Today we find ourselves in a deepening global recession at the same time we are witnessing the effects of widespread climate change that nearly all scientists agree we have hastened by our increasing use of fossil fuels. President Obama has just signed a stimulus bill and is betting that creating green collar jobs will provide the needed job creation to get the economy re-started. Whether people are happy with this bill or not, no longer matters because we all need it to work.
So here we are after 45 or more years of the environmental cause being the almost exclusive domain of hippies and crunchy granola types. It is now being embraced as the key to our economic salvation. How did that happen? What shifted? Or has anything really shifted at all? It is hard to tell. British Petroleum has been touting their significant investment in renewable energy in recent years while critics have said that is just a marketing ploy. Yet many of the oil fields in which BP hold’s leases are in steady decline arguing that their renewable energy efforts are in earnest self interest.
A new book I am reading called "The Three Laws of Performance" has something to say about this as it is about reinvention and what it takes to make it happen. Clearly the current conditions of the economy and the global environment require reinvention. We are all familiar with the tired old arguments that thwart cooperation and thus progress. "Environmental regulation hurts business!" "Business cannot be trusted to steward the environment". If believed these arguments lead to the conclusion that the objectives of the environment and the economy are irreconcilable. In the book the Three Laws of Performance, the first "law" is ‘How people perform corresponds to how situations occur for them". Mapped on to the arguments about the environment and the economy, it is easy to see this law at work. On one side regulation occurs as a constraint while on the other side businesses occur as untrustworthy". This naturally leads to a stalemate that we cannot afford.
In the book, the second law of performance is "How a situation occurs arises in language." The authors Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan contend that how situations occur is inseparable from language and that reality itself is experienced through language. This also makes sense when mapped on to the environment/economy divide. Environmentalists are out to stop exploitation greedy corporations; language that infers that something sinister is at hand. Business might complain about tree huggers who want to rob people of jobs; language that presumes that environmentalists care more about trees than people. There are two different realities separated by two different uses of language.
Language like this not only promotes but requires opposition. It creates an environment where real cooperation is not possible. This brings us back to the challenge of healing the environment and the economy at the same time. We must shift the way this situation has historically occurred for us. We must change the language we have been using. Our children are counting on us to work together.
There is more to say about this including the third law, in the mean time, I suggest buying a copy of the book.
The Three Laws of Performance: Reinventing the Future of Your Organization and Your Life
Environmental Examiner
The Fate of the Economy and the Environment are Joined by Language
Today we find ourselves in a deepening global recession at the same time we are witnessing the effects of widespread climate change that nearly all scientists agree we have hastened by our increasing use of fossil fuels. President Obama has just signed a stimulus bill and is betting that creating green collar jobs will provide the needed job creation to get the economy re-started. Whether people are happy with this bill or not, no longer matters because we all need it to work.
So here we are after 45 or more years of the environmental cause being the almost exclusive domain of hippies and crunchy granola types. It is now being embraced as the key to our economic salvation. How did that happen? What shifted? Or has anything really shifted at all? It is hard to tell. British Petroleum has been touting their significant investment in renewable energy in recent years while critics have said that is just a marketing ploy. Yet many of the oil fields in which BP hold’s leases are in steady decline arguing that their renewable energy efforts are in earnest self interest.
A new book I am reading called "The Three Laws of Performance" has something to say about this as it is about reinvention and what it takes to make it happen. Clearly the current conditions of the economy and the global environment require reinvention. We are all familiar with the tired old arguments that thwart cooperation and thus progress. "Environmental regulation hurts business!" "Business cannot be trusted to steward the environment". If believed these arguments lead to the conclusion that the objectives of the environment and the economy are irreconcilable. In the book the Three Laws of Performance, the first "law" is ‘How people perform corresponds to how situations occur for them". Mapped on to the arguments about the environment and the economy, it is easy to see this law at work. On one side regulation occurs as a constraint while on the other side businesses occur as untrustworthy". This naturally leads to a stalemate that we cannot afford.
In the book, the second law of performance is "How a situation occurs arises in language." The authors Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan contend that how situations occur is inseparable from language and that reality itself is experienced through language. This also makes sense when mapped on to the environment/economy divide. Environmentalists are out to stop exploitation greedy corporations; language that infers that something sinister is at hand. Business might complain about tree huggers who want to rob people of jobs; language that presumes that environmentalists care more about trees than people. There are two different realities separated by two different uses of language.
Language like this not only promotes but requires opposition. It creates an environment where real cooperation is not possible. This brings us back to the challenge of healing the environment and the economy at the same time. We must shift the way this situation has historically occurred for us. We must change the language we have been using. Our children are counting on us to work together.
There is more to say about this including the third law, in the mean time, I suggest buying a copy of the book.
The Three Laws of Performance: Reinventing the Future of Your Organization and Your Life