The new era of both-and
Working in Atlanta with southeastern leaders in sustainability, introducing them to the radical challenge of strengths based leadership. It’s interesting how embedded the problem perspective has been in the sustainability community. I started working in this space over 15 years ago in the early days of us-them advocacy that the current generation of new leaders was weaned on.
Those were the days when leadership was about overcoming the problems of the day showing up as violators of the environment. I remember vividly suggesting the heresies of partnerships and collaborations, which became code for “sleeping with the enemy.”
Thankfully, we’re in a new era where both-and is understood as a more intelligent and fertile ground than either-or. Where we’re entertaining the story that we may be able to do more together than we can apart or in opposition.
This is indeed the innovation challenge, to look at ways for profit organizations to realize profits in ways that engages rather than destroys the only earth we have.
