AboutWorkEcology

WorkEcology Insight Note 072210 - Learn, Discern and Act #sustainnow

WorkEcology Insight Note 031620 -Wake UP CSR Community - Health is not Sustainable

I am working toward not getting trapped by the behavior of Social Media and work toward having my communications influence and lead change. Over the last month, I have someone gotten lost in the sea of media that is fueled daily on Twitter within these groups, #csr, #justmeans, #sustainability, #diversity, #hit, #emr, #whitehouse, #healthcarereform, #omb, #philanthropy, #NHIN, #meaningfuluse and more. It has been a rare a event that I identify a link to a concrete  and rarely see anything in the media that correlates with assuring citizens health from cradle to death.

I am thinking of cutting back my time on Social Media and simply watching, Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and Extreme Makeover where I can learn more about how to influence an entire city or town to change their eating habits or I can learn what it takes to  construct a home that protects children and adults from environmental exposures and assures their health. Extreme Makeover teaches us how a community can provide a quality of life for families who have been adversely effected by military service or lose a love one who gives his life in service of the country or their community.

Overall I have been enjoying watching how Disney and ABC have impacted change in society since John Pepper, former Chairman of Procter and Gamble, who became Chairman of Disney's Board. I have observed since Pepper came into his role at Disney/ABC that this company has moved beyond the heroic selfish acts of Michael Eisner.

I met Pepper in the late 80's when he gave a key note for a conference I helped to organize that was a followup to a research study I staffed on downsizing. In the short time I had, I was invited by Pepper to join him at his table for lunch and in 3 minutes or less, gained something from this experience that was a real lesson in leadership.

I have come to find out that Pepper in 2007, published
What Really Matters.   It was from John Pepper that I learned that you cannot judge a company entirely by it's leader.  Quality leadership does not mean that all people perform well, and bad leadership is simply reflected in a bad company performance.

The transparency that surrounds Pepper is exceptional. Where he works is never about Pepper, it is about the company, people and values.

In the mid 90's I was invited by my health care network to learn about a private Workman's Comp program that Pepper resourced Pepper with my friend, Jim Palmer designed and implemented a system of WC at P&G that could only be organized in a company of that size. It was a total quality system by comparison the Federal Government private system for postal workers that did not deliver and insure a quality process for people and organization.  This model was grew into a model of reputation that Palmer talked about on the lecture circuit for years. The applause and attention Palmer received was never matched by intention for others to learn and apply.

 

In fact, Pepper and Palmer formed a non profit in Ohio, that was unable to  construct a model of adoption that did not success.  In my opinion, the system this group put together required a national agenda to insure it's outcome and guide the system on paper into design. it was a product of the times where by most leaders did not grasp or understand the implications of "embedding a change" as a culture of change.

I know this struggle pervades today. I have learned this by monitoring the HHS Media promoted on on #EHR and #HIT lists that follow David Blumenthal, M.D., National Health Information Technology Coordinator for HHS.  Like Blumentahl's predecessor, Dr. David Brailer, I do not see the systems defined or progress we need.  The culture and activity as organized by government, insurance and HHS is simply not empowering a culture of change based on convening a community that learns together and derives from that learning how to lead change.

Like Dr. Brailer, I do not see that Blumenthal can stand a chance to empower change until US Citizens and all that implies recognize that changing our health care system is not a matter of technology. Technology has to become a tool for carrying out new initiatives that are economically and patient centric driven in a new format of conversation that embraces creates a culture of innovation.

I have tried to follow Blumenthal's activity as best I can and I find most of it disempowering. me  Blumenthal like his predecessor has convened a community of  people drawn from health insurance, delivery systems and government are lost in conversations that are so mechanical the jargon they speak has no meaning and the public reports get lost in the anacronyms they create. 

The discussion I monitor shows no recognition for for leadership values and patient centric care. The people in this world are living in a condition, I describe as "how to & tell me what to do." They are not leading change into practice that convenes conversation that matter with people who can lead change and build new practices based on an imagination they construct with each other because they believe they can.

I continue to believe that health for every citizen can be sustainable. I also believe that  Health continues to be the most ignored issue by business and ordinary citizens who simply may feel disempowered to do anything.

People have great difficulty wrapping around the idea of health and how to track improvements because health measurements cut across every sector, industry and may require a new economic thought leadership that has not found its way in the ordinary speak of people today.

And if you don't have your health, what does that mean to your capacity to live and sustain in any society or economy today?

In talking about health, the conversations dribble into categories e.g. health care systems, health care finance, health information technology, electronic medical records, patient care, cancer, public health and more.

In talking about CSR and or sustainability, we talk CSR, SRI, GRI, Reporting, Workplace Issues, Corporate Responsibility, Climate Change, Green Technology, Green Jobs, Corporate Governance, Monitoring, and more.

Yesterday, I downloaded reports from  creating a new Road Map in thought leadership for CSR and Sustainability.  I have begun a detailed review of these resources that include:

From CERES

A Race Toward Sustainability – and Profits: New Report Delivers Powerful Message and Roadmap for Companies.

Mindy Lubber, President of this investment coalition writes, "We need accelerated performance improvements from companies that reflect the true scientific and economic impacts of unchecked carbon pollution, growing water scarcity and billions of people still living and working in poverty."

From WORLD BUSINESS COUNCIL for SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

 Exploring the World of Business through Vision 2050

This report provides, "  a study lays out a pathway leading to a global population of some 9 billion people living well, within the resource limits of the planet by 2050."

While I do not want to distract from the responsive missions that both these groups have authored into action; I was struck by how each of these groups mapped out reports that did not  concretely address health and value health separately from the category of "social" responses for society.  Each report speaks to the needs of people to live well or for corporations to respond to social needs of society.  What these reports do not recognize is that a strong component of how health is provided and influenced comes out of industries that effect the economics of health- insurance, medical devices, biopharm, technology and more.

Neither of these reports/activities  directly speak to how health can be assured all global citizens and what that means to the role of business and hence corporate performance and systems by which to monitor the impact of business on health as it factors into investment and the global market place.

Yesterday, I received Hazel Henderson's periodic update to her colleagues and friends, which pointed to these articles that are a composite of Hazel's current campaigns to shift focus on the economy to build more ecological  initiatives to author a recovery. Hazel's life long view of the economy and building a new set of indicators for GDP and Investors had been to create economic methods and practices globally that build a new sustainable economy and stop the band aid quick fixes. Here are the articles that summarize her latest views and initiatives tied to those views:

A Win-Win Plan For Iceland Britain and the Netherlands  IPS, March 8, 2010

 

Is GDP an Obsolete Measure of Progress?  Time Magazine, January 30, 2010

 

Supreme Court's Shocker Makes CSR Key Buttress of Democracy  CSRWire Talkback, January 29, 2010

Within these articles Hazel speak as she always has about the power corporations, investors and people have to remedy the growing country debts, define metrics of well being and assure that government is not used to lobby for profits and schemes that do not respond to the needs of people.

While all these articles are intellectually right on and report on initiatives none of them address the issues that are so critical to people to sustain their health by reducing

 

1. The impact and harm that bad out of date public and private  infrastructure (energy, fuel, heat and electricity) have on people's health;

2. Influencing a change to the structure of how health care is accessed globally through a costly infrastructure of institutions and geo-strategy of real estate property that does not provide a patient centric care centric to home.

3. Redefine in all countries with regard for culture, tradition, life cycle rituals who people are born and where they can that assures a quality of life and human respect that is not poverty or technically driven;

3. Addressing compensation structures in corporations, e.g. CEO pay, bonus programs and cash incentive programs that are paid out before members of the workforce can be guaranteed health insurance and responsive occupational health programs that do not compromise their capacity to earn a living and sustain their families;

4. Assuring a set of workforce practice that assure for the care and health of the future generation so parents (married and single) who need to work can assure the attention their children need for their nutrition, health and safety to counteract violence, obesity and lack of learning that does not encourage these kids to believe they have a future.

5. Organizing communities to champion changes in the health insurance industry in the US that is least aggressive with learning how to lead with a triple bottom line practice.

When it comes to matters of health I wish to read blogs and social media from health care experts that do not focus on changes in technology, clean tech, green jobs and begin to define a role for the practice of medicine that is inclusive and defines an understanding of where quality of life, change in business practices regarding energy, clean tech and green can impact quality of life indicators in terms of conditions for housing, education and work environments that assure people and their children health.

The kind of effort that I am asking for here, is beyond anything that one person can conceive of or act on.  It is a horizontal response that cuts across industry, government, education and non profit organizations where the focus on leading this change requires education and inquiry.

This week, I finally began the annotation of literature, organization of a project plan and identified a small group of people who can have input in this process to prepare health service leaders and business stewards to begin to define and design the kind of inquiry that is required to align a thought leadership between leaders from which they can act to create the design, funding and organization of hybrid projects to influence this change.

This small scale initiative now has a network of people who listen and act and may get to know each other. It is small scale and it requires a certain kind of attention and response, most people do not know how to give. It requires a type of attention where anyone no matter how successful they have been in the past is willing to step up as described by Jay Coen Gilbert in today's Inspired Protagonist

Jay's insight as co-founder of Seventh Generation is this:

"Ambiguity is not an option. For any company that seriously intends to harness the power of the marketplace to crack society's biggest challenges, authenticity -- the capacity to do what you say you'll do -- is a core, non-negotiable attribute."

In my humble opinion, we have come to a time where the massive distributed change can only be authored and led from a heart of generosity and not the generosity or one person.

Cary Krosinsky, who I look to for advice for this project I am convening with others, asked a question on his FaceBook page this week?

" as we exit the generation of selfishness in America, what's next?"

Cary's question got me thinking and I re-framed it from the perspective of health?

"What would it mean if every person you knew in any country, place or culture could have the right to health?"

How would that change our practices in business, government, health care and with the panel of experts who are the keepers to that question?   and what would it take for them to come out of their "selfish silos."

And how would you bring global thought into this thinking.  Health is not a problem in the US alone, we have resources to solve it and I believe more than every it requires new thought leadership and methods of monitoring that grows out of a grassroots approach just like movements for SRI, CSR and Sustainability.

 

This is my food for thought today, I look forward to your comments.

Wishing all Health and Well Being,

Lavinia