Navigating complexity on the path to a Wellbeing Economy
Kirsty Innes
Conscious culture and purposeful branding. Do more good, amplify your impact and become the brand of choice. When you step up, you stand out. Purpose | Culture | Branding
How do we embrace the inevitable tensions when transitioning to an economy for people and planet?
I recently hosted one of my Big Conversation lunchtime get-togethers, in partnership with the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland (WEAll) , on navigating the tensions arising as we collectively shape an economy supporting human dignity, fairness and ecological health.
We’re all grappling daily with contradictions – feeling capable yet doubtful, outwardly smiling but inwardly unsure. We try to balance when we feel vulnerable with when we need to project strength.
How many of us can relate to this?
Together, we explored how positive change happens not by forcing singular truths, but rather by fully embracing these tensions. By compassionately holding multiple perspectives — even contradictory ones — fresh possibilities emerge.
Profound tensions accompany necessary shifts
As we work together to transform systems that serve people and planet, profound tensions bubble up. Pressure for short-term returns bump up against long-term social impact. External priorities clash with internal values. It’s messy.
This complexity demands we hold paradoxes and interdependencies lightly, and with wisdom. By sitting with tensions between sustainability and growth, top-down and bottom-up or within ourselves as complex beings, new insights arise.
We continuously balance trade-offs
We’re all juggling endless trade-offs. Things seeming completely at odds can reveal unlikely interdependencies. By bridging disparate worldviews and interests, we can forge inclusive ways forward.
Policymakers also navigate complexity
Policy people also walk the tightrope of trying to balance the current paradigm of economic growth with social welfare. Addressing inequality and sustainability requires “both/and” thinking — not either/or tradeoffs.
Transition demands embracing the ‘messy middle’
Rather than shrink away from anxiety, we can reframe tension as growing pains. By sitting with the uncertainty and leaning into the discomfort, we build resilience to hold complexity, examine our blindspots and see things from different angles.
It takes courage and trust to let go of our fragile egos looking for the “right” answers, and instead sit in the messy middle.
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Principles to guide the transition
As a group, we identified several principles to guide an inclusive transition:
What tensions are you navigating as we rethink business
In closing our Big Conversation, we agreed on the importance of welcoming paradox, as the ability to creatively hold complexity to see the path ahead.
What inner or external tensions are you grappling with as a leader seeking positive impact? How do you productively work with these dynamics?
As we rethink business’ role in a Wellbeing Economy, what opportunities might living with contradiction open up? By developing the ability to hold two opposed ideas at once, can we unlock our potential for systems transformation?
Let’s continue the conversation!
If you want to join me at our next Big Conversation leadership dialogue in partnership with the Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland hub on Wednesday 7th February 2024, we'll dive into another meaty topic around the role of business on the journey toward a Wellbeing Economy. Sign up here to get details straight to your inbox.
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I’m here to help businesses and organisations do more good, amplify their impact and become the brand of choice.
Progressive leaders come to me to articulate, reconnect with and embed meaningful purpose into their organisation and brand.
As an expert in purposeful branding and marketing, and the UK’s first CultureTalk practitioner, I help progressive leaders wanting to do more good to articulate, reconnect with and embed meaningful purpose into their culture, so that they build a thread of trust that runs through their organisation to become a brand of choice.
You already know you’re one of the good guys but together we can step it up and show the world. If you or an inspirational leader you know is ready to grow with purpose, on purpose, book a call through https://kirstyinnes.com/contact/
DISCLAIMER: This article has been produced for guidance only and does not constitute advice. Copyright ? 2024 Kirsty Innes Marketing. All rights reserved.
Leadership and Skills Coaching | Facilitation | Strategy Review | Organisational and Risk Culture | Writer
9 个月I think so many of the REALLY big issues that impact us all have too many opinions being offered from places of self-interest, not from the place of "what's good for our survival". To manage this all I can do is keep asking myself "Am I making balanced decisions here?". If we do good on the inputs, maybe the outputs will be better.
Regenerative Business Mentor | 4 x Founder | Accredited Business Coach | Certified Forest Therapist | Founder of The Growth Experience + Nature's Boardroom | Writer | Speaker | Facilitator | Board Advisor ??
9 个月I always encourage people to get excited when the messy middle arrives! It’s one of the signs of deep transformation in motion.
For me the key is to accept, embrace, and befriend the complexity. If you try to deny, demonize, or diminish the complexity via reductionism then this takes you to a very unproductive place. After all, Great Uncle Freidrich warned us to “Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” ????
Lead Powerful Impact – Leadership, Team and Business Coach | B Corp Consultant | Speaker | Economist | Scale your Impact, Sustainability, with Lead Powerful Impact Ltd – Certified B Corp.
9 个月Lots of good stuff here. The tension of growth and regeneration is a big one with many legs - but I’m not sure tension is a helpful word - and rather than fight it, we need to go with it. Herein lies the answer for the way forward…food for thought anyway ??
I help striving entrepreneurs and business owners refine the story that makes life matter. | Midlife Coach | Podcast Host | Marathon Runner.
9 个月The question for me is, how do we reconnect the original values of humanity, things like stewardship and care? It is about a return to balance, where the greater good is more important than the numbers on the spreadsheet. Those who show they care will determine the future of society and business.