It’s time for Doughnut Thinking. The old mindset of economics has run its course and needs refreshing. The planet demands it and our very survival as a species depends on it.
Continuing to believe that we will simply return to the old way of doing things when the latest crisis is over is deluded thinking. In just the last six months we have seen the planet rocked by extreme weather events from devastating fires in Australia to Atlantic storms and unprecedented flooding across parts of Europe. The melting of ice at our polar regions is increasing at an alarming rate, with the hottest ever temperature on record for Antarctica having been recorded in February 2020. As I write, the world economy has been brought to its knees by a virus that has spread around the world at lightening speed, a consequence of our economic globalization. Meanwhile, refugees, across all parts of the planet, continue to gravitate toward areas where they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the prospect of survival for their families will be vastly improved. They are moving away from famine and drought, from war and terrorism, from dictatorships and oppression. And, who could blame them?
managers, who do little else other than manage the entire cycle, quarter after quarter. Ranking, levelling, forced distributions, identifying rising stars, identifying laggards, assessing delivery against stretch targets, calculating the distribution of the bonus pot, and starting the whole cycle again. This has become an industry in its own right, and one that delivers no core benefit to the customer or the shareholder.
explaining the facts. He explained that calling all of the EU machine unelected was not accurate. He pointed out that the EU Parliament, which is made up of elected national representatives, does in fact have a veto over recommendations put forward by the EU Commission. And that the EU Council is also made up of one member from each state in the EU, each of whom will have been elected as part of their home nation’s general elections. This was all delivered in a tone of neutrality, and with a genuine desire to help alleviate concerns and misunderstandings. At the end, the person who had raised the original issue was asked if the information provided had helped. His response was not positive. Exasperated, he accused the ‘expert’ of simply adding to the confusion and misconceptions, and “just who was he supposed to believe?”
No one can dispute that the growth of the internet and the explosion of personal device ownership has made available more data to more people in the space of just a few short years than was ever available in the history of humanity. The trouble is that knowledge search algorithms generally assume that volume is good. The more something is searched for, the more privileged it becomes. The information at the top of the list does not reflect quality, it reflects desirability. And, it fosters laziness. Personalisation ensures that we are presented with our ‘favourites’, the things we have ‘said we enjoy’ in the past. Despite the diversity of knowledge that is potentially available, the interfaces through which we access information, ironically, narrows our universe.
Gyro Consulting Services 