Main Street Businesses should join with Occupy Wall Street

I've been down at the events at Occupy Portland every day for at least a few hours since the events started here in Portland on October 6th.  There truly is a wide variety of people involved.  While we need many more voices engaged, one thing clearly missing up to this point is the voice of Main Street businesses and the people who actually create jobs, make payrolls, and contribute to our communities in so many ways.  The movement is anti-Wall Street, not anti-business.


When I attend the events, I see the need for far more people to be involved in the discussions than are currently present.  While those of us with businesses probably find it hard to get down to the occupation and be involved, it is imperative that we get involved in what I believe is likely to be the biggest social change movement in my lifetime.


Business as usual cannot continue.  Business as usual cannot continue.


I wrote that twice to emphasize a point.  People are pissed off and in the streets because we have an economic system that is NOT meeting the legitimate needs and aspirations of a free people while simultaneously destroying the biological systems that life depends on.


Here are some sobering facts:

• 1 in 4 US children in poverty
• A corrupt political system controlled by money
• 20%+ unemployment or underemployment
• Multiple wars for resources and control
• 50 million Americans without health insurance
• The largest prison population in the world
• A security state second to none
• Wealth disparity that rivals third world nations
• The daily destruction of biological necessities like clean air, water, land, diversity, and a stable atmosphere

We have an economic system that works amazingly well for the 1%, and pretty darn good for another 10-15% while leaving vast amounts of people in desperate poverty or surviving pay check to pay check.  We can do better.


Our system isn't broken, it's actually working wonderfully well according to it's design.


In order to make the necessary system changes, we need lots of people involved.  That's how we all can help birth a new society.


I did a blog post more than two years ago about systems I think you'll find interesting.  You can read it here.


The sign I'll be carrying at the next rally will say "It's the System Stupid"  I hope you'll join me at an occupation near you.

Storytelling

Accounting is the language of business.  As a CPA, one of my skills is the ability to read and interpret financial statements.  While most people look at just a couple numbers, to a trained expert, the financial statements are like topographical maps telling a complex and multidimensional story.

While thumbing through The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, I came across the following:

"Accountants are the architects of an organization’s nervous systems.  They design the way the organization will sense what is going on inside and outside itself.  They create a context that determines the relevant questions to ask.  They search for ground where the organization can position itself for maximum strength and flexibility."

I love this paragraph.  Our firm designs and installs a significant number of accounting systems and this really captures the essence of my work:  The architecture of a firm’s nervous system.

The accounting system design will differ depending upon the values and goals of the system.  A triple-bottom-line mentality requires different reporting systems to capture and respond to the data and feedback.

An accounting system provides feedback to the organization and as they say, what we measure matters.  The current financial reporting framework reflects what matters to investors without saying much if anything to employees, customers, the community and other potential stakeholders. 

What if we redesigned the central nervous system to provide feedback on sustainability?  How would that influence behavior?

As you may recall from my earlier blog posts about system thinking, the key leverage points in any system are:

1. Change the dominant mind-set out of which the current system arose
2. Rearrange the parts of the system
3. Alter the goals of the system
4. Restructure the rules of engagement of the system
5. Shift the flows of information and communication of the system
6. Correct the feedback loops of the system
7. Adjust the parameters of the system

What story is your accounting system telling?  How would your company be different with a Triple-Bottom Line monitoring system?

Systems Thinking

“If a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory.  If a revolution destroys a government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves. . . . There’s so much talk about the system.  And so little understanding.”

–Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I am reading Thinking in Systems by the late Donella Meadows.  I highly recommend this book to change agents. 

Donella defines a system “as an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something.”  Accordingly, a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnectedness and purpose.    

So what is our purpose as humans? What is the purpose of our economic system and our businesses? What is your purpose?  While these are existential questions, they greatly impact the world we see.

My friend, Sharif Abdullah, will sometimes ask groups to imagine a world in which children are the most valued treasure.  He invites participants to share what that world might look like – outstanding and varied educational opportunities, economic security for families, parents with time to engage, safe and healthy communities, rich age appropriate activities, time to be a kid, etc., etc, might be group responses. 

Sharif then invites people to imagine a world where our elders are the most valued treasure and the participants create a similar, albeit different list of an idyllic world.

Finally, Sharif invites people to imagine a world where making money is the most valued treasure.

As long as the dominant system goal is to make money, then all our other problems will be subjugated to this higher power.  

What if the bottom line isn’t the bottom line?

I saw Dr. David Suzuki last week and he suggested the real bottom line for a human economic system should be the ecological, social and spiritual well-being of all.  

What might our economy look like if that were in fact the goal of our system?

What about a 32-hour, 4 day work week?

There is a simple, comprehensive system solution you won’t hear about. (I wonder why that is? Could it be that the powers that be are heavily invested and benefit immensely from THIS system?)

This one simple action would:

• Increases the number of jobs. 
• Provide more time off for this overworked, over stressed nation.
• Provide more family time for parents and children.
• Decrease overall commuting which both reduces our dependence on foreign oil and greenhouse gas emissions. 
• Should decrease rampant consumerism as overall incomes decrease.

The late Donella Meadows wrote a famous paper about Leverage Points and places to intervene in a system. Changing the rules of the system is a fairly significant leverage point. This is one rule change that would benefit working class Americans.