Wise Circles 2: Resilience through stronger local roots

We have entered a decennium of ”Dangers & Risks”, after 70 years of (relative) peace and stability (Peretti – Wattel, F. Ewald). Like the fears of the middle ages. No-one is able to tell what, when, and how occurrences will arise, but we all know it’s gonna be rock & roll, and some of us even have the figures attesting that evidence.

The Coronavirus crisis is the first one of the decennium. The first of a series of waves that are already known. On top of other “black swan” surprises.

Here are some of the next ones : 

• Older populations exiting the work market, without enough young talent flowing in (>2021)
• Energy cuts of ageing energy production units (2021 – 2030)
• Pension systems bugging because of massive ageing (2024-2025)
• Pension funds and stocks value volatility because of stock market crashes (2020-2030)
• Multiple resources disruptions (2022-…)
• Real estate prices dropping because of too high renovation costs combined with legal obligations (2020)
• Housing unsustainable and unavailability of low cost rental (2020-2030)
• Technological evolutions exponential without talent for maintenance and security leading to vulnerability to hacking, unreliability and entropical collapse (2026-2028)
• Large scale talent hunt leading to business discontinuity. (2021-2030)
• Large scale climate migration (2025-…)
• Political instability, democracy at risk (2021-…)
• And other multiple health and food hazards, social peace, new poverty and exclusion, natural hazards,…

All our incoherences will hit one by one, as waves, and will force us to build more resilient economic and societal systems. So in practice, our political leaders and entrepreneurs will have to get prepared to adapt to rebound and…re-build differently – far away from a “react to resist / weather the storm” mode.

Same story at personal level : our limiting beliefs, our unhealed traumas, our egos and fears, leading to major incoherences in our posture, way of life, jobs, relations, etc, will have to be withdrawn to give space to more coherence.

Same story again at company level : mission, purpose, vision, values (for real) as well as business models and operations  will step by step have to mutate towards more consistent, transformative and regenerative organizations , fostering new alignment. Or disappear. 

So now, inside this confinement period preparing the “day after”, those who think that it will be possible to come back to “business (nearly) as usual”, leaving aside all attempts to bring sustainability, regenerative and resilience principles into the models, will go even further into the pitfall of has-been businesses and leaders. An even faster run into the mass grave of dinosaurs. And maybe, maybe it is better to deal with those as fast as possible, to limit mass destruction. We can fairly bet on the fact that large corporations will not make that move. Too huge to shift into agility. 

The basic principle and paradigm is GLOCAL: a local, well intertwined ecosystem of businesses answering vital functions (Commons) of local communities, crossing (underused) resources and (unmet) needs. This on multiple value levels (cfr. 7D-Value multiple balance sheets). To make it work, new collaboration templates should be built between coalitions of local authorities, companies and SME’s, and citizens. A new generation of genuine peer-to-peer collaborations will be at the core of so-called “Resilience Communities”. 

Resilient and Agile leaders will still have their jobs and businesses next year and will attract the best talents and allies.

Because they will cooperate not only with “think alikes” but also with “unlike minded actors”, because they will look for inspiration from early adopters and pioneers, because they will be ready to move beyond their glass ceilings, because they will dare to trust people and believe in the power collective intelligence.

The map of the next decade is full of landmines for sure, but also full of treasures to be unveiled. Show courage, respect and openness ! Get prepared and equipped.

Probably the foundations of the next generation resilient societies are: global multidimensional health, social well-being and personal empowerment and encapacitation, holistic education, knowledge, studies and research. All of it around new coherence on personal, project and governance levels.

This, of course, goes in diagonal contradiction with centralized anti-democratic control agendas (most of the time technology-based) based on fear and dependance of terrified populations. We cannot go against these agendas, but at least, this way, the individuals who truly and humbly want to thrive, have a framework to do so. Little step by little step. Not “against” anybody, but “with”, plugged into what we have today – towards a bright and optimistic vision.

Michel de Kemmeter
Prof Philippe Dambly
Philippe Drouillon