(with Kiran Kandade)
I was talking with a colleague who mentioned about a possible upcoming change initiative for a small town and we were exchanging ideas. The background of the town is not unlike that which many other towns and communities all over the world are facing.
Weak economy, conflicts between various factions, and limited (if any) discussions on the visions and possibilities for the future. As jobs keep vanishing, the younger people are fleeing, leaving behind an ageing population facing extreme economic inequality. On the positive side, there is a lot of natural beauty in the form of a lake and a river that runs through the town, a rich heritage and history as well as a sense of belonging and community among those still there. The project will support people’s mind change by giving them tools for shifting their beliefs. And one analogy has popped up in our minds.
Kiran, I’d like to remind you a short story.
In the late 1860 the New York City council asked to a group of scientists to evaluate the future of the city. They formed a quite big group of multidisciplinary scientist, from economists, to sociologists to physicists. The city’s council has asked them to answer a simple question: what will be the future of the city under the growing pressure of increasing population like had been experiencing in those years?
After several weeks the band had a clear answer: The future cannot be anything else than a disaster: this city will implode. The trend of increasing citizens will lead to it before the turn of the century.
Why was that? The reason they stated was: “Because to move the huge number of people around the city will require an impressive number of horses and to food them and clean up the roads behind them will be simply impossible…”
The story, luckily, went differently. New kind of transportation means were invented and developed fast and widely, then, according with Henry Ford Vision: “… The horses have been disappeared from roads.”
What does this story teach us?
According to what another great leader, an Italian one, Enrico Mattei has stated dramatically in the 1960: “The future belongs to those who can build it!”
Our summary:
We don’t want to say the situation can be solved easily, but in fact people can only see the situation as it is, and mostly, as a result of the past, and they feel them blocked.
But there are who is able to imagine a complete new reality and, according to it, build up his own future. Change beliefs then create new realness.
How many opportunities still unveiled to us? What could be the life further on?
What beautiful possibilities exist to build a new lifestyle on a completely new economic approach which will destroy the old beliefs based on goods-massive production, distribution and consumption we could be able to imagine? Will the future will be driven by goods logistic or will the value be downloaded by the web? Will we be satisfied eating merely more food or will our minds become hungrier? Can being stuck in a picture, the bad one we can only see around us, help us to change that reality? The future can be imagined and created. Once we release ourselves from the shackles of present situation, and allow our imagination to soar, the future will be ours to create. As another famous person, renowned for his ability to create change, Peter Drucker said:
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”