A New Enlightenment Is Needed To Achieve Our Development Goals & Ensure Our Survival

The “Advanced Unedited Version” of the “Global Sustainable Development Report 2023.” It notes that, “four years have passed since the 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR) was published and even then, the world was not on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”

It adds, “Since 2019, challenges have multiplied and intensified.” ?Problems have been made worse by the “pandemic, rising inflation and the cost-of-living crisis, and planetary, environmental and economic distress, along with regional and national unrest, conflicts, and natural disasters.” As a consequence, “overall progress towards the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs has been severely disrupted.”

We can conclude that just as the Millennium Development Goals were not achieved, neither are the Sustainable Development Goals going to be achieved.

The goals relate to the sources of security needed in order to live a dignified life, the right of every human being according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, put in place over 70 years ago, and ratified by almost every nation on the planet. Given the challenges we face we must ask ourselves whether the majority of the world’s population who are denied their right today will still be having the right denied a century after they were told what their rights were. I fear they will be.

Every institution man has created must be made to serve all humankind, not a tiny percentage of it, if our species is to survive.

As the report makes clear “at the half-way point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the world is far off track.” “Without urgent course correction and acceleration, humanity will face prolonged periods of crisis and uncertainty – triggered by and reinforcing poverty, inequality, hunger, disease, conflict, and disaster.”

The report also states.....

We must “strive not for one, but for all securities” because, “A better future does not rest on one source of security, but on all necessary securities, including geopolitical, energy, climate, water, food, and social security.” They are an interrelated, and interdependent, system-of-systems upon which we depend. ??

It also says, “decision-makers need to use time and resources —human, knowledge, financial, and institutional, among others— as judiciously and effectively as possible, and take a systematic and strategic approach to drive and accelerate transformations.”

It stresses the need for “transformation through a systematic and structured approach,” and the need to work “as a human collective” with time and resources being used as judiciously and effectively as possible.” It also notes strategies to embrace transformations should “be based on the principles of solidarity, equity and well-being, in harmony with nature.”

These comments provide every reason to believe that the transformations needed will not be achieved.

The current economic system is not based on the required principles; we seem to be incapable of working collectively and collaboratively, and we have systems thinking capabilities gaps that prevent us making the transformations needed in a systematic and structured way.

That should come as no surprise given the obsession with competition in management theory and practice, the false notion that man is only driven by self-interest, and the prevalence of siloed and hierarchical organisations lead by people with dangerous ideas about leadership and little knowledge of the real source of power.

To stand any chance of achieving the transformations that are needed, we will first need to transform out thinking. Only then will we be able to work as a human collective to ensure our survival, and for the kinds of goals we repeatedly fail to achieve.

In short, we need a New Enlightenment of the kind the Enlightened Enterprise Academy advocates. And a way of operating that we propose in the programmes we offer.

Each of our existing programmes is designed to help overcome the entrenched way of thinking and acting, to move towards the approaches that the entirely consistent with what the report from the United Nations advocates. They include “Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity;” “Rethinking reputational Risk: From Values to Value Creation;” “Flat Fluid Flexible: How to Become a 21st Century Organisation Whilst Avoiding the Pitfalls;” and “Leading With Dignity: Create a Culture that Brings Out the Best in People”.

New programmes in development for launch in 2024 include: An Introduction to Moral Leadership; Risk and People; and Partners on the Payroll: Economically Engaged Employees (all working titles).

Conclusion

The greatest challenge we face in achieving the global goals we keep failing to achieve as a human race are the failures that also threaten the survival of humankind.

Our failings are rooted in firmly entrenched but incorrect ideas that have, and continue to, inform management theory and practice. And they relate to the most fundamental and basic principles concerning human motivation and the means of achieving success. We are beginning to realise such thinking is causing us great harm, but still the ideas dominate the way most of us think and behave.

A re-think needs to be driven by the belief that every institution man has created must be made to serve all humankind, and do so sustainably and for our wellbeing. They serve us. We do not sever them. Or to put it another way, the means should not be confused with the ends. And, as Aldus Huxley wrote, "good ends can never be achieved by bad means," and our institutions are nothing more than the means of achieving the ends we seek. ?