Thinking is not a highbrow sport. Change Managers know all about thinking

Thinking is not a highbrow sport; not an activity for the intellectuals or the intelligentsia to practice and thus to lord over others, demonstrating some supposed sense of superiority. That is neither what thinking intends nor what I propose nor who I am. Thinking is, however, a vital part of being alive, a privilege that, for some reason, a seemingly, ever-increasing group of fellow-citizens have abdicated: to the Tube, or to “the crowd” or to anyone else except themselves. Again: or, so it seems. Thinking, rather, is a gift, is our Divine right as human beings: “cogito ergo sum”. We all, each of us, has learned that such is the essence of being human. We do not think well any longer. Is it that we have grown so unconscious of what we do daily? Do we not simply plug in and surrender to some force other than ourselves and find superiority in that commonality of approach to life and its issues?

Thinking is not a highbrow sport. Not an activity restricted to lawyers and doctors and politicos or to . Yet as a nation, we, without a second thought, without the uproar the decision deserves, have done nothing to overturn the worst decision our nation’s Supreme Court has ever made: unrestricted control of the airwaves and media channels to the monied. And so people have become lemmings, led by a talking-head who is already brainwashed of the truth. These talking heads and pundits no longer think themselves. They spout that which is approved and is PAID FOR; nor the truth that has been concealed, hidden, unquestioned, forgotten, displaced.

Thinking is not a highbrow sport. I am not talking from an ivory tower. I am talking from the trenches of 2011. While admittedly, I come from a Patrician background, I am not a Plute in thought or reality: unless They now be among the poorest and those beleaguered by life (and, we know that the Plutes are THAT oligarchy – that tiny ! group of the richest ½ of 1% at most, who want to tell all of us that because they are rich that they know best and that they are right). Yes, I am a Republican by birth. I was not, however, brought up to believe the lies that the Tea Party is foisting upon the unwitting: my contention is that “the unwitting have become all of us.” Stop drinking “the Kool Aid”. Please! That is all I ask. We need to think; and, thinking is not applying group common sense. We no longer ask authentic questions; we no longer seek the complete truth; we accept the good enough instead of the best; we accept lies from Tea Party “pledge”-takers and certain Republicans who care only for themselves and the very wealthy who now own America.

Do you remember reading Plato’s Republic and the Allegory of the Cave? Thinking, the role of teaching, the challenge of taking on a responsible role in the world is the touchstone for life that is presented to us during our encounter with the text of the Allegory of the Cave. We all know that text. Many of us have re-read Plato. As readers of the text of during this present-now, this-today, the challenge, now, is how do we become unfettered; and, how do we go back up into the world, aware that most has been hidden; aware, and struggling to change the fact, that we are 3 removes from the truth. More importantly, how can we demonstrate convincingly and straightforwardly, and with simplicity that we have and continue to be misled, lied to by these Plutes? The Allegory of the Cave is much about what lies concealed, what has been hidden, what is several removes from the truth. My “allegation” or charge against myself and you is that all too often we kick pebbles. Try this test for yourselves: Pick up one of those pebbles. Hold that rock in your hands in a dark room. Then, take your narrow beam flashlight and direct its beam towards that rock. How much is revealed? 7%? 1% ? Certainly not much more. The challenge that we face, then, is to learn how to shine the light upon the 99% (or 93%) that remains concealed by when that partial particularity of a mere 1% is revealed; it is to learn how to discover the greater proportion, and then all of, that 99%. From that point on our responsibility under a new civil and social contract would be to share it responsibly, authentically with one another.

Thinking is not a highbrow sport. I am no intellectual; just a guy who believes that we have become deceived and led far astray by the oligarchy - the few. Their message has become only and exclusively a message that says “no”; it is a message of fear, exclusiveness, deception, lies, and betrayal. Thinking is not a highbrow sport, but it does require one to unplug from Tubeville, from the talking heads, from the summarizations that only provide a distortion of truth, from the cave; and to emerge into the light so as to ask questions and to listen authentically. It does demand a great deal of constructive questioning, informed paranoia, and a willingness to uncover what has been concealed and hidden away from us. That is what I would offer, if I could, to those who want again to find a path to a sustainable future. Instead of kicking pebbles; pick them up: shine a light upon the 99% that the Plutes want to hide. Make thinking truly a participative sport at last.

Common Sense is not what is needed, Mr. President.

Common Sense isn’t what’s needed, Mr. President

If you listened to Mr. Obama’s interview on 60 Minutes, did you hear the phrase? Yes, that phrase. Personally, I listened until I heard the phrase “common sense”, after which I turned the Tube off. What calls for thinking in this present-Time, Mr. President, is not common sense. At one time, I had a Chinese employee who loved to repeat “common sense isn’t so common is it?” when client discussions became mired in details that clouded the bigger picture. Clients loved it; it simplified life for them. That is not what we need from our leaders, our friends, family members, or ourselves! Mr. President, I want to share this little paragraph with you, because I was disappointed when you called for “common sense” in a time that calls for thinking.

“That sound common sense which is so often ‘cited’ in such attempts” ascertain facts, by appealing to particulars> “is not as sound and natural as it pretends. It is above all not as absolute as it acts, but rather the shallow product of that manner of forming ideas which is the final fruit of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century (emphasis mine). Sound common sense is always trimmed to fit a certain conception of what is and ought to be and may be. The power of this curious understanding extends into our own age; but it is no longer adequate.
The organizations of social life, rearmament in moral matters, the grease paint of the culture enterprise – none of them any longer reach what is. With all the good intentions and all the ceaseless effort, these attempts are no more than makeshift patchwork, expedients for the moment. And why? Because the ideas of aims, purposes, and means, of effects and causes, from which all those attempts arise – because these ideas are from the start incapable of holding themselves open to what is.”


Instead of common sense, Mr. President, we need to think and to think differently from those ways we have allowed ourselves, or been allowed, to think. Certainly - if we are honest with ourselves - each of us already has some sense that we no longer truly engage with life and think. Television, cable news, the internet, Facebook, Twitter, radio pundits pushing a message supportive of one platform or another: each of these “channels” through which we are bombarded daily, deliver messaging that merely distract us from, allowing us to avoid, thinking. There are, in all likelihood for most of you, actual human beings sitting next to or across from you right now from you; and yet, in many instances, you are not connected, you have not come together, no thought is taking place.

Several avenues of help are available. Psychiatry, Religion, gatherings, engaging with thought, engaging and building with Others: these all seem to be better for us and for our times than staying plugged in and not thinking. In other words, there are multiple “Tubal-detox programs” available to any one willing to unplug, to engage, to recognize, as well as to accept the fact of their own Being-in-the-world and the Being of others. Such engagement brings with it awesome responsibilities, responsibilities which if accepted can negate both “common sense” and the failure to think so prevalent at present. It is hoped that we thus could find a path along which we could co-create a sustainable future, inclusive in nature, characterized by it ability to allow all to flourish. We need to repair and to re-weave the world and local tapestries. Common sense will never achieve either of those two goals.

Was heist Denken? was written by Heidegger nearly 50 years ago; and yet, its message is more relevant to our present-Now than any earlier time. Thinking is not “common sense”! At our most Sacred time of the Year, what greater gift could we give our friends, families, partners, lovers, employees and employers than to engage as humans, as thinking humans? Thinking requires that we unconceal that which has been hidden; it requires, in Heideggerian-speak that we come together to gather; that we no longer accept the concealed as truth.

Let me leave you, Mr. President, with Heidegger’s conclusion to this portion of his lecture. It applies in today’s Flat World more than in 1954.

“There is the danger that the thought of man today will fall short of the decisions that are coming, decisions of whose specific historical shape we can know nothing – that the man of today will look for these decisions where they can never be made.”

Mr. President, you have demonstrated that you understand and have internalized Michael Porter’s admonition: “strategy is choice”. We need you to choose to lead us out from tubal-land’s morass of conflicting utterances of concealment. Currently it seems as though the Sybil of Cumae is allowing leaves to blow, leaves that portend disaster, leaves inspiring fear. Mr. President, make the concealment stop. We need you to eschew common sense and to set the standard for thinking in America. Help us see that “common sense” is not the way.

Language and Politics: TeaParty calls Dems Nazi's in Wisconsin

“Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells.”

“It is language that tells us about the nature of a thing, provided that we respect language’s own nature….

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

… Among all the appeals that we human beings, on our part, can help to be voiced, language is the highest and everywhere the first.”
Martin Heidegger.

I want to stop the misuse and abuse of language. Especially the “words that work” of the Tea Party and Republicans who are trying only to throw out our President. They still are just a “party of no”: and lest you hate me and send me nasty notes: I am a life-long Republican. Now, recovering, I am a proud Obama republican.

Let me digress and offer a brief explanation, if I might. My love is and has been Literature, philosophy, the classics and structural analysis &criticism (my Comparative Literature background) and teaching. With only a few regrets, I spent 30 some years in “Business” & Consulting. While in my business career I both had a modicum of success in marketing, sales, and consulting, I was also afforded quite a bit of time delivering training or other seminars. In doing so, I confess that I was not always careful with language. I want to write about language and its use, and maybe whatever else strikes my fancy.

But again: Why the insistence that we attend to language? I can only reply with a question, or two, and a suggestion. Have you turned on the news? Have you heard the lies, the distortion of facts, coming out of Fox News? Whom can you trust? Haven’t we reached a time when it now is vital for us to silence the furor and to listen with authenticity?

If you read Thomas Pynchon, you might simply remind individuals that a cure is available: they merely need to enroll themselves in a Tubal-detox program: cure themselves of “Tubeitis” that illness that permeates American life. It isn’t just on TV and Cable; it’s everywhere They can buy the placement of Their fear-mongering, society-splintering, destructive messages: all “no!. You have Rush L., Glenn Beck, and of course, WTMJ’s very own Charlie Sykes, who believe that if they use “words that work” often enough you will gladly, lemming-like allow yourselves to become victims of a Plutocratic Oligarchy. But hey! Who cares? Right? If the talking heads create enough noise pollution backed by the Koch brothers and other fear-mongerers such as the current lot of TeaParty-ites and Republicans pool of candidates, it will be perfectly alright with you?

And, let me add that yesterday I noticed someone say that Democrats are the same as Nazi’s to be defeated by the Tea Party. OMG! (As my 15, 13, and 10 year might say, but probably not). I felt compelled to add some “local color” if I might and stir the pot, but without language that is so blatantly outrageous and maybe even add a few words, as an Obama Republican, for our current Commander in Chief.
As my continuation I want to add, and expand upon, a blog I wrote in part nearly 2 years ago concerning how language was destroying our ability to talk about food. The problems, as it relates to language tearing apart the fabric of our national tapestry, has become worse.

Language, that which has the power to “create worlds”, apparently has been purchased, by what now is called the Tea Party and the Republicans. A paid “pundit” for the past few years has been publicly creating verbal playbooks for politicians to manipulate, to distort, to instill fear and mistrust, and to conceal. A lifelong Republican I confess to cringing at the lies. I also quickly found myself a proud Obama Republican. I want to use this blog to talk about language and to examine with others this current phenomenon of media: noise pollution designed only to un-elect a sitting president.

Language is the most powerful and under utilized tool at our disposal, individually, severally, and collectively. Sadly, in business, politics, and virtually all walks of life, certain powers with greater reach are broadcasting rancor during a time when this nation needs healing, a coming together, and the stimulus of growth.

Originally what got me riled up was the realization that we need more conscious use of language. At the time Food and Agribusiness were in the news. in business was the finger-pointing and railing against the machine concerning food: genetics, modified seeds, chemicals, food production, food safety, food labeling, etc.

Nearly two years ago, I found myself becoming increasingly angry over the public debate, the “national palaver” to quote Carlyle. I was heavily involved with agribusiness. I had been blessed , or cursed – if you must – to have been able to work with the leaders of that field: Dow AgroSciences, Bayer, Monsanto, Case/IH, AGCO – and so on. The industry was under attack. The “blogosphere” was filled with anger, misinformation, and a lot of noise. The anger was over mistakes made by certain executives in the past; and, as so often happens in the world, one person’s errors become to some the entirety of the company.

Like many of us, I am deeply bothered by the current public debate about food, food production and safety. The traditional, and newer "social" medias have taken this very, very complex issue and lumped together factoids about "feeding the world", "clean air", "global warming", "genetically modified crops", and the very sustainability of our planet.

Doing so only made things worse and certainly more confusing for most listeners. A great deal of positioning; a good deal of shouting; not much listening and working together going on there, so far, in this public debate. Agribusiness cannot allow itself to be dragged into a public brawl such as the one we've recently watched - and still are watching - about Health Care Reform and The Public Option.

Now, 18 months later, we have suffered through months of partisan paralysis. "Debt ceiling" debates became fodder for TeaParty radicals to stop progress and civility. The issues surrounding agribusiness and farmers, are among the most important topics of today because we all are involved in food and clothing and environmental issues. Yet, journalists such as Michael Pollan, Paul Roberts, and notable world citizens, such as Vandana Shiva, are inciting their audiences and special interest groups, mostly through fear and "adjustment" of the facts.

In contrast to these divisive voices, Peter Senge, of Fifth Discipline fame, offers a much more tempered approach, deeper and more thoughtful and quite a bit more challenging to each of us in his newest book, The Necessary Revolution. Today, however, the debate about Food seems not to be among the top 10 topics on the World News Tonight (whichever of the networks you follow). Instead, that same rancorous discord, those same outrageous, divisive language has been turned to again divide our nation. Radical claims concerning the future of our nation are fueling fear; causing the paralysis of recovery; the death of job creation; and, shutting down much of our hope for recovery in the near term.

The United States has become a country of Haves and Have-not's. Jobs have been taken away, sent overseas, leaving Americans unable to be fully engaged – all for the sake of the Plutocrats now hoarding their cash and chanting “No!”. The problem is how quickly the widening of the gap is becoming; and, that widening is not slowing down. Instead of using language, political power, and spending power to recreate a stronger America, distinguished by its equality and sense of inclusion for all, our media and those political talking heads, paid for by the ultra-wealthy, the Plutocrats, is fracturing the nation even further. We need that to stop.

We need authentic listening. We need to silence the lies, distortion of facts, and to begin using Language in order to create the sustainable future world we all desire. Not a world that excludes those the TeaParty doesn’t understand and are being taught to fear. Certainly the majority of us do not want an America for just the few who have control of all the wealth. 1/2 of 1% controls 80% of the wealth.

They cannot control the Language and ideas, however, or our nation will suffer tragic consequences. The issues we face in government are more complex, more divisive, and at a quantum level greater than the battle over food. Crafting a sustainable solution - just to guide the public debate - can, and will, not result from singularly slanted, or otherwise distorted preaching. These interrelated problems can only be corrected through a creative learning process. Rather than creating an atmosphere in which a true long-lasting solution can be crafted, these activists see only one-way: their own.

Instead we need to work together. Education and communications will play a huge role in shaping the outcome for many of us. It will take hard work. We lose all chance to shape the future, however, if we allow ourselves to be controlled by the puppeteers speaking into the ear-pieces of the TeaParty backed candidates and their media talking heads (or in the case of agribusiness: those outside agribusiness) to shape the public debate. Certainly we do not want to engage them at their level and try to yell over them: god help us if we try to do that – it’s just a waste of more money that could have been put into the economy to add value and thus would have been relevant to all citizens.


We need to listen. We need to look for the clearing. We need to listen for what has been concealed to become un-concealed. We need to practice what Stephen Covey suggests: "seek first to understand, then to be understood". We also need to build a dictionary that guides this conversation and mutual learning. All of us need to shape the language and use words that work and metaphors that reach across the gap between sides, pulling them into our conversation.

Keep this truism on a Post-It: "...those who define the debate will determine the outcome" (c.f., Frank Luntz, What Americans really want ... really). It's time to re-tell, or to tell anew, the story of farming, of how the world is fed and clothed - and what it will require when there are 9 Billion people on earth. It is time for us to educate the rest of the world about farming, agriculture, tillage practices, land and water conservation, seeds and chemicals. If we shape the conversation, without rancor and with a complete and easy-to-comprehend story, which helps reveal the truth in its complexity, everyone will come out ahead. Then we can move ahead proud of our stewardship and assured of a sustainable future.

But remember, "It's not what you say; it's what they hear" that matters We need business leaders and politicians to stop paying for words that work, words that distort and hide the truth. Our agribusiness leaders have worked exceedingly hard to being to address these same sometimes-difficult-and-admittedly- complex subjects through education and communication - the ones the extremists have distortedly made visible - so that our fellow citizens of the planet can help better understand the reality, the rancorous, drama can subside; constructive conversation, dialogue and trust can be built; and, we can craft a sustainable future together. We need that self-same commitment to renewal of our nation, as one of inclusion. We need to stop the fear mongering. We need to use language to un-conceal and to make the world we all want. The few that want to be the few can afford to go buy their own island: I suggest that they do just that. For the rest of us, let us co-create a sustainable future for America. That future will renew the social contract. Then we can walk our talk proudly. - old consultant adage, however: easy to say, harder to accomplish.

Help! how do you talk to your Waldorf 8th grader about "Food, Inc."?

[As I sat and tried to collect a few thoughts before writing this posting, I began to wonder whether there is something of Horace's "The City Mouse and The Country Mouse" underlying the American debate about food and agriculture].

Last week my 8th grade Waldorf educated daughter, Isabella, and her class sat through Food, Inc. As it's viewing did for so many adult audiences, the movie hit a nerve with her and her classmates. And, as I try to sift through her questions and emotional reaction to the questions raised by the book, I am forced to re-examine certain questions and decisions I have made myself.

I had spent the last year researching the emotional fall-out, and rising criticism that has pummeled the GMO movement (Monsanto in particular), the poultry, cattle, and hog industries. I thought I could sit with my 13 year old and learn a lot from that conversation.

Her first 3 remarks were along the lines of "I'm never eating chicken again" and "why does Monsanto fight with farmers" and "what if Monsanto has it wrong"?

I have written about how destructive the rhetoric and "the noise of the special-interest groups", calling for a return to civility, for using "words that work", and for creating metaphors that move us towards civility once again. My personal library has grown to include numerous studies about seeds, the climate, soil use, tillage practices, and the future. Every author has an answer or a gripe, or some combination of both.

Sadly, I do not have "the answer".

Perhaps there is not one, single answer. In fact, how could there be just one answer!?

I have come to realize, however, that the underlying complexity of safe food production and of how American Agriculture feeds, clothes, and supplies the world is not as widely understood as we Americans need. Moreover, i've also come to realize that this subject matter: feeding and clothing the world safely - will only grow in importance as the planet races to embrace 9 Billion people by 2050. We need to talk about food production and future without all the rancor that controlled the health care debate.

To begin to grasp the complexity of the questions surrounding food production, safety, and availability, I encourage everyone to adopt Peter Senge's view of systems (c.f., Fifth Discipline) so as to begin to understand that whatever changes we make in one area necessarily have an impact on another area of the system.

Tonight is Jamie Oliver night at my house: my daughters' choice of programming!

So : what did you tell your teenager after s/he saw Food Inc. ?

Did, in fact, s/he see it? Did it cause a visceral reaction?

"Sustainability", a distinctive definition

“A new and distinctive definition of sustainability.”[1]

How do you feel about how the Health Care Debate and health care reform have been handled so far? Personally, I’m fed up with, and a bit confused by, the “public conversation” over Health Care Reform. Personally, I can’t help but believe that the public is being too confused to decide, and the roots of the confusion were the words chosen by certain groups in order to make their point. The next public debate is going to be about creating a sustainable future. The multiple threads of the conversation are already glistening, popping out for examination. Among the threads we can already identify: global warming, carbon emissions, cap and trade, waste, water, soil, food, and so on. And so, as with many people, I am trying to wrap my head around the term “sustainability”.

I do not want to fall victim to lobbyists, or industry positioning, or vitriolic posturing by a faction with an axe to grind. I’ve seen how damaged the public conversation can be after witnessing the debacle over Health Care Reform. Believing that, if I read enough and talk to enough people, I can come away from these educational moments with a more balanced, more rounded, and a more thoroughly informed understanding, I set out to investigate the challenges that accompany the theme of sustainability, and how to guarantee a safe, prosperous world for our children and their grandchildren.

My educational journey has permitted me to experience the poetry of Wendell Berry and the anti-Capitalist rantings of Vandana Shiva. I’ve allowed myself to be captivated by Al Gore’s visuals; and, I discovered that I don’t have patience for the alarmists who produced Food Inc. I found E.O. Wilson too ephemeral, too “airy-fairy” for action; and I found Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution challenging me (and each of us) to make a difference and to help the wave move out from its center.

I was drawn to John Ehrenfeld’s deeply philosophical book, Sustainability by Design, for his definition of “sustainability. Ehrenfeld is an industrial ecologist, a systems thinker, and, philosopher. Throughout the book he makes use of the now-familiar-to-many causal loop diagrams, system archetypes, and mental maps made popular in Senge’s phenomenally successful book, The Fifth Discipline.

Ehrenfeld throws down the gauntlet by offering provocative assertions, while continuously using Senge’ Causal Archetypes as framing images, metaphors, and mental maps: Fixes that Fail, Shifting the Burden, & Limits to Growth in this profound questioning of our current situation, which he labels “the global crisis”.

“To create sustainability, we must first adopt new meanings for the words we use to tell our stories.” I certainly agree that language and the metaphors by which we live (write and speak) are more powerful than we normally realize. And, in our use of language we do have the power to shape the future. Just think for a few minutes about the language sales and marketing uses to talk about the people who buy and use your products and services. “Campaigns”, “account penetration”, - we display our cultural values through the language we choose.

Storytelling will have an important role in the public debate. We will have to decide as “The People” how we want to, and will, shape the future of our planet. Ehrenfeld points out “in the environmentalist’s conversation, we almost always speak only in terms of problems to solve, and rarely in terms of nurturing possibility.” He goes on to say: “Something is missing here. Better, many things are missing here.” Using words and causal loop diagrams, Ehrenfeld’s mantra is we need to create a new future (italics mine) because what we have been calling “sustainable development” is just painting the pig, dressing up a problem with a fix but never solving the problem with a creative solution.

His definition of “sustainability” is “the possibility that human and other life will flourish on the planet forever”. He then goes on to add that “flourishing is the key to a vision of a sustainable future, and this way of conceptualizing sustainability connects to every kind of audience.” In other words, this definition works for marketing, for sales, for scientists, etc. as well as for solving such issues as creating a sustainable future. Does it connect with you?

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[1] Sustainability by Design, pg. 6, John Ehrenfeld, Yale Press, 2008

words that work: the wisdom of calling it "a fight"

I was glancing over blog headlines today, when my eye was caught by the headline " A Food Fight."

Like so many others, there are days when I turn off my computer disgusted by the factual mistakes and blatant lies told in the press about agriculture. Growers and producers are misunderstood. Agribusiness is much more complex than almost everyone understands. Agribusiness feeds and clothes the world. American farmers have a proud history of stewardship and sustainability. To date, however, much of the public debate has done more to confuse the general audience with polarizing language and war-like tactics - tactics clearly intended to strike terror into the hearts of the intended audience.

Therefore, I certainly applaud how the industry has been drawn together to reverse public opinion and to correct the facts about farmers, farming, and the "Food industry." What causes me concern, however, is the choice of metaphor.

The blog, which appears on AgWired, starts off:

" A FOOD FIGHT got underway today with dairy farmers and beef producers joining forces to fling facts in the face of food foes."

I have to ask if there isn't another "metaphor to live by" other than the "argument is war" metaphor, which underlies the author's opening lines. Cindy, the author, goes on to say that the purpose and main message from this food fight "is to Give Thanks for food and farmers."

I get her message. Yet the words "fight" and "give thanks for" are oddly juxtaposed.

Those of us involved in agribusiness, whether we are ranchers, producers, growers, farmers, dealers, seedsmen, equipment manufacturers, or marketing consultants, should reflect upon the power of words, ideally before they escape our lips, pens, or keyboards. We don't need a repetition of what has happened in the public debate over health care reform.

We do face a communications "opportunity", or "challenge" when it comes to the subject of food and of creating a sustainable world for future generations. A key to the success of our sustainability efforts will be our ability to come together, despite not being fully comfortable with doing so, and to collaboratively and creatively build a future. I am merely asking us to think about the metaphors we choose to help guide us to that future.