Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Good Intentions are not Sufficient to Solve our Problems

The last day of the year 2019 is slowly coming to an end. I am intrigued to write down a few thoughts of reflection and outlook. However, I am unsure of what and how to write. The past decade specifically most of the positive impulses, support and communication have come from my international friends who share one or more passions with me. On the other side, I live in Dresden, an international perceived city in Saxony, in the Eastern part of Germany close to the Polish and Czech border, and German is generally the language spoken and understood around here.

Besides, the current challenges due to the climate crisis, massive changes in mobility towards new propulsion systems or energy transformation with all its social impacts happen around the world, and of course very locally here in my city. "My city" because some 26 years ago it happened that for the first ever a time in my lifetime my last name was spelt correctly. Living and working back then for over two months with locals, made this beautiful city pull me into its heart (and vice versa). It was a time of experimentation, not so fixed new processes in all facets of life with a grand vision in view. Somehow a situation that has accompanied me over the course of my life, and where I feel most comfortable. Whether moving with my family at the age of four to a suburb still in early development from scratch, finding myself three months in Vancouver, Canada, inhaling a most diverse and future-positive culture, an internship in Athens exposing

Right now, the coming year 2020 (and the years to follow) feels like we collectively walk into largely unknown territory, not knowing how to act, communicate with each other and to anticipate the arising changes and certain challenges.

Good to look back on Mary Parker Follett's (Peter Drucker called her "Prophet of Management"), and take her advice to heart for the things ahead!

Brilliant empiricists have poked much pleasant fun at those who tell us of some vague should-be instead of what is.  We want something more than either of these; we want to find out what may be, the possibilities now open to us.  This we can discover only by experiment. Observation is not the only method of science.  The methods of physical science are observation and experiment; these should be the methods of the social sciences.

Above all, we should remember that good intentions are not sufficient to solve our problems.


                       Mary Parker Follett, Creative Experience (Classical Reprint via buecher.de), 1924 

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Wishing you All a Happy New Year 2020 with lots of positive developments, 
health, and a sense of collective across traditional boundaries 
that too often stand in the way to achieve the really great things in life


Camellia Sasanqua (unknown)
Camellia Yuletide