“Drilling Up”: A Series of Sustainability Dispatches from Ground Zero

“If you want to work on the big stuff, sweat the small stuff”

“Leading without owning”

“Go slow to go fast”

“Going forward by working backwards’

‘‘If you want to engage differently externally, you have to think and act differently internally”

“Process is product; form is substance”

“A good way to a good place”

“Two ears and one mouth send one message”

“The world is a village; the village is a world”

“Values are the lens through which we see the world, and the world sees us”

“Values are who we are; power is what we can do to each other”

“People act in accordance with how they perceive their interests; changing perceptions is the energy of negotiations”

“Safespace”

“What you see depends on where you stand”

“Think big and small, not big or small”

“Being ‘open’ is the essence of dialogue”

“Dialogue is about discovering and discussing the reasons behind what we do, and won’t do; we all have ‘our reasons’”

“Seeing the road ahead takes both high beams and low beams”

“The river that divides the land gives the land its strength”

“Government – too small a word for too big a thing”

“Governments think slowly, and act clumsily”

“Governments think programmatically, not transactionally”

“Organizations are just a bunch of people; institutions are just old organizations”

“Sustainability is an ‘order of magnitude word’ – like capitalism and socialism, freedom and democracy – that can embrace many things in different ways in different places at different times”

“Being good is good, but not good enough: what creates value is doing and being seen to do good by others who see the world differently than you do”

Is the “ostensible problem” the ” real problem”? Problem solvers know that is the most important problem.

May 27, 2021
Figure 1The Sun Rising Over Pimachiowin Aki ( The Land That Gives Life) a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the East Shore of Lake Winnipeg

Dispatch 1: The Case for ESG+I

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