Regenerative Japan? I’m going to be traveling to Japan for the first time – visiting EXPO 2025 OSAKA JAPAN and culture-watching… Along the way, I expect to meet new friends to discuss regeneration and wicked-problem exploration – from a Japanese perspective.
How do companies re-invent themselves in a time of collapse?
What must governments do to prepare their people?
How does collaboration work in a time of permacrisis?
How do communities prepare for perpetual chaos?
What is the job of the regenerative leader at this time?
The theme of our COMMON HOME conference is “Regenerating the Common Good” and our goal is to help advance a sense of urgency – the door to survival is shutting and we’re trying to stick a foot in – to slow things down.
Accelerating extinction isn’t a good business plan for anyone.
Very thankful to UCL’s Paolo Taticchi for helping us put the conference together in London. Thanks to Enrico Foglia and Philip Kotler – nothing would be happening without them. Thanks also to Assoholding– a steady partner in turbulent times.
And special thanks to all the incredible speakers – grazie mille! Download the event program here >>
– What is regeneration? – Why is it relevant for systems change? – What are the opportunities of regeneration for systems change? – What are the challenges of regeneration for systems change?
These are 4 questions I’m supposed to answer for a webinar in a few minutes. By way of preparation here are my “answers” >>
Regeneration is a process of rebuilding or renewal of the Common Good – taking an asset, resource, ecosystem, individual, family, organization, community, or place, from crisis and collapse to recovery and regeneration.
There are 9 Domainsof the Common Good: Social, Economics, Nature, Work, Culture, Media, Law, Technology, and Politics.
The process of regeneration follows indigenous traditions: to protect, repair, invest, transform and learn – rooted in the pastand looking forward, seven generations ahead. Regeneration includes 5 Worlds, interconnected and interdependent, the individual, community, work, the Nation, and the Planet.
Why is it relevant for systems change?
Because all our systems are interconnected –
and the root cause of why nothing changes is power and corruption. The Wicked 7 Project taught us that at the heart of all our problems is the existing power structure.
What are the opportunities of regeneration for systems change?
It’s not an opportunity – it is a matter of survival. As we collapse into fragmented regional economies, we’re going to find that systems thinking is the best hope we have for actually creating a life worth living – at a community level, or regional state level.
Here’s the before – our current state:
and the after:
Can you see why systems thinking is critical?
What are the challenges of regeneration for systems change?
The challenge is leadership.
Our current state of leadership can rightly be called misleadership – because it does not advance the Common Good, but instead promotes self-interest, corruption, hate, nationalism, and drowns out the voice of the Planet. Because of their inaction and their inability to face the world’s most urgent problems, humanity retreats to narrow, parochial survivalism – a world of war and brute force. The rule of law is once again discarded on the trash heap of history, as our governments turn inward and increasingly more authoritarian and corrupt.
The systems around us are breaking—socially, ecologically, politically, and spiritually. Our world is fractured by inequality, poisoned by extraction, and divided by misinformation. The Common Good—our shared dignity, wellbeing, and future—is under assault.
By now it should be obvious to the public that our leaders are (for the most part) not interested in serving the Common Good. They are engaged in an ancient form of misleadership – maximizing value for themselves and their sponsors. If there’s one attribute which separates the regenerative leader from the traditional leader, it is their focus on the Common Good.
Our regenerative leadership model is an attempt to bring all the pieces together – systems-wide, and 5 worlds deep.
Philip Kotler and I just wrote an article on how the shortsighted, ego-driven billionaire destroys Democracy – which in turn damages their own well being.
The billionaire’s myopia is especially tragic because democracy is their best long-term investment. While democratic systems impose regulations and taxes, they also ensure legal stability, protect property rights, and create broad-based prosperity that fuels consumer spending. Without a thriving middle class, there are no customers. Without the rule of law, wealth is never secure. Without environmental sustainability, there is no future to profit from.
There are enough wicked problems the planet has to deal with already, without adding or exacerbating the one we already have. Yet Comrade Trump and his fearless DOGE monkeys insist on breaking everything we hold dear as Americans.
What can be done?
Read our book. It’s timely and may spark a few ideas. There’s a reason the Republicans are banning books – they don’t want us to know that another world is possible.
As the world spirals into crazy, do you get the distinct feeling that you are powerless. Don’t. Our world is just programmed to make you feel that way.
A few days ago I stumbled upon this – “If you were going to take over society and keep humanity from reaching its full enlightened potential, how would you do it?” The question was asked by Rob Sidon of Common Ground.
Sound familiar?
Before we turn into crazy conspiracy theorists, let’s pause for a moment.
Why is everything such a disaster: our politics, mass deportations, the climate crisis, Ukraine, Gaza. COP 29, the World Cup,? How is it possible that on almost every single problem in the world, we make the wrong choice> Is it our flawed decision-making? Nope. Our democracy is doing exactly what our system was designed to do – protect the status quo and make the hyper-rich even more money.
The world is unprepared for the level of violence we are going to see in the streets.
Gaza is coming to your neighborhood. The election of Trump in the United States and the complicity of the West in the genocide in Palestine are interconnected. We have lost all sense of societal empathy – and the more desensitized we are – the easier it gets to commit atrocities in broad daylight.
Take, for instance, the soccer-violence in Amsterdam which is being labelled as an outpouring of anti-semitism.
The corporate narrative about Israel has done a disservice to Judaism. By equating Zionism and Judaism, our media has opened the gates to public violence.
The propaganda machine has been spinning its head off trying to frame soccer brawls in Amsterdam as a horrifying “pogrom” against Jewish people because the side instigating the violence were supporters of team Maccabi Tel Aviv who flew in from Israel.
The total collapse of the media is the precursor to the collapse of society.
Our institutions are failing – and flailing.
Meanwhile in Bangladesh, regime change has led to violence and murder of Hindus. This is not a one-off, but rather a systematic wave of terror visited on the minorities in what was considered a moderate Islamic country. Hindus make up about 8% of the country’s nearly 170 million people, while Muslims are about 91%.
In Gaza, we know that 70% of the dead are women and children. We learned nothing from the Holocaust – not the Israelis, not the West.
Religious violence has returned to center stage.
The tired wars of ideology have returned. Watch next for Christian Fascism – the rising star of American politics.
What can stop the inevitable leap from individual acts of violence to institutional conflict?
Here’s a blueprint of how individual violence can evolve into institutional conflict:
Personal Grievances and Identity Polarization: Individuals who feel marginalized, threatened, or discriminated against engage in isolated acts of violence. Over time, such individuals come together based on shared grievances, forming group identities that reinforce “us vs. them” mentalities. This polarization can be a catalyst for collective action, especially when individuals feel that violence is a valid expression of resistance against perceived oppression. (Sound familiar? USA! USA!)
Formation of Ideological Justifications: Shared beliefs and narratives, spread through media, community leaders, or charismatic figures (funded by billionaires), help legitimize violence as a justified reaction. These ideologies may emphasize historical injustices, cultural superiority, or existential threats, fostering a sense of moral obligation to act against an opposing group or institution. Ideology provides cohesion and purpose, which can help turn isolated violence into organized conflict.
Organizational Support, Mobilization, and Belonging: As groups grow in number, they formalize their existence through organizations that provide resources, training, and (mis)leadership. Support networks can include political parties, militant organizations, or even religious institutions that see value in promoting collective action. Mobilization at this stage typically involves funding, weapons, and a more structured approach to violence, creating a pathway for sustained institutional or systemic conflict. (Paramilitary pop-ups!)
Institutionalization of Conflict: When violence becomes systemic, it permeates institutions, such as the military, police, or political organizations, embedding conflict into governance structures. Institutions may adopt policies or practices that perpetuate violence, or opposition groups may form “shadow institutions” that operate as parallel governments or military forces. This stage signifies a shift from sporadic violence to a protracted conflict with a degree of legitimacy within political structures.
Escalation and Entrenchment: In this stage, violence and conflict become deeply embedded in societal norms and institutional practices. As groups formalize warfare or prolonged institutionalized discrimination, the potential for peaceful resolution diminishes. Conflicts often become harder to resolve because they are now integral to the power dynamics within institutions, influencing policy, identity, and daily life.
Government as an Institution of Violence: In progress – watch the US. When your government turns on its own people – the enemy within – and starts a loyalty-program, banishing everyone but “true believers” and billionaires from the levers of power. (Game over for Democracy?)
This is an old, worn tune. But still we dance – our monkey minds gripped by fear.
Meanwhile, the Planet is dying. And lest you forget, the billionaires won’t take you to Mars.
Project 2025 is a roadmap for Trump’s radical-Republican administration to remove the guardrails on capitalism. It will eviscerate government as we know it.
Here are the fun bullet points:
Federal Restructuring: Aimed at dismantling what is termed the “administrative state,” the plan seeks to consolidate executive power (the authoritarian strongman model). It proposes significant agency overhauls, potentially eliminating or slashing several federal departments (welcome to Argentina). The strategy includes making civil service roles more politically aligned through the “Schedule F” initiative, which would reclassify federal employees as at-will workers, removing their job protections (all government employees are now Trump employees).
Immigration Policy: The document calls for extensive measures, including mass deportations and bolstering border enforcement (the ICEman cometh!). We will see private detention centers and concentration camps built to hold “targets,” separate families, and create life-threatening emergencies for the “illegals” – with massive government contracts with the private sector to build, operate and manage detention facilities (the American Gulag). It describes one of the largest deportation operations in U.S. history and promotes measures to curtail asylum options, while also focusing on the construction of more border barriers. (We are now free to pick our own produce, build our own houses, and fix our own highways… yay, freedom).
Deregulation and Energy: Project 2025 will roll back environmental regulations to promote fossil fuel powered energy independence, ramping up dirty fuel (coal, oil, gas) production and reducing the regulatory footprint of agencies like the EPA (if the agency survives at all). It advocates for opening federal lands to more energy extraction and minimizing climate-related oversight (bye, fresh air and clean water!)
Education Reform: The plan pushes for greater state control over education policy, aiming to reduce federal oversight and promote school choice, including charter schools and vouchers. Books will be banned. Guns will be part of the teacher’s toolkit. Let’s accelerate the dumbing down of society (bye, science!).
Judicial and Legislative Strategy: New right-wing judicial appointments will cement long-term policy gains and steamroll Republican-controlled Congress legislation (women, watch out).
In short, we can kiss democracy goodbye. We will replace the bureaucratic deep state with Trump’s deep state.
The enemy within is the GOP, and the hostile takeover of Democracy has begun. Welcome to the Age of Dread – the dictator’s dream of violence and cruelty visited on the meek and the poor.
Thanks, Opus Dei! Thanks, ye billionaires without souls.
Just asking for a friend. This question also applies to Trump’s billionaire donors like Elon Musk ($75million), Miriam Adelson ($95 million), and Richard Uihlein ($49 million). NOTE: These numbers are just from this third quarter!
I have to say that as a society, we have crossed the tipping point of mass-stupidity – the perfect storm of stupid. The latest proof of this is the tsunami of conspiracy theories during Hurricane Milton – leading to death threats against meteorologists who are finding it difficult to report the Truth amongst the flood of misinformation.
Misinformation poses a strategic risk not just to businesses and governments but to society as a whole. The rise in conspiracies and fact-resistant narratives, coupled with death threats against meteorologists during Hurricane Milton, illustrates a growing disconnect between facts and public perception. Addressing this requires understanding the root causes: misleadership, industry influence, and societal conditions that foster ignorance.
“Flood the Zone” – The Role of Misleadership in Misinformation
Leadership shapes both belief systems and societal trust in institutions. Donald Trump’s rhetoric during his presidency exemplifies how misinformation becomes institutionalized when leadership actively sows distrust. Trump’s frequent accusations of “fake news” and his endorsement of conspiracy theories undermined not just individual policies but the public’s overall trust in expert institutions. By encouraging skepticism toward media, scientific research, and even democratic processes, his leadership has contributed to the normalization of irrational beliefs. This is misleadership.Manufactured nihilism.
This article outlines Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone with sh*t” strategy, which involves overwhelming the media landscape with misinformation to confuse and polarize the public. This tactic was linked to Trump’s impeachment trial, as misinformation played a crucial role in shaping public perception and deflecting attention from key issues. Bannon’s approach highlights the challenges democracy faces in an era where false information can easily dominate the discourse, potentially undermining trust in democratic institutions.
Let’s also remember Hannah Arendt‘s warning: The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between true and false no longer exists.
Hannah Arendt’s observation that totalitarian rule thrives not on die-hard ideologues but on those who lose the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood resonates deeply with modern political misinformation strategies. Politicians who flood the public sphere with misinformation, like Steve Bannon’s tactic, aim to erode trust in objective reality. When people are overwhelmed with conflicting or false information, they may become cynical or apathetic, which makes them more vulnerable to manipulation, much like the conditions Arendt describes under totalitarian regimes. This disorientation undermines democratic engagement.
We must demand our leaders foster a healthy information ecosystem. Business leadership is not only about decisions but about responsibility to society and the Common Good (remember Drucker?). Misinformation, when promoted by figures of authority, corrodes the integrity of all social structures. Trump’s endorsement of baseless ideas and outright lies is an example of leadership failing in this duty, deliberately sowing confusion and creating a society that increasingly disregards evidence-based decision-making.
A post-truth society is a society which has no future. Denying reality does not change it.
The Fossil Fuel Industry and Climate Misinformation
Compounding this issue is the deliberate spread of misinformation by industries with vested interests. The fossil fuel industry, for example, has played a long-term strategic role in lying and deliberately confusing the public about climate change. For decades, companies have used disinformation campaigns to question the science of climate change, much like the tobacco industry did to deny links between smoking and cancer. By funding think tanks and lobbying groups, the industry has created a pervasive narrative that climate change is either not real or not caused by human activity, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are deeply anti-democratic.
This is a total failure of leadership, a lack of societal stewardship. The responsibility of industry extends beyond profitability to ensuring that its actions do not endanger public well-being. By spreading falsehoods, the fossil fuel industry has compromised this responsibility, endangering not just the environment but also the public’s capacity to make informed choices. This deliberate misinformation campaign has created a society where public trust in science and expert knowledge is eroded, contributing to a broader climate of skepticism, undermining democracy and our public institutions.
Bonhoeffer’s Insight on Stupidity and Societal Conditions
Understanding this trend through a social lens brings us to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s observations on stupidity as a societal problem. Bonhoeffer argued that stupidity is more dangerous than malice because it makes individuals impervious to reason. While malice can be confronted and defeated, stupidity entrenches itself in social structures, often with the individual unaware they are being manipulated. The underlying issue is not just a failure of intellect but of structure. People become stupid when societal conditions—such as isolation or powerful external influences—strip them of their critical thinking and autonomy.
Social media, combined with leadership failures and industry manipulation, creates an ecosystem ripe for mass-stupidity. When large sections of the population believe “alternative-facts,” they are not just ignorant—they become weaponized against rational discourse, as seen in the death threats against meteorologists. This results from a breakdown in the structures that should empower informed citizenship: education, media, and leadership.
Will you fight misinformation?
A leader’s job is to build an environment where knowledge and truth thrives. To combat the spread of misinformation and the societal conditions that foster it, leaders and industries must take responsibility for creating systems of trust and accountability. Educational reforms that emphasize critical thinking, regulatory oversight for social media platforms, and strong public communication strategies are essential steps. Narrative laundering must be traced and made public.
Leaders, both in government and industry, must rebuild societal trust in expert knowledge. If trust is broken, societal progress halts. This is a matter of strategic foresight—leaders must address misinformation not merely as a nuisance but as a wicked problem, a strategic threat to the functioning of democratic society.
Step one: Speak Out.
Stay tuned for more on what we can do, and follow the Wicked7 project.
The colonial experiment ends in extinction and erasure. Have you noticed how fast social media is when it comes to removing pro-Palestinian content? Social media is complicit in genocide.
Nothing has exposed our fake democracy more than Gaza.
Here’s Prof. Jeffery Sachs:
UPDATE: OOPS – censored
And just we’re all clear – this is how all our politics works.
No wonder we can’t do anything about Healthcare, or Guns, or Climate Change. All you have to do is follow the money – the legalized bribery we call lobbying.
Across the annals of time, an influential factor has impeded the advancement of human well-being and joy. This force wields might surpassing that of the Mafia or the armed forces. Its ramifications resonate on a global scale, spanning from the highest echelons of corporate power to the corners of your neighborhood tavern.
That force is human stupidity.
Carlo M. Cipolla, noted professor of economic history at the UC Berkeley, wrote an important book – THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY – in order to detect and neutralize its threat.
Stupidity is a complex problem, for many reasons. Here are Cipolla’s five laws of stupidity:
Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
And here’s how Cipolla charted stupidity:
The chart gives us four groups of people:
Helpless people contribute to society but are taken advantage of by it
Intelligent people contribute to society and leverage their contributions into personal benefits
Stupid people are counterproductive to both their and others’ interests
Bandits pursue their own self-interest even when this poses a net detriment to societal welfare (most of our billionaires?!)
An additional category of ineffectual people exist at the center of the graph!
What’s really interesting to me is that Cipolla applies his Theory of Stupidity to the rise and fall of Nations.
“Whether one considers classical, or medieval, or modern or contemporary times one is impressed by the fact that any country moving uphill has its unavoidable σ fraction of stupid people. However the country moving uphill also has an unusually high fraction of intelligent people who manage to keep the σ fraction at bay and at the same time produce enough gains for themselves and the other members of the community to make progress a certainty.”
And,
“In a country which is moving downhill, the fraction of stupid people is still equal to σ; however in the remaining population one notices among those in power an alarming proliferation of the bandits with overtones of stupidity (sub-area B1 of quadrant B in figure 3) and among those not in power an equally alarming growth in the number of helpless individuals (area H in basic graph, fig.1). Such change in the composition of the non-stupid population inevitably strengthens the destructive power of the σ fraction and makes decline a certainty. And the country goes to Hell.”
NOTE: Prof. Cipolla retired from UCB in 1991, and died on September 5, 2000, in Pavia, Italy. His heirs have tried to assert control over the text of THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY , but it was released to the public domain, and cannot be retracted.
So our book is finally here. At one point – when we were at 500 pages – I almost gave up. But then I remembered Gail Mazur‘s advice: “anything worth doing is worth doing badly,” and decided to carry on. Now, at 320 pages, this book tries to cover the various angles and sights and buzzwords we see creeping into the regeneration ecosystem (pun intended).
What’s the big idea? Actually we think there are several.
Climate change is the greatest market failure in history. Its costs are not priced into market transactions because third parties overwhelmingly bear them – they are euphemistically called “externalities.” There is a fatal misalignment between what is in the interests of the economy and the incentives of the companies that comprise it. Nature, and the communities we live in, are nowhere part of the equation!
Regeneration means regenerating the Common Good. Our position is this: The Climate Crisis and the Collapse of Society are both symptoms of the same fatal sickness: the destruction of the Common Good. We cannot compartmentalize the climate and separate it from the rest of society or our activities.
Here are the questions we – Philip Kotler, Enrico Foglia, and myself, asked ourselves:
The choice is clear. It is regeneration, or extinction.
The legendary reggae band Steel Pulse (one of Bob Marley’s favorites) raises its voice to challenge the world to come together – a “movements of movements” – to save the Earth:
Special thanks to Jessica Lieng from the W7 Working Group for putting together the video. Maximum respect to Steel Pulse and David Hinds in particular!
Join us for the latest webinar from the Wicked7 Project >>
Join Philip Kotler and Christian Sarkar as we discuss the final wicked problem of the Wicked7 Project. With us for the webinar – a group of dynamic personalities from Palermo, Sicily:
– Leoluca Orlando. As Mayor of Palermo, Orlando’s extraordinary vision and courage has changed our understanding of immigration, tolerance, and the fight against corruption.
– Claudio Arestivo. A co-founder of Moltivolti – a unique regenerative business – which serves as an example for the future.
– Melania Memory Mutanuka. An immigrant from Zambia, she is an emerging leader with a purpose.
– Carmelo Pollichino. A passionate leader and the head of the non-profit Libera Palermo contro le mafie
– Francesco Bellina. An award-winning photographer and artist whose brilliant work on the problems of migration and exploitation are featured in leading newspapers such as the Financial Times and The Guardian.
It was my great honor to interview the “Father of modern Marketing” on his lifetime of achievements in marketing.
Professor Philip Kotler received the Thinkers50Lifetime Achievement Award for his work over the past 50 years. I am deeply grateful for his friendship and mentorship – and everything he has done to demonstrate how marketing must be a force for good.
Stuart Hart – a leading authority on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. Hart is the Founder and President of Enterprise for a Sustainable World
Bob Freling – Executive Director at Solar Electric Light Fund, Freling developed the “solar village development model” – a wholistic community-based approach to development.
Hennie Botes – CEO and founder of moladi Construction Systems, Botes is an inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. The designer of a multi-award winning affordable housing technology, Botes has over 30 years of experience in the building industry.
Sometimes I wonder why we have forgotten these principles from the late Paul Polak. When I chatted with him about the $300 House, he wanted me to reconsider and make it a $100 House. His point was simple: affordability drives design.
Now, as part of the research agenda of the Regenerative Marketing Institute, I’m thinking about how these BoP principles and Stuart Hart‘s BoP protocol apply to the developed world — to communities trying to find a way back from the COVID-crash.
Here are Polak’s principles:
1) Go to where the action is. You can’t solve poverty from a World Bank office. 2) Talk to the people and listen to what they have to say. 3) Learn everything about the context of the problem and the people. 4) Think and act big. No reason to be modest. Small solutions applied thousands of thousands of times. 5) Think like a child to find the obvious solution people have missed in the past. (Irony of thinking big and like a child) 6) See and do the obvious. Emersing yourself in the problem helps. 7) If someone has invented it–you don’t have to. Find existing solutions 8} Make sure your approach can be scaled up. 9) Design for the poor. Affordability rules the design process with poor customers. 10) Follow practical 3 year plans. Must transform into effective work plan for 3 years. 11) Continue to learn from your customers. (Interviewed more than 3000 farm families, $12 solar lantern) 12) Don’t be distracted by what other people say (Almost every project I’ve done has had sceptics)
It’s time to put aside our toys – our ideologies and guns – and look at this time in history as our final exam. This is a test, as Buckminster Fuller said, to see if we, the human species, deserve to carry on. COVID has shown us that we cannot find consensus on how to deal with the virus.
Time’s running out. Philip Kotler, Karthiga Ratnam, and I think it’s time for a movement of movements.
What are we going to do now? The #forkintheroad which Buckminster Fuller warned us about is here now >> “Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment… Humanity is in a final exam as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in the Universe.”
What will it take to leap across the chasm and undo the destruction we’ve caused? Why can’t the UN fix it?
We’re hurtling into a state of climate emergency whilst we simultaneously face the convergence of the Wicked7.
What are the Wicked7? The world’s most urgent problems.
We’ve distilled over 200 problems into the Wicked7:
The Death of Nature
Inequality
Hate & Conflict
Power & Corruption
Work and Technology
Health and Livelihood
Population & Migration
You can’t solve wicked problems. That’s what we’ve been led to believe. And for years, we haven’t. Solve them, that is.
Well, if not now, then when?
Wicked problems must have virtuous solutions. If any lesson has emerged from this COVID-19 pandemic, it is this: we must address the urgent problems of the world now, or perish. Why? Because COVID-19 is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg… the ecosystem of wicked problems will not wait.
After working on this idea for over a year, Philip Kotler and I kicked off the Wicked7 Challenge on April Fool’s Day, 2021.
P.S. – Bucky Fuller was wrong. Thanks to Sonmoy, one of our W7 advisors, we now see that there’s a triple fork in the road, and utopia is simply no longer an option. What we must fight for is survival.
