I have been thinking about this question for years and yet still have nothing approaching an answer. To me, a question exists whether or not it is answered and continues to exist even after an answer is offered. It has no purpose – no goal – beyond itself.
What then about goals? Who and what are they serving?
My deeper question is perhaps: How do goals fit into regenerative thinking?
My sense is that regenerative thinking is more reflective of natural systems. It is more focused on the present than the future and is more emergent than pre-determined.
Goals seek to constrain this process by optimising the future for a particular outcome. By their nature, they ignore costs. They ignore relationships. They ignore emergent possibility.
Goals are thus not neutral. They only exist within a certain worldview; a world that prefers pre-determined measurable outcomes to messy emergence. In truth, they feel increasingly dated; a product of an industrial age dominated by mechanistic thinking.
Fair / unfair?
📌Can goals thus be rehabilitated to serve a different master?
📌Can they truly serve life in all its richness?
📌What more regenerative alternatives might there be?
Questions in the Image:
- What end go goals serve?
- How do they fit into regenerative thinking?
- What more regenerative alternatives might there be?
Want to Further Explore This Topic?
If you are interested in regenerative thinking, this piece on possible regenerative futures might be of interest: What Might Regenerative Futures Look Like?
Nurturing Curiosity – Daily Practice: This is part of the Nurturing Curiosity series of tools, insights and questions designed to help nurture curiosity as part of our daily practice. In point of fact, every interaction we have is an opportunity to question what we are observing and how we and others are seeing the world. What might we assume is true that may not be? What might be more nuanced than we think?
About Tom O’Leary
Tom guides bold pioneers through inner transitions towards regenerative futures.
His primary offering – through a process he calls Ecological Coaching – is about working with leaders on the mindset, skillset and structural shifts that will power their organisation’s outer transition.
This means helping leaders thrive while creating ripples of positive change within their organisation and most importantly for the communities they serve and ultimately life on this planet.
It is thus not just about the leader as an “individual” but rather as part of an ecology of relationships. Within this ecology, he helps the leader feel heard, gain clarity, take action, build confidence and thrive all in service of something bigger.
How Might Tom Help?
- My first invitation is to take maximum advantage of the free content on this site.
- As you are reading this, you are clearly on a fascinating journey. If you feel you would benefit from us doing some work together on some aspect of your journey, please explore this page: How Can I Serve?
- I also endeavour to answer every email so if you have any queries do reach out.
