Coach John G. Agno is your own cultural attache; keeping you abreast of what's effective in leadership. People learn better and are positively motivated when supported by regular coaching.
PERSONAL COACHING Leadership onboarding coaching helps the executive adapt to the employer's culture, create rapport with their team and develop productive ways to achieve necessary goals.
SELF ASSESSMENT CENTER Leadership skills and style testing. Know how you motivate and coach people to gain success at work and in life.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP? Leadership is an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.
LEADERSHIP TIPS “The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning: intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.” Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press)
People who connect well connect on four levels. These four levels move from the visible to the invisible realm, from the surface to the core, from the small moment to the cosmic one.
We all play on all of these levels all the time. Thing is, most of us don't play with any measure of consciousness. We don't play the levels, the levels play us. They define every interaction we have. In Infectious, author Achim Nowak details these four levels of connection, each containing a set of tools that will help anyone better engage with others:
1. The Talk Level: the essential skills to creating meaningful conversations. How to notice and match the communication signals of those with whom you engage. A lack of finesse at the Talk Level is a deal-breaker in any conversation. When we don't play well at this level, we never get to taste the richer levels of connection.
2. The Power Level: how to harness your own personal power. People who connect well have a conscious and helpful relationship with their own power. They also play well with the power of others. They enjoy power rather than fear it.
3. The Intent Level: how to show up alert, with purpose and full awareness of your goals. Great connectors show up alert with a clear purpose. They don't just fall into conversations, they help shape them with conscious intent. When we don't play well at the Talk and Power levels, our Intent will be thwarted and derailed.
4. The Energy Level: the heart and soul level at which connections happen, personal energy makes for the deepest and most lasting connections. Energy is the heart and soul level at which connections either do or do not happen. Without personal energy--energy that vibrates within us and viscerally touches others--our ability to connect will always be constrained. If energy is to have form and impact, it needs to be supported by our ease with the preceding three levels.
Infectious connections happen in that magical moment when the conversation skills, sense of personal power, intent, and energy of two people converge. You will find many tools in Infectiousthat you can put to practice immediately. Any small change you make in how you play in any of the levels of connection will affect the dynamic of a relationship, be it professional or personal.
Contrary to the views of its critics, capitalism, in the long run, is not a zero sum game of greed at the expense of others. "Without consistent customer satisfaction, team member happiness and commitment and community support, the short-term profits will prove to be unsustainable over the long term," as John Mackey and Raj Sisodia point out in their book, "Conscious Capitalism."
Instead, capitalism can be a powerful system of exchange for mutual benefit. The new business paradigm is rooted in four key pillars: higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious culture and management, and conscious leadership.
What are some companies that practice conscious capitalism?
Whole Foods does so by focusing on the health and well-being of people who can afford to pay higher prices for food products. The Container Store strives to make people with adult attention deficit (A.D.D.) feel happier by becoming better organized. SouthWest Airlines has brought the freedom to fly to ordinary people through lower priced airfares and efficient operations.
Becoming Conscious Leaders
Conscious leaders are dynamic and evolving. A number of theorists and researchers have produced strong evidence that human beings tend to evolve upward to higher levels of consciousness and complexity.
People have great difficulty fully comprehending or appreciating stages of development that are higher or more complex than their current level. The higher levels just don't make much sense from the perspective of a lower level and therefore are usually ignored, dismissed, or disparaged. Conscious leaders avoid becoming stuck in any kind of rigid ideological orthodoxy. Rather, they strive to evolve their consciousness upward in a variety of ways.
Here is an example of distinct stages or waves of development: The research of Clare Graves and his students Don Beck and Christopher Cowan demonstrate how both individuals and cultures tend to evolve upward in terms of a hierarchy of values-based worldviews. Their theory postulates eight distinct stages or waves of values development. These stages can be applied to individuals and to cultures as a whole. Their work is especially important in distinguishing between traditional, modernist, postmodernist, and second-tier or integral levels of consciousness. The vision and values of conscious capitalism expressed in this book is intended to be consistent with their articulation of second-tier memes in Spiral Dynamics, as well as Ken Wilber's work on integral consciousness.
Examples of how this conscious capitalism plays out:
Whole Foods Market has found that it is far more important for leaders to have high EQ (Emotional Intelligence) than high IQ. Stores are organized into self-managing teams that focus intently on delivering high levels of customer service. Whole Foods can't afford to have analytically brilliant people if they are also arrogrant, insensitive, or tactless. The company culture therefore tends to look for hgh EQ in leadership promotions.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said, "From the very beginning we always believed that the only way we could exceed the expectations of our customers was to exceed the expectations of our people. So given the external pressures, the cataclysmic financial crisis, it was time to return to the intimacy of communicating directly with our people, galvanizing our organization against a core purpose, and asking our people to understand what was at stake." Starbucks core purpose is to focus on those customers addicted to its higher priced coffee products.
Science tells us that men and women use different parts of their brains and consequently have different behaviors that lead to different leadership styles. Gender-based differences play out in leadership nearly every day influencing how men and women communicate, act, react, problem-solve, make decisions and work together. One is no more effective than the other; but joined holistically within a balanced leadership team, can lead to a better business outcome.
Is gender really an issue that we should be discussing in the 21st century? Are men and women really that different? Didn’t the feminist movement that began in the 70’s answer that question?
The modern reader will agree that men and women are different anatomically, but we still stumble around when asked if men and women are different in other ways as well. Professor Steven Goldberg in his book with the provocative title, Why Men Rule – A Theory of Male Dominance, maintains that men and women are different in their genetic and hormonally driven behavior.
We would stress that this does not mean that one sex is superior or inferior to another but rather that each has different strengths and at the same time different weaknesses. He believes that the high level of testosterone in males drives them toward dominant behaviors, while high estrogen levels in women creates a natural, biological push in the direction of less dominance and more nurturing roles. To say that men and women are the same is to deny the physical reality. Science makes it plain that males and females are different from the moment of conception.
Men and women are not only markedly different in the hormones that drive them, but they are also different in the way they think. The brains of men and women are actually wired differently. In recent years, scientists have discovered that differences between the sexes are more profound than anyone previously guessed.
Let's face it--there are inherent gender differences that make it more challenging to build cross-gender relationships. And in today's hypersensitive workplace, men are much more cautious in their dealings with women. However, when 50 percent of the workforce is made up of women, it behooves men to build bridges, look for women's strengths, and learn how to leverage them. Coaching women in the leadership pipeline represents a huge opportunity to grow the organization.
Women, if you are clear about what you need and how men can help you, reach out to them. However, if you are vague about your request or don't exhibit a sense of confidence and a "can-do" attitude, you should consider engaging a male executive coach to learn how to become more successful in your career.
It's truly hard for some women to be both the person they want to be with their family and the person they want to be at work. Primarily, it's all about how they need to spend their time. In today’s hectic world, it is an understatement to say that women are overworked. Women struggle with too much to do, too many people to please, too few resources, too few hours in our days and too little help.
Our research tells us that it is a mistake to believe that it is simply a matter of working more effectively, prioritizing, or planning ahead. Those are just a part of the total picture. It is about all of those things and so much more. We must feel empowered to do what is important for us, to discover, use and develop our signature talents, to discipline ourselves to stay focused, and to just say ‘no’ when we need to. Effective utilization of our time offers us the chance to restore our energies as we bend, stretch, and bounce between our work and our personal lives.
Busy people often maintain that they do not have time to plan. But they are wrong. Planning is essential for all busy people. The busier we become, the more important it is to plan. Successful people will admit that planning ultimately saves time.
Let’s not waste another minute moaning and groaning about who is smarter, taller, thinner, happier, funnier, or more effective than we are. If our intention is to manage a successful career, we have to acknowledge that we will be associating with some very smart people, and we will be expected to compete. Women many times have a lot of good friends but have failed to build relationships with key individuals, inside and outside their organizations, who can help them achieve their work and career goals.
Success is not only determined by what we know and can do, but also by the people we know, and even more importantly, by the people who know us. Success is powered by three things: 1. Know-how, 2. A strong network of contacts, and 3. Your reputation. That’s it. That’s the secret to success.
Being politically savvy is sometimes easier for men than for women. Some women even associate it with what people do who are controlling, self-serving, dishonest, and even fake.
“Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.” Plato (paraphrased)
We all know women who maintain, “If I just keep my head down, work hard, and produce beyond what others have been able to accomplish, I will be promoted.” We may believe that ourselves, but this is a myth that continues to hold women back!
Becoming “political” is the equivalent of becoming socially aware. It is a vital skill necessary for every executive. However, methods of dealing with corporate politics are not taught in executive education courses or graduate schools today.
Ignore at Your Own Risk
Building your political savvy goes hand-in-hand with building your social capital. There are important reasons to consider this. Ignoring the existence of corporate politics is akin to saying that we can ignore the weather. Political astuteness, combined with ethics and integrity, can produce positive results for us, our team, and our organization.
The "greatest generation" example of one job-one career was supplanted by Baby Boomers who averaged 11 jobs between the ages of 18 and 44. Who knows where the averages will end up for generation X, generation Y, and beyond?
In every new job change, it makes sense to give yourself the freedom to not have all the answers, and understand that soon you won't know enough to be the expert. Learn how to ask and what to ask. Have the courage and confidence to ask and not tell.
Today's leadership is all about asking. Not telling, asking. “Ask” is the keyword both for the leader or technical follower as coach and for the person being coached.
When someone knows that the leader is ready, willing and able to take the time necessary to talk about a subject important to that person, effective coaching can happen on the dance floor of conversation.
Today more and more leaders perceive themselves as teachers, mentors and coaches. Instead of seeking personal power, they recognize the value of empowering others. Rather than controlling their employees, they have been inspired to influence them. That was not always the case.
In the year 1900, over 90% of the workforce in the United States was in agriculture. They were mostly male farmers. The industrial revolution was just beginning to birth. Within 15 years, the young men of that same class were enlisting or being drafted into the armed forces to service in World War I. For many, the armed services was their first "model" of management. This was a top-down model where one was taught to respect the uniform (title) as much as the person who wore it. The war was won largely because of strong leadership of a military that followed orders as directed.
When the soldiers returned home, there was a great migration of families moving from farmlands to the big cities where these young men slid into companies with similar management structures. From then until after World War II, the management paradigm was all about personal power to control others and be served by the workforce. Communication was strictly top down.
The primary mood within an organization was fear-based. Fear that you might do or say the wrong thing that could lead to your getting fired. The environment was suppressive. Then in the 1950s, there became an emergence of books and teachings that dealt with the subject of self-discovery and the importance of developing one's self concept and self esteem. This led to the emergence of enlightened leaders.
Leaders whose self concepts were well intact and who appreciated creative ideas and solutions created environments that fostered openness and developed reward and recognition systems for such valued contributions. These new leaders take ownership in helping facilitate the success of others.
The Old Paradigm: Personal Power to control and be served.
The New Paradigm: Empower others, influence and serve others.
By L. Gordon Crovitz, Information Age, The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2012
The open Internet, available to people around the world without the permission of any government, was a great liberation. It was also too good to last. Authoritarian governments this month won the first battle to close off parts of the Internet.
At the just-concluded conference of the International Telecommunications Union in Dubai, the U.S. and its allies got outmaneuvered. The ITU conference was highly technical, which may be why the media outside of tech blogs paid little attention, but the result is noteworthy: A majority of the 193 United Nations member countries approved a treaty giving governments new powers to close off access to the Internet in their countries.
U.S. diplomats were shocked by the result, but they shouldn't have been surprised. Authoritarian regimes, led by Russia and China, have long schemed to use the U.N. to claim control over today's borderless Internet, whose open, decentralized architecture makes it hard for these countries to close their people off entirely. In the run-up to the conference, dozens of secret proposals by authoritarian governments were leaked online.
A vote was called late one night last week in Dubai—at first described as a nonbinding "feel of the room on who will accept"—on a draft giving countries new power over the Internet.
The result was 89 countries in favor, with 55 against. The authoritarian majority included Russia, China, Arab countries, Iran and much of Africa. Under the rules of the ITU, the treaty takes effect in 2015 for these countries. Countries that opposed it are not bound by it, but Internet users in free countries will also suffer as global networks split into two camps—one open, one closed.
One lesson is that the best defense of the Internet is a good offense against an overreaching U.N. The majority of authoritarian governments in a one-country, one-vote system will keep chipping away at the open Internet. The best way to stop them is to abolish the ITU.
A Narrow Internet Escape (The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 18, 2012)
The U.S. walks out of a U.N. conference just in time.
The Administration's mistake was in playing along with the ITU in the first place. This White House and State Department have an undying faith in multilateral diplomacy, even when the rest of the world wants to use it to harm U.S. interests. Autocrats rightly see the open Web as a threat to their political control, which is precisely why it is in the U.S. interest to keep the U.N.'s hands off.
Given the ITU's Dubai double-cross, the U.S. has good cause to quit the agency. If that's too much, then perhaps the next Secretary of State will make it a theme of his tenure to preach the virtues of an unregulated Internet.
The week between Christmas and the beginning of the New Year can be a time for rest, relaxation and reading for many people. Some will use this week to begin planning for where they want to be in the new year; from constructing New Year Resolutions to creating a new or modifiedBusiness Plan.
If you could do just one thing to help your friends and family, customers and business associates, what would that be?
Our answer is to consider giving them a holiday gift. One of the most potent laws of influence is the law of reciprocity (http://www.lawofreciprocity.com/).
The law is that people want to repay, in kind, what another person has given to them. Reciprocity flows from the law of love (http://www.lawoflove.com/) that is “the gift of giving” without the “hope of reward or pay,” or serving others. Remind yourself that reciprocity is not about what you need but what the other person needs and how you can give that to them.
"Books open your mind, broaden your mind, and strengthen you as nothing else can.” William Feather
Finding ways to make your gift stand out takes some thought about what would make the recipient happy.
For example, my holiday gift to you and your friends on Dec. 26, 27, and 28 only at Amazon.com, is the new ebook “Ask the Coach” to download on your smartphone, eReader, tablet or computer. Please note that “Ask the Coach” is a reference book; like a dictionary or any other similar resource book that is not meant to be read cover to cover. Readers would normally look up a question of interest in the Table of Contents and then proceed to read that self-coaching answer in the book.
A decade into the 21st. century, one thing has become clear: constant change is the new normal. The question is no longer if, but rather "how." Companies that have learned to ride these waves of change are the ones that will successfully compete in today's economy and beyond.
Change essentially means to make different. Change has been a huge part of our professional lives up until now, and traditional change dynamics are still here, although their cycles have become shorter and shorter.
Today's leadership is all about asking. Not telling, asking. “Ask” is the keyword both for the leader or technical follower as coach and for the person being coached. When someone knows that the leader is ready, willing and able to take the time necessary to talk about a subject important to that person, effective coaching can happen on the dance floor of conversation.
The leader acts as engager--as enabler--and this is the role that will successfully navigate the perfect storm facing us all. Securing and maintaining the connection between the organization and the individual is the leader's new role....and like our change economy, that role hasn't been able to gel yet. We don't know for certain what is coming and what will be required of us. We don't know enough to predict or control, if we ever really did. If we don't know, we will have to find out. To find out, we will have to ask. Common sense tells us that asking works.
The insights in Ask the Coach are meant to help you develop the leadership skills necessary to become the master of yourself so you will be ready, willing and able to lead others. Leadership development is self-development.
Other self-development books to consider for your after Christmas gift giving:
In this world of constant change, following a single system or model is foolhardy--the companies that succeed will be nimble and ever-changing. Global dynamics seem to be affecting every one of us no matter where we are on the planet. You hear about the new normal everywhere. The tales of woe follow a similar theme: lower starting wages, vanishing job security, pay cuts, furloughs, unpaid work, unaccustomed thrift, double-digit unemployment, five-figure job cuts and punitive new procedures for the lending and borrowing of capital. This scary environment of externals driving the enterprise is hardly a normal scenario by any definition.
A decade into the 21st. century, one thing has become clear: constant change is the new normal. The question is no longer if, but rather "how." Companies that have learned to ride these waves of change are the ones that will successfully compete in today's economy and beyond.
Change essentially means to make different. Change has been a huge part of our professional lives up until now, and traditional change dynamics are still here, although their cycles have become shorter and shorter. With respect to the global change curve, every context and continent has undergone change in the last decade, and managing this change hasn't been easy by any means.
Technology has played the single largest role in this change era. It has transformed our very lives. We are all connected. Not only do we enjoy our electronic companions, but most would also agree that we now need them. We need this technology to carry on everyday life in a new change, no service economy. We know that being constantly and continuously connected often fosters an inability to focus, to concentrate.
Also, how many of us will work our entire careers for a single entity? Very few. The "greatest generation" example of one job-one career was supplanted by Baby Boomers who averaged 11 jobs between the ages of 18 and 44. Who knows where the averages will end up for generation X, generation Y, and beyond.
In every new job change, give yourself the freedom to not have all the answers, and understand that soon you won't know enough to be the expert. Learn how to ask and what to ask. Have the courage and confidence to ask and not tell.
Today's leadership is all about asking. Not telling, asking. “Ask” is the keyword both for the leader or technical follower as coach and for the person being coached.
When someone knows that the leader is ready, willing and able to take the time necessary to talk about a subject important to that person, effective coaching can happen on the dance floor of conversation.
The leader acts as engager--as enabler--and this is the role that will successfully navigate the perfect storm facing us all. Securing and maintaining the connection between the organization and the individual is the leader's new role....and like our change economy, that role hasn't been able to gel yet. We don't know for certain what is coming and what will be required of us. We don't know enough to predict or control, if we ever really did. If we don't know, we will have to find out. To find out, we will have to ask.
Common sense tells us that asking works. Your people already know more than you about their role, their work, their reality on the job. You can't tell them what you don't know. Simply put, asking makes us more successful at influencing others. Those who ask how they can be more effective, adopt the suggestions they can, and follow through on resolutions for change see all their results improve.
As the catalyst, your interactions in the moment are what turn on added effort or turn it off. You can best prepare yourself to be more effective in the moment by making sure you fully understand the dynamics of human interaction by getting to know a simple anatomy of communication.
An individual's communication style can be determined, shared and enhanced (you can change it). In most self-assessment profiles, a primary communication style strength, one of four, will be evident. Depending upon the intensity, this single strength will control your attitude, action and responses up to 60 percent of the time.
How we make decisions our need for people, our sense of urgency, and our attention to detail--these are variables that make up the anatomy of communication. Decisions. People. Pace. Detail. Classic DISC profiles will help you better understand your default behavior tendencies; by taking an online self assessment. For a directory of DISC self assessement, go the Self Assessment Center and scroll down to "DISC assessments" at: http://www.selfassessmentcenter.com/
According to Aristotle, "Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom."
Why is this so important? Numerous studies indicate that individuals who score high in self-awareness are happier and achieve greater success than those who lack it. Self-awareness enables people to build their lives around their strengths and better manage their challenges.
As people become more self-aware, they are usually amazed at the abilities of the conscious mind to choose, handle situations with deliberation, and behave appropriately for different occasions.
On the flip side, the unconscious mind is a powerful force driving our behavior. Within our unconscious lie veiled assumptions and beliefs that formulate what is called default behavior. The dictionary defines default as the “failure to perform a task or fulfill an obligation,” which means that default behaviors are reactive responses that occur when we fail to consider the appropriate response.
Becoming aware of our personal reactive tendencies is crucial if we want to make sense of our toxic behaviors, understand why we have permitted these gremlins to continue, and develop a plan for taming them.
Our attitudes are choices, some of the most important choices we will ever make. Attitudes are reflections of what goes on inside our heads. They affect everything we do—positively or negatively. A negative attitude acts like the accelerator of a car. When we put our pedal to the metal, we learn very quickly that driving can indeed be dangerous to our health and to our career aspirations. Default behaviors occur when we decide not to act, but to react. And default behaviors may not represent our best side or our ideal self.
Becoming aware of the effect our personality and default tendencies have on the people in our lives helps us engineer better communication and leadership styles. The four quadrants of the brain generally correspond to specific behavioral patterns. Our brain's hardwiring drives how we think, feel and act, which in turn defines who we are.
The DISC-type self assessment is based on a four-quadrant modelthat reliably describe four dimensions of human behavior (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Conscientiousness). Some people are stronger in one quadrant, others are strong in two, and some may be strong in three. There are unique patterns that most commonly occur and are known as classical profile patterns.
There are four important points to consider as we delve into the world of DISC-type quadrants. First, all quadrants are positive and contribute to the world in meaningful ways. Each quadrant possesses unique strengths and capabilities that should be celebrated. Simply put, there is no "best" quadrant or strength.
Second, there's no need to change the core essence of who you are. That would be exchanging one set of potential strengths and challenges for another. Embracing the quadrant means fully recognizing and accepting your natural gifts.
Third, nobody is just made of one quadrant. We are each a combination of all four.
And fourth, we each have the capacity to adapt to different situations through quadrant flexibility. By tapping into the abilities of all four quadrants, we build healthier and happier relationships and achieve our highest potential.
Let’s Be Honest With Ourselves
Think about our own default behaviors. What behavioral tendencies do you exhibit under stress? (Raising your voice, becoming silent, interrupting others, stamping away from discussions, gossiping about others, etc.?)
Take the time to research your particular behavior type by taking an online DISC self-assessment; as the more we know about ourselves, the more we can alter, fix, and fine-tune our behavior.
Make a Change: Where Needed
The key to successful personal relations lies in being constantly aware of two things: You will want to embrace and develop your strong skills, but at the same time be aware that when they are overused, they can become a weakness.
All of us have default behaviors that are often tied to our assumptions and beliefs. Being vigilant about when, where, and why these offensive behavioral tendencies surface will allow us to exert better control over our actions.
With Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on Tuesdays in 2012-13, employers’ year-end holiday calendars will be much kinder to workers than in the previous two years, according to Bloomberg BNA’s survey of employers’ year-end holiday plans.
Almost three-fifths of the surveyed employers (58 percent) have scheduled at least three paid days off for the 2012-13 holiday season, compared with about two out of five establishments responding for 2011-12 (42 percent) and 2010-11 (36 percent), when the national holidays fell on the weekend. The survey also suggests some recovery in holiday gifts, bonuses, and party-giving from levels observed around the end of the recession.
Holiday celebrations are on the slate at roughly three out of four surveyed establishments (74 percent), somewhat improved from 2009, when 67 percent sponsored any late-year festivities. Company-wide events are planned by more than half of the responding employers(55 percent), virtually unchanged from a year ago (56 percent) and up a bit from 2009 (50 percent).
A long Christmas weekend is on tap for many U.S. workers this year. Just over half of responding employers (51 percent) have slated Monday, Dec. 24 as a paid day off.
Manufacturers’ holiday schedules remain decidedly more generous than those of nonmanufacturing firms and nonbusiness establishments. The vast majority of surveyed manufacturing firms (85 percent) will grant three or more paid days off during the upcoming holiday season, compared with barely half of both nonmanufacturing companies (52 percent) and nonbusiness organizations (51 percent), such as hospitals, schools, and government agencies.
Workers in small shops stand a better chance of an extra day off than their colleagues in bigger organizations. Nearly two-thirds of companies with fewer than 1,000 employees (65 percent) have scheduled three or more paid days off during the 2012-13 holiday season; less than half of larger employers (48 percent) will be so generous.
Charitable activities remain a holiday tradition among a majority of U.S. employers. More than three out of five establishments (63 percent) will sponsor charitable endeavors around year’s end; most of those firms will participate in multiple programs and activities.
Toy and food collections remain the predominant forms of employer-sponsored charity. Forty percent of all responding employers will sponsor toy collections for needy children; food collections and distribution follow closely behind, at 37 percent. Clothing drives are planned by one in five surveyed employers, and nearly as many (16 percent) will sponsor money collections.
As my holiday gift to you and your friends on Dec. 10 & 11 only at Amazon.com, I am giving the new ebook “Ask the Coach” to download on your smartphone, eReader, tablet or computer. Please note that “Ask the Coach” is a reference book; like a dictionary or any other similar resource book that is not meant to be read cover to cover. Readers would normally look up a question of interest in the Table of Contents and then proceed to read that self-coaching answer in the book.
The insights in this book are meant to help you develop the leadership skills necessary to become the master of yourself so you will be ready, willing and able to lead others. Self leadership happens through self-learning and self-coaching.
The leadership development and implementation of comprehensive shifts in global strategies aimed at linking people toward improving and sustaining their common good is progressing---even though leaders of individual religions, countries and military powers attempt to slow down such bridging efforts.
For example, the United Nations has been ineffective in taking a stand on civil war within Syria or allowing for Palestine national recognition due to uncooperative nations blocking such moves. What is overriding such uncooperative national actions is the more powerful growth of social networks, that operate through the Internet, and do not recognize country borders.
The Wall Street Journal reports in its December 4, 2012 issue that the question of who should rule the Internet is being debated at a 12-day conference in Dubai. The conference is sponsored by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations agency for information and communication technologies.
The bid to change the rule book has unleashed fears of a grab for centralized control of the Internet by the U.N. The process has also come under criticism for its lack of transparency, with documents unpublished and proposals up for debate kept secret. Among the most vocal critics are U.S. Internet companies like Google Inc. "Only governments have a voice at the ITU," Google wrote on its Take Action website. "This includes governments that do not support a free and open Internet."
For example, a group of 17 Arab nations, including the United Arab Emirates, is proposing greater control by governments in regulating the Internet and transfer of data. The group is calling for all Internet users to be universally identified, but critics warn of greater monitoring of Internet traffic and censorship in many countries that already block what their citizens can view online.
"Governments all over the world are seeking to reclaim grip and control that has slipped from them into the hands of empowered individuals," said Marietje Schaake, a member of the European Parliament. "Some of the proposals made are considered threats to the open Internet, to net neutrality, or to free speech if adopted," she added.
The interview below of Barbara Marx Hubbard by Michel Saloff-Coste discusses the history of her interest in integral leadership and its application to her work in future studies. She also discusses the forthcoming "Being 2012" taking place around the world on December 22, 2012.
