Rome Club Report 2018, Chapter 3.15: "Collective Leadership"

I propose to deal with the report of the “world government” themselves, and at the same time help you translate the original source.

3.15 Civil society, social capital and collective leadership

Chapter 1 of this book (section 1.10) of the United Nations set out an agenda for sustainable development for the period up to 2030. It mainly consists of 17 sustainable development goals (SDG). In the real world of business and related policies, priority will certainly be given to economic and social goals, which will threaten the healthy stabilization of climate, oceans and biodiversity (SDG 13-15). To balance this bias, using the language of the program of action for 2030, the goals of sustainable development should be closely interlinked and should be considered as a whole.

While governments and enterprises have their own policies and too often satisfy the interests of stakeholders, civil society can play an important role in the quest for transformation of sustainability. On the other hand, civil society alone cannot cope with this. These problems are complex, systemic and broad; so only thanks to the cooperation of all sectors, can such a change be turned.



Mary Kaldor defines civil society as "the process by which individuals negotiate, argue, fight, or agree with each other and with centers of political and economic power . " She describes how the roles and importance of civil society have changed over time — starting with movements in South America and Eastern Europe opposing the militarized regimes, and listing the definitions most commonly used today to describe global civil society. But one can also delve deeper into the history and expand these definitions, including trade unions, abolitionists, suffragists, and many others. This definition of civil society organizations (CSOs), which includes social movements associated with more equitable and equal distribution of power, is more historically correct.

On the other hand, trust, solidarity, cooperation and thoughts about sustainability do not necessarily dominate a wide range of CSOs. Attention should also be paid to the undesirable results of successful citizen movements. During the first year of the Arab Spring or so, commentators around the world celebrated this attractive new feature in a once authoritarian and tough place. But enthusiasm faded away when the ISIS grouping (“Islamic state”) took hold, first, and then from the new authoritarian regimes, civil wars broke out, and the Middle East turned into a problem area number one in the world.

It should also be recognized that the populist movements, including the radical right, adopted the communication methods of civil society. Aggressive movements have developed the skills to use these media for aggressive propaganda. Remember that these are evil emotions that are likely to become viral on social networks.

At a time when “alternative facts” became the concept of argumentation for angry people, there is an urgent need to counterbalance what Mary Kaldor calls “political conversation” with public and “good-natured” conversation. This conversation requires reason and sensitivity, not just conflicting interests and passions. It provides a solid foundation for creating social capital, which, according to Francis Fukuyama, exists when the abstract idea of ​​“relations” is replaced by actual, collaborative and communicative relations between two or more people. This creates social capital, which, in turn, generates concepts such as trust, networked society, and civil society. It is this openness to uncertainty and the ability to maintain a joint meeting with each other in the best way possible to make great changes in the system.

3.15.1 Public conversation: the concept of civil assemblies

Establishing a “good-natured” conversation in order to attract citizens to public debates is the first and important step towards a new understanding of the reintegration of citizens into the public sphere. Modern democracies have evolved into elite systems that have recently caused strong counter-movements by people who have been neglected. The election of Brexit and Trump are the two most prominent examples. However, a very common mistake here is to confuse the need for public debate with the demands of direct decision-making - the latter too often leads to an informal voting practice and does not contain informative and transparent debates at all. Referenda (or elections in the same way) often lead to perverse decisions that will not benefit the society as a whole, nor those who voted for them. Therefore, a real public conversation is needed in which people feel involved and represented, but primarily informed.

An impressive example of a collective discussion allowing such a conversation is the Civic Assembly of Ireland, introduced in 2012. Citizens are selected at random to participate in the discussion of topics and provide informed advice to their parliament for decision-making.

Politicians can study the needs of their citizens, their fears and desires. Citizens, in turn, are not excluded from the process, and at the same time do not feel that they were suddenly thrown into an unfamiliar environment, asking to vote for something about which they never had the opportunity to form their opinion. In the case of the Citizens Assembly, participants can form their opinions when they study, discuss and exchange arguments. The Irish case is based on the same logic as the Civil Jury of Ned Crosby in the United States and the Planungszelle (complete. Planning Room from the German) by Peter Dinel, both concepts were developed in the 1970s. They are based on the need to introduce citizens to the decision-making process and planning processes - and all this they do through elections, including the choice of the jury. This brings such processes closer to the often quoted sources of democracy in ancient Greece, where politicians, too, were elected by lot, rather than by voting. This fact was absent in the evolutionary process of modern democracies. This important distinction allowed the political arena to become something completely separate from society. Today, apparently, democratic methodologies, such as referendums, are widely used by populist movements to make false promises that such swift, indiscriminate actions will give "power to the people."

3.15.2 Building Social Capital: Collaboration with Multiple Stakeholders

Aware public debate provides a good basis for an active civil society; but this is not enough to solve current world problems, given their complexity.

When it comes to transferring a dysfunctional world direction to a more functional one, no one - neither civil society, nor politics, nor business - can achieve a single solution. Instead, each of the stakeholders should contribute their own knowledge. At the same time, the organizational cultures of civil society, government, and business vary greatly, as do their leading cultures. It is important that all three camps recognize that they act separately from each other, and that what happens outside the sphere that they know should not be automatically viewed with suspicion. It is by combining these three interconnected systems that new forms of social capital can be created. Multi-stakeholder collaboration opens the way for innovation and collaboration needed to develop civil society, business, and government towards mutual support for learning.

Multi-stakeholder cooperation should be characterized by the presence of these aspects:

• Several participants, often with conflicting interests, who need to agree on a joint approach to improvement.
• The effectiveness of cooperation depends on the involvement in the joint approach of solving the problem of participants who, in an ordinary situation, would not work together
• Multidimensional problems tend to require solutions that are usually complex, confusing, and even chaotic - due to unanticipated market or political influences.

Collaboration with multi-stakeholders is a systems approach and the collaboration itself can be seen as a difficult but focused attempt to influence social change. It can change or restructure existing social conditions and overcome organizational constraints. Leadership in this context is a collaborative creative process that often begins with a small group of dedicated initiators and aims at profound collective changes.

Even the greatest visions of change are useless if an insufficient number of stakeholders are ready to take action. Therefore, effective solutions to the problem require sufficient participation of stakeholders - strong and less influential, influential and affected.

Conscious cooperation - the creation of a temporary or solid system of actors with the participation of multi-stakeholders - a way to create life. The future, focused on people and on the state of the planet, requires us to create many such nested interactions.

3.15.3 The Case of Collective Leadership: General Code of the Coffee Community

Written by Petra Kuenkel uses the General Code of the Coffee Community (4C) as an example of a multi-stakeholder setup with a “collective leadership” approach. As a navigation tool for planning the process, what was called a leadership compass was used (Figure 3.18).



4C has developed intersectoral partnerships between three groups of stakeholders - the coffee trade and industry, coffee producing organizations and international civil society organizations. The 4C Association is a great example of creating a global community that has joined forces to improve the social, environmental, and economic conditions for those who make their living with coffee. Major improvements were the application of a code of conduct, support mechanisms for farmers and a verification system.

The 4C initiative, like many other stakeholder initiatives, went through four different phases. Although it is important to keep the six dimensions of the collective leadership compass in a healthy balance throughout the process, each stage requires a difference in focus (Figure 3.18).

Phase 1 (preparation of a collaboration system) concerned the formation of an idea in a dialogue, an understanding of the context and the inclusion of a multi-stakeholder initiative. The 4C initiative focused on building trusting relationships, verifying existing and possible future collaboration. The use of a compass for planning and managing processes helped stakeholders from all sectors to remain in the dialogue about the original idea of ​​influencing the mainstream market towards greater sustainability. Since people have repeatedly met to collaborate on similar issues and specific topics regarding coffee and sustainability, the idea of ​​developing a single standard gradually began to take root. Despite the problems and lack of easy answers, this initiative has found support in many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. People realized that there was a real chance of having a structural effect on the imbalances that are part of coffee production.



Figure 3.18: Petra Kunkel's collective leadership compass served as a guide for the multi-stakeholder process in developing the General Code of the Coffee Community

Phase 2 (creating a cooperation system) consisted in changing the goal, clarifying resources, creating the structure of the initiative and agreeing on an action plan. The selection of this group of stakeholders was based on finding the right balance between “stakeholder engagement” and “official participation”. The result was an agreed implementation plan, a budget plan for the future financial contributions of the relevant industry, and distribution of roles among stakeholders.

Phase 3 (Collaboration Implementation) requires a continuous increase in the impact of potential impact from meetings of stakeholders that are not without conflicts. Distrust never completely disappears, but all interested parties have learned to maintain cooperation and move towards tangible results.

Stage 4 (Transfer of cooperation to the next level) . After 2 years, the standard was developed, and the initiative moved to this stage. In 2006, stakeholders unanimously agreed to create a non-profit organization that would become the future official structure of the initiative, that is, a global membership organization (the 4C Association) dedicated to ensuring sustainability in the coffee sector and openness to members of this coffee network, which vary from small coffee farmers to large roasting companies, as well as to the rest on the basis of support.


To be continued...

For the translation, thanks to Diana Sheremieva. If you are interested, I invite you to join the “flashmob” to translate a 220-page report. Write in a personal or email magisterludi2016@yandex.ru

More translations of the report of the Club of Rome 2018

Foreword
Chapter 1.1.1 “Different types of crises and a feeling of helplessness”
Chapter 1.1.2: "Financing"
Chapter 1.1.3: “An Empty World Against Full Peace”

Chapter 3.10: “Tax on Bits”
Chapter 3.11: “Financial Sector Reforms”
Chapter 3.18: “Literacy for the Future”

"Analytics"

• "Come on!" - the anniversary report of the Club of Rome
• The anniversary report of the Club of Rome - embalming capitalism
• Club of Rome, jubilee report. Verdict: “The Old World is doomed. New World is inevitable! ”