Thinking Tank debate: business as usual?
August 26th
Online
Did we learn nothing from a global economic meltdown? Is it back to business as usual? The business world has been in turmoil over the past 18 months yet the old ‘command and control’ leadership styles still seem firmly in place.
Is it time for a new kind of leadership style? One that combines business savvy with collaboration and inspiration, aversion to excessive risk, and a strong social and environmental responsibility? Will this soothe the pains of recession or is the status quo and a traditional leadership style the answer?
Join Dr Samantha Collins from Aspire (voted one of the top ten coaches in the UK by The Independent), for the first of an important series of online discussions in which we will address this and other topics relevant to today’s business leaders. This is a new style of Thinking Tank and will run for 30 minutes only on a business style subject that you can join from your workplace.
What’s YOUR opinion? Where do YOU see this all heading? How do YOU and your organisation need to adapt to meet the needs of a changing economy? This is your opportunity to be heard, to hear from others, and to become part of the solution—all from the comfort of your own laptop.
Click HERE to join in or email me to request a reminder text message on the day.
Participants in our live online debates include RSA Fellows, campaigning organisations, relevant experts and friends — amazing people like you with wisdom and a wide range of experiences, views and ideas. The debates run on the easy to use Synthetron platform (see demo) – a way to brainstorm together and filter the best ideas and most strongly supported views.
The Thinking Tank is an independent, not-for-profit way to bring people together so they can generate better ideas. It is a Fellow-led RSA initiative.
Catherine Shovlin cmshovlin@gmail.com
Founder, The Thinking Tank
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We are happy to pass along announcements from RSA Fellows which are in keeping with the RSA’s mission. RSA is not responsible for the content of Fellows’ websites or organization of Fellows’ events.
August 18th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Complex question that leads in all sorts of directions. Some of the “answers” are about leadership style and content while others are to do with larger and more systemic problems of civic leadership.
If we think that business as usual will be the watchword for when (and if) the economy recovers, then I believe we might as well resign ourselves to a bleak future in which all hope of a decent way of life for us and our children – and theirs – evaporate before our eyes while we hope for that brand new oil well to be discovered.
Our children (those in the teens and early twenties) are already asking us (those of us in our fifties and early 60s) what on earth we were thinking when we bought hook line and sinker the great “American” dream of prosperity. This dream that has turned into an economic nightmare was – and I guess is – based on the idea that people are merely consumers, acquiring ever greater quantities of stuff they don’t need from within their rapidly-bloating suburban McMansions. These monsters situated in hundreds of acres of bland, featureless sprawl sport three car garages for that 40 mile commute to work and back for Mom and Dad who both have to work to service the ever-increasing debt loads they carry. And the kids – well they have their own cybercaves and rarely if ever have to see their parents or interact with them there so much space to go around. And we wonder why family life has become so dysfunctional.
We have already eviscerated many of our cities and have lost communities and a sense of place in pursuit of short term development and “suburbanization” goals – ably aided and abetted of course by the developer community. By turning over the design and construction of the places we call home, community and neighborhoods to developers and shoddy builders who are neither qualified to design anything nor care a wit about the consequences of their actions so long as they make a lot of money, we have allowed wastelands to grow in and around so many of our cities cores. The consequences of this? No one wants to live or be there and yet the very blight that is so unappealing comes directly from the way we have crafted zoning, highways and building regulations in support of the automobile to the exclusion of all else – including people.
Business as usual? We’ve got to be kidding ourselves! We have to step up to the plate and actually DO something to change the course this country has been on for years. We are way behind the 8 ball relative to other developed countries so for me, a “business as usual” attitude will have the same effect of putting a bullet into the brain of this nation.
Its time to get actively engaged in local and regional initiatives that are designed to improve our way of life, create a more sane balance among earning a living, culture, education and family. This means taking leadership for something rather than waiting in hope that someone else will fix it all so we can go back to life as we knew it.
Peak oil is already here so for the life of me, I can’t see how anyone can think that “business as usual” can be a serious goal or way of living.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Thanks for your detailed comment Phil – and I hope you got the chance to express some of this in the debate today.
Indeed the weight of the debate was in this camp – that things need to change, a more human approach, more listening, more ethics, more sustainability … I will be analysing and writing a report over the next few days.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Carherine:
I’m pretty tied up today so won’t be able to participate. I’m speaking tonight to the League of Conservation Voters in Phoenix and will be touching on some of the issues that I’m sure the “Business as Usual?” debate will spark. Sorry I won’t be able to participate in this important discussion today.