Reframing Our Narrative
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Reframing Our Narrative
So, I will dive right in. This is "Ground Zero” of why I am writing this newsletter. Every week, I try my best to elevate our perspectives so that we can look at our world anew.
We clearly have a myriad of really difficult challenges ahead of us. That's true. And many days, it feels like we are completely stuck. We are either NOT making any progress against them, or even worse—sliding backward.
It is equally true that, by almost any measure, there has never been a better time to be born than today. Ask your friends, even your most critical and negative ones. Would they want to move back 50 years in time? 150 years? 1,000 years? I have asked many people and haven't found anyone who honestly believes that the past was better than today.
How can both those statements be true concurrently?
Consider the graph at the top of this newsletter. And also read this quote from John Gardner.
“Our thinking about growth and decay is dominated by the image of a single life span, animal or vegetable. Seedling, full flower, and death. “The flower that once has bloomed forever dies.” But for an ever-renewing society the appropriate image is a total garden, a balanced aquarium, or other ecological system. Some things are being born, other things are flourishing, still other things are dying—but the system lives on.”
Our narrative is limited by our own lived experience. We only see what we know. Most people "in power" are older, by definition. They have grown and developed and reached the pinnacle of their success. They got there by "mastering" their trade. But as with their own life (and mine), we are nearing the peak. Things start to decay. It's harder and harder to do the things we used to.
In addition, most institutions find themselves in similar phases of evolution. Over decades they have built critical interdependencies between them which makes change in one part of the "system" even harder to initiate. Any new way of doing anything is considered a distraction and something that simply doesn’t fit the way we are doing things. The important succumbs to the urgent. The new to the old. Initative to habits. We thereby delay the need for renewal and change and kick the proverbial can down the road. Sounds familiar?
But, evolution doesn't work in this way. Neither does economic progress. It's less linear. And it's less orderly. The economist Joseph Schumpeter talked about "creative destruction". And Howard Gardner, in the quote above, talks about how we would benefit from changing our narrative from a single, life-span creature to a more beautiful image of an evergreen garden full of interdependent, biological life where one's waste is the fuel of the other.
If you go back to the graph at the top, evolution is a series of curves where society jumps from one to the other constantly. Too many people, I fear, believe they are at point A where the only thing they can see is decline and deterioration. But I am convinced society is more at point B where we have already made the jump to our next curve. And I truly believe it’s a better curve. To tweak Dr King’s famous line I would say that “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards progress”
So, somehow, like with our public discourse, we need to be less defensive, more open-minded, and feel less threatened, and more inspired by the promise of change. Today, too many institutions are rejecting, resisting, and refuting necessary changes. They are hanging on for dear life. And they are, effectively, roadblocks to real progress. We need some of that resistance removed, as there are so many incredible ideas, startups, and technologies out there ready to prove that we can do so much better than we are. Better education, better healthcare, better transportation systems, better food, and yes, better politics.
As I have mentioned a few times in these posts, Upton Sinclair said it best:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
The incentive problem is, of course, both real and important. Open AI probably spent a fraction of what Google and others have invested in AI but yet seems to be ahead. Why? Well most likely because a powerful AI might challenge the business model of traditional search that represents most of Google's profit. Most existing large businesses are very wary of innovations that might eat their lunch. Innovator's dilemma, as we know it. I mentioned several other examples in this post if you need more proof!
But it goes far beyond money. It's in the habits of culture. It's in the organizational architecture. It has to do with the status quo—"The way we do things here". Many industries have become almost like a gilded class, where they protect each other and effectively make it difficult for new entrants to join their game. Almost like what we experience at the playground. Sadly, in adulthood our human tendencies, perhaps particularly our bad ones, don’t go away.
Having spent most of my life as a change agent, I see this in every industry I try to help. The resistance is both real and understandable. And it is not also all bad. Some resistance is good and important. Constructive discourse makes us all better. And not all new ideas are good, for sure. Like with AI, we do need serious conversations, deliberation, and debate about how to maximize the possibilities and minimize the risks.
My hope would be that we all helped each other to see evolution as something well beyond our own lives. It certainly goes to one of my core beliefs which is that we do “live in a short-term world with long-term problems”. And if we simply elevated our perspectives beyond the self, we would all fare much better. Easier said than done, I know.
Here is my latest TED post with some updated talks. If you want to hear something that would make you optimistic about AI, please listen to this newly released talk by Sal Khan. I loved it.
Here is also a fantastic article in the Free Press by Tyler Cowen who makes the arguments I am trying to make above (our inability to predict progress) using AI as an example. While change (as he argues) is forthcoming and potentially very disruptive, the opportunities are more likely to outweigh the challenges in getting to them.
Lastly, a little shameless plug and ask. My family has been strong supporters of RMHC (Ronald McDonald House Charities) for decades and we are running a matching campaign that expires May 9th. Click here to learn more, and if you can, please make a contribution. It will go a long way to help families feel at home even when they can't be. And if you want to be inspired, you can watch this video.
I appreciate all of you. Have a great week!
