The existential threat of catastrophic climate conditions looms large, driven by the insatiable demands of a global market where superpowers prioritize self-serving goals over ecological sustainability. In recent decades, the relentless organizational focus on productivity and progress has precipitated a dire global environmental crisis. While it has been a source for growth, we have now come to a point where this permanent depleting of our resources regardless which form is now not sustainable anymore and is backfiring.
This misalignment has wrought havoc on our planet, decimating ecosystems and destabilizing climate patterns. We have created and succumbed to a narrative that only being ‘productive’ and aligned with technical progress is the way to go about in organizations. It is imperative to take a step back, reassess, and realign our values with principles that prioritize environmental stewardship, equity, and long-term viability. That means that our single-sided focus on progress and productivity needs to be re-evaluated.
How we will address and implement the Sustainability KPIs will be critical. If we don’t get this right and focus on individual Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) KPIs in isolation, we may improve on one KPI but adversely impact on others. A narrow focus may overlook the interconnectedness of the goals, resulting in solutions that, while positive in intention, inadvertently harm other sustainability objectives.
For instance, Australia Post is leading the way as they have assessed the efficacy of their Certified Carbon Neutral Delivery (CND)[1] program, that was in place since 2019 and decided to end the program as the program did not lead them to reduce carbon neutral delivery of their MyPost Business (MPB) parcels. Instead, they decided to intentionally focus reducing emissions through a range of initiatives such as operating the largest electric delivery vehicle fleet in Australia, generating more of our own solar electricity, and offering a dual-use satchel to help reduce packaging waste. Australia Post is demonstrating initiative and the need for a holistic approach to sustainable development and not just the mere ticking off boxes, which in effect is not always serving its intended purpose.
That highlights the complexities and demands that leaders and organizations needing to collaborate in completely new ways and are required to take ownership of these goals in a way that is effective rather and what is the right thing to do rather than something that on the surface is aligned with the sustainability goals but is on closer observation not furthering the goal at all. Rethink the following: As society has shifted from nature to urbanization and technology, we have lost touch with life's deeper meaning. This detachment has led many professionals to feel an existential void that material wealth and career success cannot fill. By embracing a higher purpose, leaders can achieve personal balance and fulfillment, driving holistic solutions that preserve our habitat, rather than merely ticking boxes. This approach fosters sustainable progress and meaningful impact, but requires a mind shift from what.
Grasping the Paradox of Multipolar Traps
To effectively address the leadership and methodologies required for implementing sustainability goals in a non-linear and impactful manner, it is crucial to comprehend the complexity of the challenge as it is directly related to the leadership of organizations implementing these new solutions. Reversing the global environmental damage caused by our industries and society is not straightforward, as self-serving goals often dominate and hinder progress. Addressing solutions in one area can have adverse effects on others. Our globally interconnected society, with its politics, industries, and rapid technological advancements, exacerbates environmental impacts that threaten our survival. This situation has led to what is known as a multipolar trap, emphasizing the daunting task ahead. Understanding this context is essential to navigating and addressing the challenge effectively.
The term multipolar trap describing a situation in game theory and economics were multiple independent actors, each pursuing their own rational self-interest, lead to a collectively suboptimal or even catastrophic outcome. This pursuit has been active in most organizations as it is a driving factor to stay competitive and leaders often feel compelled to make short-term decisions despite being aware of their potentially severe long-term negative consequences. This phenomenon affects various aspects of our lives, from climate change to economic inequality and geopolitical conflicts. By understanding multipolar traps, their underlying causes, and their impacts, we can explore solutions beyond individual approaches, gain a deeper understanding, and motivate collective action to break free from these limitations, pioneering the way for a more promising future.
Key Characteristics of Multipolar Traps
These scenarios, where individual incentives conflict with collective well-being, create a so-called "trap" that is difficult to escape because no single actor has the power or incentive to change the outcome on their own. This situation is like an ‘arms race’, where actors not participating in this ultimately destructive path are at a disadvantage and struggle to sustain their existence. It is a trap because those competing and succeeding in this race will outperform everyone else. As this trajectory moves towards destruction, it seems impossible to escape unless all actors agree to change their goals to support a well-balanced future that benefits all of society positively and that requires a new level of authentic leadership that is driven by a sustainable purpose as describes by P. Wollmann in: The Three Pillars of Organization and Leadership in Disruptive Times [3].
Multipolar trap scenarios are characterized by several independent actors or decision-makers, each with their individual self-serving interests and goals. According to the individual goals each actor acts rationally but in isolation from the other actors with the aim to maximize their own benefit. When viewed from a collective perspective the result of these individual actions provides a worse outcome than if the actors had cooperated or made decisions based on more inclusive and sustainable values. This often leads to resource depletion, environmental damage, or other adverse effects that are experienced on a collective level, not necessarily by the individual actor themselves.
In this scenario trust is often undermined making it difficult, if not impossible, to achieve cooperation among the actors. Understanding these multipolar traps is essential for tackling some of the biggest challenges our society faces today. It shows us why cooperation is crucial and warns us about the dangers of unchecked selfish behaviour.
Examples of Multipolar Traps
The overuse or depletion of a shared resource such as fishery or minerals for the benefit of personal or organizational gains and maximizing revenue, while the cost of acquiring this resource is distributed among the users.
The impact on climate as countries and corporations may prioritize economic growth over the responsible reduction of carbon emissions, which is leading to environmental degradation globally.
The typical arms race when nations build up military capabilities to ensure their security in a costly and potentially catastrophic destruction race, because the fear is that if an actor is not participating in this race, they will lose out and their security is completely exposed and risking their complete annihilation.
Navigating Multipolar Traps
When dealing with complex problems involving multiple parties with competing interests it is important to find ways to align individual goals with the greater good. This often involves encouraging cooperation, setting up regulations, and creating incentives that make it easier and more suggestable for people to work together rather than pursue only their self-interest.
Building trust, promoting cooperative strategies, and enforcing agreements are key steps in this process. Rather than just blindly adhering to sustainable goals, which have been developed with the best of intentions, it is important for each organization to evaluate how then can best implement these goals and how they may need to re-think current business practices to achieve these goals. And this starts with asking relevant questions to spark the direction.
According to Ashkan Tashvir in his book Metacontent[4] describes his Nested Theory of Sense-making to enhance their strategic planning and problem-solving processes by assessing the impact on different domains in the context of addressing challenging problems from a holistic perspective. In his example about assessing climate change, domains such as science, economy and ethical reasoning will all play a part and need to be considered. He outlines a general framework for sense making that starts with identifying the specific problem as detailed as possible. Gather initial insights and from there map the cognitive landscape.
This means creating an ontological model that describes the key elements and includes current perceptions, opinions and beliefs to identify how these perceptions can influence the content. The process starts with analysing the narrative lens, which relates to the stories of how people experience and interpret the subject matter. This is then followed by formulating a mental model, which involves processes, cause and effect relationships and the functionality of the system. The next step is analysing the multiple perspectives and defining the domain with its unique challenges and opportunities.
And finally understanding existing paradigms of the domain and making account for any contextual variables such as cultural, social, economic, political and environmental. Part of the process is the continuous deconstructing and reconstructing of the ontological model in an iterative approach. This comprehensive sense making process requires leaders and their teams to go beyond the narrowly focused analytical process with the goal to arrive at a solution as fast as possible to minimize investment costs and this is the approach for the leadership frameworks in the context of their behaviour and driving motivations discussed later in this chapter.
Navigating multipolar traps in a sensitive and effective way requires a much more involving and authentic problem-solution approach. It raises questions and challenges as follows:
1. Navigating a Multipolar World: As the world becomes more complex, with nations competing for resources while facing environmental limits, and as powerful technologies like advanced weapons and disinformation tools become more widespread, how can we find ways to collaborate rather than clash?
2. Achieving Global Coordination: What would it take for humanity to work together effectively on a global scale? This would involve both long-term planning and the ability to quickly adapt to new information. How can we create systems that allow for this level of coordination?
3. Ensuring Safe Development of New Technologies: As we develop new and powerful technologies like artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, how can we ensure they are safe? What steps must we take to analyse the risks thoroughly and prevent these technologies from being used as weapons or deployed irresponsibly?
Implementing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) effectively requires authentic and visionary leadership capable of navigating complex challenges and mitigating the adverse effects of narrowly focused solutions. Such leaders must adopt a holistic approach, recognizing the interconnectedness of various goals, the inclusivity of stakeholders with often opposing drivers, and the rapid technological advancements outpacing human adaptability and its impact on the environment overall. How can they lead and contribute to the development of processes that foster collective intelligence based on values serving the greater good for society, rather than focusing on self-serving and short-term gains? lead into the frameworks
[1] Australia Post customer information email from 05 August 2024: End of Carbon Neutral Deliveries program
[2] David Gurteen, 2023, Breaking free from Multipolar Traps, Online Knowledge book, https://conversational-leadership.net/blog/multipolar-trap/
[3] P. Wollmann et al. (eds.). 2020. Three Pillars of Organization and Leadership in Disruptive Times, Future of Business and Finance. Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
[4] Tashvir, A. 2024. Metacontent– The intellectual substrate for sense-making. Engenesis Publications: Sydney
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