My family and I (wife, kids and grandkids) visited my parents in Palo Alto, California over New Year’s.  We stayed at the Stanford Faculty Club in the middle of the very quiet – on recess – Stanford campus.  The Stanford Bookstore – one of my favorite bookstores anywhere, and I rate bookstores like food critics rate dinner – is a three minute walk away. 

So I decided to spend time in the bookstore every day, and carefully evaluate books for reading. I looked at a lot of books.   I was trying to look at each one carefully enough, and read enough of it, to determine whether once I got it out of the store, it would grab my attention deeply enough – and for long enough – that I would actually read it.  The goal is to get my percentage up, way up.

Among the books I spent time with were:

• Tracy Kidder’s most recent book, Strength in What Remains, an against-all-odds story about a kid fleeing to New York to get away from the genocidal war in his native Burundi;

• Kurt Vonnegut’s new collection of previously unpublished stories, Look at the Birdie – I don’t read much fiction these days, but I love Kurt Vonnegut;

• Journalist Amanda Little’s book Power Trip, an account of a cross-country road trip to discover the impact of fossil fuels (and the need for alternatives).

• Commonwealth, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s latest intellectual tour-de-force full of radical solutions to our current economic predicaments;

• Glimmer, written by Warren Berger and subtitled How Design Can Transform Your Life (and Maybe the World), in which he collaborates with celebrated Canadian designer Bruce Mau to explore the power of design to solve business and social problems.

• The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs, Michael Belfiore, a look under the hood of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—the maverick and controversial group whose work has had amazing civilian influence in addition to its impact on the military.

There were many others, too, and I would like to read every one of those books listed above, but in the end I only bought one, and it was an odd choice.  It was written by Tina Seelig, a professor of entrepreneurship at Stanford, and called What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20. The book was written in response to the coming-of-age of her son Josh.  Wondering about how he would make his way in this world, she looked back at her life, and her teaching methods, and produced a provocative manifesto for the young.

The reason I chose it is because my daughter is grappling with the same issues – where does her true passion lie and what kind of career and life will she develop?  I thought it might be a good read for both of us.  She hasn’t read it yet – she left two days ago for a winter of wildlife research in Costa Rica with Global Vision International, which will surely be more life-changing than any book her father could toss her way – but I have, and it was worth it.

What sold me – as I sat at the bookstore with a pile of books stacked on the broad arm of a comfortable chair – was a story at the very beginning about an assignment she used with her students.  She gave them an envelope with five dollars of “seed funding”, granted plenty of planning time, and then allowed them two hours, once they open the envelope, to generate as much money as possible.  She says, “Most of my students eventually found a way to move far beyond the standard responses.  They took seriously the challenge to question traditional assumptions – exposing a wealth of possibilities – in order to create as much value as possible.”

The teams that did best didn’t use the five dollars at all.  They realized that the money framed the problem way too tightly, and that five dollars is essentially nothing, and that the assignment is really to figure out how to make money when you start with nothing. .  They identified problems they experienced or noticed others experiencing – problems they might have seen before but had never thought to solve and became very inventive.

One group set up a stand in front of the student union and offered to measure bicycle tire pressure for free.  If the tires needed filling, they added air for a dollar.  They had the uneasy feeling that they were taking advantage of their fellow students, who could go to a nearby gas station to have their tires filled for free.  It turns out their first few customers were grateful and that they were providing a convenient and valuable service.  Nonetheless, after the first hour, they stopped asking for a dollar and requested donations instead.  Their income soared.  Experimenting along the way paid off.  The iterative process, where small changes are made in response to customer feedback, allowed them to optimize their strategy on the fly. Afterward the students agreed that they would never need to be broke, since there is always a problem at hand waiting to be solved.

What a lesson.

“Being in business,” says Seelig,  “should be like traveling in a foreign country.  Even if you prepare carefully, have an itinerary and a place to stay at night, the most interesting experiences usually aren’t planned.”  You meet someone who leads you to an extraordinary place, you have unexpected encounters, and the most memorable parts of the trip are the surprising parts that happened into your path.

Come to think of it, I think I knew all that when I was 20, and the reason I read the book is that I’m now re-learning it.  It’s about resilience, which may be the successor to the idea of sustainability.  Since change is inevitable the impacts may be dependent on our ability to harness the unexpected.

He says that  “The global crisis ahead is a direct result of the largest political failure in history.”  

Orr, a professor of environmental studies and politics at Oberlin, goes on to say that “No national leader has yet done what Lincoln did for slavery and placed the issue of sustainability in its larger moral context, . . . and cast it as the linchpin that connects all other issues. Adoption of a robust energy policy is the fastest and cheapest way to improve the economy, environment, health, and equity, and increase security.  It is the keystone issue, not just another stone in the arch.”

The book is stark, blunt, and powerful.

“None of us,” says Orr, “asked for these challenges.  But it has been given to us to lay the foundation for a durable and just global civilization, to secure the gift of life and pass it on undiminished to unnumbered generations, No previous generation could have said that, and none had greater work to do.”

In his view, it’s all about politics.

And he’s hard on pathological optimists like me.  When I was done I needed a lift.

I thought maybe I would find it in Stewart Brand’s new book, Whole Earth Discipline:  An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

In 1969 Stewart Brand released The Whole Earth Catalog, a “book” that probably had as much influence on my life as any other.  On the frontispiece of the original classic there is a statement of purpose that begins with the now-famous sentence, “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.” Whole Earth Discipline begins with this, “We are as gods and HAVE to get good at it.”  That sums up what’s happened during the 40 year interval.

In this book Stewart closes the loop. In his inimitable way (expository writing doesn’t really get any better than his, in my view) and with the same deeply thoughtful, fearless, always-wry, story-filled and at-the-same-time analytically and argumentatively complex way that he has for four decades, Stewart shakes it up again.

He comes at the issue very differently from Orr.  In Brand’s view it’s all about science and technology.  But the two books share a fundamental underlying principle:  There’s no time to lose and the work ahead is daunting.

But this all goes back a long way, too.  In his classic 1973 economics text, Small is Beautiful, Britain’s EF Schumacher’s argued that a linked system of small-scale local economies would be more effective, resilient, and people-centered than a large multi-national economy.

In the Next Whole Earth Catalog, published in 1980, Stewart Brand said about Schumacher’s book, “Few books have exerted such leverage on an Age as this one . . The wonder of Schumacher’s work is his eminent practicality. . .  with good sense and a mature spirituality [he] comes on like John Henry against the mega-machine, sure that he will win. . .”

Now Brand is promoting the mega-machine.  But Schumacher himself, according to Susan Witt of the Schumacher Institute, said that if everyone were for small, he’d be for big, and it wasn’t just being contrarian. “It was a question of balance,” she says.  “Even in the 1960’s and 70’s when he was writing and speaking, he understood that the balance was tipping too much toward large scale economic institutions and there needed to be a correction towards the local and regional.”

Orr argues for the same, but also for massive international political change.  Brand does too, but he believes that “at this whiplash moment” we need more than political change and re-localization.  “If the transition to a less livable Earth is already under way, we’re ants on a burning log.  We can rush around all we want; there’s nothing in our ant repertoire that can fix the problem.”

Brand adds four elements to the usual environmental repertoire:  embracing urbanization and greening the cities (where, he says, 80% of the world’s population will live by mid-century), stepping up the use of next-generation nuclear power, bio-engineering to feed a changing world, and geoengineering, if necessary, to “change the climate back.”  It’s bold, it’s futuristic, it’s risky, the last three are anathema to many environmentalists, and it’s Brand, through and through.

Underpinning both books is the understanding that the key to our future is the rapid phase-out of coal.  Even environmental activist Bill McKibben makes the point, in Stewart’s book,  that  “Nuclear power is a potential safety threat, if something goes wrong.  Coal-fired power is guaranteed destruction, filling the atmosphere with planet-heating carbon when it operates the way it’s supposed to” [my underlining].

One thing Brand is not concerned about is over-population – he demonstrates clearly that we are headed toward planetary population stabilization (and probably reduction).  It’s those of us already here that he worries about.  “Five out of six people live in the developing world – about 5.7 billion in 2010.  One way or another, the world’s poor will get grid electricity.  Where that electricity comes from will determine what happens with the climate.”

Throughout his career, Brand has been a prognosticator – his predictions are legendary.  Some of them, as he is quick to relate, have been way off the mark.  Some, however, have not.  He says now that  “The shift from dread to action is under way.  The outcome is wholly uncertain.”

At the end,  he summarizes the book with a few pithy sentences:  “Ecological balance is too important for sentiment.  It requires science.”

“The health of natural infrastructure is too compromised for passivity.  It requires engineering.”

“What we call natural and what we call human are inseparable.  We live one life.”

And it’s one world.  Tomorrow is the big day of the worldwide demonstration to cut global carbon dioxide levels to 350 parts per million, the upper limit of safety.

McKibben, the chief organizer, says that the 4000 demonstrations and gatherings that take place in 170 countries will be the most widespread day of political action the world has ever seen.   I’m sure Orr will be there,  in his town, and Brand in his.

I’ll be over at the East Chop Light in Oak Bluffs.  See you there.

In 2005 the Japanese Ministry of the Environment approached an advertising agency called Hakuhodo. They wanted help getting the Japanese people involved in meeting Japan’s Kyoto commitment. Hakuhodo suggested creating a campaign to mobilize the collectivist ethos of Japanese society toward the goal of reducing emissions 6 percent.

They called the campaign Cool Biz. Within one year a staggering 95.8% of the Japanese population recognized the slogan.

It was about air conditioning. Generally the setpoint was 79 degrees F so businessmen in suits and ties could work comfortably in their offices in the hot summer. The Cool Biz program recommended that everyone wear casual clothing June 1 to October 1 so the setpoint could be raised to 82 degrees F. Huge energy savings, but how could they overcome deeply ingrained cultural practice in this traditional and hierarchical society?

Rather than an advertising campaign, the Hakhoto team set up a Cool Biz fashion show at the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi. Dozens of CEOs strutted around wearing casual lightweight clothes with open necks. Even the Prime Minister was featured in newspaper and TV stories tieless and wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

The event caused a sensation. The message was clear: it’s okay to depart from convention to protect the environment. Within 3 years 25,000 businesses signed on and millions of individuals made commitments on the Cool Biz website. The program saved over 1 million tons of carbon emissions in 2006, and it has spread to China, Korea, and other parts of Asia.

It’s the power of effective storytelling coupled with imaginative leadership.

The people are probably happier too, don’t you think?  Pretty soon they’ll all be going barefoot.

It was about youth.    

Having just turned 60, I am acutely aware of the role of young people (in their 20’s and 30’s)  in my work life and civic life.  At work they are a constant theme and a growing force.  There is a great transition in process at South Mountain Company – from first generation leadership to the next.  It’s a long, gradual journey, sometimes a bit frightening but mostly thrilling, and it’s gathering steam.

In Vineyard politics and civic affairs the young are quieter.  Those of us in our fifties and sixties have been active, but we’re graying.  Sometimes, in the rooms where policies are being shaped that will shape our future, there’s very little representation from the next generation.  What does that mean?  I know they’re here – it’s not like some places where the young have jumped ship – and I know they’re active and vital, but where are they?  What are they doing?  What are they thinking?

The forum was an attempt to find out by putting four of them up on the stage in a public setting and asking the following questions:

• How could your age group be more engaged in next generation leadership and governance of the Island?

• In considering our Island’s future, what do you care about the most that’s not being done now, or could be done better?

• What’s your one or two sentence dream for the island in 25 years?

And one other, a beauty that came from one of the panelists, Jeanette Vanderhoop, a member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Aquinnah:

•  How do we keep the young and idealistic still idealistic when they’re no longer young?

And, of course, how do we keep them here?  My friend Tom Chase, who grew up here, says that his father once told him that the Vineyard has two exports:  fish and brains.  As he tells it, his dad told him that just after Tom told him he’d decided to stay on the Vineyard (hmmm).  Re-localization is about keeping our fish AND our brains right here where we’ve raised them.  And doing more to do what we can within our local economy.

It was a lively evening.  Besides the diverse panelists, we had two born-and-raised “elder” questioners and an engaged audience.  I was the moderator.  The panel consisted of a farmer, a boatbuilder, a Wampanoag environmentalist, and a mother of two with many civic responsibilities.  Three of them were born and raised here; the fourth summered here and then married into an old island family. They all seemed a bit nervous, but they spoke beautifully, from the heart.

Each of the four individuals is so different that I hesitate to lump them together, but themes developed quickly:  the appreciation each has for their many mentors and the community that has nurtured them; their love for the island and the delicate mix of their attachment to the “way it was” and their pragmatic sense that change must come;  their understanding that sufficient affordable housing, meaningful work, and limits to growth are all keys to the future; their shared certainty that the time has come for them to take the ball and run with it.

It became a celebration of a way of life that they want to preserve, renew, and re-make.  But not only a celebration.  They also stirred the pot, and were clear that when we talk about the wonders of this place we also have to talk about the painful parts – the homelessness, the alcoholism, the fractiousness.  Jeanette said “I always read the court report in the paper to remind me.”  And they subscribed to the belief that you “can’t complain unless you’re willing to change it.”

The most poignant moment for me was when one of the panelists, Myles Thurlow, who described himself as “more interested in boats than school” when he was growing up, fielded a question.  The question, from an audience member, was “How do you feel about Wind?”

Big question.  There’s no hotter topic on the Vineyard right now.  I will say more in a future post about this, but this piece isn’t about the topic, or the content of the response (although I will mention that all basically responded that “we gotta get real; this is an important, necessary, and desirable part of our future”).

It’s about what happened when Myles answered.  As I listened to him, speaking off the cuff, I heard a compelling, coherent, elegantly worded statement.  And I saw something in his face.  It appeared to me that he was saying to himself  “I said that?  Wow.”  And I sensed that he was feeling the stirring empowerment that comes from expressing yourself well, in public, about a controversial topic that you feel deeply about.

I was glad for him, and glad for us. In these perilous times, when these young men and women will be facing and contending with global climate destabilization and its monumental effects, they gave us Hope.

Thank you Chris Fischer, and Katie Carroll, and Myles Thurlow, and Jeanette Vanderhoop.  We’ll have to do this again. You guys want to organize the next one?  I’ll be glad to help.

Ross wrote, “On my end, we’ve somehow managed to get to this day without laying off or furloughing anyone (gratefulness is a daily practice), though the inquiries for custom homes are pretty shy these days.  However, we are, and have been, getting calls from developers all over the country — as many as 4 a week … Mostly mainstream developers, who often say, “Thank goodness for this recession — it brought us to our senses!  We were focused on profit, but it was in no way sustainable or good for the community. Can you help us look at a better plan?”   … So we’re planning neighborhoods all over –  from clusters of 8 cottages, to mixed-use communities of 150 dwellings. Some infill, some brown and greenfield.   You may have heard of our work with Dan Gainsboro in Concord?  He’s working with us and your friend and colleague Marc Rosenbaum. We’re in the process of submitting a 12-house plan for a site in West Concord.  And work in and with our island community unfolds, perhaps similar to MV.  These hard times are good for thinking deeply about what’s most important.”

Isn’t that the truth?  And isn’t it heartening that mainstream developers are doing just that?

But what about our political leaders?    Shouldn’t these hard times be good for thinking deeply about what’s important for them too?   The health care battles rage on, economic reform is a distant dream, and climate change – the one that matters most – languishes.

A friend of mine who is going through a major life transition recently said “I feel like a man who has woken up in the middle of a minefield and refuses to move until he knows where it’s safe to step.”  The U.S. congress seems to be perpetually standing in the middle of a minefield, paralyzed with fear.

According to the New York Times, (July 29, 2009), a study by the McKinsey consulting group says that a $520 billion investment in energy efficiency improvements to U.S. buildings over the next 10 years could save $1.2 trillion and cut total U.S. energy use by 23%, a reduction greater than the entire energy consumption of Canada.

That’s all well and good, but where does the money come from?

Denmark has a $5/gallon tax on gas and diesel and nobody’s suffering.  If we had just a $1 tax it would yield $140 billion/year.

But why stop there?  The more you tax the more you have – to reduce the deficit, pay for health care reform, and help low and middle income people pay for more expensive fuel (by cranking up energy efficiency and renewable energy incentives, expanding cash for clunkers, and doing a host of sensible things like that to reduce our oil addiction and create an economy that works). Nobody has to suffer.

If the recession can bring mainstream developers to their senses, maybe it can bring senators and representatives to their senses too.  If they were to start to think deeply about what’s most important they might find that it’s not a minefield; it’s a vast virgin forest of new possibilities.

The following questions were put to the four of them:  what happened to your business (and you) between last September and this September, what lasting effects has the economic crisis had, and what’s next for you and your enterprise?

They spoke about the troubles of these times, but they also spoke – compellingly – about the possibilities, and new doors that are opening.

Jamie, whose business had severely tanked, talked about the opening that has come with the lack of work – a rare opportunity to “re-boot” his business from Powered Down to Re-New. Dennis spoke of the perfect occasion for providing greater service and paying closer attention to clients, and told about the risks they have taken, like promoting two young employees to positions of General Manager and (I think) Production Coordinator, guys who, Dennis said “think a lot faster than I do.” Devon talked about the utter necessity of relentless, effective, and widespread communication within his market area, and the need to expand the breadth of both terrain and service.  He pointed out that you never know how little people know about what you do and what your capabilities are. Just recently his own brother asked him to recommend someone who could help him figure out how to reduce energy use (a new specialty of his own company!).  And when he ran into a client in the supermarket who he hadn’t seen in 25 years she said, ” So. . .  how’s the painting business going?”  They haven’t been a painting company for a quarter century. And Sal, with the great overview that his position in the industry affords him, said that nobody is immune to these times.  Everyone is affected.  He said we’re thinking less about what we’d like to do and more about what we have to do.  It’s a mold-shattering time.

We have had many company meetings with a variety of stimulating people, topics and exchanges, but this one seemed to touch more people, in more ways, than usual. I think it’s because all four were speaking, from the heart, about making the most of hard times and holding true to our values at the same time. It was also a moment for all of us to toast and celebrate the recent marriage of one of my partners, COO Deirdre Bohan, with Deirdre and her new husband Dave.

While they were here I happened to be in the middle of an extraordinary book called Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall.  It’s an epic adventure about the reclusive Tarahumara Indians who live deep in the Copper Canyons (a canyon system larger than, and in some places deeper than, the Grand Canyon) in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico.  The Tarahumaras may be the greatest runners on the planet, but they’re far more than that.   And no, the book isn’t really about them either, it’s about human endeavor and community and evolution and it is full of more great stories than I’ve come across in any one place in a long time.  I don’t even like to run and I couldn’t put it down.

It’s especially about values.

McDougall tells the story of a Czech runner named Emil Zatopek who set world’s records and won gold medals in two events in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, and then decided to run in the Olympic Marathon.  He’d never run a marathon, but he won that too, and set a new world record in that event as well!!  He ran with “infectious joy”, and he was beloved – even his opponents loved to see him win.  Says McDougall, “You can’t pay someone to run with such infectious joy.

You can’t bully them into it, either, which Zatopek would unfortunately have to prove.  When the Red Army marched into Prague in 1968 to crush the pro-democracy movement, Zatopek was given a choice: he could get on board with the Soviets and become a sports ambassador, or he could spend the rest of his life cleaning toilets in a uranium mine.”  He took the toilets.  And disappeared.

At the same time Ron Clarke, an Australian, broke Zatopek’s records but never managed to win the big one.  He had become known as “the bloke who choked”.  In the summer of ’68 he blew his final chance in the Mexico City Olympics.  On the way home he stopped in Prague to pay a courtesy call to the “bloke who never lost”.   During the visit, he noticed Zatopek slipping something into his suitcase; assuming he was smuggling some message to the world, he didn’t dare open it until he was long gone. It was Zatopek’s 1952 Olympic 10,000 meter gold metal.  He thought Clarke was the one who deserved it.  For Zatopek to give the medal to the man who had replaced his name in the record books at precisely the moment when he was losing everything else was, as McDougall said, “an act of almost unimaginable compassion.”

I don’t mean to over-dramatize, or to diminish the passionate adherence to deep values and unthinkable sacrifice of Zatopek, but the generous sharing of stories and personal truth by Jamie, Dennis, Devon and Sal seemed somehow related. Times of adversity are when our values are tested.  I once heard a visionary businessman named Paul Saginaw of Zingerman’s say, “Principles aren’t principles until they cost something.”  Simple as that.

I’ve always wanted to witness first hand the workings and organizational structure of this remarkably effective and superbly networked (without – even – the need of the internet!) institution. The amazing part – it has no leaders!

In the early 1930’s, when  a Vermonter named Rowland visited the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung for help with his alcoholism, a sequence of events began which led to the beginnings of Alcoholics Anonymous.   Today, millions of people attend AA meetings at over 100,000 locations in communities across America and around the world.  It cuts across all lines:  age, class, race, and gender.  Everyone is welcome.

AA encourages each participant to heal themselves by staying sober one day at a time and by receiving the support of others who are engaged in the same difficult effort.  Rather than leaders, it relies on the inner resources and strengths of a cooperative group.  The only requirement for admission is a desire to stop drinking.

But who organizes?  Who manages disruptive personalities?  Who’s in charge?

Nobody.

There are administrative roles, but they come with no power.  The group holds the power.  Individual attendance implies acceptance of the “12 traditions” which comprise the strong but flexible underlying organizational structure. And that’s it. There are no rules, just this set of shared understandings that create and support an atmosphere of extraordinary healing.

It’s astonishing that it works and I know there must be important organizational lessons embedded in the AA success story.    I would be curious to hear from those who have had longtime association with the process.  How has it changed the way you work and do business?  What has it taught you about the importance of community?   How has it helped you to manage relationships in your life?

Not all organizations can be leaderless, and it is not necessarily an achievable goal (there is an important place for leadership), but perhaps there is value in thinking about how to be“leader-LESS” – that is, to bring greater democratization to all those organizations – work, home, social – that are part of the fabric of our lives.

Sharing cake and stories at 7 AM, I felt swept into a powerful community of shared interest, support, and caring.  For a few moments at that early-morning before-work Vineyard meeting, we were permitted to join forces with the others and participate in their remarkable healing journey.  Their pain, laughter, honesty, and ability to share remain with me.  I can’t remember many names or faces, but I remember, viscerally, the experience of intense humanity embodied in that room.

When the meeting was over we walked  out carrying whatever troubles we brought when we entered.  But we were wiser.  The others in that meeting walked out to face a day of struggle to stay sober.  As one person said,  “Have a nice day, unless, of course, you’ve made other plans.” And another:  “The world’s record for sobriety is 24 hours.”

One day at a time.  Under the guidance of the serenity prayer, which begins by asking a higher power – whatever yours might be – to “grant me the serenity 
to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”  Could there be a better lesson for everyday life, for all aspects of life, than that?

I’m grateful to our friend for exposing us to the heart and soul of such a remarkable healing organization.