Embrace a Social Ecology. Go beyond Dogma

The industrial activity of North America and Europe relocated overseas .  And national governments allowed this to happen mostly during in the late-1990`s.  This is how capitalism was able to take advantage of lower wages and lower environmental standards in other countries.  


Business has mostly served the financial, production, promotional and distribution needs of industry.  Following that relocation of factories overseas we saw the contraction of businesses at home.  


It’s time we accepted this, learned to proceed accordingly, and adapt.  


But how do we adapt?  It's certainly not by using the same level, or the same complexity of thought that produced factories, businesses as we've known them to date.

Within government and business we relied heavily on a level of thinking that could solve isolated problems.  This is the relatively simple level of linear thinking that has allowed the ‘dogma’ of project management to continue unquestioned.  If there were a powerful priesthood that upheld this dogma of project management, which I don't think there is, it would never disclose to you the basis of project management which is process philosophy.  People would question the main pillars of process philosophy and thus bring an end to the priesthood's power.  


Process philosophy is the thinking behind project management and therefore the unquestioned basis of how things get done in Western business, government, and much of science.  I have studied process philosophy intensely for several years at the same time as studying Eastern philosophies about the workings of reality.  And process philosophy pales in comparison.


A project management approach requires that we keep life away from everything we do.  (Think of analyzing the workings of 'a small piece of life' in a test-tube.)  A project manager has the ridiculous job of pushing life aside  constantly in order to clear the path so that the preconceived results or goals proceed in an uninterrupted manner to the planned outcome.  


Unless life is maintained outside the project and outside closed doors where all the real planning of outcomes gets done things quickly get too complicated for linear thinking.  (Think of Western society where $1-billion is spent on troops to keep life outside the perimeter fence of a G-20 summit.)  


To adapt we need to move to the next level of thinking in terms of complexity However to enter today’s emerging creative economy we acknowledge that nothing is isolated and that everything exists in mutual relationship and interdependence.  (Think of fluid groups of people being gassed and beaten outside the perimeter fence of a G-20 summit and formal proceedings in a hotel complex inside the fence.  Many outside the fence have sufficient complexity of thought to allow for life, grasp some of the wisdom of our ecology, and usher in some of the social adaptations we need at this time.)

Society is an ecology that meets the need for interdependent levels of products and services within that society.  We are learning how to better meet these needs simultaneously through coordination of projects.  

We can think of projects as arranged in a large array consisting of six-stages.  Levels within the array are a rational approach to face our challenges.  Position each project in a level from 1 to 6 depending on the need it meets:

1. social, 
2. cultural, 
3. educational, 

4. for business, 
5. for communication, or 
6. for overall coordination. 

It's good to notice how each stage builds on the prior stage.  Think about it.  We don't have a culture without a society; we don't have a culture to share through education without a society and a culture; we don't have a business sector to get things done without education, a culture, and society; and so on.  

The progression of these stages show a marked increase in complexity.  A system of coordination requires a more complex way of thinking and doing than communication, or business.

We need a culture that goes beyond project management to allow for life.    We need education that shares process philosophy on which Western society is based, and philosophies on which Eastern societies are based.  We need to examine them, come up with rational alternatives and test their effectiveness as social adaptations.  Without a rational approach for all to examine and discuss we are stuck with something like the unexamined 'truths' a priesthood would hold in place.

It simply was not possible to handle coordination of arrays of interdependent projects before the Internet.  On-line tools provide international society with organizational support for coordination services to emerge as the next, great source of value, and therefore the next, great economy.