The Art of the Shift- Making it Through to 2100 and beyond

First, there was the Big Bang, some 13.5 billion years ago. Then, stars began to form, then galaxies, lighting up the darkness of the early universe. The bang of fusion in stars created all the elements that exist in you and me up until iron, after which supernovae explosions created the rest of the atomic table and the heaviest elements we use today in our global civilization, from gold to uranium.

After life began some 3.5 billion years ago, and multicellular creatures and nervous systems several hundred million years ago, the sparks that traveled through those nervous systems, then brains, changed the face of the earth forever. Today, you and I are capable of shifting ourselves physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, as a result of such micro-bangs in our nervous systems and those of others, the fiery sparks of consciousness illuminating and creating new ideas, knowledge, and possibilities.

As things change, we learn and change and adapt to new life conditions and the shifting role of others in our lives. New futures emerge out of the old, we evolve and move on. And so do societies and organizations. Everything must change, nothing stays the same.

Given these rather obvious, yet sublime happenings and the ubiquity of change and emergence, one would think that when faced with the seemingly obvious information that the days of our fossil fuel-powered, over-consuming civilization are numbered, everyone on earth would simultaneously change their behavior in the interests of their own survival.

Yet this is evidently not the case. This is why we need the Art of the Shift, to shift the world’s organizations and social systems from Degenerative, Exclusive, Win-Lose Game A players to Regenerative, Inclusive Triple Win Game B players.

This regenerative pathway is crucial if we are to move away from the death spiral of global overheating, the sixth mass extinction, and unprecedented levels of inequality to the virtuous spiral of green growth and a global green new deal. At the same time, we must also realize the full potential of people, organizations, their leaders, employees, and members so that their capacity for shift is dramatically enhanced.

Shift Happens: Ten Propositions

So, what makes shift happen? This article articulates ten key propositions that underpin our capacity to make great shifts. In subsequent articles, I will examine each in turn in greater depth:

1. Examines the phenomena of change and transformation in light of the latest research into consciousness being causal. This causal mechanism is intermediated by quantum entanglement and tunneling, which is increasingly been applied to understand both biology and consciousness, as explained in my previous article “No Limits”.

2. Draws on over 7 decades of psychological and social research by psychologists and sociologists, and 3 decades of field research by the author and his colleagues into the dynamics of the ways in which human consciousness evolves through distinct stages that embrace increasing complexity and spans of space and time, and how this shapes change and transformation.

What we call “organizational culture” emerges from the interaction of diverse individuals with different sets of values and perspectives that influence what they perceive as desirable and undesirable outcomes for the organizations and social systems they are a part of.

3. Argues from this evidence and practice, that the degree of resonance and alignment between the shapers of organizational strategy and culture in an organization is fundamental to the success or failure of the organization, and indeed for any society.

4. Establishes that healthy consciousness can be a source of coalesced authority, power, and influence for good, and warns against the effects of dysfunctional consciousness and behavior that arise in organizations and societies due to the quest for power by psychologically dysfunctional individuals.

5. Contends that despite the rapid acceleration of cultural fusion/clash and the climate/ biodiversity/inequality crises reshaping our respective worlds, the spectrum of human consciousness and levels of development has remained remarkably predictable, and that understanding the contending centers of gravity of values in an organization is fundamental to bringing about effective shifts in the strategy and culture of the organization, while enabling it to catalyze beneficial shifts in the living systems it forms a part of.

6. Introduces the concept of, and metrics for shift capacity, being the ratio between coping/shift capacity to what thriveable shifts require in specific organizational situations, as mirrored in the logic of the laws of cybernetics and complexity science.

7. Explains the way in which downshifts and upstretch in organizations and societies are mediated by shift capacity, the dynamics of first-order, incremental change and second-order, transformational change, and the art of organizational synergy.

8. Demonstrates how the eight synergy zones and six pathways to good help simplify the hyper-complex web of interactions between the 90 metrics and 8 capitals in sustainability reporting (GRI, UNGC, ISSB), and the 17 sustainable development goals. The result is a framework that organizations can apply to develop their own beneficial pathways and strategies for sustainability and thriveability.

9. Shows how the quality of thriveable leadership capacity enhances shift capacity, and how the ratio of upstretch to downshift in leadership teams is key to understanding the potential of any human system, and its ability to shift to adapt to or shape the changing world around them.

10. Introduces the strategic alignment wheel as an indispensable diagnostic framework for managing complex change and transformation, together with the diagnosis of shift capacity through the process of culture scanning.

This work has been made possible due to the several hundred projects in hundreds of global organizations, banks, INGO’s, and start-ups conducted by the author and his leadership and consulting teams in 37 countries on four continents over more than three decades, informed by his eight books, a doctoral research program, and hundreds of articles and training programs that thoroughly tested the logic of what you are about to read.

I would like to express my sincere thanks here to my family, friends, and colleagues and all of those who added their experience and insights to this transformational work, and to the multitude of mentors that opened my eyes to the astonishing possibilities every which way we turn in this glorious yet troubled world of ours. And I look forward to further journeys of exploration with colleagues old and new as we navigate and transform our world and ourselves over the coming years.

Healing, growth, transformation, and redemption are possible if we:

• Engender faith in our desire and ability to make the shifts we need, personally and collectively
• Design and build the socioeconomic operating system that gives us hope for a thriving future
• Express our love for ourselves, others, and the worlds we co-create, no matter the difficulties.

The old cliché says it best: the future really lies in our hands. We can start to create “heaven on earth”, beginning with our own small, regenerative corners of paradise, right now. No matter what challenges the world may throw at us, and how much trouble there may be with paradise from time to time, our lives can become an ode to joy in every moment if we only choose to make it so. Here’s to the Art of Shift!

Further reading: Some 14 years ago I published “The Great Shift- Catalyzing the Second Renaissance”, to rave reviews. You can get a copy here.