Month: January 2021

Cities Done Right Generate Comprehensive Improvements

Edward Glaeser’s, Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier ©2011 has been enlightening. Most importantly he emphasizes how cities make people smarter when they interact with more smart people because it helps them connect and create. He also clarifies that it is people who make cities great, not things. Smart, idealistic, driven people make cities better, not great buildings.

Cities that spend money on buildings rather than helping people improve and have a better life was referred to as the “Edifice Error”. The Edifice Error is the belief that abundant new buildings lead to urban success. Good people are a leading indicator and great buildings become are a lag indicator. (see Money Is a Lagging Not a Leading Indicator) He documents the value of education and efforts that bring people together to help them develop skills abilities and common values citing these as the important precursors that enable cities to be great. As he documents in his TED Talk, “It’s Time to Embrace Our Cities”, income levels rise as population density increases. He also documents the more educated the population, the better that city does.

In other words, generating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless interactions such as education generates synergistic benefits when people converge and interact to make things better. Of course the pandemic makes face to face meetings difficult, however the technology enabling virtual communications are powerful and helpful. Another interesting point he discusses is the presence of poor people. He clearly demonstrates the obvious, cities do not make people poor, poor people come to cities for the potential to improve their lives. If people stay poor in a city, then things must be done to enable connection and contribution to improve. He also documents the value of diverse businesses in a city to provide the ability to ride difficult times for any organization.

I am not finished with the book, however I am amazed to see the same repeated themes as I have attempted to capture with the Paneugenesis Process to generate comprehensive improvements. From my understanding, people go to a city when they see and dream of a better future, or can “Operationalize an Idealized Outcome”. How good is the city doing at helping it citizens succeed? Cities help its citizens succeed by having having the “Precursors” of a good infrastructure and a good education system to build better people. Of course all this can only be possible if they “Optimize the Process” so they can create beneficial interactions. How well has the city done in making movement and interactions likely? This also means cities must continue to document or “Plot Progress” as they create the institutions and systems that make better possible. If progress is not happening, the process must be adapted, adopted and improved. This is another example of using Deming’s Plan-Do-Study-Act process to generate a better process. All this must be incorporated as we attempt to generate comprehensive improvements with the Paneugenesis Process.

Practice Paneugenesis using this 4 Step to Process

  1. Operationalize a Desired Idealized Outcome – Imagine and then clearly articulate the future you want that is not possible now
  2. Develop Necessary Precursors to make Desired Outcome Possible – Generate and bring into existence those things that will be necessary to make the idealized outcomes possible that do not exist now
  3. Optimize the Process to Develop Skills and abilities that  Precursors possible – Continually find out what you must start doing, working with, thinking about and making possible that will in time ripple out to make that new idealized outcome a future possibility
  4. Plot Progress to document, demonstrate, and celebrate Improvement – Continually take note of progress and then build upon that success to make it even better

To me Glaeser’s work documents that improved quality of life can be created through effort toward an envisioned better future. Please share how you can or are using a similar process to generate comprehensive improvements. Please let us know how we can work with you to to generate pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.

Be Well’r,
Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please contact me: Email: BeWellr@gmail.com

 

 

Getting Better as We Fix What we Broke

Without question, especially speaking morally, we must fix what we broke. Relatively speaking, despite being the most educated and advanced civilization to date, we are causing damage to our environment, we are sicker and less happy and more in debt than we should be. We are more materially abundant than ever. Despite striving for and getting much more, we only learned that we cannot buy happiness or health, it must be earned.

Fixing what is broken also relates to prevention. Even if we prevent all problems, we have not intentionally done anything to promote a better outcome. To promote better we must enable more capacity and increased potential. If the focus changed from fixing what we broke to building more capacity, potential and partnerships, so a better future could be realized, we would get better while also fixing what we broke.

Relying on sustainable development as enough to stop or reverse climate change is like suggesting quitting smoking is enough to heal a lung cancer patient.

paraphrase of James Lovelock in “Healing Gaia: Practical Medicine for the Planet”

Regeneration Means more than Sustainability

Sustainable Brands: The Shift from Sustainable to Regenerative

BeWell’r,

Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please share your thoughts and questions below.
Contact me: BeWellr@gmail.com

Together We Can Cause a Better “Upswing”

Robert Putnam’s new book, Upswing: how America came together a century ago and how we can again suggests we are the verge of a move toward togetherness. He further documents that our initial move mid 20th century from from”I” to “We” did not set sights high enough for what we could be or with regard to full inclusion because we did not Operationalize an Idealized Outcome to become what we really needed to be for it to work. The precursor of inclusiveness he suggests was left out because it would have been helpful to help all do better. Here is the review I posted on Good Reads and Google Books.

 

Upswing: how America came together a century ago and how we can again provided an interesting perspective. It was unique because it looked at changes over a longer period of time than is typical, 125 years. Generally books examine changes and hypothesize why. This books longer time frame was interesting because the view was about multiple changes that occurred. He described the changes as the I-We-I inverted U curve.

He demonstrated, with abundant data, how the selfish, individualistic period of the early 20th century, the Gilded Age, evolved into a communitarian, altruistic mid 20th century stage, in the 50’s and 60’s, that then moved back toward an individualistic “me” stage. He explained how the mid century move toward “we” did not aim high enough because it did not include race and gender benefits. He also documented that by aiming low, nobody did as well as they could have. In other words, we did not seek to “Exceed Expectations” as we should have.

Helping all in the “we” benefit would have helped all succeed better than the less inclusive benefits produced. He also put to rest the ideas that social media, big government, war, abundance, poverty or even immigration as “the” cause of the move to or from “I” or “We”. He explained that they could not be the primal cause because each of these factors caused movements either toward or away from both “we” and “I” depending on many other factors.

Overall he suggested that Tocqueville’s initial assessment of America in the early 1800’s that America was pursuing self-interest, rightly understood would be most beneficial. My understanding of self-interest rightly understood is that self-interest is best served when communitarian interests are also served well because it is not a zero sum trade-off or competition between communitarian equality and individual freedom.

Communitarian interests and individual freedoms are cumulative and additive because they can be mutually beneficial. Overall, this suggests benefits from #SelfishSelflessSynergistic actions. In other words, actions can provide individual benefits in ways that also serve others and are holistically beneficial. My understanding of Putnam’s recommendations are we should aim to generate actions that produce comprehensive benefits through the creation of pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.

In this new year it would seem wise to follow Robert Putnam’s recommendations to help everyone and everything benefit from another Upswing!

Be Well’r,
Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please contact me:
Email: BeWellr@gmail.com

 

How to Write a Better future

We have been slapped in the face, again. COVID has told the world we need to write a better future. We need a new and better path for tomorrow if we want to live in a better world. To create  a better tomorrow, we must create it. Unfortunately, continuous improvement is not enough, a new path must be designed. Below is how Greg Satell explains it:

As Greg Satell explains, we must innovate to develop a better way. As he explains in other video’s,  it is necessary to ask why, but we must also at least ask “Why Not”.

The Paneugenesis Process, which is a method to generate comprehensive improvement by creating pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergisitic interactions so everyone and everything benefits, is a way to nudge you toward designing that better future. The process is simple, but it is not easy.

Practice Paneugenesis using this 4 Step to Process

  1. Determine Desired Idealized Outcome – Imagine and then clearly articulate the future you want that is not possible now
  2. Develop Necessary Precursors to make Desired Outcome Possible – Generate and bring into existence those things that will be necessary to make the idealized outcomes possible that do not exist now
  3. Optimize the Process to Develop Skills and abilities that  Precursors possible – Continually find out what you must start doing, working with, thinking about and making possible that will in time ripple out to make that new idealized a future possibility
  4. Plot Progress to document, demonstrate, and celebrate Improvement – Continually take note of progress and then build upon that success to make it even better

Using this process requires use of the 7 C’s of Challenge, Courage, Commitment, Competence, Connection, Contributions and Consequences. 

  • Accept the Challenge – Yes, it is a challenge, if not you, who?
  • Use Courage to act – You may not succeed perfectly, however doing nothing guarantee’s failure
  • Develop Competence – Learn and become better because we need more we would have already achieved goals
  • Be Committed to purpose, meaning and values – It is vital we do what is right, not what is easiest
  • Make Connections to people, organizations and the environment – That generates better for all
  • Doing this enables us to make impactful Contributions – Beneficial interactions
  • To continually improve, build on those Consequences – How can I build on this success?

It is a new year. Please share how you use the Paneugenesis Process and the 7 C’s to create a better future. Also, let us know how we can work with you to to generate pervasive, reciprocal, selfish, selfless, synergistic interactions so everyone and everything benefits.

Be Well’r,
Craig Becker

Be selfish, selfless, & synergistic so everyone and everything benefits!

#SelfishSelflessSynergy

Please contact me:
Email: BeWellr@gmail.com