Sustainability Part IV: Rewilding From The Top Down

Rewilding is a concept in Conservation Biology whereby reintroducing keystone predatory species into a particular environment, resilience of the ecosystem is restored, and even maximized. This theory recognizes our ecosystems are delicately balanced and can easily get thrown into disarray. Rewilding has the potential of restoring balance, from the top down, enabling the greater ecosystem to flourish once again.

A similar approach has the potential of restoring the balance within our governments and corporations. These institutions are badly broken – often taking a short-term view in making decisions that affect us well into the long-term. They frequently make compromises to deliver more immediate results or satisfy some specific constituency group, rather than view themselves as part of a much larger ecosystem and make decisions with consideration for our long-term survival. Yet, we don’t necessarily have to throw them out completely in order to move ourselves into a sustainable future. Perhaps there is the opportunity for an organizational rewilding.

Imagine for a moment, someone sitting on the executive leadership team of a corporation, or the cabinet of a government, with the responsibility for ensuring long-term strategy and short-term actions are in alignment with a larger view of the organization. This Chief Integrity Officer would have the responsibility to continually look ahead, envisioning a world that could be, while holding the corporation accountable for making appropriate decisions consistent with this long-term view.

In some organizations, the Human Resource executive might hold this responsibility, yet I envision something even greater. While it grows out of the organizational leadership development aspects of that position, it goes even further by instilling a spiritual aspect into how a corporation behaves and conducts itself, establishing a common identity for the organization with a sense of values to guide it’s conduct. From this common set of values, the Chief Integrity Officer would have the basis to hold the organization accountable inside it’s own value system – a formidable responsibility that would infuse a strong sense of spirituality and responsibility into large corporations and world governments.

This idea draws on a more ancient view of an organization where there is a medicine worker, a shaman or a spiritual leader in indigenous cultures. The Chief Integrity Officer balances the leadership team by bringing the perspective of spirit to balance the otherwise emotional, thought-based and results driven consciousness of the organization – much like the shaman does. This allows for the organization to become a whole “person”, enabling it to have a “soul” with a greater purpose.

The role of Chief Integrity Officer is vitally important in our evolving world where one order is coming to an end, while another is beginning to emerge. As the situation grows more dire, our natural tendency is to look backwards for an indication of the actions to take as we hold too tightly to the way things used to be. At this time, however, the answer is not behind us but before and ahead of us.

It is a bold idea that works within our current infrastructure rather than the radical upheaval of a revolution, with the great responsibility that allows our world to evolve from the self-centered, myopic, and short-term, living for today, that has brought us to this profound moment in time where we have the opportunity to take a significant step into the future or a fateful step back into the past.