Author: progressus

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On Management in Crisis

In these times where the emergence of crises is seemingly unending, it might be instructive to step out of the chaos, just for a moment, to critically think about and reflect upon what we’ve experienced for a good number of years in organizations, institutions and society in regard to the phenomenon we call management.  I purposefully avoid the use of the term leadership here simply because it is so misunderstood and too often self-ascribed in an attempt to elevate status. We’ll keep to the use of the term management consistent with that found in W. Edwards Deming’s Out of the Crisis, where he concluded, management is the problem! Continue reading →

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Dissolve the Climate Crisis

Carbon offset programs are failing as climate solutions.  Of course they are!  Paraphrasing Einstein, problems can’t be solved with the same system of thinking that created them.  In other words, one can’t solve a systemic problem by applying the same system of orientation that was followed in creating the system and thus the problem.
Carbon offsets or carbon allowances, are market-driven solutions to the climate crisis that cannot possibly work, since they are devised by the very same system of thought whose consequence is the climate crisis; it’s a capitalist resolution to a capitalism caused problem! Continue reading →

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It’s Happening, Continually

Have you ever called customer support only to hear the sound of a recorded message, “ you are (or your call is) very important to us…” So, you wait and wait for an actual person who you hope might be of some help.  As you wait you are feed sales pitch upon sales pitch to purchase more of what the company sells. Yes, your call is an opportunity for the business you are calling to get more from you—of course your call is important to them! Continue reading →

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Who’s for Business?

It seems opposition to proposals intended to help the greater mass of people, such as providing a livable wage or ensuring healthcare for all or having regulations that ensure a healthy and safe environment, quite often is that they would not be good for business. It does seem that business is opposed to being helpful to people in society, which is consistent with Milton Friedman’s (neoliberal) contention that a business enterprise has no responsibility apart from maximizing profit and shareholder value (over the next quarter).

 

So, who’s for business? Continue reading →

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Sustainability, But of What

Sustainability is something we often read and hear about, especially lately.  More to the point, many are concerned about, if not interested in acting to reduce and/or remove the factors that diminish the sustainability of a healthful environment.  If you aren’t among the concerned many, then likely you are among the willfully blind or willfully ignorant. Continue reading →

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Results Obsessed

We appear to be obsessed with results (further explained here)—the outcome of our activities—while we generally give little attention to the activity itself. Why? Continue reading →

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Capitalism Opposes Life

As previously argued, the system of capitalism has captured (or is it co-opted) the democratic system of governance. If capitalism was inherently aligned with democratic principles then this may not be such a bad thing. However capitalism is not only antithetical to democratic governance, the former rests on ‘it being all for me’ and the latter ‘We the people’ but it is destructive to life it self as evidenced by global warming its most far-reaching effect.  Unavoidably there will be hell to pay but not by everyone, at least in the short term.

 

However, Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, said in The Wealth of Nations, “in order to bring up a family the labour of the husband and wife together must even in the lowest species of common labour, be able to earn something more than what is precisely necessary for their own maintenance” and correspondingly spoke against the rentier class whose income he cast as unearned. According to Michael Hudson (author of Killing the Host) the original meaning of ‘free market’ was that of being free from exploitation (particularly by the rentier class), and not as the term is applied today by corporatist to mean free of regulation to do as one desires. So is it the system or the person? Continue reading →

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Avoid Change in the Extreme

The only thing constant in life is change—Heraclitus. With change being constant in life, change is not avoidable through life.

 

With this in mind, denying (the need for) change, is denying life. Refusing to deal with it in the present is refusing to be life affirming in the present. This way of being doesn’t stop change from arising—given its constancy—it only ensures having to deal with it in its extreme later. Continue reading →