Acknowledgements
Grateful acknowledgement is given to the Random House Group Limited for permission to use the extract from An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan, published by Hutchinson.
My greatest acknowledgements are to people who have inspired me to think again: to learn and unlearn as this book says we all must. Some of these people are friends, some are people I have met in conversations along the way, some have come to me in their books.
If I had a select bibliography that has influenced the writing of this book it would be:
Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2000) Harvard University Press. Synchronicity, Joseph Jaworski (1996) Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco. States of Grace, Charlene Spretnak (1993) Harper Collins. SQ; Spiritual Intelligence, Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall (2000) Bloomsbury, London. The Saturated Self, Kenneth J. Gergen (1991) Basic Books, New York. The Emperor’s Nightingale, Robert Monks (1998) Perseus, UK. Cities For A Small Planet, Richard Rogers and Philip Gumuchdjian (1997) Faber and Faber, London. Country of my Skull, Antje Krog (1998) Cape. Emergence, Steven Johnson (2001) Penguin, London. Globalisation And Its Discontents, Joseph Stiglitz (2002) Allen Lane, London. Conceptual Foundations For Multi-Disciplinary Thinking, Steven Jay Kline (1995) Stanford University Press. 130 Raising a Ladder to the Moon
From my wife I learn every day. Louise, a community social worker, returns every day with individual’s stories and her frustrations with the inadequacies of public policy and social services in the world’s fourth largest economy to deal with the most fundamental issues. From my teenage daughters, Sophie and Cleo, I hear about peer pressure and the demands of the consumer economy. They manage to stand straight and be proud of who they are. Thanks also to Steve Kitson, a post-trauma surgeon, who has talked me through the intricacies of the brain; to Mark Moody-Stuart for time to talk; to Andrew Grant for showing me sun and weather maps as a guide for social spaces – and cities; to Catherine Lumley, a palliative counsellor based in a hospital in Sydney, for trying to put humanity into medicine; to Mark Swilling and Eve Anneke for show- ing me whales, South Africa, patience, perseverance and transformation and to Franklin Adams who showed me round Khayolistsha township; to Rob McClaughlin for building boats; to Ruth Thomas, Gill Coleman and Deborah Leipziger for kindness in the face of adversity; to John Bening- ton for being straight and supportive. And to Alan Feest for showing me slime mould and finding time to cast an ecologist’s eye over the text. I thank my publisher at Palgrave, Stephen Rutt, for his infinite patience. I have met many people with real power over the last 30 years in my work as a researcher, writer and producer of books and films for universi- ties and television as well as in a previous career in business and manage- ment. They include senior government ministers and public servants around the world, as well as civil society activists and business people. Three things differentiate the powerful from the rest: they can focus and they work harder – and they all crave power. You have to want it to get it, and those that get it are not necessarily the best leaders, managers or human beings. I have met very, very few powerful people whom I felt I trusted with my soul. I have met ordinary people that I have trusted with my heart and soul. Trust not our largest organisations, because as complex adaptive systems they are designed, like slime mould, to survive against the odds. Malcolm McIntosh Bath, England January 2003 Notes
1. McIntosh, M. and Thomas, R. (2001) Global Companies in the Twentieth Century: Selected Archival Histories, Vol. V, Cable & Wireless, item 7. Routledge, London. 2. Stiglitz, J. (2002) Globalisation and its Discontents, p. 248. Penguin/ Allen Lane, Harmondsworth. 3. Kline, S. J. (1995) Conceptual Foundations for Multi-Disciplinary Thinking, p. xiii. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 4. Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of the Mind, p. 462. Chandler, San Francisco, CA. 5. Senge, P. (1996) in the Introduction to J. Jaworski, Synchronicity, p. 11. Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco, CA. 6. For more on this subject see Easlea, B. (1983) Fathering the Unthinkable: Masculinity, Scientists and the Nuclear Race. Pluto, London and Sydney. 7. McIntosh, M. (1986) Japan Re-Armed. Frances Pinter, London. 8. Collins, J. C. and Porras, J. I. (1996) Built To Last. Century, London. 9. Ibid. p. 4. 10. McIntosh and Thomas (2001) op. cit. 11. Chalmers, M. (1985) Paying for Defence: Military Spending and British Decline. Pluto, London and Sydney. 12. See, for instance, Rogers, P. F. (2000) Politics in the Next 50 Years: The Changing Nature of International Conflict. University of Bradford, Department of Peace Studies. 13. Soros, G. (1998) The Crisis of Global Capitalism, p. xxiii. Little Brown, London. 14. Rees, M. (2002) ‘Our biophilic universe and its future’, RSA Journal, December, pp. 48–9. 15. Ibid. 132 Raising a Ladder to the Moon
16. See, for instance, Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2000) Empire, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA; Giddens, A. (2001) The Global Third Way Debate, Polity, Cambridge, UK; and Castells, M. (1996) The Rise of the Network Society, Blackwell, Oxford. 17. See, for instance, Lyotard, J.-F. (1979) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester University Press, Manchester; Glover, J. (2001) Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century, Pimlico, London; Krog, A. (1998) Country of My Skull, Cape, London; Pirsig, R. M. (1974) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Enquiry into Values, Vintage, London; and Heart- ney, E. (2002) Movements In Modern Art: Postmodernism, Tate Publishing, London. 18. For a brief overview of the MBA curriculum in the twenty-first century see Chowdhury, S. et al. (2000) Management 21C, Pearson, London. 19. Eliot, T. S. (1944) Four Quartets. Faber and Faber, London. 20. Gergen, K. J. (2000) The Saturated Self, p. ix. Basic Books, New York. 21. According to Drugscope 30–40 per cent of 15–16-year-olds use cannabis regularly in the United Kingdom. According to the UK government, one in nine 16-year-olds admit using drugs every day. The United Kingdom has the highest level of use of hard drugs in Europe, yet it has the toughest laws on drug use. 22.
29. Bauman, Z. (1993) Postmodern Ethics. Blackwell, Oxford. 30. Birch, D. (2001) ‘Corporate citizenship: rethinking business beyond corporate social responsibility’, in M. McIntosh and J. Andriof, Perspectives on Corporate Citizenship, pp. 53–65. Greenleaf, Sheffield. 31. Ridderstale, J. and Nordstrom, K. (2000) Funky Business: Talent Makes Capital Dance, p. 10. Financial Times/Prentice Hall, London. 32. Barber, B. (2001) ‘How to make society civil and democracy strong’, in A. Giddens, The Global Third Way Debate, p. 269. Polity, Cambridge. 33 The Millennium Poll on Corporate Social Responsibility (2001). Environics International Ltd, Toronto
48. Egan, J. and Wilson D. (2002) Private Business: Public Battleground. Palgrave, Basingstoke. 49. See, for instance, Barnett, R. J. and Cavanagh, J. (1994) Global Dreams. Simon and Schuster, London; and Brown, P. and Lauder, H. (2001) Capitalism And Social Progress. Palgrave, Basingstoke. 50.
69. Scholte, J. A. (2001) ‘Globalisation, governance and corporate citi- zenship’, Journal of Corporate Citizenship, No. 1, Spring, pp. 15–23. 70. Annan, K. (1999) The Global Compact.
83. Huntingdon, S. P. (1997) The Clash of Civilisations and the Remaking of World Order. Simon & Schuster, London. 84. For a more detailed explanation of the Global Eight, see McIntosh et al. (2002) Living Corporate Citizenship, FT/Pearson, London. 85. Soros, G. (1998) The Crisis of Global Capitalism, p. xxxiii. Little, Brown, London. 86.
104. For ‘deconstructing the boundaries of the nation-state’, see Hardt and Negri, op. cit. 105.
125. WWF (2002) Living Planet Report 2002.
137. Reason, P. and Goodwin, B. (1999) ‘Towards a science of qualities in organisations: lessons from complexity theory and postmodern biology’. Concepts and Transformations, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 281–317. 138. Blockley, D., Farinha, F. and Bento, J. (2002) A Systems Approach to the Computer Aided Design of Reinforced Concrete Structures.
159. For the Global Compact, see
181. Weizsacker, E. et al. (1998) Factor Four: Doubling Wealth, Halving Resource Use. Earthscan, London. 182. Stahel, W. (2002) Complexity, Technology, Sustainability.
11 September 2001, 14, 16, bin Laden, Osama, 92 China, 95, 104 91–2 Blockley, D., 87 Chowdhury, Subir, 51 3M, 7–8 Bohm, David, 86 Churchill, Sir Winston, 6 Bourgeois, Louise, 71 Cilliers, Paul, 87, 93, 94, 97 AA1000S, 67 Bournville, xiii, 1 civil service, 44–6 AAB, 10 Village, 1 civil society, 29, 30, 44, 58, AccountAbility, 54 brands, 28, 29, 48, 70, 83 60, 71 adaptive systems, xii, 21, 22, Brent Spar, 88, 113 Clash of Civilisations, 53 88, 101, 107, 109, 117, 123 Bretton Woods, 53 Coca-Cola, 57, 58 Age of Extremes, 77 British Airports Authority Collins, J. C., 7, 98 air, 22–3 (BAA), 39 communications technology, xi, air travel, 16, 23, 81 British Petroleum, 8 15–16, 34, 47, 69, 81, 93 al-Qaeda, 92, 93 British Rail, 120 company archives, 7, 8, 46 Amnesty International, 30, 50 Brockbank, Michael, 68 complexity, xii, xiii, 18, 22, 25, Andriof, Jorg, 83, 85 Browne, Sir John, 109, 111 84–9, 91–2, 93, 100, 104–5, Anglo American, 59, 61 BSE, 5, 59, 85, 96, 110, 113 109, 111, 113–18, 123 Annan, Secretary General Built to Last, 7, 98 theory, 84, 86–7, 91, 94–8 Kofi, 23, 32, 45, 105 Burma, 95 passim, 101, 108, 110, Apocalypse Now, 76 Bush, President George, Snr, 120, 125 art galleries, 75 92 conflict, 15, 48 asbestos, 5, 74 business process conflict/dispute resolution, 15, Australia, 29, 104, 105, 112 reengineering, 88 79 awe, xii, 123, 126 Conrad, Joseph, 76 Cable & Wireless, 8, 36–7, 46, consumers, 13, 29 Bader, Ernest, 51 47 Coppola, Francis Ford, 76 see also Scott Bader Cadbury, viii, 1 corporate citizenship, xi–xiv balloonist, 52 Cadbury, Sir Adrian, 1 passim, 9, 14, 17–19, 24, Barber, Benjamin, 29 call centres, 50 27, 29, 33–40, 49, 51, 53, Barnett, Richard J., 31, 77 capitalism, 10, 31, 53, 77, 109 54, 63, 66–7, 73, 81–2, Barthes, Roland, 61, 94 Capra, Fritjof, 73, 90 83–4, 86, 87, 93, 94, 95, Bateson, Gregory, iii, 83, 90 Casti, John, 87 98, 101–4, 113–18, 123 Bauman, Zygmunt, 24, 100 Cavanagh, John, 31, 77 debate about, 27–9 BBC, 1, 9, 30, 68, 69, 113, 118 CFCs, 5, 74 ecology of, 30–33 Beck, Ulrich, 47, 81 chaos, 109 corporate longevity, 7–8 Bell, S., 114 edge of, 19, 104, 105, 118 corporate responsibility Ben & Jerry’s, 62 theory, 89 see corporate citizenship Bettelheim, Bruno, 19 Chicago School, 34 corporations, xii, 13, 20, 21, Beyond Reasonable Greed, child labour, 17, 55, 68, 85, 23, 29, 31, 33, 44, 60, 86, 59–60 106 95–6, 107–8, 118, 123 144 Index
and alienation, 32–3 environmental constraints, 13 Globalisation and its externalised costs, 22, 67, environmentalism, 9, 34, 53, Discontents, xi 69, 107 106 Goodwin, B., 87 as responsible ‘citizens’ equal opportunities, 34, 95 Gorbachov, Mikhael, 9, 10 see corporate citizenship European Parliament, 24 Gore, Vice President Al, 116 size/power of, 40, 48, 62, Evening Standard, x, 46 governments, xii, 33, 59, 71, 63, 65 evolution, 14, 109, 120 84, 107 corruption/fraud, 34 Great Eastern Covey, Stephen, 31, 51 Factor Four, 116 see trans-atlantic telegraph Cray, John, 38 fast food, 16, 58, 69, 96 Greece, 103 Crisis of Global Capitalism, Fast Food Nation, 96 Green History of the World, 74 54, 77 Feest, Alan, 118, 120 Greenpeace, 30, 50 customers’ preferences, 29 Financial Times, 116 Finland, 10 Handy, Charles, 62, 64 D’Arcy, William Knox, 8 fish, xii Hardt, Michael, 61–2, 63 Dalai Lama, 24 Fitzgerald, Niall, 62, 65 Hatch, M. J., 87 DDT, 5, 74 Ford Motors, 8 Hawken, Paul, 31 de Geus, Arie, 88, 98 Forster, E. M., 47 health and safety, 42, 59, 116 delayering, 88, 89 Fortune, 37, 40 health care, 60 Denmark, 30 Foundations for Multi- Heisenberg, Werner, 86 development, 15 Disciplinary Thinking, Henderson, David, 33, 34–5 Disney, 58 The, xii Herkstotter, Cor, 87–8 Does God Play Dice?, 87 Fowles, John, 97 Herz, Noreena, 32 donkey, dead, 32 France, 38 Heseltine, Michael, 8 downsizing, 88, 89 Frankl, Victor, 19 Hijacking Environmentalism, Drucker, Peter, 51, 77 free trade, 8 32 drug trade, 16–17, 53, 59, 69 Friedman, Milton, 34 Hiroshima/Nagasaki, 5–6 Friedman, Thomas, 48 HIV/AIDS, 60, 93, 114 earth, 21–2, 24, 64, 74, 77, 79, fuel consumption, 16 Hobsbawm, Eric, 47, 73, 77, 81, 110 Funky Business, 28 78 human relationship to, xi, Hodgkinson, Mike, 39 xii, xiii, 14, 15, 21, 31, 49, Galbraith, John, 40 Honda, 94 55–6, 84, 110 Gandhi, Mahatma, 21, 103, hospitality, 103 re-seeing world, xi, 14 104 human rights, 40, 44, 53, 59, Ecology of Commerce,31 GAP, 50 63, 84, 106 ecology, 9, 73, 74, 81 gender, 14 humility, 95–101, 102, 110, ecological approach, 2–3, General Motors, 107 124, 126 9–10 Gergen, Kenneth, 16 Huntingdon, Samuel P., 53 ecological modernisation, 78 Germany, 61, 75 Hutton, Will, 48 of predictors, 107 Giddens, Anthony, 78, 102 Economist, 116 Gladwell, Malcolm, 93 I Ching, 20 ecosystems, xi, 22 Global Dreams, 77 Ibrahim, Abdullah, 20 education, 14, 102 global elite, 16, 92 ice cream, 6, 40, 62, 71, 73 Einstein, Albert, 19, 94 Global Reporting Initiative, identity, 16, 28, 40 electricity, 37, 58, 60 54, 67, 94 ILO, 54 elephant and blind men, 17, 97 Global Sullivan Principles, 54, improvisation, 20 Eliot, T. S., 15 67 informal economy/black Emergence, 120 global warming, 11, 74 market, 59 Emperor’s Nightingale, The, globalisation, xi, 2, 10, 17, 23, information, freedom of, 8 20, 87, 107 31–2, 37, 40, 45, 47, instability, xi Enron, 14, 32, 37, 45, 52, 69, 48–9, 58, 77, 92–3, 123 social systems 78, 92 and economics, 53–5 dichotomies, xi Index 145
interdisciplinary approach, 14, Middle East, 81, 95 polls, 29 15 military associations, 33 pollution, 3, 78, 80 Ireland, 112 arms industry, 44, 53, 69 Ponting, Clive, 74 ISO, 54 Ministry of Defence, 1, 44 Porras, J. I., 7, 98 Mitsubishi Bank, 10 Post-modern Ethics, 24 Japan, 4–6, 47, 61, 75, 77–8 Monks, Robert, 20, 87, 107–8, postmodernism, 24, 81, 96, Johannesburg World Summit on 109, 116–17 100, 102 Sustainable Development Moody-Stewart, Mark, 59 poverty, xi, 13, 14, 16, 18, 23, (2002), 57, 110 moon, ladder to, x, xi, 17, 46, 56, 57, 75, 113 Johnson, Steven, 120 123 power, 41, 109, 111 Morgan, Gareth, 48, 87, 104, distribution of, 4 Kaufman, Stuart, 98, 99 113 use of, 13, 25, 84 King Commission, 82 Moriarty, Henry, x, 8, 46–7 precautionary principle, 5 King, Martin Luther, 21 Morse, S., 114 press, the, 41 Klein, Naomi, 32 music, 20 prisons, 114 Kline, Steven Jay, xii Product-Life Institute, 116 Korten, David, 32 nation-state, 23, 29, 53, 61, 64, Progress for a Small Planet, KPMG, 60 67 111 Kuhn, Thomas, 51, 99 nature, 2–3 progress, 6 Kumar, Satish, 102 Negri, Antonio, 61–2, 63 Neste, 10 Quakerism, 1 Lennon, John, 71 Nestlé, 48 limited liability, 33, 34 Netherlands, the, 66 Rayner, Alan, 22–3, 86 Living Company, The, 88, 98 networks, 24, 28, 84 Reason, P., 87 Lockerbie, 92 New York Times, 6 Rees, Martin, 14 London Marathon, 68 Newbold, Yve, 41, 43 reformation, 60 long-term view, 11 Nigeria, 88, 113 refugees, 114 Lyotard, Jean-Francois, 74, Nixon, President Richard, 113 regulation, 33, 63, 66–7, 68, 100 No Logo,32 78, 108 Nokia, 93 environmental, 3–4 Maathai, Wangari, 112 non-governmental rehabilitation, 3–4 Man Who Gave His Company organisations (NGOs), xii, Rewiring the Corporate Brain, Away, The, 51 44, 60 98 management, 51 INGOs, 50 Rio Earth Summit (1992), 92 Management Challenges for Norway, 55, 57 rivers, 76 the 21st Century, 77 Norwich, 114–15 Rogers, Richard, 104, 107, Mandela, President Nelson, 21 114–15 Marine Stewardship Council, obesity, 57–8 Royal Dutch/Shell, 35, 59, 66, 68 OECD, 54, 67 67, 87–91, 113 markets, 28, 29, 31, 34, 44, 54, Old Mutual, 61 Royal Society for the 61, 98 Olympic Games, 57 Protection of Birds Massachusetts Institute of oneworldTM, 81 (RSPB), 30, 50 Technology (MIT), 52, Oppenheimer, Robert, 5–6 Russia, 59 117 organisational culture, 4 MBAs, 15, 30 sanitation, 74, 76, 80 Mbeki, President Thabo, 55–6 paradigm shift, 51, 99 Santa Fe Institute, 87, 98, 107, McDonald’s, 18, 55, 57, 58, Patten, Chris, 6, 71, 73 117 59, 61, 96, 100, 125 peace studies, 15 Schnabel, Arthur, 20 McAfrika, 55, 57, 61 petrochemicals, 8, 10 Scholte, Jan Aart, 48, 58 Mead, Margaret, 93 plastic, 10–11 Schossler, Eric, 96 Melbourne, 104, 105 political parties, 37 Schumacher, E. F., 51, 102 Micklethwait, John, 48 politics, failure of, 13, 54 Schumacher College, 102 146 Index
science, xii, 6, 87, 100, 110, Sweden, xiii, 2–3, 29–30, 38 Pax Americana, 9 124, 126 Swilling, Mark, 60, 87, 95 universities, 2 ‘Two Cultures’, 112 Switzerland, 48, 54 Scott Bader, 37–8, 39 synchronicity, 22, 25, 84 values, 53, 95, 117 Ernest Bader, 51 Systemic Approach to ethics, 101–4 Second World War, 5–6, 9, 77, Sustainability Analysis, 114 human, 4 78 moral, 13, 24, 41, 43 Senge, Peter, xiii, 52, 117 Tate Modern, 70, 76, 99 shared, 29 Senghor, President Leopold tax, 30, 48 Virgin, 28, 48 Sedar, 82 technology, 6, 11, 15 Visser, Wayne, 60 shareholding, 41, 44, 85, 107, terrorism, 92, 93 vision, 23 115 see also 11 September; visionary company, 7 Shiva, Vandana, 109, 111 Lockerbie voting, 54 Siberia, 9–10 Thames, River, 3 Silent Takeover,32 Thatcher, Margaret, 8 Waddock, Sandra, 83 slime mould, 118–21 Times, The, 30 Walking the Talk, 116 Small Is Beautiful, 51 tourism, 16, 114 Ward, Barbara, 111 Smorgon, Jack, 105 Towards an Ecology of the waste disposal, 10–11 Snow, C. P., 112 Mind, xiii water, 3–4, 19–20, 23, 25, 37, soap operas, 75 trans-atlantic telegraph, x, xi, 60, 74, 75–82 Social Accountability 8000, 8, 46, 123 cost of clean, 3–4, 71, 73 54, 67, 94 transitional economies, 15 lack of safe, 13, 75, 76, 80 social services, 29–30 transparency, 24, 34, 55, 84 wealth, 41 Soros, George, 31, 54, 77 tree planting, 11 distribution of, 4, 18, 44, South Africa, 20, 38, 55–61, Truman, President Harry S., 6 48, 56 112 trust, xii, 123 Welford, Richard, 32 Soviet rule, 10, 113 Tyne and Wear, 8 Wessex Water, 78 Spearmint Rhino, 38–9 When Corporations Rule the Stahel, Walter, 116 Ubutu, 71, 82 World,32 stakeholding, 5, 10, 18, 30, 34, Unilever, xii, 35, 38, 40, Whitley, Richard, 53 35, 39, 41, 54, 60, 67, 83, 61–71, 75, 76, 80, 94, Wooldridge, A., 48 84, 85, 90–1, 92, 107, 120, 125 World Business Council for 108, 117 size, 64, 65, 71 Sustainable Development, Stewart, Ian, 87 United Kingdom, 8, 16, 38, 116 Stiglitz, Joseph, xi 50, 58, 66, 68, 70, 78, 85, World Detergent Congress, strategic assets, 8 96, 113 61 Sunter, Clem, 59–60 British Empire, 8, 47 World Trade Organisation supermarkets, 16, 29 United Nations (UN), 29, 33, (WTO), 53 supply chain, 84, 85, 92, 96, 117 40, 50, 54, 66, 67 Worldwatch Institute, 113–14, supraterritoriality, 48, 49–50, Global Compact, 65–6, 104, 115 53, 58, 62, 66 106 WWF, 73, 78–9 sustainability, xiv, 14, 15, 22, United Nations Environmental 24, 59, 73–82, 83, 110, Programme (UNEP), 73, YTL, 78 113–18, 123, 126 78 cities, 104, 110, 114, 115 United States, 6, 9, 38, 57, 94, Zander, Ben, 21, 89 unsustainability, 6 96, 115 Zohar, Danah, 98