Memes and Messaging for Economic Transformation

The Covid-19 pandemic of 2020 has brought many systemic issues to light. Not least of these issues are the global connectedness of today’s globalized world, the huge gaps that exist between rich and poor, and disparities in the health care systems of different nations. It has put into stark relief differences in governments’ ability, willingness, and capacity to respond to crisis on behalf of their people. It has also greatly amplified already existing calls for   system transformation —particularly for transformation of businesses and the economic systems that support them to achieve a more flourishing world for all. That, of course, is what Bounce Beyond is attempting to do with emerging next economies at the local level. Ironically, of course, one of the few positive sides of the pandemic’s impact on economic activity is that the accompanying economic shutdown dramatically illustrated that nature relatively quickly can and does begin to recover from human impacts—when they are reduced substantially.  

True transformation, whether of individual businesses or whole business systems, is hard, especially when it needs to upend the economic system that has guided much of the so-called developed world for years. The economic shutdown brings to the fore ideas in a recent paper called ‘ Achieving Sustainability Requires Systemic Business Transformation ,’ published in   Global Sustainability . In that paper I argue that businesses necessarily respond to the dynamics and pressures that in their ecosystems. Those ecosystem dynamics and pressures come from general public, customer, and community expectations, social and political norms, public policy mandates and regulations, social activism, competitive dynamics, the media and social media, among others.  

To paraphrase an old political saw, ‘It’s the system, everyone!’ Although occasionally visionary leaders can work towards transformation of their individual businesses, most businesses rightly respond to the dynamics and pressures of their ecosystems. Businesses are well known for innovation. Businesses as a set of institutions, however, will change and innovate only when their ecosystems change and force new innovations. It is virtually impossible for single businesses, no matter how big or powerful, to bring about system change without ecosystem change because they are operating under a set of pressures that, in a very real way, demands a continuation of business as usual.  

Current demands on businesses emphasize continual growth of profitability, share price, and markets. Those expectations stress ‘efficiency’ at all costs—whether that is the human and social cost of employee layoffs. They include the ecological costs of pollution and practices like clear cutting of forests or blowing the tops of mountains off to get at their resources. They also encompass the inhumanity associated with many industrial agricultural practices, not to mention the diminishment in quality of food produced—or the production of cheap, mass produced processed foods that have little nutritional value. And there are clear pressures to bring the system back to that state—to bounce back to the way things were before the pandemic—despite that it is becoming increasingly more recognized that this very economic ecosystem is driving humanity of a social and ecological cliff.  

Companies can and do innovate. It is what they are known for—and partly why capitalism has been touted for so many years. They will do so, however, only in ways that make sense to them and so that they are not placed at a competitive disadvantage with respect to competitors. They will do so with innovations that are consistent with stakeholder, public, and/or government and policy expectations when those expectations shift. To change the behaviors of most companies, the rules of the game—ecosystems in which businesses operate—need to change. For example, customer expectations, social norms, policy, and other types of pressures, e.g., from competitors, social investors, and activist all can create new sets of demands—and, ultimately, new behaviors and practices.  

Importantly, businesses will transform when other similar businesses also transform in a process that I called   epimimetics . The word epimimetics is modeled on the biological term, epigenetics, or the interwoven combination of both nature and nurture (or environmental influences) on how organisms turn out. It is a combination of the prefix ‘epi’, which means over or upon (that is, the system), and   meme   or the core units of culture that shape ideas, framing, images, and ultimately behaviors and practices. The process of epimimetics means that businesses are similarly influenced by a   combination of internal changes and shifts and as a result of the external dynamics and pressures   posed by their social, political, and ecological ecosystems. [1]   Systemic change alters the contexts in which businesses operate (as well as other institutions. Just think of how the Covid-19 shutdown has changed all kinds of activities, some (for instance, many restaurants) permanently. Consider how businesses have had to adapt to many workers working from home as they began reopening—or continued operations during the crisis.  

The core argument is that unless the business ecosystem changes as a result of pressures from citizens, customers, activists, and policy makers and others, most businesses will, rightly in their view, attempt to continue business as usual to the extent possible. It is simply too difficult, risky, and costly to transform unless others are also changing in similar directions—that is what the mimetic process is all about. The majority of changes that businesses make, which happen constantly, are incremental rather than transformative changes. [2]   That is also why ‘it’s the system’ as the old political saw went—and why transformation needs to work at the system level, not just the individual or organizational level. ‘’

The disruption of businesses during the pandemic provides a unique opportunity for changing the system when that system’s flaws have been so starkly revealed. The time to bounce beyond the current system is now and into the foreseeable future.    

This blog is based on Sandra Waddock, Achieving Sustainability Requires Systemic Business Transformation,   Global Sustainability ,   3, e12, 1–12.   https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2020.9.  

The introduction to the 2020 Future Earth report ,   Our Future on Earth , argues that ‘The future, as always, is uncertain.’ Certainly, there is a lot of evidence that the future for humanity may be risky at best and is deeply uncertain. The combination of uncontrolled climate change, lack of sustainability, inequality, political rhetoric of hatred, racism, and general divisiveness, combined with lack of ‘voice’ or democratic participation for too many people, creates ever more uncertainty and unpredictability.  

It is easy to get discouraged when reviewing the risks facing the planet. For example, a survey undertaken by Future Earth and discussed in the 2020 report highlights five major risks that ‘have the potential to impact and amplify one another.’ These risks include the failure to reduce the trajectory of climate change or sufficiently adapt, extreme weather events, the species extinction resulting from biodiversity loss, and the potential for food and water crises. [1]   And those risks are only part of the depressing set of statistics and trends presented in the full 2020 Future Earth report. Further, despite all the evidence of problems in numerous natural systems ranging from climate to oceans to biodiversity declines and significant problems in human systems of food, transportation, and politics documented in the Future Earth report, the current system seems relatively ‘stuck’ in its patterns of business as usual.  

Councilors and stewards of the   SDG Transformations Forum   (‘How to Spur Radical Change’), which spawned the Bounce Beyond project, argue in   Our Future on Earth   that   purposeful   transformation towards achieving United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and beyond, is needed to change this problematic trajectory. Incrementalism and even reform of current systems will not be sufficient. Transformation, the Forum believes, involves deep, broad, and multi-level change in human systems, including socio-economic and socio-ecological systems. Such transformation needs to be driven by emerging new narratives and generally agreed guiding goals like the SDGs. Broader objectives that emphasize values aligned with wellbeing and dignity for all would be much more helpful in guiding global transformation than today’s much more narrowly driven metrics and narratives, which emphasize only material and financial wealth (typically for the already well off).  

To play its part in emerging understanding about how such positive—purposeful—transformations might come about, both Bounce Beyond and the SDG Transformations Forum (the Forum) emphasize the emergence of transformation or T-systems. T-slyustems are the collection of transformational change agents who are working towards purposeful change and innovation in given regions, systems, or around specific sets of issues. T-systems operate alongside of whatever system is the subject of transformation efforts (for example, an energy system, a sustainable seafood system, the efforts to foster regenerative Costa Rica). T-systems are part of the system needing change and also distinct from it, in that they represent either a coherent or incoherent set of change initiatives aimed at whatever system needs to change.  

The problem now is that T-system change actors are currently operating mostly independently of each other. Like the emerging economies in the Bounce Beyond project, change actors and initiative represent many different efforts, initiatives, and even points of view. They tend not to be connected or even highly fragmented. They and sometimes they can be duplicating or even contradicting transformational efforts. T-systems are currently generally unformed and tend not to recognize themselves as systems that intend to bring about impactful transformation. To be effective, they need to cohere, coordinate, and coalesce their efforts in important new ways. One of the core purposes of Bounce Beyond is to bring such cohesiveness to T-systems, drawing together key actors so that they can work collaboratively and collectively, amplifying their efforts in constructive ways. Then, we believe, transformations in desirable directions can be sped up and constructively enhanced.  

Achieving coherence in T-systems means finding common or shared purposes. Part of the work of Bounce Beyond is providing ways to enable actors within each of the emerging next economies to develop shared aspirations. Actors within next economies, for example, can use one or all of four transformational strategies in shaping the change they seek: they can be ‘warriors’ or activists, ‘lovers’ or collaborators, ‘entrepreneurs’ or innovators(often working from within exiting systems), and/or ‘missionaries’ developing purpose-driven strategies with clear, often sustainability-oriented values.  

T-systems, we argued in our paper in the Future Earth report called ‘Transformation: How to Spur Radical Change’, need to find what change and systems theorist Donella Meadows called leverage points for change [2]   if they are to be effective. Five aspects of different types of systems, the Forum article argues, are important potential such leverage points. One is purpose, or what change agents (and the system) are trying to achieve. A second is perspectives or the mindsets that enable change, which Meadows argued is perhaps the most powerful change lever. A third is performance metrics or what is rewarded and incentivized in the system. The practices, policies, and processes that characterize any system are also important potential leverage points. Finally, and too often overlooked, are power relations that create organizational, policy and institutional structures and relationships, which indicate who has and does not have input into decisions, and who gets or does not get resources, among other factors.  

So, yes, transformational system change is difficult. By creating powerful new T-systems, Bounce Beyond can help emerging next economies find their own paths to achieving the type of transformation that they collectively desire.  

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For a more detailed look at the Forum’s approach to system transformation, see our article in   Our Future on Earth : Transformation: How to Spur Radical Change.  

For the full article, see Sandra Waddock (Boston College USA), Steve Waddell (SDG Transformations Forum), Bruce Goldstein (University of Colorado Boulder, USA), Björn   Ola-Linnér (Linköping University, Sweden), Niko Schäpke (Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden), and Coleen Vogel (Wits University, South Africa). 2020 . Transformation: How to Spur Radical Change . In   Our Future on Earth , Future Earth, 82-89. URL:   https://drive.google.com/file/d/1frtujIePBi5yTP1ccwefk-NxH1tRnpXb/view/.

Somehow, collectively, we need to generate a new narrative to replace today’s dysfunctional dominant economic narrative—neoliberalism. Such narratives provide a basis for allowing new or next economies to flourish in in what is likely to be an endless variety of locally appropriate forms. Accomplishing that likely means that we need to generate resonant and widely shared core ideas ( memes ) that people in different contexts can use as they see fit to shape local narratives. That said, these memes need to be consistent enough to spread a new message about wellbeing, dignity, and flourishing for all.  

Chances are there will be many such new/next economies narratives. Bounce Beyond recognizes that next economies in India or Africa are, for example, quite different from what they look like in Costa Rica (where, for example, an orientation towards regenerative agriculture is shaping thinking). What such efforts might share, though, are shared core principles, tenets, values or what I like to call “memes”. Memes are core units of culture like ideas, words and phrases, images, and symbols that readily convey their meaning from person to person (or mind to mind) (as Susan Blackmore has discussed in depth). In many respects, it is on the basis of widely shared memes around liberty, free markets, free trade, globalism, and laissez-faire government that today’s dominant narrative of neoliberalism has been propagated over the years.  

The task that Bounce Beyond and its collaborators face is to find an equally resonant memes that powerfully frame new understandings the purpose of economies is in today’s context. Ideas that comprise Neoliberalism are distinctly economic. Because they are narrowly focused on economies, they overlook essential aspects what it means to be human in a natural environment. Any viable new narrative arguably needs to encompass and go beyond pure economic thinking to encompass social and ecological considerations, too. It could, for example, include our relationships with each other and with Nature, our creative, artistic, and spiritual tendencies, and new and emerging understandings of sciences, history, and politics, to name only a few important domains of thought and action. The idea of wellbeing economy underpins much of the thinking in Bounce Beyond. That means, simply, bringing about wellbeing—flourishing even—for all in an inclusive way that allows everyone, everywhere to experience dignity and worth.  

In my view, a new narrative needs to reframe our human relationships in important ways, recognizing the importance of self-understanding and reflective practices. It needs to reflect the importance of relationships with people we care about—and people well beyond the ones we already know. Importantly, it needs to reflect a new understanding of our relationship to Nature. In short we need to move from thinking we are “in dominion” over and okay with exploiting Nature and her resources towards, as author and opinion leader   David Korten   says, recognizing that we are   living beings born of a living planet.  

Here are some ideas that can potentially help shape an emerging new wellbeing economy narrative to support Bounce Beyond’s emerging next economies. One is that “ we all ” having   agency   to bring about new stories, ideas, and changes wherever we are. Here “we all” includes all people, no matter their station in life, and also other living beings as well. Agency means that we can each take our own set of actions towards building a better world, an understanding that draws from complexity science, which suggests that in the types of complex systems represented by human communities at all levels, change can begin wherever you are. Change, from this perspective happens in giving   voice   to new ways of thinking and being together, in creating shared experiences that generate   belonging   and a safe sense of “ home ,” where home is where you feel you belong. In belonging, we can experience   connectedness   with others of all stripes and our own worth—or   dignity   and   freedom , things that the current system does not always provide.  

How to accomplish this shift in narrative is still a work in progress, as is what the actual narrative, or even its core memes, will look like. Yet one thing that is clear is the need for more and better   conversations , conversations at the table, in the pub, and in the taxi. Such conversations can raise up questions about what wellbeing, what dignity, and voice, what “ enough ” means today. Maybe that’s one key to collectively shaping a new narrative.  

Sandra Waddock   is the Galligan Chair of Strategy, Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, and Professor of Management at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, Chestnut Hill, MA USA. ( waddock@bc.edu )

Further Reading

Blackmore, Susan. (2000). The power of memes.   Scientific American , 383(4): 64-73.  

Listen to the news. Every day broadcasters tell us how much the economy grew or shrank, usually in stock market terms, that day. The story they are telling is one of constant economic growth—growth based on a set of ideas or   memes   that underpin much economic thinking. Memes, the fundamental units of culture, are ideas, phrases, words, symbols, and images, construct a story or narrative. Today’s dominant story or narrative revolves around an idea that endless economic growth is necessary to bring about successful economies. Bounce Beyond, in its emphasis on localized next/new economies, is attempting to find its way to new economics that do not rely on endless growth.  

But the idea—the story and its related memes—that constant growth is not only possible but always desirable is just that, a story. And it is just plain wrong. Not, however, for the implausibility, inequality, or debt-related reasons that you might imagine (although those issues, too, are hugely problematic). This particular story is wrong because we now live in the era of what is now being called the   Anthropocene. It is an era in which human-induced climate change threatens the very foundations of civilization as we know it. In that context to believe the meme that economic growth can continue on our decidedly finite planet is simply wrong. The fundamental assumption of continual economic and material growth is flawed, perhaps fatally so, if we take a   long-term perspective   on the future. We need a new story, a new narrative and new resonant supporting memes that understand these social and economic realities. Collectively, we need to figure out ways to bring humanity back into a deeper connection with nature that recognizes our inherent interdependencies—and limits.

We live on a finite planet. All of us need to recognize that endless (and reckless) economic—or any other material—growth is simply not feasible over the long term. Ecologists like   Tim Jackson   and   John Ehrenfeld   have demonstrated the logical fallacy beyond question. We live in a world where   human population   quadrupled between 1900 and 2000 , where   ecological footprint analysis   suggests that humanity is in ‘ overshoot ,’ that is, humanity already using even renewable resources at non-renewable rates.  

It is a world where if everyone were to live as people in the developed world do, we would need somewhere between   three and five planets   to support today’s human population. That population is even now pushing 7.5 billion, never mind the projected 8.3 to 10.9 billion by 2050. Too many   ecosystems are already at risk , and   planetary boundaries   are being crossed. Too much   carbon dioxide is still being spewed into the natural environment , despite the slowdown that occurred because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Too many people now want rich meat-based diets like the ones in industrialized nations, where the ecological and methane costs of producing meat too often go uncounted.  

In such a world—the one we really live in—continued and endless economic growth is not just unfeasible, it is morally unacceptable. Yet the dominant story is that such growth is needed. As difficult as it might be to accept, however, more consumption, more materialism, more economic ‘growth,’ where   growth in GDP, a flawed metric, includes negative as well as positive factors , is simply not the best way forward for the world, or even for individual countries. Bounce Beyond is working with local next or new economies as they—and we—together figure out how people can flourish in harmony with nature’s resources. These next economies can be places like Costa Rica or sectors like sustainable seafood or bioregions, or they could be around issues like the ones embedded in the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.  

The story of continual material growth and production throughput itself is a huge problem. The popular narrative of   endless consumption and production growth   is itself the problem. It is the fundamental flaw at the heart of today’s economic system. Today’s economic and business systems are based on a story of growth. It is a reckless growth. It is growth that overlooks human, social, and ecological costs. It overlooks inequality. It does not recognize Nature’s limits or human impacts on other living beings and ecosystems. It does not take into account the availability of necessary resources for future generations. Interestingly, it is a story of growth that assumes, erroneously, that more stuff and more money will make us   happier. Bounce Beyond communities are working collaboratively from the ground up in their particular contexts to provide demonstrations of different pathways to a flourishing future.  

We can tell a different story with different memes, about fair markets, good government, localized decision making,   collective value , interdependent connections to nature and others, and shared responsibilities. We humans, part of Nature as we are, need to learn from her.  

Indeed, we can learn a great deal from nature. Natural systems do not grow endlessly. Healthy ecologies   do   develop over time into more complexity. Healthy systems   do   increase in abundance and diversity. Yet healthy ecosystems create a balance among species that prevent one species from taking over and collapsing the whole system. Thus, there is a cycle of life   and   death, balance and harmony, along with necessary conflict in healthy natural systems—and by extension in healthy human systems. ‘Growth’ in healthy natural systems is more what we might call development than linear growth (who, after all, wants to keep ‘growing’ physically in an endless way. Even if someone does, that is certainly not healthy growth).  

So when we listen to the nightly news about economic growth, we need to ask what they are really fostering. Is it endless economic—i.e., production and consumption—growth? Or is something more   healthful, and more compatible with long-term human   (and other creatures) flourishing, something more like development? Something more like growing by continuing to learn, maybe, or expanding our network of relationships maybe, or doing work that matters. It could be development that means creating communities that are self-sufficient and stable, with good work for anyone able and willing to work at reasonable (but not excessive) pay that enables people to support themselves and their families. It could be building infrastructure so that it is safe and durable, maybe. Or creating products of high quality that last and can be reused over and over again, not simply used once and thrown away.  

Sandra Waddock   is the Galligan Chair of Strategy, Carroll School Scholar of Corporate Responsibility, and Professor of Management at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. Among her latest books are   Transforming towards Life-Centered Economics   (2020, Business Expert Press),   Management and the Sustainability Paradox   (David Wasieleski, Sandra Waddock, and Paul Shrivastava, 2020, Routledge),   Healing the World   (2017, Greenleaf) and   Intellectual Shamans   (Cambridge, 2014).  

Can system transformation be purposeful instead of random? The   SDG Transformations Forum   and the Bounce Beyond initiative believe that the answer is—and needs to be—yes. Systems can be transformed so that they achieve global goals like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or begin to emerge what we are calling ‘next economies’ more effectively. To do so requires new guiding narratives that clearly articulate an inspirational vision and are supported by core ideas—memes—that can be widely repeated and reproduced. It also demands a willingness/capacity to ‘let go’ and let the system evolve and emerge new operating practices, metrics, and purposes guided by the core vision and its associated values. In a paper called ‘ Thinking Transformational System Change ’ recently published online first in the   Journal of Change Management , I argued that humanity needs such constructive, forward-looking, and purposeful system change to contend with the manifold problems current economic and societal approaches have created.  

Instead of an orientation toward financial or material wealth, the paper argues, as does the   Club of Rome , for a life-affirming orientation towards societies and the economies are embedded within them, all of which are embedded in and dependent on the natural environment. In a context in which the Coronavirus is ravaging the world’s social and economic systems, the evidence of a need for purposeful transformation towards something quite different from today’s largely economic, constant growth-oriented economic model could not be stronger. As Bounce Beyond’s founding visionary   Steve Waddell pointed out : this crisis is an opportunity too good to waste.  

Several years ago in a book called   Intellectual Shamans , building on work by   Peter Frost and Carolyn Egri , I argued that intellectual shamans, i.e., academics can be like shamans, and serve the world through three capacities: healing, connecting, and sensemaking. Transformation agents oriented towards bouncing towards economies that serve all of life similarly act as shamans—like the healers in traditional societies. [1]   The functions of transformation agents, following work by the SDG Transformations Forum, are quiet similar to the shamans’ work. Transformations use seeing or understanding the system, sensemaking, and connecting as core aspects of their work. Just as Frost and Egri argued that organizational development experts—change agents in organizations—were healers, connectors (which they called boundary-spanners), and sensemakers, so too are today’s transformation makers fulfilling these same roles.    

‘Seeing’ is part of what all shamans do—it is core to the healing function. To be able to heal the patient in the case of shamans or the system in the case of transformation makers, the healer must first understand—see—what is going on and where things are not working. The physicist Fritjof Capra defined three core elements of this type of seeing: gaining perspective on the current system, recognizing patterns of interaction, and determining the processes important to the system.  

Sensemaking is a term coined by management scholar Karl Weick to indicate the process by which we make meaning out of situations. For shamans, meaning making often has to do with shifting core cultural mythologies. As anthropologists point out, shamans believe that when patients get ill, it is because something is wrong with the cultural mythology that helps frame their understanding of their community and the world about them. With respect to system transformation, cultural mythologies are the core ideas that we all share about the world or our societies work. Today’s mythology, at least in the developed world, tends to be dominated by economic thinking of the sort that is embedded in ideology known as neoliberalism. Part of the work of the transformation maker as healer is to ‘sensemake’ a different worldview, a different ‘story’ or narrative that can begin to shape thinking more broadly than purely economics-based thinking does. Thinkers like David Korten and ecologist L. Hunter Lovins argue for a more life-affirming approach to both societies and their embedded economies as part of the shift in narrative that is needed in transformation. That same shift is the one that Bounce Beyond is fostering in its work with emerging next economies. The core ideas—memes—that support such stories, when resonant, inspirational, and powerful, have the ability to replicate in many minds—thereby changing attitudes, beliefs, and ideas—and, ultimately, behaviors and practices.  

The third function of the shaman is what I call connecting, and it is also what many transformation makers attempt to do. Connecting means purposeful bringing together of actions, initiatives, ways of thinking that cross numerous boundaries—either organizational or institutional, disciplinary, sector, or others—so that more coherent and holistic understandings and actions can be generated. It can also mean connecting a variety of initiatives with similar agendas to aggregate and amplify their efforts, and avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts.  

Most transformation agents today do not tend to think of themselves as shamans. But if they are in fact performing the three functions of the shaman—healing, sensemaking, and connecting in the service of a better world—then that, it seems to me, is what they are. And, given the crisis as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the world, many more of us need to tap into that same healing function in whatever line of work we are in.  

Here is a link to the article on which this blog is based:

Sandra Waddock. Thinking Transformational Change.   Journal of Change Management , online first, 2020. DOI:   http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14697017.2020.1737179.

Further Reading :

Capra, Fritjof (1995).   The Web of Life . New York: Anchor Doubleday.

Dow, J. (1986). Universal aspects of symbolic healing: A theoretical synthesis.   American Anthropologist ,   88 (1), 56-69.

Egri, C. P., & Frost, P. J. (1991). Shamanism and change: Bringing back the magic in organizational transformation.   Research in Organizational Change and Development ,   5 , 175-221.

Frost, P. J., & Egri, C. P. (1994). The shamanic perspective on organizational change and development.   Journal of Organizational Change Management ,   7 (1), 7-23.

Korten, David C. (2015).   Change the story, change the future: A living economy for a living Earth . San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Lovins, L. H. (2016). Needed: A better story.   Humanistic Management Journal ,   1 (1), 75-90.

Waddock, S. (2014).   Intellectual Shamans: Management Academics Making a Difference . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.  

Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems.   Administrative Science Quarterly ,   21 (1), 1-19.