand in front of the pandemic such as Covid 19? It has been proven time and again that we are treading on a path blindfolded not being able to see the harsh reality of the world with illusionistic viewpoint that human race is on a progressive march called evolution towards prosperity but in reality on a rather reverse evolution and visible degeneration of human value system. “New research estimates that climate change will drive 68 million to 132 million in to poverty by 2030 and one in ten number of people today live under poverty line of $1.90 a day “(The World Bank IBRD-IDA 2020) and “military spending in 2018 amounted to 2.1% of worlds GDP or $239 per person. (SIPRI -2019)
In light of such global restlessness across almost all nations over the degeneration of value systems and resultant effects on the natural world, The Regenerative Leadership notion, as published in the book in the same name by authors Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm sheds light on a topic where every leader be it political or social, big or small, should think aloud.
Nevertheless, we wonder whether there is any or more substance in this school of thought, to put this notion in practical perspective and to make it a more compelling need for today’s and future generations to come. Hence we attempt here to support and embolden the topic of Regenerative Leadership giving more emphasis on the person centric component in it and make it a self action pack rather than looking outside that change should bring about from others and others should change first approach. After all, the society is nothing but a collage of diverse individuals akin to the formation of the sea is by many droplets. Therefore it is rationale that if individuals change, naturally the world changes.
A saying reverberated over time and an apt anecdote,
In Sri Lanka, it is widely quoted saying ascribed to a scholarly venerable Theravada Buddhist monk in late Agga Maha Panditha Madihe Pannasiha thero (former chief prelate of Amarapurasect) often used to emphasize the importance of self disciplining the school children. It says “One cannot develop the country in its true sense without moral development of individual man”
Now we look at an anecdote which resembles the same spirit but in different way.
A kid comes to his father inquiring on what the world is. Father silently looks in to the eyes of him as to understand what exactly the kid wanted to know. After satisfying him of his curiosity the father disappeared only to return with an atlas map in his hand. Father hands the map to the son and asks him to tear it in to pieces. Kid obediently honored fathers word and showed the pieces of it and father now asks him to put it back in to the old shape. Astonished but kid obeys his father who allowed kid to attend to the task in isolation. After a little pause, the kid reappears in front of his father with a triumphant smile in his face and a lovely collage of the map in his hand. Father queries how he made it and kid responds that it was very difficult at the outset but lately he found that on the reverse of the map there appears a shape of a human and what he did was, put the parts of human body in the perfect places and ultimately the map on the flip side was naturally made. Queered and thrilled father now illustrates the moral of the act drawing parallels to how man is shaping and in fact reshaping the world according to his whims and fancies and if man is made, the world naturally will.
Why Change? Isn’t the world better now?
The world we call here is the eco system, the waterways, the fauna, flora, and the air, the space and of course man is a big part of the jigsaw and we fondly call all in one name -the Planet Earthwithout which no one can live no matter how rich we are. Every economy finally trickles down either directly or indirectly to the richness of the nature no matter what good or service it produces. It is a misconception but humans act as if they own the earth but in reality they can and should become fittingly to the shoes of the custodian. In an interdependent society humans act irresponsibly to satisfy their greed to acquire and amass more and more resources at a faster rate than it regenerates thus scarcity is created. First it starts with one to satisfy the needs, then to a desire which intensifies and evolves over time to lust and greediness forgetting the value of a level playing field. With the scarcity, it creates a higher value proposition for such good or service and the competition further aggravates in to a struggle and battle. Darwin’s theory of ‘’ survival of the fittest” has taken a different meaning than what it originally meant,bypassing the ones fittingness as the base quality and landed on the position of the might and strength where ‘’law of the jungle’ is established. In pursuit of happiness for a life lived not very many decades, the humans act inhumanely.
It is true that religious beliefs and teachings, customs, law and order served and still serving to preserve the value systems across societies but in the absence of a compelling need within, humans often go on the wrong path. If we ever had a proper system, we might need not fear about the alarming rate at which global warming is occurring. The hunger and malnutrition should have been a thing in the past. The famines, floods, landslides, wild fires should have been unheard of. But what we everyday hear mostly are these and no leader (the author does not wish to make any direct reference to religious and philosophical great teachings on spirituality here as certain religious teachings are widely spoken on the total emancipation from the eternal struggle that humans have to endure) has ever been able to give a lasting solution for this except for occasional interventions by few but percentage of embracing, following and persistence of same are questionable. Therefore, individuals, societies, businesses and governments plan, evaluate, take actions and re evaluate and take corrective actions cyclically, in performing their bestowedduties but at the end, the planet earth is in the receiving end with an ever deteriorating shape. The global temperature has been increased by 2.05 degrees Fahrenheit for last 140 years and sea level raises 3.3milimeters per year and both are alarmingly high rates (Global Climate change- NASA 2020)
Aren’t there a way?
The saying widely credited to Aristotle, “we are what we repeatedly do” put it subtly, you become your actions. If you are a constant do-gooder, you are perceived to be a good person. But how do we assess and measure the goodness in different contexts is the question as it is selfishly interpreted in to one’s own personal benefit rather than to a universal appeal. Eg. Wage war with Libya was good for pro US factions but it may not be for Libyans, same action but two different viewpoints and war continues. Therefore, everyone should be in the mindfulness as to awake always to a simple self carry cognitive tool in assessing what is right as against who is right and rightfulness in the lens of universal acceptance, not merely for the legal binding but as one’s own salvation be it in life or after life.
Establishing the Universal Acceptance
For the universally accepted convention on rightfulness & righteousness it can be nothing but the base of many religions and the famous saying credited to Confucius “Do un to others what you would like them do to you and never do to others what you would not like them do to you” . The maxim is referred to as “The Golden Rule” sums in to treating others (all living beings) as you want to be treated and accepted as an ethic of reciprocity by 143 leaders of the world’s major faiths and endorsed as part of the 1993 “Declaration Toward a Global Ethic” at the “Parliament of the World’s Religions- Towards a Global Ethic”(Golden Rule-Wikipedia)
How to make it a compelling self help apparatus and integrate in to the cognitive system
We do not know exactly where we have come from, to this world and where will we go after death, but we all know for sure that the time passage in between is life. We should rather wary on the former but the latter i.e the departure; the timing of it more so, how we depart is totally our responsibility. One should own responsibility for his actions or inactions and becomes the person that he had constantly been doing. Eg. The one who robs is a robber; one who begs is the beggar.
If one had not been living in accordance to the Golden Rule as asserted above, for a life lived mostly less than hundred years, the person may accumulate a wealth of bad deeds to carry forward with him and departs as a bad person. The thought process of such person engrossed with ill will to the last breath and question raises that, can such energy be simply vanished with the death of the body? Logical mind will say heaven’s gate will not be opened for a mind, full of rancor and enmity, but we let the matter to be decided by science, philosophy and religion.
Nevertheless, is not it a good and safe proposition for everyone not to delve in to unsolved mysteries which will be of no help but better be cautious on his own conduct which will surely be good for life (of everybody) and doubly beneficial if an afterlife exists. Therefore wise men should not risk a life that can well be lived to the fullest with many tangible benefits more than the un- comprehended spirituality and act always with presence of mind by gauging the implications before any deed. Whenever we see these both worlds, before our actions, we naturally become disciplined thus regenerative leadership starts within and blossoms across societies to nations.
Reference :
Hutchins G and Storm L, 2019, Regenerative Leadership: The DNA of Life-Affirming 21stCentury Organizations, Wordzworth Publishing, 2019
World Economic Forum (2019) www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/4
The World Bank IBRD-IDA- Poverty Overview, available at www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
SIPRI Year book and databases-Stockholm International Peace Research Institute-www.sipri.org
Global Climate Change – Vital signs of the Planet-NASA- (2020), available at climate.nasa.gov
Golden Rule- Wikipedia
The Brain Brewery 