4.3.4 Self-Determined Accountability

It may be clear that our proposal represents a major break from conventional wisdom in economics. It will be necessary to empower each member to exercise more self-determination and commitment to responsibility for the systemic side effects they cause in order to build an economy that coexists harmoniously with the environment. Giving one’s power or responsibility to experts and relying on them to make decisions for you will no longer be acceptable. In turn, experts will need to change their position from providing solutions to supporting others’ efforts to find their own solutions by refining their discernment and reasoning abilities.

A pioneer in the use of regenerative thinking in developing change processes for big, complex companies was one of our colleagues. “Everything for somebody; nothing for the shelf,” was one of his sayings. It was an excellent method to illustrate what it means to labor precisely as opposed to generally. His goal was to enable individuals to make the connection between their decisions and actions and the actual lives that their activity would affect.

This required encouraging people to think for themselves, come up with their own queries, and come up with their own solutions, thereby continuously developing themselves. Also, it required them to put their egos aside in order to think about how they could improve the lives of others. And it meant fostering an environment of unrestricted inquiry, promoting the humility required to approach each new circumstance as a beginner, and letting go of the haughtiness that comes with pretended expertise.

In a regenerative economy, experience and talent are not unneeded; rather, all of this knowledge must be applied to dispelling the complacent notion that “we already know how to accomplish this.” No one is an expert in a truly regenerative economy, and everybody is using their knowledge to go beyond what they currently know and believe. Because culture today places such a high value on knowledge and certainty, this can be quite difficult for one’s sense of self and importance.