Why is being a good neighbour not enough?

Added : ( Tue Jul 20 2004 )

What happens to governance if you take a truly "joined up" view of the world? How does this compare with the conflicts that arise with today's "fragmented" view.
Most of us are proud of being good neighbours, thinking about others and showing consideration.
But increasingly there’s evidence that suggests we’re not as virtuous as we think we are. Our “good neighbour” actions can make us “neighbours from hell” where more distant parts of our communities are concerned.
Governance is concerned with making the right decisions. To make the right decisions, governance needs to see that people, and organisations, don’t exist in a vacuum. Organisations make their plans and decisions on the basis of what a whole range of groups want and need from them – what shareholders expect to get as their dividend, what customers expect in terms of service, what employees need to be productive.
As the range of groups, concerns and expectations which organisations need to plug into get ever more complex, we’re seeing more fragmentation. Fragmentation means we have to break a complex picture down into simpler parts just so that we can start to understand it. The problem is that in breaking down complex, messy reality so that we can get a grip on it, something gets lost in the translation, and we end up making flawed judgements; judgements which don’t have the effect we intend. Fragmentation underpins the current models of good governance, so the model of governance has to change.
Does it matter if people aren’t connected into the rest of the world?
At work or at home, we have become used to only seeing part of the picture, a rather fragmented picture, rather than the whole picture, and that changes the way we act. This leads to odd paradoxes.
We campaign for clean air and then drive our children to the asthma clinic in enormous 4WDs, or escape to the smog-free countryside in other big engined gas guzzlers.
We intend one thing and we cause something else that is the opposite of our intention. Whether we are acting alone, as part of a community, or as part of a company, whatever decision we make, if we make it with a fragmented, disconnected view of the world, other effects that we hadn’t foreseen come too. The model of good governance has to change if it is to serve businesses and governments well in supporting good planning and decision making. Just looking over the fence and making sure our neighbours are happy isn’t enough to stop our corporate foundations from being undermined.
How could decision making be more joined up?
What’s the link with governance?
Organisations, and people, have focussed on being good neighbours. This is important and has led to some different approaches and much more open and transparent reporting on corporate social responsibility. But being a good neighbour doesn’t necessarily change what you do; it just makes you more considerate, or more guilty, while you carry on doing the same thing.
But we need to move from being good neighbours, to being good citizens. Good citizens change what they do, because they can see new connections between their activities and the needs that are around them. Good citizens take responsibility for the well-being of people they’ve never met. This makes the citizenship approach really powerful in tackling poverty, something I’ll explore in another article.
From fragmented, independent good neighbours, to successful, mutually dependent good citizens, the route for governance is not an easy one, but it is one that offers opportunities that we haven’t even begun to imagine.

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Alice Owen is a director of Integral Value Ltd, a consultancy dedicated to realising the opportunities of sustainable development. Currently working in Canada, Alice has extensive management experience in UK industry and in environmental policy.

Ends
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