I'm really interested in how you create a whole new economy of recycling. It's literally the 'underground economy.' All this stuff that on the surface creates growth and profit, ends up with waste, junk, and CO2. So how do you make it economic to bring new players into the ball game?
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of recycling and creating a sustainable economy that minimizes waste.
Peter Senge highlights the need for a new economic model that prioritizes recycling and sustainability. He points out that while existing economic activities may generate profit and growth, they often lead to environmental degradation through waste and carbon emissions. Senge challenges us to rethink how to integrate more sustainable practices and new participants into this 'underground economy' to create a system that benefits both the environment and the economy.
In practice
In a seminar on environmental sustainability, to highlight the need for new economic models.
[Seeds Are Small.] Becoming a force of nature doesn't mean that all of our aspirations must be "grand." First steps are often small, and initial visions that focus energy effectively often address immediate problems. What matters is engagement in the service of a larger purpose rather than lofty aspirations that paralyze action. Indeed, it's a dangerous trap to believe that we can pursue onlhy "great visions."
I do not believe great organizations have ever been built by trying to emulate another, any more than individual greatness is achieved by trying to copy another 'great person'.
All human beings are born with unique gifts. The healthy functioning community depends on realizing the capacity to develop each gift.
Learning to see the structures within which we operate begins a process of freeing ourselves from previously unseen forces and ultimately mastering the ability to work with them and change them.
New insights fail to get put into practice because they conflict with deeply held internal images of how the world works...images that limit us to familiar ways of thinking and acting. That is why the discipline of managing mental models - surfacing, testing, and improving our internal pictures of how the world works - promises to be a major breakthrough for learning organizations.
In the absence of a great dream pettiness prevails. Shred visions foster risk taking, courage and innovation. Keeping the end in mind creates the confidence to make decisions even in moments of crisis.
On the day I started college in 1979, no woman had ever been on the United States Supreme Court or served as the Speaker of the House. None had been an astronaut or the solo anchor of a network evening news broadcast. Not one had been president of an Ivy League college or run a serious campaign for president.
With a tear for the dark past, turn we then to the dazzling future, and, veiling our eyes, press forward. The long and weary winter of the race is ended. Its summer has begun. Humanity has burst the chrysalis. The heavens are before it.
Sharing an idea you care about is a generous way to change your world for the better.
Much of India that we dream of still lies ahead of us: housing, power, water and sanitation for all; bank accounts and insurance for every citizen; connected and prosperous villages; and, smart and sustainable cities.
When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.
It felt like I'd been living underground, and for a moment, I'd been given this glimpse of the sky. Once you've seen that, how can you go back where you came from?
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