There is one idea that shapes my work and dominates my thinking more than any other. I run into it everyday. I lay awake at night pondering its impact. It holds the key to relational effectiveness and business strategy. It determines whether I am grumpy after a Carlton loss and … wait for it … it is the foundation of world peace. You might think I’m joking; but I’m not.

It is perspective.

Most of our lives we get taught to defend our point of view. This is a great skill and provides us with confidence and a sense of conviction. In a western democracy we are led to believe that in the market place of ideas the competition for truth will yield a worthy winner. Undoubtedly this is a noble context in which to live, much more desirable than a forum that is regulated to the point of public censorship. (Not withstanding the argument that in the West big media shapes the public consciousness.)

I think it is time to add another major idea into the mix. That is, ‘We cannot presume to understand reality until we have explored it from alternative vantage points.’

As I write I sit in a North Melbourne Café, only a pane of glass separates me from the people walking past, presumably on their way to work. I wonder what Monday morning means to each of them. I wonder what home context they have left behind. I wonder if they are loved, and if they love. I wonder how they process the news that an Australian soldier was killed this morning in Afghanistan, or if they care. All this might be interesting, but does it matter?

It matters when we share a stake in something. It matters particularly when they are the ‘other’. For too long we have presumed that we know the ‘other’. Who is the other? Today the other might be: an Afghani soldier, a teenage binge drinker, our difficult customer, the family member with whom we are frustrated, our indigenous neighbour ….

Einstein changed our appreciation of the world by introducing a simple idea; what you see depends on where you see it from. The predictability of Newton, as brilliant as it was, unraveled. We need a similar revolution in popular sociology. The rigour of argument and defence of conventional wisdom must be challenged by learning to see from the vantage point of the other.

We can start by asking some questions that we may not be used to asking; Who else is involved? What do they see, what are they experiencing? The critical piece of this is not to presume we already know the answer. We might think we do, but we don’t.

Our family lives will be enhanced by stopping to ask and listen. Our workplaces will change radically when we seek the perspective of all stakeholders and make decisions that embrace the collective good. Our communities will be healthier when we develop ways for people from different perspectives to come together to share. Our nation will adopt a radically new direction when political divides offer opportunities for new insight rather than lines for petty combat. Our world will feel a more hopeful place to be when difference invites dialogue.

What are some experiences you’ve had that on one hand have challenged your view of reality, and on the other have enhanced your appreciation of the ‘other’?

Some days it is worth every cent of pay TV subscription. Today was one of them. That’s the good news. The bad news was that there were two things on simultaneously that I desperately wanted to watch - live.

On the religion channel the Navy Blues were back to their winning ways at the MCG. Too bad for Melbourne, but victory is sweet for us Carlton fans after such a drought. It was gripping stuff.

On ABC2 was the summary session from the 2020 summit. My Feb 4th post looked forward to this event with hopeful anticipation. Yes, there will be detractors … I note that The Age has already gone looking for a negative angle. However, if the vibe, even through the TV, was anything to go by, this was an extraordinary event for the nearly 1000 people present in their 10 streams.

More than once I heard people celebrate the spirit of listening and collaboration amongst robust dialogue. Each of the Co-Chairs in their verbal report outlined ideas to help make Australia an even better place to be in 2020. In the Governance report, there was talk of more collaborative government. This summit appears to be a good first step. I am looking forward to reading the initial report over the next couple of days. Download it here.

It reminded me again that addressing the challenges we face as a society and as humanity, will require collaborative efforts beyond what has been traditionally reasonable. More than ever, government, business and the community sectors will need to link arms and work together for the common good. As per the dimensions of complex problems outlined in my last post, the solutions to our biggest challenges lie beyond the scope of single sectors, let alone single organisations.

At Ergo, we can see ourselves working more and more to facilitate the coming together of people from a variety of contexts and perspectives to work through tough challenges.

Meanwhile, back at Carlton, as a headline read recently, ‘the strut is back’.

(OK, I know it is inappropriate indulgence to bang on about football on this forum … I promise I’ll hold back now I’ve got it out of my system.)

Some people seem oblivious to the needs of others around them. Twice in the last 20 minutes I’ve had the same bag, slung over a shoulder, knock into me as its carrier tried to weave his way to where he wanted to be. It wasn’t so much that his bag hit me … it was his complete disregard for the impact he was having on those around him that stunned me. Beyond that level of dysfunction, most people operate with at least a consciousness of the perspective of ‘the other’. But a normal appreciation of the needs of others will not be enough.

I have been pondering what it takes to go beyond empathy, to identify deeply with ‘the other’. In my last post I eluded to the realisation of prejudices I didn’t know I had. I am increasingly convinced that the capacity to identify with ‘the other’ is a fundamental competency for dealing with the major challenges in the decades ahead; human pressures on the ecosystem and climate, population, extreme poverty for 1/6th of the world’s people, and globalisation.

A few weeks ago, Maria and I watched Thirteen Days, the story of how close we came to nuclear war. In the wake of his extraordinary leadership through that crisis, President Kennedy delivered a speech that so impressed then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, that it paved the way for a nuclear test ban. In that speech he said, “So, let us not be blind to our differences – but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. We are all mortal.”

On the eve of the collapse of the Cold War Sting released a song that ‘reached’ me in my relative naivety, ‘I hope the Russians love their children too.’ The words still penetrate my Anglo centric propaganda-ed view of the world. Or more close to my current context, Saudi women with only their eyes exposed also play aeroplane games with fluffy toys on planes to occupy their fidgety children.

We are facing enormous challenges. Our world has evolved so quickly that none of us are prepared. No-one has been here before. (…as Peter Senge reminded us at the SoL Forum) Our institutions are not ready to change as rapidly as is needed. Our collective and individual behaviour lags our consciousness by way to much. Our lifestyle inertia holds us back from action to bridge social and ethnic divides, from adopting the environmental practices we know are necessary, from curbing our personal preferences for the common good. And there are not only global problems, we are every week confronted with local community and personal ones too; work / life balance, young binge drinking and violence, rampant consumerism, loss of meaning …

Adam Kahane helps us understand the nature of these complex problems.

• They have dynamic complexity. Cause and effect are not closely related in space and time. We need systemic solutions.
• They have generative complexity. The future is unfamiliar and undetermined. It is not a matter of applying solutions that have worked in the past. As it is said, today’s solutions create tomorrow’s problems.
• They have social complexity. No single entity own the problem of has the capacity or wherewithal to create a solution independently of all the stakeholders.

However, in order to bring the different stakeholders around the table, whether it be in the context of the Arab – Israeli conflict or a family roundtable about domestic expectations, we have to become better at suspending our own judgements and seeing the world through the eyes of another.

The rewards will be staggeringly significant.

I was sitting in the lobby of my hotel with my laptop an hour ago when I was approached by a gentleman in usual Omani dress. His English was poor, and we struggled to communicate. After a few minutes he seconded a young Omani who was walking past as a translator. It turns out he had assumed I was an investor. He is developing holiday resorts along the coast north of here and is looking for foreign partners.

In 1970 there were no roads in Oman. These days Muscat is a thriving city. There is nowhere near the explosion of ritz and glamour of Abu Dhabi or Dubai, Muscat has a down to earth neighbourly feel, but none-the-less the development is extraordinary.

Having not spent time in an Arab country previously, this short excursion has helped me unravel some prejudices I wouldn’t have paid any attention otherwise. I have been taken by the revelation of assumptions I’ve made based on ethnicity and clothing style. Having spent many hours in conversation and social settings with local Omani and Saudi men and women, I have found myself surprised by the warmth, articulate intelligence and grasp of Organisational Learning nous that remains novel in most western companies. Now clearly this is a select sample … I do not mean to imply anything other than the revelation of my own biases. Seeing young Islamic women students stand up and address a room full of international business and government people with confidence and challenge was inspiring. Experiencing back slapping light heartedness from men in traditional Islamic dress shook my appreciation of reality in ways that words cannot capture.

My head is still swimming. Among the copious notes I will digest later this afternoon, I have the words of three people in particular penetrating my musing.

Peter Senge spoke with deep conviction about the challenges ahead of us, unpacking the necessity, in his view, that our primary sense of identity will need to evolve to that of human, rather than of national of geographical identity. What does that really mean for me?

I had some good conversation with Adam Kahane, who’s work in South Africa contributing to the unravelling of apartheid led him into a vocation of bring people together to solve tough complex problems. (see Solving Tough Problems) It looks like he will be in Australia for some significant work in the wake of the apology. His address to the forum was about the relationship between love and power. The focus of his work over the last 15 years he articulates as a question; ‘How can we co-create new social realities with all of our love and all of our power?’.

Mohammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank personified radical simplicity. His humility and what he described as ‘relentless intentionality’ has changed the world for so many people. It all started when he left his economics office at the university one day and decide to spend some time with people in vicinity of the campus whose lives where oppressed because of loan sharks. The rest is history as they say.

Who am I? What is my vocation? What are my hopes for the world? These questions are the food for my mind and soul as I head back home … and I hope the bluebaggers go back to back!

The glass half empty view would suggest that 18 odd hours in economy class is unredeemable … however with so little time to sit still in recent weeks I found myself relishing the prospect. I had a pile of bits and pieces of work to review and then a veritable feast of interesting things to feed my mind and soul on.

One of the articles was a fascinating piece Mohan passed on to me called “The Universe is a Green Dragon: reading meaning in the cosmic story” by Brian Swimme. The main reason I enjoyed it was his linking of gravitational attraction to love. You’re joking aren’t you, I hear you say …

I love physics, and I must confess gravity has always held a special place for me. This extraordinary attractive force between any objects with mass, that no one can explain. We can model it and predict how it will behave - yes, but why it happens remains a mystery. Swimme suggests that since the universe is all made of the same stuff, and it is expanding since its original creation, the forces that bring us together are fundamental to our long term sustainability. It has been said that love makes the world go around, after reading Swimme I’m more inclined to say that love holds the world together.

(As I write, I’ve just witnessed an amazing anecdote of cultural expression. I’m sitting here in an airport in the Middle East surrounded by unfamiliar décor, sounds and smells. An Anglo looking woman asked if she could sit on the other side of my table … despite being 12:30am the place is packed and buzzing and places to sit are very rare. All of a sudden she exclaimed (we hadn’t really talked except exchanged pleasantries) that she’d left her watch on the plane, a watch that her father had given her for her 50^th birthday.

I offered to watch her bags for her while she scurried back to see if it was recovered in the cleaning process. She said, “You are an Aussie aren’t you? I’m an Irish Australian so I trust you explicitly. Thanks.” And off she went.

She just returned a few minutes ago, and said, “Only an Aussie would offer to do that.” I suggested that wasn’t necessarily the case, but she argued that in her experience it was certainly more likely. The point I involuntarily end up thinking is the trust that comes with familiarity. Both ways.

Would I have offered if it had been a white robed local? Would they have accepted?)

Back to my smorgasbord of in-flight reading. Having been enriched by two of Alain de Botton’s other books (Status Anxiety and The Architecture of Happiness) I keenly purchased his The Art of Travel alongside Jeffrey Sach’s new title, CommonWealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. I haven’t touched Sachs yet, but de Botton hasn’t disappointed.

I loved his essay on anticipation. He discusses how our idyllic notions of a place, especially from a holiday perspective, are often unrealised when we are actually there. His striking conclusion, when reflecting an episode from his own travels is, “A momentous but until then overlooked fact was making its first appearance; that I had inadvertently brought myself with me to the island.”

So here I am in an unquestionably exotic location. I look out my hotel window at the distinctly Arab architecture and air thick with humidity to the Gulf and the mountains in the distance. The opportunities for connection with extraordinary people and ideas over the next week at the Society for Organisational Learning Forum are significant. I hope the reality that I’ve bought myself, with my own insecurities, prejudices and biases doesn’t get in the way.