Social transformation

Have Strong Faith yet Confront facts of your Current Reality

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Now, you might be wondering, “How do you motivate people with brutal facts? Doesn’t motivation flow chiefly from a compelling vision?” The answer, surprisingly, is, “No.” Not because vision is unimportant, but because expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time. One of the dominant themes that runs throughout this book is that if you successfully implement its findings, you will not need to spend time and energy “motivating” people. If you have the right people on the bus, they will be self-motivated. The real question then becomes: How do you manage in such a way as not to de-motivate people?And one of the single most de-motivating actions you can take is to hold out false hopes, soon to be swept away by events. 

Yes, leadership is about vision. But leadership is equally about creating a climate where the truth is heard and the brutal facts confronted. There’s a huge difference between the opportunity to “have your say” and the opportunity to be heard. The good-to-great leaders understood this distinction, creating a culture wherein people had a tremendous opportunity to be heard and, ultimately, for the truth to be heard.

-Jim Collins from Good to Great

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Book of the Month – May 2021- Value(s) by Mark Carney

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Value(s): Building a Better World for All
A bold, urgent argument on the misplacement of value in financial markets and how we can and need to maximize value for the many, not few.

As an economist and former banker, Mark Carney has spent his life in various financial roles, in both the public and private sector. VALUE(S) is a meditation on his experiences that examines the short-comings and challenges of the market in the past decade which he argues has led to rampant, public distrust and the need for radical change.
Focusing on four major crises-the Global Financial Crisis, the Global Health Crisis, Climate Change and the 4th Industrial Revolution– Carney proposes responses to each. His solutions are tangible action plans for leaders, companies and countries to transform the value of the market back into the value of humanity.

(Recommended by Barry T)

Common Values and Beliefs that underpin a successful economy

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The experience of the three crises ( Credit, Covid and Climate) of the 21st century, suggests that the common values and beliefs that underpin a successful economy are:

– dynamism to help create solutions and channel human creativity;

– resilience to make it easier to bounce back from shocks while protecting the most vulnerable in society;

– sustainability with long-term perspectives that align incentives across generations; – fairness, particularly in markets to sustain their legitimacy;

– responsibility so that individuals feel accountable for their actions;

– solidarity whereby citizens recognise their obligations to each other and share a sense of community and society;

and

– humility to recognise the limits of our knowledge, understanding and power so that we act as custodians seeking to improve the common good.


Value(s): Building a Better World for All by Mark Carney

get comfortable living the questions…

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It starts by standing with the poor, listening to voices unheard, and recognizing potential where others see despair.

It demands investing as a means, not an end, daring to go where markets have failed and aid has fallen short. It makes capital work for us, not control us.

It thrives on moral imagination: the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be. It’s having the ambition to learn at the edge, the wisdom to admit failure, and the courage to start again.

It requires patience and kindness, resilience and grit: a hard-edged hope. It’s leadership that rejects complacency, breaks through bureaucracy, and challenges corruption. Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.

it’s the radical idea of creating hope in a cynical world. Changing the way the world tackles poverty and building a world based on dignity.
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What they have and what they do are secondary to what they are….

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Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

Mother Teresa’s greatness and power arose because she addressed the most noble qualities within human nature—unconditional love and nonjudgmental compassion.

When someone dedicates their life to carrying out the principle of universal truth, that person becomes magnetic. They develop the power of attraction. What they have and what they do are secondary to what they are. It is that quality, which the world acknowledges and brings them, that we term success.

What was it that Mother Teresa acknowledged in others and, by so doing, magnificently brought forth for all of us to see in her? When she ministered to the poor and the sick and the dying in the streets of Kolkata, was she trying to save them from death? Was she trying to raise funds for the poor? No. What she ministered to and acknowledged was the intrinsic truth of human dignity, worth, value, nobility, lovability, and greatness. Those qualities are intrinsic in every human being no matter how abysmal their external life situation may seem to be.

The Map of Consciousness Explained: A Proven Energy Scale to Actualize Your Ultimate Potential by David R. Hawkins

Book of the Month – April 2021- Think Again by Adam Grant

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Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know

Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

-George Bernard Shaw

The bestselling author of Give and Take and Originals examines the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people’s minds, which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life

Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We think too much like preachers defending our sacred beliefs, prosecutors proving the other side wrong, and politicians campaigning for approval–and too little like scientists searching for truth. Intelligence is no cure, and it can even be a curse: being good at thinking can make us worse at rethinking. The brighter we are, the blinder to our own limitations we can become.

Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people’s minds–and our own. As Wharton’s top-rated professor and the bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, he makes it one of his guiding principles to argue like he’s right but listen like he’s wrong. With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, he investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, bring nuance to charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners. You’ll learn how an international debate champion wins arguments, a Black musician persuades white supremacists to abandon hate, a vaccine whisperer convinces concerned parents to immunize their children, and Adam has coaxed Yankees fans to root for the Red Sox. Think Again reveals that we don’t have to believe everything we think or internalize everything we feel. It’s an invitation to let go of views that are no longer serving us well and prize mental flexibility over foolish consistency. If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.

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