Creating Communities of Connectedness and Hope

Creating connectedness is at the core of my company, beCause Global Consulting. beCause helps individuals and organizations connect to their core purpose, connect across silos within their organizations, and connect with external stakeholders – friendly and even adversarial – all based on building and sustaining trust. We’ve been recognized as a Top 100 Thought Leader in Trust enough times to have earned a Lifetime Achievement Award. Global CEO Magazine ranked us nine of the Top 100 Corporate Social Responsibility Leaders globally and SustMeme ranked us 62 of the Top 500 CSR Influencers internationally.

For many years prior to founding beCause, I did the same kind of work in both the private and public sectors. What I’ve done – and what I’ve seen done by many, many others – is what assures me that the continuance and broadening of this kind of work definitely resolves conflict and creates positive change.

In our increasingly globalized world, we are all global citizens. Taking personal action is the main responsibility of citizenship – nationally and globally. President Barack Obama, in his Farewell Address in January, superbly explained this dynamic:

…The fight against extremism and intolerance and sectarianism and chauvinism are of a piece with the fight against authoritarianism and nationalist aggression. If the scope of freedom and respect for the rule of law shrinks around the world, the likelihood of war within and between nations increases, and our own freedoms will eventually be threatened….All of this [progress] depends on our participation; on each of us accepting the responsibility of citizenship, regardless of which way the pendulum of power happens to be swinging…I am asking you to believe. Not in my ability to bring about change — but in yours. I am asking you to hold fast to that faith written into our founding documents; that idea whispered by slaves and abolitionists; that spirit sung by immigrants and homesteaders and those who marched for justice; that creed reaffirmed by those who planted flags from foreign battlefields to the surface of the moon; a creed at the core of every American whose story is not yet written…

Mr. Obama was talking about America, but his wisdom applies to everyone everywhere.

The power of action, community and connectedness is superbly reflected in the 2015 French documentary feature film Demain (Tomorrow). As its own site describes, the film “[shows] solutions, telling a feel-good story…this may be the best way to solve the ecological, economic and social crises that our countries are going through. After a special briefing for the journal Nature announced the possible extinction of a part of mankind before the end of the 21st century, Cyril Dion and Mélanie Laurent, with a team of four, carried out an investigation in ten different countries to figure out what may lead to this disaster and above all how to avoid it. During their journey, they met the pioneers who are re-inventing agriculture, energy, economy, democracy and education. Joining those concrete and positive actions which are already working, they began to figure out what could be tomorrow’s world.”