Bring on the ‘wet and warm’ indicators of system wellbeing

Corporate America’s relative metrics of ESG risk are pushing us off an absolute cliff

Humans are suffering so much that we’re beginning to revolt, in subtle as well as violent ways. That old bugaboo, ‘The Trust Gap’ between civil society and its institutions, has flipped into a Cynicism Index. So many are so alienated and demoralized by the failure of the power centers to steward their most basic, human needs that a sense of collective betrayal is not surprising.

Whether it’s child-sexual-predation institutionalized by the Church fathers for decades; or drinking water, air and food tainted with toxic material manufactured as byproducts of the fossil fuel juggernaut; or lower-than-living-wages that force adults in households to work two to three jobs at a time; or the entrancing drumbeat of false gods like GDP and stock market chyrons that drive US people to work the longest hours without vacations, childcare, and adequate healthcare; or white supremacy so deeply engrained in the culture it is abhorrent to uncover in oneself and abominable for the oppressed to endure any longer.

And there’s more coming. Just ask your local meteorologist. Or strongman.

So how to explain the flaccid response of the power centers to these real and present dangers? Perhaps it’s just habit. Or hubris. After all, for 20 years, businesses for example have been branding themselves with the halo of ‘sustainability’; turns out it was their own sustainability they had in mind all along. Not much of a surprise when the shareowner is the one actor who really counts — except for the blatant nature of that public deception.

In its latest attempt at responsiveness, in August 2019 USA business ‘refined its statement of purpose’. But almost two years later, big business is still measuring progress in terms of itself: how ‘less bad’ one company is than the other, and relative to history. You’d think the house was not on fire. I had a conversation with David Brancaccio on national public radio about this last week, triggered by JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon’s recent Letter to Shareholders. (Here’s a link to the show that aired, plus a longer transcript.)

Seems to me if the power structure were responsive to its authentic purpose it would measure its progress against the dynamic wellbeing of humans and the rest of the living system. Derivative metrics aren’t working so well in the real, wet and warm world. And while they’re at it, give marketers a break; let our creatives tell us the truth.

(For more ways to align with metamodern-, whole system leadership, check out: this chestnut in the Journal of Business Ethics; my newest essay on Congruence: A Board and Marketing Alliance, in the 2020 book Empower Us! From crisis to strategic harmony, by Ira Kaufman and Velimir Srica, pp 244–245; and, Nora Bateson’s Warm Data is a step toward the ‘Wet and Warm’ indicators I’m calling for.)