a triarchy press publication
'Beyond Survival'
by Graham Leicester
Release Date: 26 February 2009
No. of Pages: 20
Book type: Paperback
Price: Free
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'Ten Things to Do in a Conceptual Emergency'
by Graham Leicester.
Read more about Ten Things to Do
This feels like a moment of truth. For many years people have been warning that we live in extraordinary times, a change of age not just an age of change. International Futures Forum (IFF) has been amongst them - quietly advocating the need for radically different approaches to intractable problems in a world where we are off our familiar charts.
Although hugely rewarding and inspiring, the work of Graham Leicester and his colleages in the IFF has so far sat on the fringes of the main event. Business as usual has maintained its steady course, as powerful systems generally do. Now things feel different. Talk of change is everywhere and so is talk of meltdown and chaos. The Nobel economist Paul Krugman recalls similar sentiments expressed by Keynes in the 1930s 'We have involved ourselves in a colossal muddle, having blundered in the control of a delicate machine, the working of which we do not understand.' As Krugman says, 'both statements are as true now as they were then'. Maybe this is the turning point - when the bankruptcy of conventional wisdom becomes clear?
We can acknowledge that we are confused and that times are hard. But we don't tune the confusion out or deny it. Instead we find the courage to face it head on and the determination to learn and grow our way through it. And when we commit to that path it is astonishing how often we discover strengths we did not think we had.
Learning means taking a wider view, and that can be scary. But when we are able to do so it allows us to reperceive the way things are. We begin to see the present financial crisis as just one more symptom of a world we no longer understand and cannot control. As such it may serve as a wake-up call to those who still think today's problems can be satisfactorily addressed with yesterday's solutions.
This short pamphlet outlines in four lessons the elements of a strategy for emerging from the current crisis stronger. The first step is survival. The next is generating fresh insight. The third is maintaining the will to act and to persevere. And finally the story is about hope, without which we cannot even start the journey.
About International Futures Forum
International Futures Forum is a non-profit organisation established to support a transformative response to complex and confounding challenges and to restore the capacity for effective action in today's powerful times.
At the heart of IFF is a deeply informed inter-disciplinary and international network of individuals from a range of backgrounds covering a wide range of diverse perspectives, countries and disciplines. The group meets as a learning community as often as possible, including in plenary session. And it seeks to apply its learning in practice. IFF takes on complex, messy, seemingly intractable issues - notably in the arenas of health, learning, governance and enterprise - where paradox, ambiguity and complexity characterise the landscape, where rapid change means yesterday's solution no longer works, where long term needs require a long term logic and where only genuine innovation has any chance of success.
About the Author
Graham Leicester is Director of International Futures Forum. He is a former member of HM Diplomatic Service and has subsequently developed a special interest and wide experience in the areas of governance, innovation, education and the arts.
