The Fourth Wave
Susan E. Mehrtens
1h38min15
131 pages. Temps de lecture estimé 1h38min.
Applying the concept of historical waves originally propounded by Alvin Toffler in The Third Wave, Herman Maynard and Susan Mehrtens look toward the next century and foresee a "fourth wave," an era of integration and responsibility far beyond Toffler's revolutionary description of third-wave postindustrial society. Whether we attain this stage of global well-being, however, will depend on how well our business institutions adapt and change.
The Fourth Wave examines the ways business has changed in the second and third waves and must continue to change in the fourth. The changes concern the basics-how an institution is organized, how it defines wealth, how it relates to surrounding communities, how it responds to environmental needs, and how it takes part in the political process.
Maynard and Mehrtens foresee a radically different future in which business principles, concern for the environment, personal integrity, and spiritual values are integrated. The authors also demonstrate the need for a new kind of leadership-managers and CEOs who embrace an attitude of global stewardship; who define their assets as ideas, information, creativity, and vision; and who strive for seamless boundaries between work and private lives for all employees.Chapter One
Hallmarks of a
Changing World
To meet the challenges posed by a world that is
changing at an ever-increasing pace, we must let go of values,
beliefs, and practices that have or shortly will become
anachronistic and reformulate new ones that are congruent
with changed circumstances. The first step in this process is to
become acquainted with the changes that are occurring.
Because change is omnipresent, it is especially important to
identify those trends that promise transformative change. In
this chapter we describe seven trends that we believe underlie
the emergence of a new worldview.
Shift in Consciousness
Increasing numbers of people around the world are concluding
that consciousness is primary, that the mind or spirit has a reality
comparable to material objects (Harman 1988; Renesch
1991; Cook 1991; Rothschild 1991). Many have had transformative
experiences (life-changing dreams, journeys inward that
reveal new vistas, near-death experiences, series of intuitive
knowings [Porter, n.d.]) that have led them to realize they are
more than their physical body and logical mind - that there
are levels of reality beyond what can be seen, touched, tasted,
and smelled.
In reexamining the assumptions, values, and directions of
their lives, people are beginning to see themselves as the
creators of their realities. They are placing emphasis on
inter connectedness and wholeness - of everyone and
everything - and affirming the central role of inner wisdom
and inner authority (Harman 1988, 1992). More often than
not, they are committing themselves to make a difference
in the world.
Our discussions with successful people in business, coupled
with a study of scientific and contemporary literature, affirm
that this global shift in consciousness is not mere New Age
hype but the expression of a new worldview. For example,
Nobel Prize-winning scientists Roger Sperry (1978), Sir John
Eccles (Eccles & Popper 1977), Eugene Wigner (1967, 1982),
Sir Arthur Eddington (1929), James Jeans (1943), and Brian
Josephson (1985) have all concluded that a worldview based on
consciousness emerging from matter (the brain) does not
account for all that we see and experience. Such noted
business consultants and futurists as George Land, Robert
Theobald, and Willis Harman have discussed this in large
public forums. It is on the lips of political figures such as Vaclav
Havel, who, standing before the United States Congress as
president of Czechoslovakia, reminded us that "consciousness
is primary" (Havel 1990, 37). And there is even talk among
sober, sensible businesspersons of a global mind change
occurring in the world (Rose 1990).
The shift in consciousness is more than just rapid and
profoundly challenging; it is paradigmatic, representing a
fundamental change that calls into question our entire worldview
and all the conscious and unconscious assumptions on
which that worldview rests. Each of the remaining trends we
identify is a natural companion to or consequence of this shift
in consciousness.
Disenchantment with Scientism
There is a growing disenchantment with scientism, the
tendency to reduce all reality and experience to mathematical
descriptions of physical and chemical phenomena. From this
perspective, a Beethoven sonata would be described by focusing
on the constituent parts (cats' guts, horses' tails, wood,
metal, rubber, felt) of the musical instruments involved, the
amplitudes and frequencies of the sound waves produced, and
the mechanisms of auditory perception (ear, brain). This, however,
gives us little, if any, sense of the feeling quality of the
experience of listening to beautiful music.
Since the time of Descartes, we in the West have stressed
rational truth: it has been widely accepted that science and
scientific processes are the way to determine truth and that
rational intelligence and logical thought are the most valuable
abilities we have. But these attitudes are now being questioned
in the light of growing evidence that there are many experiences
and events that cannot be explained if what is "real" is
only that which can be touched or measured (Harman 1988). It
is increasingly accepted that such phenomena as feelings and
intuition expand the range of human potential to find answers
("Seize the Future" 1990), making both rational and
nonrational processes legitimate components in the search for
knowledge and understanding.
Inner Sources of Authority and Power
The growing credence accorded those processes and
experiences we cannot explain or measure is reflected in an
increased reliance by many people on an inner source of authority
and power, "unconscious knowing" (Harman 1988). This
unconscious knowing is revealed to us through such familiar
experiences as inspiration, creativity, revelation, and intuition;
for some people it may be communicated through a higher self
or inner self-helper (Damgaard 1987; Speck 1935).
This new appreciation of "authority from within" is being
reflected in the desire of many persons to live and work to their
full capacity. People are exhibiting increasing reluctance to
have others make their decisions for them or to determine how
they are to live and work. And increasing numbers are waking
up to the fact that they can give legitimacy to or withhold it
from the various institutions of society (Burton 1990; Natale &
Wilson 1990; Kelly 1992). For instance, environmentally
destructive practices by both corporations and governments are
coming to be regarded by the public as irresponsible and therefore
illegitimate and intolerable.
Recognition that power and authority lie in the hands of
individuals, not institutions, is fomenting revolution in the
workplace (Rifkin 1992; Stroh, Reilly & Brett 1990; "The
Battle for Control" 1992) and in the global political landscape.
Democratic processes are being adopted in growing numbers of
workplaces, and in the past several years oppressed peoples of
the world have been successfully demanding representational
processes and self-determination.
Respiritualization of Society
Many in the Western world are responding to the lack of a
sense of balance, purpose, and personal power by bringing spirituality
into their lives and work (Harman 1988; Harman &
Hormann 1990). People are increasingly engaged in a search for
such things as meaning, purpose, inner authority and peace,
truth, love, compassion, self-worth, dignity, wisdom, a higher
power, and a sense of unity with others - and the means to
express them.
This respiritualization of society is manifested in various
forms, including participation in traditional religious forums
(Western and Eastern), New Age pursuits, self-designed modes
of personal quest (meditation, for example), and spreading
efforts to incorporate spiritual values in the workplace (Autry
1991; Miller 1992; Orsborn 1992).
As matters spiritual return to respectability in our culture, we
see a revival of the value once accorded to intuition (Kelly
1992; Pascarella 1986), thus adding to the growing practice of
combining intuitive knowledge and traditional analytical skills.
Decline of Materialism
We have begun to see a basic reorientation of values (e.g.,
Strom 1992a,c; Rose 1990; Harman 1982; Schwartz & Ogilvy
1979; Norton 1991) manifest, for instance, in global politics as
shifts from competition to cooperation. Other such value shifts
are from exploitation to caring, from materialism to spirituality,
and from consumerism to a concern for social and economic justice.
Greed has become less acceptable; there is a movement
away from materialism toward intangibles such as honesty,
truth, courage, conviction, self-worth, the quality of
relationships, and personal fulfillment.
Directly allied to these value shifts is the redefinition of
business (Norton 1991; Morin 1992). Once seen as a way to
make a living or a way to get rich, business is increasingly
viewed as a vehicle through which individuals can realize
their personal vision, serve others and the planet, and make
a difference in the world. People are saying they do not want
to work just to make money; they want to create value. And
they want to create this value in an environment that meets
their needs and gives them something to feel proud of. This
means that how the corporation acts matters. Workers want
the values of the corporation and the corporation's leaders
to be such that they can identify with the corporation and
share its commitments.
Political and Economic Democratization
The rising up of oppressed peoples of the world, East, West,
and South, to demand greater political democratization is a
global trend well documented by the media in the past several
years. Less well known are the campaigns by partisans of the
New International Economic Order (NIEO), which are
representative of the growing worldwide push for economic
democratization (cf. Daly 1973a,b; Henderson 1976, 1978, 1981;
Schumacher 1973b, 1978b).
The NIEO, composed mostly of Third World figures and
Western alternative economic theorists, calls for new value
systems, stressing in particular environmental sustainability
and economic justice. This viewpoint argues for responsible
accounting for environmental resources such as air, water, and
soil (Ekins 1986).
Also stressed in this view is the need to create appropriate
technologies, fitted to the cultural level and needs of the
people and locale, rather than the massive importation of
Western high-tech processes and devices. Recognizing that
their countries are rich in human resources and poor in
monetary buying power, many spokespersons for the NIEO
seek to shift economic activity away from its current focus on
materials toward more labor-intensive or information-intensive
procedures.
To foster economic justice, NIEO advocates call for an end
to economic imperialism, the domination of global economic
activities by the Western powers (George 1986), and for the
recognition of the reality of global interdependence. Regarding
information as a form of power, NIEO rhetoric speaks much of
the free exchange of information, presenting a clear challenge
to contemporary notions of information as proprietary.
Beyond Nationality
Many analysts and social commentators see our civilization
evolving into a world beyond nationality (Pollack 1992;
Blumenthal & Chace 1992; "The Battle for Control" 1992;
Gelb 1991; Wright 1992). Nation states, including many defined
solely on ethnic and linguistic grounds, will form regional
groupings linked together economically and technologically in
an interdependent, "borderless world" (Ohmae 1990).
Bioregionalism is emerging as the guiding concept for such
regional groupings (see, for example, McHugh 1992). In this
view, the Earth is divided into ecologically unified areas
sharing habitat, soil, climate, and faunal similarities (Sale 1986;
Anderson 1986).
Such intergovernmental organizations as the Arab League, the
Organization of African Unity, and the Organization of Economic
Cooperation and Government and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) like The Other Economic Summit
(TOES) are harbingers of this borderless world. So are charitable,
quasipolitical, and juridical units such as the World
Health Organization, International Red Cross, the World Bank,
and the World Court. Organizations of these sorts will continue
to proliferate and play an increasingly important role in contemporary
life (Lewis 1992).
The trends toward economic democratization and global
interdependence remind us that globalization is more than
merely putting a factory in each major region of the world. It is
more than shifting corporate loyalty away from a particular
country or tackling global problems such as acid rain and technology
transfer.
Globalization comes down to facing the challenge of reworking
our contemporary value system, which assumes that
information is proprietary; that bigger is better; that material
growth leads to happiness; that the world is one vast "global
shopping center" and the Earth a "gigantic toolshed" (after
Clarence Glacken, quoted in Ehrenfeld 1978, 177); and that
central planning, efficiency, and the rationalization of power
are natural and appropriate, regardless of locale or culture.
These, and a host of other similar values that we hardly notice,
much less question, are being scrutinized and found wanting
by many people.
The trends we have described signal the emergence of a
fundamentally different worldview. We next explore what this
means in terms of how people will think and behave in the
Fourth Wave.
Chapter Two
Emergence of the
Fourth Wave
In his book The Third Wave Alvin Toffler (1980),
introduced the concept of history as a succession of rolling
waves of change. This concept holds powerful imageryùa
wave building as changes in values, beliefs, and behaviors
accumulate and spread in and among societies, cresting as
change becomes sufficiently deep and wide to be unstoppable,
crashing down to sweep away what lies in front, and then
receding with the transformation of society. Waves can collide, representing the conflict of different worldviews.
When the newest one prevails, one phase of civilization is
replaced by another.
Waves of change can also be viewed from the perspective
of an onlooker standing in the water near shore. As a wave
builds off in the distance, its beauty and power will be
attractive and inspiring. As it comes closer, however, its size
and force may become frightening. The observer may either
embrace the wave's beauty and power and ride it to shore or
attempt to escape its fearsome force and be hammered into the
surf or left by the wayside.
Toffler (1980) identified two waves that have swept across
Civilization - the First Wave, the spread of agriculture, and the
Second Wave, industrialization - and characterized a new,
postindustrial Third Wave that is currently gathering force
among modern industrial nations. The confluence of the
Second and Third Waves means that we now live with two
different worldviews - one increasingly recognized as outdated
(Second Wave) and another just beginning to be realized
(Third Wave). The traditional, culturally approved way of
viewing reality is being reevaluated, presenting us with a multi-faceted challenge to the values and priorities of our Second
Wave culture. This has engendered turmoil, tensions, and
distress as those who wish to maintain the status quo come into
conflict with those who are committed to radical change.
In time, the ineluctable force of the Third Wave will lead to
societal transformation. We believe, however, that this outcome
can be hastened by looking ahead to a Fourth Wave, one
signaled by the trends we described in Chapter One. The
appeal of that Fourth Wave (attractive, yet far enough away to
be nonthreatening) is a means to pull people through the resistance,
struggles, and tough decisions that now impede the flow
of the Third Wave.
Worldviews in Transition
The waves of change represent fundamental and pervasive
change; no aspect of life is left untouched. Each wave is the
manifestation of a distinctive worldview, the values, beliefs, and
philosophies that guide how people look at and experience the
world around them. To distinguish the worldviews underlying
the Second, Third, and Fourth Waves, we focus on those dimensions
that can be viewed as providing a foundation for all else.
Relationships and Authority
In the Second Wave, people see themselves as separate from
one another and from nature and as needing to compete. The
traditional factory, with its focus on mechanization, regimentation,
hierarchy, and sales volume, is an expression of these
attitudes. It is also a manifestation of peoples' willingness to
grant power and authority to others - to accept, in essence,
roles as incipient automatons. (For if they did not, such an institutional
model is unlikely to have spread throughout our society.)
(Continues...)
