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20 Citizen Hacks - in the order of writing... :-)

What are your core beliefs? Where do you (unconsciously) follow social norms you would actually like to overcome? Which of your behavioural patterns have helped you in life, which have not? Etc.

Sounds like bullshit bingo, but is nonetheless crucially important!!!

So, what to do to make things happen in society? Well, it's like in your job: Start with increasing your self-efficacy - only this time in your role as a citizen:

• Take more time to strengthen your self-awareness and practice regular self-reflection.
  
  
• Be a sparring partner for friends and colleagues who ask for your reflection support.
  
  
• Create self-reflection spaces for others within your circle of influence.

Just to illustrate the latter, two concrete cases which I am currently co-creating with others:

• University MBA programme:
  Offering a reflection circle around “Basics in Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology” instead of introducing the 7th compulsory marketing or finance course. Why? The marginal utility of time spent seems to be much higher – both for society AND for the graduates’ future careers.
  
  
• Private equity and consulting firm:
  Investing in the self-reflection skills of all professionals in order to challenge the mindset and behavioural patterns deeply embedded in their industry. Why? Those pioneers are convinced that with the increasing VUCA challenges threatening their own business models, being a subject matter expert and a “confident idiot” (David Dunning) won’t be sufficient any longer.

(29 October 2020)

Just a couple of additional thoughts:

• Let’s be aware that the multiple roles residing in us may be conflicting and may lead to cognitive dissonances.
  
  

• Let’s spend more time co-creating a society which is more than a mirror of our financial interests. It's 2020, after all!
  
  
• Let’s try to overcome our “post-competitive embitterment disorder” (Heinz Bude, German sociologist) that helps us to justify our “Me and my family first” attitude. Albeit understandable, it may ultimately lead to a societal “prisoner’s dilemma” which doesn’t really help anyone of us. With a strong multi-partial citizen perspective, we would also act as role models for “multilateralism” within our circle of influence. Or to put it differently: How can we expect from heads of state to invest in cooperation if we don’t do it in our own lives?!

• As parents, we want the best for our children of course: But if we want our children to live in a pluralistic democracy tomorrow, we should at least try to live by example and make deliberate choices for socially diverse schools (or at least sports clubs). And if we ended up choosing socially homogenous schools, we should better stop complaining about the lack of integration of others in society. We would be part of these “others”!
  
  
• Finally, I want to share with you a short exercise I practice regularly as part of my morning routine: I pick one of the top news of the day, mentally rotate through the various roles I play in society and simply notice how different my sensing, feeling and thinking is when these different parts of myself react to these news. I would say it helps me to remain a bit more fluid and versatile as a citizen... Try it out! :-)

(1 November 2020)

Some more thoughts:

• It surprises me how many people believe that the friends, family & job circle around them would be “highly diverse”. Naturally, our individual perception of diversity is a function of our biographies. And since most of us have a built-in preference for similarity anyway, the path dependency of choices in life ultimately leads to filter bubbles and blind spots which may be conflicting with our cherished self-image. It probably needs more than the usual effort to create or preserve true diversity in our daily lives.

• In my "Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter", I quoted Friedrich Nietzsche with “the best way to corrupt young people is make them respect those who think alike more than those who think differently”. Let me add a second Nietzsche quote: “Convictions are prisons.”
  
  
• Honestly, I worry therefore that one of the underestimated, negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could be the “Cocooning Danger” of a “Home Office Elite”: Easier excuses now for hiding at home or in exclusive private spaces and for avoiding public space in general.

• Unfortunately however, pluralistic and open societies require some form of “experiencing the other” if there shall be a minimum chance for creating compromises across political interests (I always liked “Don Camillo and Peppone” for that skill :-)).
  
  
• Therefore, try to stretch your comfort zone occasionally, disrupt your selection patterns and engage in meaningful conversations with strangers who you perceive as weird or unattractive for you at first glance. And don’t run away after two minutes!

(3 November 2020)

Here are three suggestions – with two of them easier to implement than the third:

• Go to a football pub (when the state of COVID-19 allows) and openly defend the ref’s decision against “your own” team. To me, this is really one of the best citizen exercises for changing perspectives out there! ;-)

• Hop on a bus or a tramway and simply spend a few hours in a neighbourhood where you would never buy a property!

• The most important reason why exchange programmes abroad are a good thing is to experience yourself in another social setting and to question (and then maybe appreciate more) the social norms of your youth. How about a voluntary (or even compulsory) “citizen service” three times in life (be it for 12, for 6, or just for 3 months each)? For the age around 18, there have been political considerations for decades already. For around age 65, the discussion has recently started. Additionally, I would recommend a third “citizen service” around age 50. For many reasons, such kind of community service could be physically close to where one lives, but should naturally be in a very different social environment. This would not only strengthen citizen skills, but would certainly foster life-long learning to all intents and purposes.

And when you are nevertheless convinced that all others are idiots, remember the old “Judgment Detox” rule at least: Notice more, judge less!

(8 November 2020)

Let me start with reminding us of the „confirmation bias“ which we all know intellectually, but tend to overlook in daily life. Even more dangerous (and often underestimated) is “groupthink”. Both as member and facilitator of top teams, I have so often seen the well-researched symptoms of groupthink unfold: Self-censorship, illusion of invulnerability or unanimity, rationalising and stereotyping, etc. Even the best and most intelligent groups of experts are prone to “expert think” as it is called in this case! 

Pro-actively managing groupthink therefore remains a huge and untapped performance potential in many company boards and government cabinets. Anyway, which routines should we at least (in our role as citizens) establish when being members of groups? Here are just a few advice:

• When in a short span of time, 5 people tell you the very same interpretation of a complex matter, be suspicious! And even more so when it comes to pejorative narratives about scapegoats. This is where shitstorms often start – with us being unintentionally part of it. Some may ultimately lead to terrorism (Samuel Paty or Walter Lübcke), some have only become accepted cultural practices (e.g. football fan culture tolerating the insults to other clubs and their players).

• On (social) media competence: Always think before you click! The choice is in your fingers! Don’t just be a naïve victim of clickbaiting!

• Read news and expose yourself to opinions from very different sources. Especially other countries and other languages allow us to check national or cultural filters of perception and interpretation! I vividly remember a research paper I wrote in the early 1990s on the perception of Mikhail Gorbachev in the national media in Western European countries: Were they really talking about the very same person? Clearly, there were no fake news around and no masterminds pushing conspiracy theories. There were just (very different) popular narratives which seemed to work nicely in a certain environment.

• Dare being a court jester sometimes (which is more than just being a devil’s advocate) and challenge mainstream thinking even if the others around you adore the “emperor’s new clothes”. It’s a fine line to seeming stubborn, but take the risk whenever necessary!

• And there is an opportunity in these days: Talking to both camps on the extreme poles of the Covid-19 discussions is a perfect training ground. Go out and practice questioning your own certainties and narratives!

(14 November 2020)

When I was a young man, one of my life teachers left a piece of advice with me I only started to fully understand later in life: “Not-knowing, confusion, and helplessness are our best mentors!” Today, I am convinced that I could have never lived my purpose as a bridge and a facilitator without those dear mentors.

In his latest book „This Too a History of Philosophy“, the “Frankfurt School” philosopher Jürgen Habermas shares the interesting observation that never in the history there has been so much knowledge about our not-knowing and that this would create “existential uncertainty”. 

I am wondering if existentially uncertain citizens compensate for that by being attracted to leaders displaying lots of over-decidedness and illusion of control. And by charging themselves with moral self-authorisation in order to be able to denounce others who deal with uncertainty differently. Let me throw at you a couple of more background thoughts:



• Modern open societies cannot function with categorical imperatives only. With a Kantian absoluteness having returned (not only) to declared company values in the 21st century, I indeed want to campaign for strengthening the skill of making trade-offs. When some say in COVID times “opening schools is life-threatening” and others “not-opening schools is life-threatening”, insisting on moral superiority is obviously NOT a citizen skill.

• Undecidable decisions are at the core of ethics. No natural science (and not even artificial intelligence) can release us from taking conscious decisions in dilemma situations in adult life ourselves. Read more philosophy!



• Have the courage to actively manage risk! And this goes far beyond the narrow rationality concept with mathematical probabilities which has been the underlying assumption of the mainstream financial models in the last decades. One of the inter-disciplinary experts on “risk literacy”, Gerd Gigerenzer, even relates it back to the mid-17th century "probabilistic revolution" with "the demise of the dream of certainty and the rise of a calculus of uncertainty” leading to probability theory. It sounds trivial but in order to feel psychologically safe we have to re-learn accepting not-knowing and uncertainty as such in the first place. Only then, we are ready to estimate risks!

• When it comes to ambiguity, it is worthwhile using the Tetralemma model which I briefly explained in part III of the "Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter". Train yourself to stand two opposing truths at the same time

• Take a break and notice what you have got! Be grateful to life!

• Be serene!

(16 November 2020)

In August 2020, when I had to choose an especially important “Citizen Hack” as a teaser in part IV of my "Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter", I picked this one because “blaming others in order not to feel the pain” seemed to me particularly relevant for a world society in pandemic stress (also find the old text below again). Since then, mutual blaming has become even worse. I have therefore collected a couple of learnings we have had around fear and anxiety lately:

• Building on the „fight or flight“ terminology coined already in 1915 by the American physiologist, Walter Cannon, "feigning death" as a third typical response mechanism when facing a threat has been added and explained by different scientific disciplines. Looking at Western societies in the last 10 years, feigning death has often taken the form of apathy, endless irony, cynicism, and “cocooning” lately.

• “Fear eats brain and then soul”: We probably need to be able to differentiate better between productive fear (commensurate to preventing us from taking unnecessary risk) und unhealthy, dysfunctional fear.

• “Stress is contagious!”: The wider public didn’t take notice when a Max Planck study in 2014 showed that empathetic stress increased as a result of witnessing someone else in distress, whether they were a loved one or a total stranger.

• Since the COVID pandemic hit our reality in March 2020, I often think of Kurt von Hammerstein, the commander-in-chief of the Reichswehr when the Nazis seized power. In an unorthodox biography, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, paraphrased Hammerstein’s unusual mix of personality traits with “Angst is not a Weltanschauung”. As a German myself, I certainly feel a responsibility to at least make head against German (and other) angst.

So, what can we do as citizens? Three little advice:

• “News hygiene for readers/viewers of news”: Simply check news less often and be open then to notice some of the glasses half-full!

• “News hygiene for producers and multipliers of news”: Develop new techniques how you can transparently inform WITHOUT creating fear at the same time!

• Being able to deal with your own fear and anxiety is an important citizen skill in an open society! History teaches us that whenever individual anxiety leads to societal anxiety, human and citizen rights are ultimately in danger. So, as much as you wear masks to protect others from getting your (physical) virus, show solidarity and responsibility by not infecting others with your anxiety!

Re-published from “Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter” (August 2020)

"Blaming others in order not to feel your pain"

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I have tried to ignore the COVID-19 situation in my manifesto. The risk of unknowingly using trigger words in an overly emotional public discourse is simply too high. Nevertheless, dealing with uncertainty and fear in the face of a pandemic currently teaches us a great lesson about life in general: When we all struggle, we strive to find a culprit for our misery and happily identify other human beings to take the blame. Let’s pause for a minute and work on our resilience: Who of us doesn’t make mistakes? Is the mistake really that bad? And is it really true that there was a mistake in the first place?

Let’s just imagine for a moment what would happen if more skilful citizens could unmask such unworthy behaviour and turn the tables: In such circumstances, what would prompt national politicians to act would not be opinion polls or clickbaiting of national tabloids, but skilled and well-informed citizens. The latter would have more realistic expectations towards democratic institutions which would then allow those institutions to transparently engineer better compromises (and decisions).

(20 November 2020)



Compromises are a core feature of democracy! Or more clearly: A democracy without compromises is unimaginable if we assume that human beings are not identical clones. And if there is diversity in personalities, preferences, interests, etc., bringing all of them in balance is time-consuming, often emotional and always full of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity (VUCA). This is why training our VUCA skills also makes us better citizens!

I have been raised with valuing compromises as something positive (“it is better than going to war or in an escalation spiral”) and to esteem those who make them possible. 

• Media stakeholders may just have a preference for bad news which sell. And in a social media world with “shitstorm spirals”, their dysfunctional impact on running negotiations is obvious.



• So what the heck do people expect!!! EU summits and the likes are most difficult undertakings!!

• To me, compromises can be pieces of (social) art interwoven with the grace of ambiguity. I do understand the attractiveness of “either or clarity”, but such thing just doesn’t exist. So, stop expecting it! Of course, I am biased with me being a facilitator in international politics and business myself… and yeah, maybe this is why I am writing all this.
  

(22 November 202)

This hack is actually quite self-explanatory. When you discuss it over a dinner table, nobody would seriously question that continuous negativity makes us sick. On the other hand, happiness, satisfaction and true positivity seem to make suspicious. Both in many organisations and in society, they are often interpreted as a lack of willingness to perform and “go the extra mile”. How often have I heard variations of “you look unstressed and seem to be happy… don’t you have anything to do?” Although there have been regularly recurring waves of discussions around “Salutogenesis” and a more holistic perspective on health and wellbeing since the 1980s, they have been largely hidden behind the dominant narrative that life is ultimately about (superficial) success, status climbing and an “always-on functionality with a false smile”.

In 1993, when I was a public policy making student in Washington, D.C., “pessimism is no policy” was still an iconic slogan after the dull Reagan/Bush years. It must have been soon later that some kind of negativity virus has started to gradually infect society with – what I would call - a “spot the mistake“ attitude.

Remember: This is not about politics and not about sports, it is just a piece of advice grandmothers would have given in earlier times. “Now, THEY already want to dictate us what we shall do on a sunny day” is a typical comment. Plus those many other comments reacting to all possible trigger words that could accidentally or willingly be misunderstood. Obviously, we are pretty good in spotting mistakes.

So, what can we do:

• Make it a habit (just for yourself) to immediately see the positive when something seemingly negative happens to you (and what you cannot change anymore). It was a tough test for myself when recently my beloved coat was stolen during a train ride. I was about to fume at my misfortune, when I quickly forced myself to see it as a helpful way to get rid of property even more than already before. Believe me, it worked. I have never again spent any energy on that loss.
  

(25 November 2020)

Building on the last citizen hack on positive thinking, let me share with you a recent observation:

• As part of the German „November Lockdown Lite“ measures, outdoor team sports were generally prohibited. A few days later, one state allowed (among other things) outdoor tennis with 2 players again. The headline in the evening news was “Chaotic measures confuse people!”. The following report included 3 soundbites from tennis club officials and players which conveyed happiness and satisfaction with the rapid and agile fine-tuning by the authorities. Unlike what the headline implied, for them and also for me as an observer, this was a success story of learning and agility. 

Of course, we intellectually understand that bad news are good news, but we also sense deep inside that we are part of that “clickbaiting mechanism” ourselves. So, what can we do to disrupt our own patterns:



• Discipline yourself to actively share also good news and success stories – online and when talking to others (rule of thumb: at least one “good” for one “bad” story)! 

• Pay for good journalism! If selling doesn’t need to happen through sensationalist headlines, editors do not have to appeal to primitive instincts. Maybe they would separate factual report and opinion more clearly again, show more courage to give more room to minority perspectives beyond zeitgeist, experiment with more “solution-centred” talk show formats, and much more.



• Support those who spread the “positive” word! And if you want to immunise yourself against the negativity mainstream narratives and equip yourself with helpful data (and charismatic motivation), check out (again) the abundant work of Hans and Ola Rosling which has already become a classic.

(29 November 2020)

The COVID pandemic hit Europe exactly 23 years after I became a change manager at Lufthansa. It’s time for a learning loop! No, not about the state of the airline industry today or how I would analyse Lufthansa’s evolution since 1997 with an outside view. This would be another story… ;-)

As one of those early change pioneers who were experimenting with non-linear transformation models, agile facilitation, holacracy and all that stuff back then, I am wondering whether we as citizens have gained a “meta change competence” as well in all those years or if we have rather lost it. In the beginning of the "Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter", I claimed that (new) consumerism and (old) nepotism have kept us busy with ourselves (“My car and my family first!”) leaving no room for taking social responsibility beyond our own obvious interests. However, democracies need citizens who are capable and willing to put themselves into the shoes of dissimilar groups in a pluralistic and interdependent society, to think a few steps ahead, and to act within this society with a holistic attitude and literacy in systemic thinking.

So this time, rather than giving concrete advice, I would like to share with you only a few reminders how to possibly look at our society as a change manager:

• Don’t forget the old change curve: Even in my engineering-driven home country, societal change does NOT follow linear functions! Change needs time. Nobody likes change. Change makes things often worse before they might become better. Etc. Etc. Very basic knowledge, but nonetheless helpful when we want to manage our (mutual) expectations (not only) in a crisis.

(9 December 2020)

When I mention this classic advice in groups, I often hear that this would be naïve: How can one be sure that the other is not a bad person with sinister intentions? Well, one can’t, but when assuming the worst, one can be as much wrong. And pro-actively sending signals of trust can not only be more satisfying, it simply results in higher “expectation values” as well when it initiates a spiral of trust. Yet, I admit that I have to work hard to follow this advice myself. What helps me is to always remember the basics of every communications training:



• There may be intentions of a sender of a message which are hidden to me. Moreover, there are my own perception filters (e.g. blind spots, stereotypes, trigger words) when I am the receiver of a message. Hence, so many mine fields for (unnecessary) misunderstandings which the influential Paul Watzlawick (“One cannot not communicate!”) has beautifully condensed into his famous “Hammer Story” (in his 1983 book with the telling title “Die Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein” or “The Situation is Hopeless, But Not Serious: The Pursuit of Unhappiness”).
  

• First of all: No, he or she has not done that to purposefully harm exactly me!

• Maybe, he or she has simply not seen me. So what! A mistake could happen to me anytime as well. It’s human!

• Maybe he or she just has had a bad day or has just had a fight with his or her partner. The anger in the face I see has nothing to do with me!



• Or maybe, it was even me who came in his or her way in the first place. And he or she only reacted to me.

And after so many wise calendar mottos in the boxes, I have to close with another one from Goethe for the German speakers (a Goethe quote is always good in this country ;-)):

“Wenn wir Menschen behandeln, wie sie (scheinbar)sind, so machen wir sie schlechter; wenn wir sie behandeln, als wären sie, was sie sein sollten (wenn wir das Gute in ihnen bejahen), so bringen wir sie dahin, wohin sie zu bringen sind (machen wir sie zu dem, was sie werden können)."

(from „Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre“ with own additions)

(14 December 2020)

I am a big fan of radical diversity. It’s actually the underlying assumption of my identity as a bridge: Bringing people, filter bubbles and ideas together that would not meet otherwise. But more and more I realise that there is a new problem: Diversity is largely understood as a feel-good concept and as an empowerment programme solely. As much as the ubiquitous diversity narrative reflects the great progress of the last decades, it shields us from the bitter insight that true diversity sometimes hurts.

After I had proposed the first sentence of this current Hack #13 many years ago, we had a good conversation among a circle of friends: Some were so honest to admit that they would only advocate for others with dissenting views to be heard IF these others somewhat shared the same values. “Sorry to be blunt”, I replied then: “This is simply not enough for citizens in a pluralistic democracy! If all of us draw such narrow circles around us, productive dialogue in a democracy will be made impossible.” Democracy requires the intellectual and moral strength to respectfully live with antagonism. Or, how the popular communication theorist, Friedemann Schulz von Thun, phrased it in his recent book: “In a harmony of first order, differences are suppressed, dissenting views marginalised. Superficially, there is the illusion of uniformity. In a harmony of second order, diverging views are no longer ignored, but integrated – to allow for the development of a truly diverse and holistic society.” So, what can we do:

• In daily life: When hearing views dissimilar to your own, stretch your comfort zone until it hurts, and then stretch a bit more! Experiencing radical diversity is like a vaccine that will help you to build antibodies to survive in an uncomfortable VUCA world. Therefore, it is showing a lack of solidarity towards society when you continuously hide in homogenous cocooning bubbles.

• With your friends: Re-discover the classic assessment centre exercise around “pros and cons” and choose a controversial topic. Ideally, you are five participants. The first starts with a passionate plea for “pro” using (exactly) one supporting argument and then picks another participant who lobbies for “con” with one argument. Then he/she picks another participant as partisan for “pro” again and so on… There are only two rules: Don’t repeat an argument already used and be convincing and passionate for both “pro” and “con”. It’s great fun AND it trains your ambiguity tolerance and your mental flexibility. :-)

• In teams and organisations: Create safe spaces for disagreement and (productive) “hard talk” and against groupthink!

• Support free press and publicly funded journalism! Yes, the latter also has its weaknesses and drives me crazy sometimes, but the unrestricted market logic in the private media sector spurs even more irrational and populist (clickbaiting) spirals around fear. The likes of Murdoch, Berlusconi and Trump have already suffocated the free press in some countries. Let’s rally behind the free press where we still can! Also, try out new writer-reader platforms like publikum.net!

• Or you go even further and promote open debate platforms like persuasion.community who want to give room again for really free speech and help to revitalise a productive public discourse between the extreme poles which often dominate public opinion today.

• More than 10 years ago, I still promoted the idea of showing outrage as a counterbalance to a complacent bourgeoisie who were/are indifferent to the negative side effects of a world they had co-created. In the last years, most of the outrage from all over society has been wasted on trivia of every kind. I have therefore changed my mind: Please, let us all immediately stop this permanent outrage! It has often become a merely childish ritual, but – much more importantly – superficial outrage is like a drug: It briefly makes us feel good, but it deflects our attention away from the huge injustices below the surface. Let’s be more prudent and select our battles when we really want to make the world a better place!

(16 December 2020)

The progressive differentiation and specialisation has overall been a great success story in the last centuries. Knowledge has been produced inside an increasing number of ever smaller research disciplines. This has clearly added value to humanity and still does. But there is a challenge as well which worries me for a long time (and also led to the creation of my social innovation business as a “bridge”): Today, the prototypical figure of a polymath is unimaginable. 

Who still understands the big picture of the interdependencies in a complex world? Who translates and facilitates between the hundreds of experts who only understand small perspective clippings of reality each? Which are the citizen skills needed to utilise science for the benefit of our societie(s)? It’s time for a collection of thoughts on science theory and science reality:

• Karl Popper’s critical rationalism (with empirical falsification, etc.) lifted science to higher levels, but already in 1962 American science theorist Thomas Kuhn coined the term “paradigm shift” to state that science does not continuously pile finding on finding, but that in any research area at any time there are a couple of core beliefs around which scientists do their research because they accept them as unquestionable, until there is a tipping point and zeitgeist changes. If we want to defend the potential of science against conspiracy theories, we are not successful if we deny that the science system has weaknesses like any other social system with human beings.

(18 December 2020)

If the COVID pandemic has reminded us that our actions often have effects on others, it would be good. Yet: There are thousands of our other daily actions which also have effects on others and which we are either not aware of or we simply don’t care. Why not allocating some of the time and energy we usually spend on rat races or avoiding taxes on improving our own social sustainability?!

Pluralistic democracy and human rights are not a fun thing for good times, they must prove their stability and their relevance when they come under pressure from extremist views from the right, the left or wherever and – which is the biggest threat – from careless consumer-citizens. In my new year’s mail 2014, I quoted Austrian novelist Peter Handke: “What others do not know about me, that is what I live for.” I couldn’t believe then that fighting a battle for privacy would become even more uncool in December 2020. But I am proud to out myself: I have supported Amnesty International almost all my life. I am committed to local civil rights initiatives in my home town Frankfurt. With few exceptions, I have avoided GANFAM (Google, Apple, Netflix, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft) and careless clicking. And of course, I am writing articles like this one – until zeitgeist hopefully changes again. In the meantime, let’s consider this:

• Very generally, let’s allocate 15 minutes per day on our citizen role: Not on our job, not on friends & family, just on activities and reflections which increase our social sustainability.



• Be a civil rights activist both towards governments and the private sector: Do things with direct social impact (e.g. collaborating with an initiative supporting homeless people in our neighbourhood), but also with indirect impact when standing up against surveillance laws or supporting civil rights lobby groups who tackle roots and not only symptoms (e.g. “Finance Watch Germany”).

• “Convenience Litmus Test”: We are no superheroes, but let’s not give in to our ignorance, resignation or cynicism. It’s not about all or nothing. Let’s be aware of the ethical trade-offs that we have in our hands and consciously choose inconvenient solutions at least sometimes when it costs us only 10 more seconds or pennies (e.g. ordering and picking up a book in the book store next door). When we help to protect the privacy of ourselves and others, this is true solidarity!



• And finally, as always, let's be kind with others if they make other ethical trade-offs! There are many ways to make the world a better place!:-)

(20 December 2020)

It has become popular in recent years to make the individualisation process of the last decades responsible for pretty much everything that seems to go wrong in society: Be it conservatives complaining about “ego-centric” women and men who want to legally marry their same-sex partner or be it progressive activists who label the change-hesitant mid-age cohort as “ego-centric status junkies”. Of course, it is always the others who are ego-centric and show a lack of solidarity…;-) No big surprise and maybe the right time for asking a few questions:

What is good and bad about collectivism?

There is no doubt that democratic societies need members who look after one another and who do voluntary stuff for the community (e.g. in a fire brigade). The mechanisms of those solidarity exchanges are highly divers and depend on numerous cultural dimensions. How to enforce solidarity? Can solidarity be enforced at all? By a government? By social pressure? What are the collateral damages when enforcing appropriate behaviour (with a social credit system like in China or similar)? 

What is good and bad about individualism?

The social emancipation process of the last centuries (in Europe) would have been unimaginable without individualisation. Accepting that there are different interests, needs and life concepts is at the core of any pluralistic democracy. Disruptive inventions to allow for scientific and societal progress come from egos who challenge mainstream thinking.

But what to do when the “ego system” is exaggerated? After she became prime minister in 1978, Margaret Thatcher said that “there is no such thing as society (…) only individual men and women”. Probably, it is fair to say that the 1980s brought “Reaganomics” and a zeitgeist which we refer to today as “neoliberalism”. It was influenced by people like “objectivist” Ayn Rand who rejected altruism and strictly believed in ethical egoism. The market radical ideology around trickle-down economics, shareholder value, privatisation of public goods, etc. has since then probably destroyed a lot of the (good collectivist) structures which hold our societies together.

I admit that since my teenage years, I have always tried to develop ideas for what German calls the “Third Way” of an economic and political system utilising the best of individualistic and collectivist models. Let me share with you a couple of unconnected (subjective) autobiographical notes around that:

• History has taught me that even well-intended collectivism unfortunately has a tendency to totalitarian overshooting. In times of collective fear, collectivist society and neo-authoritarian government models seem to offer relief (also see again "Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter". Their fast response times are attractive – especially if one forgets that regimes without a free press and without annoying opposition (parties) are naturally faster. However, this speed (and the illusion of clear and unambiguous decisions) not only comes at the expense of reduced civil rights, but totalitarian regimes simply have a disastrous track record of sustainably (!) enabling good life in societies in the long run.

• As university students in 1992, we organised a conference on “market mechanisms for environmental sustainability” (with topics like “how to transform to a circular economy” or “certificate solutions or CO2 taxes to compensate for external effects?”). When doing the usual fundraising calls with some large-company CEOs who were on the board of our university, 3 out of 5 told me over the phone variations of: “Do you really want to waste your time with this leftist-socialist stuff?!”



• Some European “rat race” families who maximise their own financial return and prevent their children from playing with kids from other social backgrounds perceive themselves as good for the community and rail at African tribalism and nepotism. I find that remarkable.

• In the last years, one of my focus areas has been “water as a human right”, a hugely underestimated topic under the radar screen of public attention. It is right at the crosslines of global and local as well as of ego system and eco system. While the lobby power of the financial services industry has successfully launched their marketing narratives around “ESG”, they (together with Nestlé and others) have done everything to privatise the access to water and to prevent policy making which would ensure water as a human right. You can also do something and show solidarity!

Let me try an intermediate conclusion to my questions: In 2020, expressions like „system relevance“ or „essential” are booming. They mean very different things to very different people. We need to be ready to respectfully exchange on those different meanings and accept views dissimilar to our own without being outraged. Solidarity also protects minorities and diverse ways of life. A pluralistic democracy is by definition about balancing individualism and collectivism. It’s A and B, not A or B. As a key citizen skill, we need ambiguity tolerance to explore options between the extreme poles. Since there is a cultural path dependency, we could not quickly (even if we wanted) copy-paste elements of Asian cultural practices to Europe or vice versa. Yet, as a European I would hope that we would try to integrate some (Asian) patience and humility into our culture. It was great when some years ago the term “ECOsystem” became popular, because it has indeed shifted our awareness from the EGO to a more holistic, systemic, and yes, let’s call it collectivist perspective again. Let’s co-create our pluralistic democracy by bravely experimenting with disruptive ideas from all sides! What do you think?

(26 December 2020)



In November 2019, we started a “Salon Cycle” around “Post-heroic Leadership” to discuss the role of citizens in times of populism and neo-authoritarianism. 

We want(ed) to look at constant trade-offs we find ourselves exposed to. “On the one end: Special times need more than ever hero(ines) to break off social norms to allow for real disruption. And on the other opposing end: It is exactly this type of toxic heroism which prevents true diplomacy, honest collaboration and effective sustainability.”

What great timing in hindsight! Not so much in terms of feasibility unfortunately, but on a meta-level the COVID pandemic was and is a remarkable “societal show” of heroic patterns. As an intermediate conclusion, I wrote in July 2020: “In times of obvious uncertainty, citizens demand simple and clear messages to release themselves from their own burden to deal with ambiguity and not-knowing. They reward those politicians who do them the favour. Weighing ethical dilemmas is perceived as weakness. Instead, people just want to believe the categorical imperatives and the war rhetoric of heroically acting leaders and hence the illusion of control they promise. Wow! We had expected a lot, but the degree to what intelligent human beings escape their own uncertainty by delegating hope to somewhere in the hierarchy exceeds even our expectations.”

This was the moment when I decided to publish my “Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter” followed by a few “Citizen Hacks”. After all, I am less concerned with populist politicians, and much more with how willingly citizens themselves follow those populist politicians: If citizens have more skills, populists will be less likely to succeed. If citizens fall for leaders with simple law and order messages, then citizens get what they deserve and should stop complaining. Hence, we need to look at the followers, not only at the leaders! So, here is my pitch: 

• Building on the previous Citizen Hacks, let’s all have the “courage to use our reason independently” (Kant) and let’s be “self-conscious” (how Hegel describes it in his “Phenomenology of Spirit”)! “Self-consciousness” as the cumulated experience of both independence and dependence. NOT as ego-centric reflection, but as an effort to have an impact on the world around us. In today’s management literature, this is often referred to as self-efficacy.
  

• Let’s stop bashing politicians! Always check what we would do ourselves in their position.

• At the same time, let’s stop voting for politicians only because we know them and/or they have been somehow successful! We had this with Trump, Grillo, Zelensky, and many more… In times of constant opinion polling, I worry much more that politicians listen too much to the people! This kind of circular reasoning (e.g. Brexit) often leads to societal groupthink and to plebeian tribunes. Since Ancient Greece, we have called this “ochlocracy” or mob rule. Today, we might call it “government by shitstorm” when interested minorities (or a majority driven by fear and primitive instincts) quickly jump from one topic to the next without taking sustainable responsibility.



• Therefore, let’s strengthen representative democracy instead – not only in good times, but also when inconvenient! I still believe that a parliament with representatives elected for a limited time is the best instrument for a democracy. And members of parliament shall have no “imperative mandate”. As a citizen, I want them to filter hysterical extremes of zeitgeist!

• Of course, political parties as we know them today will need to radically change if they want to survive. On the other hand, there was strong and similar criticism against political parties already around the 1900s (in England and Germany) and there are still around 100 years later. Anyway, let’s integrate other mechanisms for forming the political will in a diverse society: More topic-based movements, minor (!) amendments of direct democracy (for concrete and local decisions), “Citizens’ Assemblies” as advising committees, and other adaptations. When I was 18, Karl Popper’s “The Open Society and Its Enemies” inspired me. And although I find today that he was too critical with parliaments and too positive towards two-party systems, let’s promote an open society which shall be neither “laissez-faire” nor “collectivist-totalitarian”. Democracy shall not be the rule of the majority, but simply the opportunity to vote the government out of office without violence!

• Let’s think and act “GLocal” – directly in our neighbourhood (subsidiarity principle) AND indirectly when trying to consider our actions on other parts of the world!



• Involve yourself! It doesn’t have to be perfect! "Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." (Leonard Cohen) Be brave and just get started! You can always improve later in the process!

(28 December 2020)

There are only two citizen hacks left in my series. They are about dreaming and co-creating our future, because citizens need skills and dreams. Let me share with you some of my own (which you might recognise from the previous citizen hacks):

• I dream of companies who voluntarily abstain from making all profits which are technically possible – only to spend part of this “blood money” on “charity”, “corporate social responsibility” programmes, and “purpose” marketing. Hence, instead of buying letters of indulgence, it would be great to have companies and individuals who learn to continuously make (truly holistic and ethical) trade-offs in their day-to-day (business) processes – and still make a decent profit at the end.

(30 December)

Not much to be added for this last citizen hack in addition to my "Manifesto: Citizen Skills Matter".

My own energy is now with our “Bridge Salons on Social Sustainability” and a post-COVID attempt of a series on “Post-Heroic Leadership”.

I will keep you posted! :-)