The Hames Report

Serious Play

Innovation has become the new ‘in’ thing. Some suggest it may be the sole source of future competitive advantage and consequently an imperative no organization can afford to ignore. I tend to agree. Furthermore I believe it applies equally to the public sector and to civic society as a whole.

There is little doubt that in certain fields the ability to innovate, thereby generating a continuous stream of new value-adding products, can be the difference between prosperity and irrelevance. Think computer software, fashion and pharmaceuticals, for example. Then again the human condition also obliges us to find alternative solutions to many of the problems our inventive minds continue to construct. And quickly too. Consider global warming, water, food, poverty, terrorism….

But do we have the solution for you! Innovations-R-Us. Touted around university campuses, research laboratories, hospitals, farms, city halls, schools, corporations and even government departments, innovation is the cock's crow at dawn from which only the deaf escape.

In reality the contemporary emphasis on innovation has been spawned by tensions between the commoditisation of desire (post-industrial society’s fixation on and craving for anything new) and the concurrent need to curb such rampant materialism (because of the critical impact of the afore-mentioned issues on our civilization).

This tension is intensified and made even more complicated by the fact that the burgeoning middle class in the world’s emerging economies are now beginning to demand (and can afford) a quality of life most citizens in post-industrial nations have enjoyed for some considerable time. In all conscience it is difficult to deny them their right to this. Meanwhile sheer demographic momentum will increase the world's urban population by 3 billion people over the next 40 years (90 per cent of these in poor cities) and absolutely no one has a clue how a planet of slums, with growing food and energy crises, will accommodate their biological survival, much less their inevitable aspirations to basic happiness and dignity.

Purely on this basis it is logical to suppose that these tensions will continue to worsen at least until global population numbers level out, some time after 2060 if you believe the latest and most sophisticated demographic modelling: the world’s population will have reached seven billion people by the end of 2012. So we can safely assume that across-the-board innovation will be essential to peaceful global prosperity and societal advancement for at least the next 50 years.

But what is really meant by the term innovation? Typically defined as a process of discovery linking the re-assembly of knowledge (or the creation of novel ideas) with the capturing of their social and/or commercial value, innovation can range from continuous improvement (of products, processes and services) to the invention of entirely new models, markets, systems, philosophies, ways of seeing and even states of being. Think virtual reality and online avatars!

The latter type, popularly known as strategic or radical innovation, often rejects conventional notions (of competition or established hierarchies, for example) in order to redefine conceptual models. New truths, possibilities, spaces and roles arise from this process. As a consequence strategic innovation can be disruptive: overturning sacrosanct rules, long established habits and reshaping contextual conditions previously thought to be constant.

Radical innovation is immensely attractive to that breed of multinational corporation intent on dominating a particular market, as well as larger equity firms and venture capitalists of course. Why? Smart game-changer strategies and keystone plays can render competition entirely irrelevant. Which CEO or Board Chairman would not want this wish granted?

Naturally, financial risks are correspondingly higher than those implied by continuous improvement efforts. But then the ROI for strategic innovation (by which I mean return on imagination of course) can be a quantum greater, assuming one has the courage to purposefully disturb the status quo. Just look at Richard Branson’s Virgin brand fashioned out of sheer British eccentricity, audacity and a determination to craft a unique customer experience.

Then there is the potential accompanying such limelight: strategic innovation often elevates individuals and even entire corporations to positions of universal prominence. Public accolades linking business success with social advancement can not be so easily dismissed in today’s brand-resonant, media-savvy, celebrity-saturated world. Witness Madonna, Bono, Steve Jobs, Anita Roddick or Linus Toorvald, for example.

All of which sounds so easy. Just go out there and innovate. Be creative. Use your imagination guys! Well? What are you waiting for?

Naturally the textbooks are stuffed full of well-meaning advice, though most concentrate on tools and processes while ignoring other critical intangibles. As a result we are well schooled in the knowledge that trust emboldens collaborative practice - but are unsure how to nurture this. We recognize the role played by uninhibited imagination - but lack the confidence to put forward novel ideas. We appreciate the incredible power of globally distributed networks but still keep information to ourselves. We accept the notion that rules and regulations stifle creativity – but still insist on adherence to archaic management protocols. And we ‘get’ the power of teamwork – but still insist on rewarding only individual performance.

What then are the secrets of investing in innovation? What does it take for creativity to become routine? What are the innovation drivers that make companies as diverse as Threadless, Cirque du Soleil, Apple, Virgin, Semtec, Cabbages & Condoms, Toyota, Agricultural Bank of China, Infosys, GE, Procter & Gamble, eBay and Google so successful? And how is it that the People’s Party in Brazil can engage the community in bold experiments of participative democracy at a time when post-industrial nations, formerly recognized for their egalitarian systems, seem hell bent on eroding citizen’s hard-won rights and installing repressive regimes?

Clearly the real world is not nearly so neat and ordered as academics and consultants would have us believe. In spite of all the attention (one need only look at the avalanche of web sites, conferences, wikis, blogs, books, articles and academic papers devoted to the subject) innovation as an embedded capability remains as elusive as the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Furthermore most innovation is still targeted at improving existing products, processes and services, which rarely delivers exceptional value.

From our experience, recently affirmed by the Boston Consulting Group’s analysis of the world’s most seriously innovative corporations, there are four underlying causes for this state of affairs. They are (a) contextual conditions, (b) state of mind, (c) business praxis and (d) organizational design.

Contextual conditions:
Contemporary business was long ago ambushed by its own success. It now finds itself cocooned within a condition brought about by the rapidly converging processes of technology-enabled globalisation.

This condition, which I call globalism, is without precedent. It has catapulted us into a vibrant world of transactions and interactions where geography matters little - a world characterized by the need to manage relationships rather than things. Indeed the things that matter today are diffuse networks, co-design, open source learning, collaboration, the exponential speed at which new knowledge is created (and old knowledge is made obsolete), democratisation of standard business practices and society’s seemingly unquenchable thirst for the new...

The challenge of innovating in this environment, where a maelstrom of globally distributed information, talent and capital constantly changes, engulfing us in overwhelming variety and choice, presents extraordinary challenges for any single enterprise. Especially so as government regulators, in fear of becoming less and less relevant, burden innovators with a barrage of well-meaning legal hurdles and compliance costs, thereby adding to the uncertainty.

We did not anticipate this condition, nor were we prepared for its consequences. It has unsettled traditional patterns of human production and consumption causing intense social and environmental stress. So sudden was its genesis, so colossal its impact, that we are even now trying to take stock; still attempting to learn how best to understand and respond to its constantly shifting complexities.

In this context collaboration, not competition, is of the essence. It is incumbent upon each enterprise to collaborate with others, creating and capturing value wherever it can, exploring opportunities wherever they exist, connecting ideas, technologies and people in order to thrive from change. This is what contemporary innovation is about.

State of mind:
After 250 years, the industrial economic paradigm is worn out. The world wide web, coupled with the convergence of digital and genomic code and enabling tools like biotechnology, molecular engineering and robotics, have diminished its legitimacy. Furthermore it fails the most classic of tests: it is quite simply unable to resolve the critical issues of our time.

Paradoxically, in the world of commerce and governance at least, industrial economism remains the most commonly used and unchallenged framework for explaining events, even when such explanations do not equate favourably with observed reality.

It is almost impossible to liberate strategic innovation within the dominant industrial paradigm – and this at a time when whole-of-system innovation is most needed. Why? Because the language and praxis of industrial economism is set in past experiences rather than in future potential. Innovation contrived within this context invariably tends to focus on discrete projects aimed at growth or increased revenue rather than on revitalising an entire enterprise or industry or conceiving entirely new markets.

Fortunately a parallel universe is emerging in the minds of many entrepreneurs as we make the shift from industrial economism to global ecologism. Wired-in to new knowledge, systemically sensitive and cooperatively inclined, innovators in this space see peer-to-peer connections everywhere they look as well as openings for engaging collaboration on a vast scale.

Business praxis:
Most corporations claim to use innovation as a driver of change. Three elements characterising conventional business practice clearly impede such efforts:

1. Without a doubt creative ideas are the seeds of innovation. Great ideas can surface by accident or by design. But while it is true innovation rarely emerges from barren ground, it requires far more than just having a creative or entrepreneurial organizational culture. While a conducive social ecology is vital for innovation to take root, creativity alone is not sufficient.  On the contrary, innovation is a disciplined practice, a systematic process whereby great ideas are turned into real value. This is one of the most misunderstood factors of innovation. Getting teams of executives to sit around and come up with good ideas is one thing. Extracting value from these ideas is quite another.
2. We still lack a sophisticated language for thinking and talking about strategic innovation. Most business language remains steeped in conventions and thinking habits that refer back to the industrial age. More often than not it is couched in the zero-sum language of competition and profits. Meanwhile the process of innovation has been democratised. Collaborative networks of open design and coordinated interaction are shaping new relationships and alliances between government, business and civic society. In this context using obsolete language from a bygone era is simply confusing.
3. Modest objectives rarely result in breakthrough endeavours. A common problem of many entrepreneurial initiatives (especially start-up ventures) is that aspirations are set too low and possibilities defined too narrowly. More often than not the implicit aim amounts to no more than extracting greater profits from existing product lines or market offers. Strategic foresight is often ignored thereby eliminating many possibilities. The lack of robust strategic intelligence, especially from customers, also limits what can be achieved.

Organizational design:
Ironically we have not yet found a way of designing our organizations to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities offered by globalism. Most corporations are dinosaurs awaiting extinction. Because of this many businesses remain paralysed, distrustful, responding to shifting realities by mimicking competitors or by resorting to habits that served well in the past but that make little sense today.

Traditionally we designed our organizations for efficiency – not speed and certainly not innovation. In fact focusing on efficiency repeatedly ingrains practices and protocols that actively stifle creativity and hinder innovation.

Unsurprisingly the most innovative organizations recognize this. They constantly refashion boundaries, rethink roles, reinvent systems and revitalise processes, in effect redesigning their organisations for speed and adaptiveness. As a result, corporate research and design laboratories routinely collaborate with customers and suppliers, share software code with programmers and tap into networks of scientists and entrepreneurs for the world’s best ideas.

This kind of cooperative innovation, where the processes of innovation are democratised, is no longer a fringe activity but essential to remaining competitive in a globalised world.

Myopic Merger Mania

Men in suits get so excited about large mergers. The bigger the better. I think it must have something to do with unlimited testosterone. Personally I have never quite understood what all the excitement is about. But then I’ve never fully comprehended what is so enticing about bags of money as an end in itself. It has little appeal for me. Perhaps such disinterest has been good for my reputation. It means I’ve been able to remain objective when clients have sought my advice on large deals.

Today the business of companies acquiring other companies is big business. But whoever said ‘may you live in exciting times’ didn't necessarily mean that to be a prediction of good things ahead. On the contrary, if you're like most investors, executives or employees it's more of a nuisance. You see, in the corporate world, exciting usually means risky. And there's probably nothing riskier or more prone to failure than merging with another company.

There are basically two kinds of mergers. Those that fail immediately and those that will fail within a five year window. Only 25 per cent of mergers actually work in the long term.

The reasons stare us in the face if we’re prepared to see them. For one thing, to state the obvious, all the excitement is generated around the numbers, large numbers – especially stuff like shareholder value and return on investment. Other significant factors are often ignored – ranging from longer term strategic fit and the harmonisation of discrete cultures, through acquisitive management competencies, to customer profitability. 

How am I defining failure? First it is where the original intentions (and promise) fail to materialise. In other words whatever the companies had in mind that motivated them to merge in the first place doesn't work out that way in the end. Secondly it is where shareholders suffer because operating results deteriorate rather than improve. Thirdly it is where one or both of these factors causes the companies to decouple – the most ignominious admission of failure.

If we just take the US market as an example we have seen literally scores of recent botched ventures. There was AOL and Time Warner. HP and Compaq. Alcatel and Lucent. Daimler Benz and Chrysler… need I go on? During the 1995-2000 M&A surge in the US volumes totalled more than $12 trillion. However within this same period, some $1 trillion in shareholder wealth evaporated. Stupid takeovers did more damage to investors than did all the dot-comes combined. What is even more remarkable is that these failed mergers were the work of the world’s most successful corporations advised by highly educated Wall Street investment bankers.

The failure of mergers and the subsequent demise of companies have many unintended consequences. Some acquisitions are just plain daft; ideas that were doomed from the very start. Sometimes the merged entity goes bankrupt, so spectacular is the collapse. At other times the failure results in the downfall of those that masterminded them. Sometimes companies are forced into reversing the process, at great expense, because of poor judgement, lack of foresight, financial miscalculations or cultural incompatibilities. Every so often a disaster is averted and companies pull the plug on the deal at the eleventh hour.

One has to ask why? If most mergers fail then why merge to begin with? If the risks are so high, why take the chance? Generally speaking companies merge for one of two reasons:

First of all it must make sense strategically. In other words, the aspirations of one or both companies can be achieved faster or more easily through the acquisition of the other’s strategic assets. But that, frankly, is rare. Often such synergies are contrived or manufactured by those who have instigated the deal. More commonly, as a result, mergers are undertaken because of greed and the illusion that bigger is better.

Secondly the perceived operating synergies and resulting efficiencies make the merger a seductive proposition. If that is the case we should, at some point after integration, see redundant functions eliminated and shareholder value increasing.

My company is frequently sought by Boards burdened by the ever present prospect of M&A failure to undertake what we have come to refer to as whole-of-system due diligence. This includes analysing everything from strategic alignment, management capability and organisational design, right through to culture and integration strategy - factors most often ignored, or thought less important, by the teams of accountants who typically drive key decisions.

It's important to appreciate that the standard three-month due diligence process rarely uncovers any of the potential flaws in a merger. That's because M&A due diligence processes typically have a single overriding goal which is to shield executives and directors from possible shareholder litigation.

Because of our work in this field we find ourselves in the privileged position of examining at first hand the holes that can derail a merger – gaping chasms that are sometimes so big you could drive a truckload of MBAs through them. This is especially the case with multinational joint ventures where cultural compatibility is a critical factor.

From our elevated position the reasons for failure become crystal clear. Yet these issues, often overlooked by the number crunchers, can be so easily avoided.

My favourite reports concerning mergers not living up to their initial excitement are things like one entity embellishing the truth while the other buys a persuasive Powerpoint pitch. I’ve actually witnessed that! Or two desperate companies merging on impulse, thus creating one big desperate company…

Seriously though, the most critical factors are as follows. The lessons to be learned from these are salutary:

• A lack of comprehension concerning globalism (or globaility if you're in the US) – the current business conditions that have arisen through various processes of globalisation. This frequently raises fundamental questions such as whether there are real synergies to be found in a potential merger or whether these could be found using alternative means such as harnessing new technologies, collaborative ventures, strategic alliances, etc. Lesson: Frame M&A discussions and make key decisions within the context of global markets and business ecosystems

• A flawed corporate strategy in one or both entities. So many contemporary corporations fail to use rigorous, real-time strategic intelligence to inform their planning and decision making that assumptions can be way off the mark. This leads to an illusion that they understand a particular market when in fact the opposite is the case. Lesson: Establish mechanisms for continuously channelling real-time strategic intelligence about dynamic conditions and market opportunities to key decision makers

• A paucity of experience and knowledge of M&A in the acquiring company’s executive team can often lead to the most elementary mistakes. Lesson: Ensure that you have M&A experience and the right skills on your team – if necessary buy it in for this purpose.

• Acquisitions are really about buying customers. Other assets are immaterial in comparison. But although customer acquisition is mostly taken for granted, customer profitability, which can vary widely, is frequently ignored. Consequently, where a small group of customers might account for a large part of a company’s capitalization, another group of customers might actually reduce the company’s value significantly. Acquisition analysts must appreciate that long-term company value is a function of the aggregated value of their customers. By understanding the economics of customer profitability companies can avoid doing deals that hurt their shareholders, identify surprising deals that create substantial wealth, and even salvage deals that would otherwise be losers. Lesson: Analyse customer segments and associated profitability to determine what to buy

• Misalignment of any number of emotional and cultural factors ranging from intentions and motivations to expectations. Cultural incompatibilities in particular can lead to an exodus of talent after retention agreements expire. Lesson: Make sure that you fully understand the two cultures and what drives people to work in both businesses. Be prepared to adapt recruitment and development processes to suit the merged entity

• A sub-optimal or non-existent integration strategy. We often find that the acquiring player expects to impose its corporate culture on the other entity. There is no better way to enflame fears and entrench animosities, thus making the task of integration much harder than it needs to be. Lesson: Take time to plan and co-design all aspects of the integration strategy. Be prepared to shape a desired corporate culture that transcends both current states

• The lure of profits can seduce executives into ignoring impacts on the balance sheet that might unwittingly destroy shareholder value. CEOs are under increasing pressure to reinvest cash and grow earnings, especially with competition being so volatile. If acquisitions are not undertaken, or so it is argued, competitors may clinch profitable deals instead. The danger is that succumbing to these pressures often has the effect of reducing the return on invested capital to value-destroying levels. Lesson: The balance sheet is just as important as projected profits – perhaps more so in the long term. Examine all options for growing profits and revenue before rushing in to an unwise acquisition

• Companies often resort to cost-cutting in order to increase return on invested capital. Perhaps duplication is identified in the merged entity. If two banks merge and they both have adjacent branches, for example, one can be closed. Merged companies, however, become myopically optimistic about the effects of cost-cutting. A lack of transparency and flawed assumptions in calculating potential benefits and synergies often lead to errors of judgement. Substantial savings usually don’t materialise because acquirers, caught up in the excitement of the deal, tend to overestimate what is possible. Of course yet another reason cost-cutting doesn’t work is that potential savings might have already been bargained away in the negotiation of the selling price. Lesson: Cost-cutting is not a panacea. It is a risky strategy and too often the result of lazy management habits. By all means manage costs sensibly. But resist the urge to cut deeply, or at whim, especially if that means wielding the axe to activities that grow long-term value - such as staff training, management development and customer access, for example

• If cost-cutting and other supposed efficiencies fail to make the deal sufficiently attractive, increasing revenue is another way executives believe they can make high-priced mergers pay off. The most frequent claim in this regard is that the deal will create enormous opportunities for cross-selling. While cross–selling does happen it is almost never to the extent the acquirer imagines. Lesson: Get real! Much of what you imagine in terms of additional revenue may not eventuate. Develop a worst case scenario and be prepared to live within that reality

Although I grant that some of these are comical, none are intended as jokes. They are real examples from recent, serious, multi million dollar merger proposals. Furthermore they draw attention to concerns that only came to light after standard due diligence processes had been completed and a green light given to the project.

The culprit, pure and simple, is ineffective governance and non-systemic due diligence. Surely it would be wise to insist that the burden of proof for mergers to make sense should be as high as their risk, their failure rate and the pain they inevitably cost all stakeholders. I can see no rational reason why Boards would not insist upon such a rigorous evaluation given today’s complex M&A environment.

War Mongering

The drums of war are beating furiously across old empires. Once more it is the terrified emperors, led by self-proclaimed, sanctimonious protectors, who are exercising a penchant for confrontation. Their favoured occupation of war mongering has taken precedence yet again over sustainable engagement, containment and change through dialogue.

Last Friday Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz suggested an armed attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran looked ‘unavoidable’ given the apparent failure of UN sanctions in denying Tehran technology with bomb-making potential. Others in the Israeli and US cabinets are insisting that a pre-emptive strike on Iran is ‘inevitable’.

Israel, you may recall, widely believed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal, bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. An Israeli air raid on Syria last September razed what the US claimed was a nascent reactor built with North Korean help. Syria denied having any such facility.

Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar has warned Israel of a ‘very painful’ retort should a military strike be launched over Iran’s disputed nuclear program. Meanwhile the Russians are scrambling to finish an upgrade of Iran’s air defences - which is making the Israelis even more nervous (and trigger happy) of course.

So where is the great and trusted Emperor Bush in all of this tussle? He is in Europe, busy mustering support for deeper sanctions against Iran. In his absence several US senators have been briefed on the possibility of an impending attack.

What scandalous failure of leadership is this? Could the dogs of war be unleashed yet again by an egotistical despot who has only a few months left in office and who lost all sense of integrity after September 11th 2001? I wouldn’t put it past him for one minute. How can that possibly be?

Over the past few months, several moves by the White House strongly suggest the Bush administration is gearing up to attack Iran sometime in the near future. The US wouldn’t be foolish enough to put troops on the ground. Notwithstanding the current covert war (mostly destabilisation in the form of assassinations and abductions) being conducted at a cost of $400 million, the mostly likely scenario is an air attack targeting the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) garrisons and known nuclear facilities.

Now I must admit a strange disconnect becomes apparent - one that I cannot immediately reconcile. But then I am thinking logically and humanely! December's National Intelligence Estimate (the consensus view of all sixteen US intelligence agencies) concluded that Iran had actually abandoned its intentions to build a nuclear weapon. At the time, the report seemed to defer any possibility of war with Iran.

Shortly after the intelligence estimate on Iran was released, however, an influential group comprising Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates set out to undermine it. They drew on the Kyl-Lieberman Sense of the Senate resolution to vindicate their challenge, which was aired publicly.

Last September, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment ratcheted up confrontation with Iran by calling for the designation of its Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization responsible for killing US troops. The resolution was passed overwhelmingly 76 votes to 22.

In March the White House quietly extended an executive order stating that Iran represented an ‘ongoing threat’ to US national security. The administration claims that the 2002 resolution that led to the war in Iraq gives it the right to strike at ‘terrorists’ wherever they happen to be.

On April 21st Robert Gates proclaimed Iran was hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, and that, while he was not advocating war with Iran, the military option should be kept on the table. In these none too subtle ways the Bush administration continues to increase its rhetorical attacks on Iran.

This communications strategy is disturbingly reminiscent of the campaign which led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Take one such charge, levelled by General David Petraeus (head of US Central Command) that the Quds Force is arming anti-American groups in Iraq and providing them with high-tech roadside bombs and sophisticated rockets. Petraeus told the Senate Committee on Armed Services that ‘special groups’ are ‘funded, trained, armed and directed by Iran's Quds Force. It was these groups that launched Iranian rockets and mortar rounds at Iraq's seat of government’ in the Green Zone, he concluded. Patraeus incidentally, replaced Admiral William Fallon, who had openly opposed a military confrontation with Iran.

As in 2003 the intentions are clear. And, as before, there is a complete lack of evidence to support the increasingly belligerent assertions. The lack of evidence, however, has not deterred the likes of Cheney and Gates. In fact it has not attenuated the strident rhetoric emanating from the White House one iota. 

Preparations for war, on the other hand, seem to be far more than just rhetorical. Cheney's trip to the Middle East in March was seen in the region as a possible harbinger of war since cooperation would be needed by all four countries he visited - Oman, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey.

There has also been a steady build-up of naval and air power in the region. A new aircraft carrier battle group has been assigned to the area, Patriot anti-missile missiles have been deployed, and US Naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean have been strengthened.

So what would be most likely to happen if the United States did elect to attack Iran?

At home the Bush administration may see this as a last chance gambit to hold on to the White House. On the surface at least one would think such a strategy would wreck McCain’s chance of winning the election. On the other hand the Republicans know they are going to lose seats in the House and in the Senate and at this stage the race for the presidency is still very tight. Might a new war against the demonized Iranians encourage voters to vote for war hero John McCain against the untried Obama? Possibly.

However, it is also feasible that another blatantly illegal attack on a smaller nation would be considered grounds for impeachment. But Bush has only a few months left to rule. He is deluded enough to believe that he can get away with it.

Militarily of course there is little Tehran could do in response to an attack by the world’s mightiest military force. Nor could Iran rely on support from the militias in Iraq and Hezbollah who will inevitably act on the basis of what is in their own interests.

The Iranian army is smaller than it was during the Iran-Iraq war. The air force is also small and chronically out-of-date. The navy lacks larger craft of any kind, although it is most unlikely the Iranians would attempt to blockade the Gulf as the current regime depends on the sale of gas and oil to bolster its fragile economy.

There has been some speculation that Iran might target Israel, especially after the recent controversial rantings by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has threatened to wipe Israel off the map on more than one occasion. The Israelis, however, have made it clear that any such attack would be met with a massive retaliation, probably nuclear. In any case, it is far more likely that Israel would attack Iran.

On a more global scale any premeditated attack by US forces would be sure to further isolate the United States in the Middle East – especially as such an action would run counter to diplomatic initiatives by other nations in the Gulf region aimed at establishing a détente with Tehran. While the US seeks to defend the Arabs from Iran, the Arabs are increasingly trying to defend themselves from US efforts to defend them against Iran!

There is an open and growing sympathy on the part of many Gulf nations for Iran and this is accompanied by increasing scepticism about US efforts to isolate the country. Furthermore another US-led war would deeply divide Europe and might even lead to a German withdrawal from Afghanistan. What responses might emanate from Russia, China and India remain uncertain.

All this talk of war, of course, could be sheer bluff – belligerence and sabre rattling signifying absolutely nothing. It could also be the precursor to another futile conflict - possibly one sparked by a manufactured incident of some kind. Or then again, perhaps I’ve just been watching too many movies like Wag the Dog!

Once unleashed, however, no one controls the prosecution of a war. US foreign policy on Iraq was fatally flawed. Although Saddam Hussein was a tyrant he did at least preside over a secular state. He had been installed by the US we should remember.

But if the initial strategy was flawed, its execution since has been a public declaration of incompetence; an unmitigated political, humanitarian and military disaster. Young American soldiers have become socialised into committing atrocities while politicians continue to speak in heroic terms, justifying their ill-conceived brutality in terms of ridding the world of tyrants.

They should look more closely at themselves. Self-awareness can be humbling. Those who kill large numbers of people invariably claim it as a virtue. God is on their side - or so they believe. The campaign to vanquish terror is expressed within the confines of this rhetoric, as if once all terrorists are destroyed evil itself will vanish. This is pure myth.

The reality is starkly different. As difficult as it is to imagine, a US-initiated war with Iran could easily exceed the Iraq War as a foreign policy blunder of disastrous proportions. It would certainly serve to embolden terrorist aspirations in organisations like al-Qaeda - severely weakened if one puts aside their activities in Iraq. It might also precipitate a decline in the fortunes and confidence of the US empire from which it would be almost impossible to recover.

Let Them Eat Cake (Or Watch a DVD)

Just recently Suna and I took a much deserved vacation in France. We had planned a week in Provence, sharing a villa in Gordes with a couple of friends, followed by a week in Montmartre where we had rented a small apartment on the steps leading up to the Sacre Coeur. The idea was to have a taste of both country and city.

Provence was a delight. So, fortunately, was the weather. We arrived back in the capital on a Saturday afternoon, thrilled by the prospect of a full week of walking the fascinating lanes and discovering the variety of restaurants and cafes that still litter the various inner suburbs.

As this was Suna’s first trip to Paris we had decided to take the opportunity to visit all the popular tourist sites which, with the exception of climbing the Eiffel Tower, we managed. Our estimation of an hour and a half waiting to buy tickets was just too much. We were content just to sit under the Monsieur Eiffel’s incredible structure taking photographs and watching others wait in the snaking queue.

Naturally Versailles was on the list of things to do. I had forgotten how huge this place actually is. The grounds stretch further than the eye can see. As we walked through the palatial rooms, following a crowd of excited Japanese armed with cameras and flashlights galore, I related the story of Marie Antoinette to my wife.

This is the young queen, you will recall, who is credited with the preposterous line: If they do not have bread, why do they not eat cake? Shortly afterwards of course they guillotined her and her husband, along with most of the aristocracy, bringing a corrupt, lazy and arrogant monarchy to an end and founding a vibrant republic in its stead.

I’ve always secretly admired the courage of anyone who stands up to corrupt power. Suna, it appeared, was equally enthralled and startled by this history, pondering out loud what had caused the monarchy to become so out of touch with the people.

As we ambled from one immense palatial chamber to another, the gathering frowns on Suna’s face indicated (or so I thought) a comparison she was drawing between her own monarch, the much-beloved King Of Thailand, and these French unfortunates. Later that evening, however, she explained what had really been on her mind. I should have known not to underestimate her ability to make unexpected leaps of logic.

She had actually been thinking about the situation in Myanmar where a gang of terrified middle-aged men see themselves as saviours of their nation but are as divorced from reality as was Marie Antoinette. Here, many centuries on and a world away from France, though disturbingly closer to our home in Thailand, an scandalous approach to a humanitarian crisis is unfolding.

Might the current situation precipitate a revolution of the kind we saw in France? Is it likely that buddhist  monks would lead such a revolution? And if not, what responsibility should we then accept as global citizens for taking action to help the people of Burma rid themselves of such tyrannical and deluded rulers who cling to power purely for personal gain?

The generals, by their inaction and vanity, have turned a bad situation into an appalling catastrophe. The cyclone in Myanmar cut a swathe of devastation through the Irrawaddy delta. Entire communities and villages have been destroyed. Thousands of people have been killed. Many more are still missing. Children have been orphaned and crops devastated.

According to recent estimates, 128,000 people have died as a result of the cyclone and a further 200,000 are missing. Several relief agencies have expressed fears of killer outbreaks of diseases such as typhus, cholera and dysentery due to exposure, wretched sanitation and water contaminated by the bodies of dead people and animals.

Natural disasters on this kind of scale necessitate a swift response from the global community as well as the nation affected. In stark contrast to China’s initial rapid acceptance of assistance, what we have witnessed in Myanmar, with ever-increasing alarm and disbelief, was a junta intent on keeping foreign aid and welfare away from their people.

While the majority of villagers in southern Myanmar went without food, shelter, medicine, water and electricity, the ruling elite denied visas to humanitarian relief workers and brazenly used state-controlled media to show their benevolence in giving away television sets and DVD players to the starving!

In some cases, choreographed sequences had the generals handing out food parcels and being embraced by grateful tearful citizens. Off camera, however, a travesty was taking place as they hastily plastered their names on a few paltry aid packages donated by a concerned world community and stole the remainder. Help for the many was restricted to a few loyal supporters - all to ensure that the generals remain in control. And that despite growing criticism from around the world and a military suffering from poor morale and mass desertion.

To the Asean community the Myanmar regime is a shameful scar that continues to attach its oppressive reputation to an organisation that is meant to improve the quality of life of those living within its borders. Is it any wonder that those who have previously enjoyed a lucrative business relationship with the generals are remaining silent these days?

Surely no country in the world these days need sacrifice humanity for paltry geopolitical or religious reasons, natural resources or access to profitable future markets? The very thought is a blight on civilized society. This is not a question of Asian values against western values. It is not a question of democracy versus other forms of government, even when these are extreme. It is about what is right and what is wrong.

Meanwhile a similar history may be unfolding in Zimbabwe. There are clear signs that Robert Mugabe may now be just a figurehead. The real power probably lies with the Joint Operations Command committee. It was this bunch of bemedalled generals that ensured Mugabe did not step down after his recent defeat in the presidential elections. It is they who are now masterminding a terror campaign to suppress the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and guarantee Mr Mugabe victory in the run-off later this month.

The most powerful figures in this junta are General Constantine Chiwenga, the military chief; Augustine Chihuri, the national police commissioner; and General Paradzai Zimondi, the commander of the prison service. Air Marshal Perence Shiri, the commander of the air force, who masterminded a brutal military campaign against Zimbabwe's minority Ndebele people in the 1980s, is also part of this circle, though far less influential. All four fought in Mr Mugabe's guerrilla army during the war against white rule in the 1970s and benefited from Mr Mugabe's seizure of white-owned land.

In truth there is not too much difference today between Myanmar and Zimbabwe where the militarisation of the state is all but complete – and this in a country where the economy, along with hope, has been utterly destroyed.

Every national leadership carries the burden of responsibility for the education, health, wealth and welfare of its people, be they democrats, communists, kings or dictators. If a leadership fails in this regard they must make way for those who have the understanding, compassion and competence to deliver.

Those who support the resident evils of these unlawful regimes stand indicted by the selfish actions of gangs of thugs who have shown only self-interest and an absolute disregard for their responsibilities. The rest of the world should condemn their actions and take steps to rapidly restore humanity to the people of Myanmar and Zimbabwe.

Summits or Circuses?

Conferences, summits, seminars, conventions, international forums…. It seems the events management scene these days is awash with meetings in which VIPs, celebrities, politicians and self-nominated experts come together, supposedly intent on finding solutions to some of our most pressing problems.

Typically these occasions don’t lead to radical breakthroughs, changed outcomes or even alternative strategies. In fact, speaking from bitter experience, I am tempted to suggest that they simply go round and round in ever-decreasing circles, covering known territory and leading only to disenchantment and further frustration.

Why? Because collaborative inquiry and purposeful dialogue are nudged aside, allowing advocacy (and advocacy alone) to take centre stage.

The processes of advocacy are derived from the legal world. Entailing argument set against counter-argument they are relatively simple to organise, are grounded in ‘evidence’ and require only light moderation rather than smart facilitation. Above all advocacy is non-threatening: arguments can be assembled, evidence assessed and rationality asserted. Ultimately, however, the advocacy process is flawed in that it resists the emergence of profoundly transformational ideas. 

More often than not then, events organized in this manner revert to being platforms where the usual suspects are encouraged to air their predictable views for the umpteenth time in an attempt to convince others of the validity of their outdated, unimaginative or impractical ideas.

Yet events organisers and sponsors are seduced by the advocacy model over and over again. They fail to appreciate that the processes they use are doomed to fall short for the very reason that advocacy invariably leads to zero-sum games and stalemate positions.

Genuine inquiry conducted in decision-theatre environments (or even low-tech open space sessions) would actually ensure different insights and possibly new systemic solutions. However, inquiry processes hardly ever get a look in - except as a cursory bow to the audience.

There can only be a few reasons for this. Perhaps organizers are ignorant of the inherent power of collective inquiry? Perhaps they shy away from collaborative group sessions because they are so difficult to control? Or possibly they consider experts (and consequently expert opinion) as the only legitimate authority? Surely not. There has to be a third possibility.

Could it be that the process of facilitating group dialogue is regarded with disdain? As something of lesser value? Or even too risky in that it might open up a Pandora’s box of radical ideas than cannot be practically implemented?

Watching some first-rate facilitators, like the BBC World’s Nic Gowing, for example, leads me to believe that it is indeed risky but that new answers do emerge. So why don't we see more inquiry-based meetings? Surely radical ideas are what is needed if we are to achieve what really amounts to a total re-design of our civilization and its priorities, especially given that this is something we have never had to contemplate before?

If this is true then we should begin to see a greater use of inquiry-based models. But even large, high profile events are ambushed by the advocacy model. Take the World Economic Forum (WEF) for example, which has become something of a benchmark in events of this nature. The WEF format, comprising individual presentations, expert panels and group discussions, is imitated by numerous smaller events around the world. Yet even this model has failed to live up to expectations because of the focus on experts talking at rather than with others.

As a consequence forceful debate is frequently mistaken for rigorous thinking. Eloquence (or power) wins over mindfulness. Assumptions remain largely unchallenged. Questions that might give rise to creative alternatives remain unanswered. And at the end nothing has changed.

The WEF format was used this week at the UN-sponsored summit in Rome aimed at addressing the problem of soaring global food prices. As is usual with events of this nature invitations were extended to the world’s most rich and powerful. Presentations from a star-studded cast were limited to five minutes in duration. But because of the absence of deeply focused inquiry this meeting, though well-intentioned, has turned into a circus.

As is generally known food costs are currently the highest in 30 years. The crisis is believed to have pushed about 100 million people around the world into hunger. The rising price of staples like wheat and rice have caused riots in dozens of countries and it looks as though the situation will deteriorate even further if a solution is not found fast. Every reason to convene an urgent summit in fact!

In his opening address UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon went to the nub of the impending catastrophe. He pointed to the chronic lack of new investment in agriculture and pleaded for higher yields together with the immediate suspension or elimination of price controls and other trade barriers. He also called into question the ethics of growing crops for fuel while millions are starving.

The current ethanol-from-corn boom in the US has already diverted around 100 million tons of grain from human diets to American car engines and there is now growing concern that biofuel may simply be a euphemism for subsidies to the rich and starvation for the poor. Sheer demographic momentum will increase the world's urban population by 3 billion people over the next 40 years (90 per cent of them in poor cities) and absolutely no one has a clue how a planet of slums, with growing food and energy crises, will accommodate their biological survival, much less their inevitable aspirations to basic happiness and dignity.

Ban Ki-moon's speech alone could have framed many hours of valuable discussion of issues ranging from economic growth, agricultural productivity and social progress to global security - if only some thought had been given to an inquiry process whereby fresh insights and new thinking could have emerged and been examined. For whatever reason it was not. The opportunity for deeper dialogue was lost on the organizers.

As a consequence Ban Ki-moon’s address became the high point of the entire summit. The rest descended into pure farce…

Robert Mugabe’s presence at the summit was labelled obscene by members of both the British and Australian delegations. Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith claimed the Zimbabwean president had presided over the starvation of his people. In a tit-for-tat riposte Mugabe accused Britain and its allies of using food aid as a political weapon in attempts to topple him, thus crippling the Zimbabwean economy.

President Ahmadinejad of Iran diverted attention even further from the summit topic by attacking what he called Israel's criminal and terrorist Zionist regime. He alleged that unnamed profiteering forces were driving up oil prices to further their geopolitical aims.

By this time anarchy might have been an apt description of the summit proceedings. Bring in the clowns, I thought. But they were already on stage.

Then in a valiant yet ultimately futile attempt to get the agenda back on track Jacques Diouf, Head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, accused the West of confusing priorities. We are concerned more about maintaining the quality of our lives than we are about ways to feed the poor, he said.

The silence was deafening. A few people shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Here at last was a golden opportunity to raise the level of debate to a higher plane. Would the shards of a global conscience make their grand entrance?

Such outrageous thoughts were immediately quashed as Ed Schafer, US Agriculture Secretary, got on his soapbox aggressively asserting that biofuels were responsible for only 2 to 3 per cent of the predicted 43 per cent rise in food prices this year. Other participants muttered among themselves that biofuels actually accounted for 15 to 30 per cent of the increases. But time was of the essence and there was an agenda to be followed. Where was the next speaker?

And so it went on… One political game after another. Each speaker trying to gain the upper hand, deflate another’s point of view, cast doubts on their data, or simply grab their few moments of glory in the Roman sun. Little attempt was made by any of the speakers to question their own assumptions, to acknowledge personal biases and vested interests, or to understand the reasoning of others.

Because the United States, Canada and Brazil all have sizeable biofuel industries this dispute puts the integrity of the entire summit at risk, jeopardizes deeper inquiry, entrenches current, highly politicized positions, and may yet derail attempts to find a consensus.

I am not trying to make this summit a laughing stock. Far from it. But we are facing serious issues that threaten our way of life and quite possibly civilization as we know it.

It would be arrogant in the extreme to believe that human beings are intelligent enough to avoid the kind of species extinction that has occurred to 98 per cent of life on this planet.

But the only way we have of avoiding that kind of scenario is to elevate our thinking to an entirely different plane in order to engage as many people as possible in finding new questions to old answers.

The current mode of meetings and summits does not allow for that. They get us precisely nowhere!

[I would like to acknowledge Sean Rooney, Director of CSIRO's Sustainable Communities Initiative, for stimulating my thinking with regard to the entrenched nature of the advocacy phenomenon]

Global War for Talent

For some years now the industrialized world has faced critical shortages of knowledge and skills in the workforce. Established talent pools have shrunk while new ones, continuously forming, are as yet relatively unfamiliar.

This problem has been caused (in part at least) by a shift in the global economy, particularly the swing away from conventional industrial powerhouses in time-honored locations to the dynamic emerging markets of Asia. Economic power, formerly concentrated among a few industrialized nations, has become dispersed across multiple centres of commercial and trading activity.

In such a multi-polar world competition for new products, consumers, markets (and therefore talent) can arise from anywhere. Three factors have enabled this re-alignment of global economic power:

Arguably the most potent of these has been internet-based communications technologies. These allow people to access knowledge and execute work irrespective of their physical location. Another factor is distributed outsourcing - the ability to source work from wherever skilled people are available at the most competitive price has irrevocably altered the way multinationals operate. Yet a third factor is the changing face of consumer demographics. Over the coming decade a billion or more new consumers will become active participants in the global economy. Most of these will come from emerging markets.

Globalisation of the market for talent took many by surprise. The majority of companies were not well prepared for the consequences although it was always apparent that new technologies like robotics and computing would eventually transform the nature of work, the knowledge and skills required, the manner in which work was sourced and the ways in which people were required to collaborate.

As talent shortages continue to impact business, a dual track strategic response is required. Firstly, new global alliances between businesses, governments and institutions of higher learning need to be forged with the intention of creating a better coordinated agenda to raise awareness, knowledge and appropriate skills levels among all citizens. Secondly, organisations must develop the capability to address talent issues at a whole-of-enterprise level.

There are at least four essential components to strategic talent management in today’s global economy:

1. Defining Talent – Most organizations have poor track records when it comes to identifying the expertise they are going to need in the future. Emphasis on short-term financial results usually means that insufficient time is devoted to the forecasting of human capital requirements and even less on exploring alternative future scenarios that might pre-empt significant changes in specific knowledge, skills and activities. In fact guesswork frequently takes precedence over any conscious capability building. The most essential factor in a corporation’s ability to achieve and sustain high levels of economic performance in an increasingly competitive environment is the ability to align knowledge and skills with the execution of robust business strategies. Without that link the future viability of the business is immediately put at risk.

2. Sourcing Talent – Today’s competition for talent is global. New intermediaries, like social networks, personal advocacy websites and boutique search firms have emerged, disturbing the quasi-monopolistic complacency of traditional recruitment practices. It stands to reason that diversity, too, has become an issue as the workforce acquires multicultural variety. As a consequence, the ability to appreciate and source talent strategically becomes even more of an imperative. Some firms, like Lenovo the Chinese PC manufacturer for example, have even developed a label for this phenomenon. It is called worldsourcing: the ability to find and access appropriate talent wherever it happens to be in the world.

3. Developing Talent – Development of any kind is usually interpreted as being concerned with growing the skills of the people one employs. Focusing on staff development is vitally important. Yet so much hangs on the quality and preparedness of people entering the workforce. Traditionally, corporations have relied on educational institutions to prepare people for work. Today that is simply inadequate. Once again corporations are being forced to focus on the overall capabilities of the talent pool from which they recruit to ensure that they get the best possible performance from the people they hire.

4. Liberating Talent – We know that people do not give of their best when suffocated by an excess of rules, protocols and procedures designed purely to control their every move. In today’s environment, creativity and innovation are vital factors in growing business success. These qualities do not arise naturally in organizations that have been designed for economic efficiency. On the contrary, in order to burgeon they require an environment in which people feel free to express themselves and where they are encouraged to play, learn and experiment.

Without a doubt the topic of talent is one of the most volatile and demanding strategic dilemmas besetting businesses today. Every thinking Managing Director I talk to has this issue uppermost on their mind. Typically the fear is expressed along these lines: We can no longer assume that a steady supply of skilled and talented people are ready to assume responsibility for executing the work that needs to be done. We have yet to find a workable solution. Right now we are not even certain how to begin to confront this issue.

As is so often the case today (in matters ranging from the environment to social corporate responsibility - and now talent acquisition) business can no longer afford the luxury of minding its own business. It has to engage in broader issues if it is to maintain high levels of performance while assuring ongoing social relevance.

It is essential that the nature of securing, developing and retaining talent is understood in today’s context. But the quest for talent must be based upon a resilient future profile and strategic direction rather than on current activities. As far as I’m concerned this can best be achieved by focusing more resources on:

• Developing an awareness of global talent and entering into strategic partnerships with governments, universities and schools that consciously shapes, fosters and delivers education of relevance to future needs
• Creating conditions within the enterprise where employees feel motivated, gain a sense of personal achievement and pride in their work, and feel part of something important.

Without these two dimensions organizations will find it increasingly impossible to retain the talent that has been so hard to find and secure in the first place.

Political Games

A steady stream of interruptions to the Olympic torch parade in several countries together with high profile stunts by the Chinese, like lighting the flame on the top of Mount Everest, ensures only that activists will continue to take aim at the 2008 Games with increasing vehemence.

This is really playing with fire. In reality of course the torch relay has nothing to do with the games themselves. It was resurrected by Hitler before the 1936 Berlin Olympics (not an especially noble precedent one might think) and only became international before the 2004 Games in Athens. The torch relay is entirely political. To pretend that it is not is simply naïve.

Now, after weeks of world-wide media attention, the overwhelming imagery left in my mind is one of Clouseau-inspired comedy (French policemen on rollerblades whisking the torch onto a bus in undignified confusion) bundled up with biting satire (the five Olympic rings as handcuffs draped on the façade of Notre Dame), tragedy (the Tibetan snow-lion flying high above San Francisco’s Golden Gate bridge) and menacing farce (the squad of Chinese paramilitary police in blue and white tracksuits accompanying the torchbearers).

Within China, the official press has portrayed such disruptions to the relay as marginal amidst massive popular support from ordinary citizens. Indeed the majority of Chinese people would be unaware of the passions that have been aroused elsewhere.

Next month the torch will be taken with much ceremony into Tibet. This is highly contentious and may prove to be foolish in the extreme. It will once again enflame extreme emotions, particularly in those who have a gripe with China over their mishandling of Tibet. The Chinese will not back down, however, as to do so would entail a massive loss of face.

With such high profile global media attention what better target is there for airing grievances on a range of human rights issues? It is almost guaranteed that proceedings leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics herald further (potentially catastrophic) disruptions to the games themselves. Security must be a real headache for those involved in protecting the thousands of athletes and spectators.

For a while the devastating earthquake and storms that have killed so many in Sichuan province during the past few days have quelled the voices of protest. But this calm will be short-lived. The political storm still threatens and with each protest the pressure mounts on Western leaders not to attend the opening theatrics.

In the longer term the image of China may be damaged irreparably. A celebration intended to mark China’s emergence as a friendly global power has made some people think for the first time that its rise is something to dread.

It Started With A Kiss...

So goes the first line of a popular song by the group Hot Chocolate - music dating from the early eighties. Let me assure you that this post has nothing to do with kissing or sex – or even hot chocolate come to that. Its just a teasing title. My saga actually started with a visa! But (like it says in the song) I never thought it would come to this!

I spend a great deal of my time working with governments, trying to navigate around bureaucratic blockages. Public servants cutely refer to the garbage they create as due process. From experience I have become acutely aware of how this management factory can slow things down, especially when bureaucracy is held up to be an art form. But I've also become surprisingly adept at figuring out how to take legitimate shortcuts. Or so I thought...

So it came as no surprise when it took me a little longer than expected to renew my Indian visa. Little did I realize, however, that the process upon which I was about to embark would be so inflexible and frustrating. I had a couple of weeks to go before I needed to be in Chennai for one of my clients. Plenty of time. I easily located the Indian Consulate in Bangkok. It was just down the road from where I live. What could be more convenient?

When I arrived at the security gate I learned they had recently outsourced the visa service to a third party. No problems. The new office was only a short motorbike taxi ride away. But here I encountered my first tiny glitch. As it turned out this was a sign of bigger and better things to come.

Thai nationals, you see, can process their visa within a day. Very efficient. Foreigners, however, need a minimum of five working days. There was no express facility. No under-the-table service. Fine. No stress. Clearly organizing my visa in Bangkok was out of the question. I would need to revise my plans. Again, no worries. I was travelling to Melbourne in three days. I would get it done there where, as an Australian citizen, I would presumably be able to get the visa within the three days I would be in town.

I arrived in Melbourne on Sunday evening late. Early the following morning I went online to locate the Indian Consulate in Melbourne. It was in Coburg. I would need a taxi. I tried calling the designated number to ascertain office hours. After all I didn’t want to make the journey only to discover they were closed. I tried several times but in  vain. The line seemed to be permanently diverted. I would need to take a punt on the office being open.

I was staying with friends. Charles was dropping Veronica in the city and offered to drive me to Coburg. I accepted. I had just three hours to get this task over and done with. I would leave my passport at the Consulate and pick it up again on Wednesday afternoon when I had only one appointment. I was flying out to Singapore that evening.

I took a ticket, grabbed a visa application form and awaited my turn in the queue. My number was 521. The light box flashed 497. I waited. And waited. Number 502 must have been a student of philosophy as he was questioning every clause in agonising detail. 503. 504. 505 - an entire family. 506. 507. By this time I had been waiting about half an hour and was getting slightly tetchy.

Twenty eight minutes later my number was called. I leapt to the counter eager to lodge my application and get to my first appointment of the day.

I am so sorry sir. You have come to the wrong office. We recently outsourced our visa service. You need to go to Docklands. This information was conveyed with the usual Indian charm and much nodding of the head. I smiled through gritted teeth. Okay. If I could hail a taxi on the street I could get to Docklands, which was back in the city, and lodge my application. I might just get to my appointment on time.

As luck would have it a mother with two young children in tow was just alighting from a cab at the entrance to the Consulate. Perfect. I hopped in and gave instructions to the driver. Within a few minutes my new acquaintance, coincidentally one of the many Indian students in Melbourne, had managed to manoeuvre his way into the only traffic jam in the entire city. We weren’t moving. We were well and truly stuck. The minutes ticked by…

Patiently I explained an alternative route to the driver who, judging from the gist of the conversation, had now adopted me as his new best buddy. He was born in Mumbai, had three brothers, studied business at RMIT, had a girlfriend back in India and another one here…. By the time we reached Docklands I had enough information to produce an entire cautionary tale on this young man’s life.

As I bolted from the cab he shouted something after me. But it was pouring with rain. I waved a brusque farewell and escaped to the welcoming warmth of the foyer. Most of this new building was unoccupied so it was quite easy to find the Indian Visa Service. I rummaged around for my passport. Strange. I always keep it in my left jacket pocket when I am travelling. That is the only pocket that buttons up. But it wasn’t there.

I must have turned an ashen shade because two young women rushed to my side as though I was about to cark it. My passport, I heard myself intoning several times like some disturbed inmate from an asylum. I’ve lost my passport!

Are you sure it isn’t in your other pocket sir?

Now you must appreciate dear reader that a question of that nature, posed at that particular moment, was destined only to inflame the situation. Of course it isn’t in my pocket, I snapped back.

No sir, it is here. My best buddy had entered the room holding my passport triumphantly above his head. You left it in my taxi dear sir. I tried to call you but you did not hear me.

I didn’t have the heart to tell the poor guy the truth. Thanks. Thanks a lot, I croaked. He chuckled quietly to himself and waited. Thankyou, I said. More warmly this time. Will you be needing my services further dear sir? No that’s fine. I’ll manage, I heard myself stutter.

I turned around. There was no queue! I strode past the ticket dispenser right up to the counter. Good morning. I need a visa.

Now if you have been paying attention, dear reader, you will no doubt have guessed what comes next in my fable. The tall Indian gentleman on the other side of the counter started nodding his head from side to side. My heart sank. We need five working days sir…

I didn’t hear the remainder of what he said. I turned and slunk out of the office. Fortunately I had five days at home the following week. Theoretically I would be able to go back to the consulate in Bangkok and get the visa – two days before I left for Chennai. But there was no leeway for any further stuff ups!

Monday morning. Back in Bangkok. I was second in the queue - behind a German who wanted to go to Goa on the way back to Munich. I quickly filled in the application form, had my photograph taken and paid the fee required for a multiple entry visa. I was handed a receipt by a charming young Thai man with impeccable English who told me to return on Friday morning before 10am with my passport.

This I duly did. Then around 4pm I went back to the visa office to collect my passport complete with visa. Painless really. Except that I then did something really foolish. I sat down and worked out how much it had actually cost me, in time and money, to get this visa which I needed for a single day’s visit to Chennai.

The visa itself was 1,200 baht. Service charge 400 baht. All up around $55. Actually getting the visa was far more expensive. My new best buddy charged me $22.60 for one of the most memorable cab rides in history. I gave him a $10 tip from a visibly shaken yet grateful passenger for returning my passport. Petrol in Bangkok going to and from the consulate a total of three times? Minimal. Let’s just write that off.

But my time… I invoice my thinking time and offsite preparation time for clients at around $800 an hour – about half my normal per diem. I clocked up a total of 3 hours and 22 minutes before I had a visa stamped in my passport. A grand total of $2,753.60!

So I would like to thank all the government bureaucracies around the world for making life so complicated. A special thanks from those of us who constantly traverse your increasingly meaningless borders. You make the task of visiting your countries almost unfathomably crazy. Let’s be honest. Visas have absolutely nothing to do with national security or the prevention of terrorism. They are simply an archaic excuse for legalized extortion and should have no place in a globalized world. You know it and we know it.

By the way, does anyone know to whom I should send my invoice? Obviously I wish to claim compliance expenses to the tune of $2,698.60. Should I send it to the Indian Ambassador here do you think? Yes. I am sure that would be it. I’ll mail my invoice tomorrow.

Strange though. I never really thought it would come to this!

FOOTNOTE:
I have just had to deal with the French Consulate in Bangkok in order to get a Schengen Visa for my wife. In their wisdom the French bureaucracy now insists that all interaction with them be via email or their website. No telephone bookings are accepted. Nor do their security personnel speak French (or English come to that). My anguish is a more frustrating story than even my Indian visa saga! But as you probably wouldn't believe it I will leave this story for another time!

Something In The Air Tonight

Do I detect a whiff of Tiananmen Square hanging in the spring air of Lhasa? Is that really brutal oppression I see on my television screen? Or simply justice and the rule of law taking its course?

After the crushed saffron revolution in Burma (momentarily forced underground) the monster and the monk are back in the headlines, though not in the consciousness of those still in thrall to the Beijing economic miracle. Resistance looks fragile, hopeless even. The tyranny of the paranoid is poised to prevail yet again, as it has brutally done through the ages.

Pitted against each other are two powerful symbols of our times. Tibet chic continues to galvanise freedom junkies from Hollywood to Bollywood. The Dalai Lama, undeniably the most popular monk in the world, has transplanted the meaning of suffering from arcane Buddhist texts into the trendiest drawing rooms of the world. Affliction and misery are the new cool. Tibet has become the top destination for the neocompassionate.

The other symbol is both formidable and familiar. China. That East wind rattling the cages of Washington; that thunder menacing the waning powers of the industrialized world. China: that legend of modernization. That land of rampant growth and magnificent dreams.

But hang on. Hasn’t the world’s fastest growing economy banished Mao to the souvenir shop? And Marx to McDonald’s? That is what I had heard. No need to worry then… Oh, it is glorious to be wealthy in the People’s Republic. Learn it from the Chinese my friends.

Who isn’t weary of that tired old refrain mindlessly repeated in MBA lecture theatres everywhere? China is steeped in a million superlatives. Step aside Andrew Lloyd Webber. The Phantom of the Opera is passé. Romancing the Dragon is the new show in town.

Connect the dots. Draw the maps. What we are witnessing each night on television is a clash between two stereotypes. Actually a clash far removed from reality. One nation after another (including India, home to the exiled Dalai Lama) can be seen buggering themselves in futile attempts to maintain a balance between moral obligation and national self-interest. But where is moral obligation hiding? And what ghoulish ogre has national self-interest become?

Not Shrek-like in appearance, that’s for sure. Today, it seems, self-interest demands subtle submission. Contrived deference. Indifference even.

Hush now! Look the other way dear friends. We must not interfere in internal matters. Leave them to sort out their own affairs.

Perhaps that is why the Tibetan cause has become the prerogative of the usual socialist suspects and other professional romanticists of the lost kingdom of Shangri-La.

What recent events in Lhasa magnify is the deepest paranoia of the Chinese regime – a regime that may have abandoned the textbook gods and dogma of communism but certainly not the Leninist party apparatus. Beyond the supermarket, invisible to the aficionados of the Chinese way of building a brand new future, is the Gulag of the East. In the middle kingdom of happiness, questions are still banned. Human rights are dismissed as an superfluous luxury. Progress in the Red Empire demands the permanent suspension of conscience. Only the collective will of the Party is supreme.

And so Lhasa erupted on the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games, an event intended to showcase the awesome Chinese efficiency and precision for global appreciation. The world community was given an unscheduled preview by the events in Lhasa. Disruption to the Olympic flame in London and Paris was merely evidence of further civil disobedience in the coming months.

The monks didn’t wait for the gymnasts to finish their performance. Instead they shattered the idyll, exposing the horror beneath the glitz.

How dare they mix sport and politics! Not to worry. No doubt the Chairman will be pleased. The Cultural Revolution lives on.

Happy Songkran

Instinct is a wonderful thing if you are prepared to act on it. My instinct is nearly always right. This time something had told me I should have taken the car. But I ignored it and brushed any fears aside. I would use sheer cunning to outsmart potential revellers instead. After all it’s only a short distance to the local supermarket from our condominium.

It is true I have been caught many times before. This year, however, was going to be different. I dodged down the side alleys, neatly avoiding the crowded streets on the way to the shops. Coming back I decided to use the pathway that runs behind the old grocery store. It was a convenient short cut and usually deserted apart from a stray dog or two.

I was almost home and dry. Just a few metres more to the entrance of my building. I smiled. The metal grill was pulled securely across the front of the grocery store. It must be closed for the holidays. The shopkeeper’s children would be away on some festive jaunt. I was elated. Nearly home.

But then, whoosh! Twin jets of icy water shot out, catching me full on the back of the neck. The grill was flung aside to reveal the grocer’s two young daughters, gigantic water pistols in hand, laughing gleefully at my soaking.

Sawasdee Pi Mai – Happy New Year I spluttered after recovering from the shock of the dousing. I threw them a few coins, as is the custom, to show there were no hard feelings. But inside I was smarting. Once again I had been ambushed by a couple of young kids determined to impose their fun on every passerby. I should have taken the car. After all, this is Songkran.

Songkran celebrates the traditional Thai New Year. Each year I carefully plot how to avoid the drenching that goes hand in hand with the celebrations. But to no avail. Nobody, I have now concluded, escapes Songkran.

In Bangkok, as well as in every town and village around the country, young and old celebrate the New Year by throwing water over each other. Scoops from a silver bowl are traditional. These days, however, more effective soakings come from hoses, constantly refilled plastic buckets, pump-action water guns and even oil drums with stirrup pumps mounted on the back of family utilities. Indeed it is not unusual to see convoys containing entire families, all crammed into the rear of their vehicles, spraying and being sprayed.

The fun is contagious. So much so that the celebrations go on for at least three days or more! So characteristic are the festivities that the next day’s newspapers invariably carry photographs capturing the more riotous action, with Thais and foreigners alike, all soaked to the skin, their faces smeared with white baby powder. Yes. That’s right. White powder!

Songkran is a spectacularly spirited affair, not always for the faint-hearted. Yet there is also a deeply spiritual aspect to what is Thailand’s most enthusiastically exuberant annual festival.

The word songkran derives from Sanskrit and refers to the movement of astrological bodies. In this case the shifting of the sun into Aries, which marks the beginning of the solar year.

Songkran is a time of rituals, of family gatherings to honour the elderly and remember departed ancestors. It is an excuse for wild partying as much as a time for washing away the sins of the past year. The use of water is multi-faceted, symbolising the act of purification, invoking the life-giving monsoon rains and, as the Thais are essentially pragmatic people, of graciously accepting a cold shower on one of the hottest days of the year.

Typically, on the eve of Songkran, people give their homes a thorough spring cleaning. Worn-out household effects, clothing and other rubbish are burned according to the belief that anything old must be discarded or else it may bring bad luck to the owner.

Songkran serves a multitude of social and spiritual functions. For Buddhists the festival itself begins with a visit to the local temple. Here food and other offerings are given to the monks in return for a blessing. Caged birds are freed into the air and fish are released into the klongs. Indeed the more traditional farmers still retain a few young fish that have been trapped after the floods of the wet season recede, keeping them at home especially to be able to release them during Songkran.

Later, on new year’s day, revered Buddha images are paraded and ritually bathed in lustral water. In private ceremonies away from the temple, parents, grandparents, older relatives and teachers gather to be honoured by young people in an ancient rite. Although I have witnessed these wondrous activities before, I had never been the recipient. Until this week...

Suna and I were just too busy to make the long journey home this year. I had to go to Chennai on business and she was reluctant to undertake the ten hour drive on her own. Suna’s village is in the far north-east of Thailand, in a region of Isaan known as Sakon Nakhon. It is always a tiresome drive. But at this time of the year it is especially dangerous. The traffic queues stretch for miles. Besides there are always delays due to accidents and road works. Over the four day holiday period several hundred people are killed and many more injured on the roads.

Choosing not to go home, however, was no simple decision for Suna, for whom it has been an annual quest for as long as she has been living in Bangkok. But if she had to stay in the city she was at least going to make the most of it! Or so she vowed the night before as I drifted into sleep.

I first realised what she meant when I saw our beautiful daughter (a Peugeot 307 cabriolet actually) plastered in white powder. Only the windscreen and side windows had been left clear. Suna was standing back admiring her work. Her face was a picture of bliss and contentment. I was flabbergasted. All I could do was to stare in amazement. But that, my friends, was only the beginning...

The spring cleaning started very early the next morning. By lunchtime everything was ready. Our living room was cleared and we had assembled our many images of the Buddha on a small table. I was sent out to buy some water and some candles from the religious aisle in the supermarket. It was while returning from that task that I received the drenching.   

By this time I was ready for any eventuality. Or so I thought. What happened next reduced me to silence and near tears. Suna seated me at the table and presented me with a small bouquet of scented blossoms, the kind one sees hanging around the many shrines dotted around this city each day. Placing my palms together she gently anointed me with perfumed water. I gasped as the cold water trickled down the back of my neck.

Then, looking deeply into my eyes and smiling that beautiful smile of hers that stays with me even when I am half a world away, she said sorry for any hurt she had brought me during the past year, wished me good luck, and prayed that we would enjoy a long, healthy and happy life together. It was truly one of the most sacred moments in my life. It staggered me.

The symbolic significance of water runs like a silver thread through the Thai cultural fabric. This is best summed up by the Thai word for river, mae nam, which literally translates as mother water, suggesting both the nurturing value of this most primal element and the respect it thus commands.

When coupled with Buddhist philosophy water, both sustaining and transparent, becomes a symbol for the spiritual support and purity of the Buddha’s teachings. It is also widely associated with the practice of mindfulness, serenity and meditation, in which mental clarity and a lucidity of mind are symbolically linked to the crystal waters of a running stream.

Nowhere, however, is the symbolic importance of water more vividly witnessed than in the celebration of Songkran, during which the present-day riotous water splashing in no way belies the essential acts of purification, blessing and merit-making. Like all festivals in Thailand, however, it is celebrated with a zest and passion for having a good time that is utterly characteristic.

As I write this blog most of Bangkok will be partying. Meanwhile I am in a hotel in Chennai preparing for tomorrow's work. Dusk is beginning to cast a mystical light across the ramshackle buildings in the old part of the city. The birds are flocking and in the distance I can faintly hear the Muslim call to prayer.

Next week I will be in Melbourne where I have the task of moderating a national forum. The theme of this forum is innovation. Innovation in water technologies to be precise. The citizens of Melbourne have been enduring severe water restrictions for some time as a result of a lengthy drought, not uncommon on the planet's driest continent. But troubling nevertheless.

Not for them the luxury of spraying water on each other for days on end. Even the gardens in 'the garden state' are looking decidedly dessicated. Sadly regulations are likely to become even more draconian in the near term as temperatures, together with the number of extreme weather conditions, continue to escalate out of control.

I sometimes have great difficulty reconciling the various worlds I straddle, with their different value systems, priorities and divergent lifestyles. Perhaps new technologies will indeed help us to deal with climate change in time to avert catastrophe. Then again perhaps a more reflective and mindful existence, grounded in life’s essentials and practised in the spirit of community and love, also has a place.

Happy Songkran! May the Lord Buddha bless you wherever you are.

Work of Art

It is time we faced facts. In spite of the many millions of dollars spent by companies and governments around the world each year, the strategies we are using to develop leaders and embed leadership have failed us. Sometimes they give us the illusion of progress. But in reality they don't work. How could they?

If we were making real progress we would instantly be able to identify extraordinary leaders in most of our corporations. They would stand out for their distinctiveness, their passion and their presence. Instead we get grey faces in grey suits thinking grey thoughts; clones armed with lookalike MBAs from one of the many lookalike business schools.

Yet we continue to throw big bucks this way. Who are we kidding? Real leaders, authentic leaders, seem to be a rare if not virtually extinct species. Why is this? Why do so few people in public life inspire us by their vision of how things might be? Is leadership such a rare talent that it is out of reach for most of us? Or are we simply looking for the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Part of the problem, I am convinced, lies in our stories of leadership. Seduced by nostalgia for the past they entangle us in past glories. Stemming from the games boys played at school (then choose to maintain in business) these myths speak almost exclusively of heroic deeds by an exclusively male fraternity.

You won'€™t find many women'€™s tales in this stereotypical male domain unless they are Joan-D'€™Arc or Boadicea types, prepared to don the mantle of masculinity to seek advancement. Nor do more spiritual aspects of our humanity get much of a look in. This is a real man'€™s world where actions always speak louder than words and where expressing one'€™s feelings and showing compassion are best avoided.

And so we are taught from an early age that leaders possess the kinds of courage, wealth, power and status that mere mortals only dream about. This then generates the view that we are all merely players in a story being directed by the rich and powerful. What arid, dangerous nonsense!

Another misguided myth concerns the relationship between leaders and managers. As management science sought legitimacy during the latter half of the 20th century, an adolescent consulting industry extended its influence and earnings potential by declaring leadership a management competency. This, of course, is absurd. The inherent difference between managers (who channel any resources at hand to achieve measurable results as seamlessly as possible) and leaders (who harness their entire being in the pursuit of disruptive dreams) will forever remain in creative tension. Confusing the two, however, degrades management while thwarting genuine leadership.

A third possibility concerning the contemporary confusion over leadership is that the nature of leadership itself is changing. Perhaps the charismatic style of leadership we have come to expect, and for which we still yearn, is no longer sufficient for our needs. In that case, perhaps leadership is self-organizing into something less evident (but more pervasive) than previously? It doesn'€™t mean that leadership has disappeared. Rather, it has adopted a new guise. After all, the world is always changing with old certainties continually being swept away. 

Through the ages, as we often joke, death and taxes were the only certainties. Today, however, even this must be in doubt. Astonishing breakthroughs in knowledge are undermining almost everything we once held true. New technologies are disrupting long-established patterns of human activity, banishing the familiar and eroding certainty in our minds. Traditional value systems are rapidly mutating. Even our most venerable institutions are threatened as, through the rapid fusion of ideas, technologies, markets, institutions and cultures, entire belief systems collide and ricochet - indifferent to established boundaries. 

At the same time, digital gadgets and social networking websites plug us in to the clamour of the global village. What it means to be human (its ideals, anguish, joys and horrors) is thrust in our faces. Twenty four hours a day. Seven days a week. This intrusion of the mass media into our daily lives ensures there can be no escape. Alas we are trapped in prisons of our own invention.

The pressures on business leaders and politicians, too, appear overwhelming. Technology is continuously changing what we do, how we do it - and even how long we can keep on doing it before we need to do something else. Governments everywhere react nervously to the slightest shift in geopolitical conditions. Clinging to the coat-tails of American or Chinese militancy (depending upon one's persuasion) their authority evaporates with the decline in national sovereignty.

Companies resort to obsolete business models (because that is all they know) apparently unconcerned by the risks they face in remaining the same. Spin-doctors talk up growth while glossing over the look-alike plans they know will stifle innovation and strip value out of the enterprise.

The landscape has become littered with mindless, short-term, survival tactics. And, just to add a further frisson of uncertainty, a rising tide of corporate accounting scandals is shaking world markets as terrorists fly planes into buildings, organized religion staggers from one crisis to another, activists use the Internet to plot the end of capitalism or snuff out the Olympic flame even as global warming threatens our very existence!  No wonder the business world is in such a state of bewilderment.

As these dynamics acquire a seemingly unstoppable intensity they give rise to an increasingly unstable environment in which the rules (and much of the knowledge) of the past 400 years are irrelevant. How can we possibly know what matters any more? What should a leader do in times such as these? So ambiguous is today's environment it seems almost impossible to achieve anything much. And yet almost anything is now possible. 

Change is not just about having a singular vision, instituting controls for its realization and persuading others of its virtue. That is how we got ourselves into this mess in the first place. On the contrary, change requires that we first transform ourselves, embracing emergence and accepting that the world is a far richer and more complex place than any of us can possibly comprehend. Over the coming decades we will need to redesign the entire material basis of our civilizatiion. In that context the real challenge of leadership demands that we let go of our old self-serving scripts and create new stories and new realities that allow our authentic selves to emerge whole once again.

From tribes and cults through empires to today's monstrous bureaucracies and multinational corporations the story that has dominated Western society for well over two centuries has been one of servitude and efficiency. It fuelled an age of prosperity where self-interest was tied to the notion of material gain. This story has led to impoverished views of the self and an ethos of dependency within society. It is no longer adequate to maintain a sense of well-being.

Furthermore, because it fails to remind us of our dependence on the environment (often seen merely as a means of production) we have damaged the earth's resources and lost our sense of connection to the planet that sustains us.

The new story, emerging, felt, but not yet clearly understood, is about integration and viability. At some point, we have to know, accept, and express who we really are, not be content with being what others want us to be. When we can tap into our passions, engage authentically with the world, and discover a more sustaining and meaningful story, we will change ourselves. And when we change ourselves, we change the world.

That is the rationale and the world of five literacies leaders - a world where leadership is a state of being (a philosophy rather than some alchemical process intended to transform management clones into inspirational leaders) and where effectiveness means acquiring the ability to deal with novelty while embracing the extraordinary.

This kind of leadership is still relatively rare. But the profound thinking underpinning it can be found in The Five Literacies of Global Leadership. It is also apparent in the work of Mieza Consulting - a small boutique professional services firm located in Melbourne Australia staffed by people who actually understand the true nature of leadership today. Mieza's approach to the age-old problem of how to develop leaders is unique, springing from the subtle, yet significant, difference between leaders and leadership.

You might also find a few courses around that jettison convention in favour of a very different take on leadership. But I doubt you will find them in the business schools. Take oases for example. Another Australian-based initiative, this pioneering Masters degree in integrative and transformational studies could well revolutionize the academic landscape - if academics ever bothered to look outside their ivory towers to see what else is going on that is!

oases offers an accredited, graduate, part-time course undertaken totally outside of a formal university structure. Expansive in scope (in contrast to the stiflingly narrow efforts of most programs in leadership) oases is a program high on originality and self-awareness that treats leading as a living art. Based upon purposeful dialogue and collaborative inquiry, this highly creative initiative deals with whole people in their whole world.

Which is, of course, what authentic leadership is all about. The stark realities of the present human condition require those of us who aspire to leadership to transcend ego in order to become a force for good in this world. The people at Mieza and oases actually get it. Few others do as yet.

Infidels at the Gates

From a global perspective there are any number of co-evolutionary patterns that have been remodeling society culturally, geopolitically and economically, over several centuries. All have profound implications for business, governments and individuals, especially in their current trajectories. But one stands out as the most fascinating. It is the West’s complex and confronting relationship with Islam.

In the 16th century, Judaism and Christianity found a way to come to terms with the modern world through the separation of church from state. Religious dogma remained at the centre of most people’s lives but secular factors (circumscribed by the rule of law, economic liberty and individual rights) defined the role of the state.

This reconciliation, a concept first put forward in ancient Greece, proved to be pivotal. It shaped the ascent of Western civilization, triggering the scientific revolution and one of the greatest outpourings of art, literature and music the world has ever known.

Islam, the other great monotheistic religion, was unable to find a similarly elegant solution to the problem. Islamic law still does not distinguish between matters of state and matters of church.

Initially a warrior cult arising out of devotion for the prophet Mohammed, Islam has literally been at war with all other religions since its inception. The Ottoman empire attacked Western civilization in the 7th century and again in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683 Turks from the Ottoman Empire were laying siege to Vienna – not for the first time.

The Battle of Vienna marked a turning point in the 300 year struggle between the Central European kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire and was a determining factor in shaping the subsequent relationship between Islam and the West. The Ottomans fought on for a further 16 years, finally losing control of Hungary and Transylvania before acknowledging defeat. The ensuing Treaty of Karlowitz marked the end of Muslim expansion into Europe and the decline of the Muslim empire. After that, Western civilization advanced while Islam retreated.

Not being able to resolve the issue of modernism, Islam turned in on itself. It now stands on shifting sands. In its confusion it condemns not only its perceived enemies but its own people, killing with seeming indifference both Muslim and non-Muslim as it thrashes around, filling each day with new terror.

The decline of Islam is also evident in that Muslim nations aligned to the West (politically or culturally) also find themselves under assault, typically in the form of aggressive acts of desperation from a small core of fundamentalists who interpret Islamic dogma with fierce resolve.

Unsurprisingly the entreaty from the West is for transformation. The majority of Westerners, however, do not (cannot) appreciate the difficulties faced by Islam in any attempt to adapt and evolve. After all these attributes have been the hallmarks of the world’s oldest monotheistic religion, Judaism, and of Christianity which experienced its own Reformation. So why should Islam find it so tough to do likewise?

The answer stares us in the face. Islam is locked into the dictates of the Koran and of the Hadith, a collection of observations based on the life of Mohammed whose rules dictate the most minute details of a Muslim’s life. Islam cannot evolve without challenging its very essence. This is an existential issue – not simply an agenda for change.

In dealing with terrorism, the US and its allies have predictably resorted to the use of military tactics yet again. The avowed intent behind the new offensive mounted by the Western powers, which is being carried out on many fronts, is to frustrate extremists and remove radicals from power, thus affording more moderate elements the opportunity to bring Islam into the 21st century.

The great risk is that other tacit imperatives, such as assuring the supply of oil, for example, will override everything else. If that is the case current tactics will not help Islam to engage with, and become part of,  the modern world. In fact the entire strategy may have the opposite effect – rallying support for violence and ultimately making the world a more dangerous place for all of us.

Sadly the sequence of events that started with the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 9/11 has created a situation where fear is rife and in which tolerance for anything remotely resembling political game-playing is at zero. This makes it almost impossible to find alternative paths to peace, which would necessitate intimate and sensitive interaction, sophisticated dialogue and negotiation in order to work.

There are a couple of factors that offer hope for a coherent and unified future - if only we can open our hearts and minds to inclusion and acceptance of diversity.

Thanks to television and the Internet, the average teenager remains very aware of what is going on in the world, especially in terms of new technologies and popular culture. Like young people everywhere, young Muslims are part of a new and inclusive global consciousness.

In the long term it is highly improbable that the youth of Islam will continue to permit radical mullahs screaming for jihad to stand in the way of their legitimate aspirations for advancement, knowledge and equality.

It would be helpful, of course, if Western media, realizing this, could deliver more positive messages of hope, possibility and cooperation rather than the divisive 'bad news' messages on which it currently relies to sell its products.

Another factor that cannot be ignored is the spread of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa across the world coupled with a birth rate that exceeds that in the West. Indonesia and Malaysia of course are fully Muslim states but Muslim populations in European countries and in far flung places like Australia are growing at a rapid rate. In France, Holland and Germany, for example, around 10 per cent of the total population is Muslim and growing fast.

Here is an opportunity to integrate cultures in ways that are mutually beneficial. Unfortunately little attempt is being made to assimilate alien communities into the cultures of host countries. This is a political error of the worst kind and will ultimately turn out to be one of the catastrophic design flaws in the post-modern secular state.

Is the West pulling Islam too quickly from the dark ages of the 7th century into the brave new world of the 21st century? Will Islam simply implode? Nobody knows for sure.

But of one thing we can be certain. The tussle around perceived differences and misunderstandings between the two will remain of increasing significance over the coming years. The issue will not go away. Nor is it a simple problem that will easil