Organizations to dream different

The American Chamber of Commerce (ACC) hosted their members to a presentation by Principal Consultant and founder of Corporate Druids (Pvt) Ltd Mihirini De Zoysa on 'Leadership in Uncertain Times.'

"The business world is being challenged, at its most fundamental principles. It is becoming apparent that the model of exponential growth, growth upon growth and increasing consumerism is not a model that will be sustainable in the future. Certainly the energy costs and resultant impact to the Earth and her biosphere will make continuing in the same manner unsustainable", Zoysa said.

Economies and businesses globally are experiencing the effects of depletion in fossil fuels and its consequential political, environmental, social and economic turbulences. Companies are down sizing in the wake of these rising costs, and the recent global economic collapse has eroded people's faith in the current economic paradigm.

Naturally, this affects the people who work in these organizations. Their ability to feel empowered and creative in these times is affected. But it is in such times that we need individuals and organizations to dream of different futures, to play with creative ideas. The presentation was an awakening to those possibilities, those creative responses.

Her presentation took a look at some of the underlying belief systems in the economic paradigms that people have come to rely on so much, and looked at why these systems are falling apart. A critical and brave review of these is done, and new values for a new system is proposed, one that is not underpinned only on exponential growth but on sustainable abundance, not profit at any cost, but profit making based on ethical values. New monetary systems are also proposed based on experiments and current cutting edge research.