Next phase thinking - 2 new institutions?

Continuing reflections on my boardroom lunch, I think one result was a deeper understanding of how our institutions are changing. In fact, I was even more encouraged that in the face of our challenges, new institutions will emerge that enable us to handle them at scale

Reinstitutionalising is apparently not a word, but it is what is going on. 

Our western global institutions, from governments to boards and even community structures feel like they're falling apart. At least, they are having to adapt to new facts, and not all institutions have the capacity to adapt fast enough to survive. After World War 2, it was obvious that new global institutions were needed and the UN, World Bank, WHO, UNESCO and others emerged. These seem to be reaching the end of the 'globalisation' phase.

Our current need to create new institutions seems qualitatively different. The bodies created to deflect war, to protect health, to bring the world together seem to be failing at a fundamental level and maybe they've achieved the need of their time. We now have polluted oceans with a fish population that's 10% of that a century ago. It's not clear how the world will come together to adequately protect the oceans. Does it need an Oceans treaty to avoid the tragedy of the commons? Are our attempts to address just this one question too small-scale and scattered? 

It was clear from our boardroom discussion that this fragmentation is in full swing. It's personal, as well as institutional. As parents (and I'm a new grandparent), we're witnessing the new challenges younger generations are facing. There was a double-edged feeling in the room. On the one hand, anyone born since 1980 faces complexity of an order we didn't have to cope with at their age. On the other, they are developing attitudes, processes and a set of principles that give hope that things will improve. New phase thinking also entails new feelings and a new moral code.

The overall pattern is not just of established institutions eroding, but of new experimentation on a massive scale. This includes many small experiments with living, connecting, doing business and finding meaning. Some of it is enabled by technology, some in defiance of technology. Old assumptions are not only being challenged but inverted. This is a source of interesting communications between generations! 

There’s an important role for that intergenerational dialogue and that is to expressly question, design and create the new phase, together. To help with the tension between working from home and engaging face to face at an office. To help with the quandary of whether work needs to be a 24/7 deal or just part of a sustainable pattern of life. To help with the processes of trust, collaboration and action that lead to healthy businesses.

One delight of old-fashioned coaching is that in a face-to-face interaction, things can move very fast, even on a video call. Body language, diagrams on a shared document, overlapping thoughts, questions and answers all contribute to creative resolution of complex business issues. It’s one way to surf the waves of fragmentation we’re experiencing. And it’s a way to break through to new phase thinking. This might mean reframing a problem but sometimes it’s a matter of reframing yourself, which brings freedom, delight and power.

The question is, in what way are you quietly ‘institutionalised’? Is it time to let your institution fall apart and reassemble something that works better for your future? The institution might be the board you sit on, the profession you’re expert in or the firm you’ve helped build.

Reinstitutionalising is a global response to a global crisis but it’s also a strategy you can apply to yourself.