5 ways to sabotage any valuable regenerative transition project
After a few concrete field-experiences, on “HOW NOT TO DO” transitions
In our work with Extrapreneurs on the field, with over 100 teams, in 20 countries, we have seen projects thriving, but also see projects abandoned, sabotaged, inefficient, frustrating, and even worse than that …
We though it “would never happen to us”… Well… guess what. We ticked all the boxes of sabotage and inefficient project management. We ate our sh.t, and learned. A lot.
Here are a few key on how to GUARANTEE fail a beautiful transition or regeneration project (actually, any next generation project) :
- Non-stop theorizing, without concrete tangible action on the field: sharing ideas around square or round tables, hackathons, brainstormings, collective “intelligences”, popping up there with hands in pockets, without any prep or pre-study, ending up in make nice glossy reports, leading to… well… lots of disappointments, exhaustion and discouragement. And — nothing tangible as result. The antidote: GO TO THE PLAYFIELD, TEST YOUR IDEA, ITERATE TILL IT WORKS.
- Victimizing in case of problem, shock or crisis, and/or trying to go to “war” against the system: this puerile attitude has as a consequence that you give away your capacity to (re-)act to someone far away, unknown, in a lost battle against a system that will not change anyway. You end up exhausted, dependent, having given away all autonomy. The antidote: TRANSFORM PROBLEMS INTO OPPORTUNITIES.
- No personal and professional homework done: Lots of us want to reinvent the wheel. Make shortcuts. Nice, but very, veeeery useless. Search for what works — first — is cheaper, faster, and less risky. The true resource to protect is not -the ideas, but the capacity to transform ideas into value. Entrepreneurship. The antidote: FIND WHAT WORKS, CONNECT THE DOTS, ADAPT and IMPLEMENT. Progress and learn daily as a person, in a (co-)entrepreneurial mode.
- Wrong values. Jalous, envious, cynical, manipulative, serving short term financials. These immature and childish attitudes are an absolute guarantee for wasting precious time, money, efforts, and will sully-dirty the good hearts who truly want to serve their community and sincerely empower people, and regenerate environment. The antidote: PUSH THOSE PROFILES OUT, or WALK AWAY. Cut loss. Turn the page. Stay away from small time ego-driven opportunists.
- And finally, the worse, EGO and PRIDE, with a patronizing attitude, probably powered by personal neurotics. Often carried by fine manipulators, well-spoken, authoritarian, slippery crooks. The antidote: PUSH THOSE PROFILES OUT, or RUN AWAY. The sooner the better. Even though appearances may be looking good. Cut loss. Choose for your positive values and the few people who carry them. Cut off from false spirituals and fake sustainability, or greenwashing or spiritual washing. Trust on you sensibility: look into their eyes. If there is sparkling light, go further — if there is emptyness, superficiality or manipulation, walk away.
The Extrapreneurs with THE HIGHEST QUANTIFIED RESULTS on the field, were :
- Acting concretely, moving forward on the ground, in real life, instead of blablabla around tables. True pragmatic intelligence, live, in concrete projects, instead of intellectualization everything, and writing useless reports nobody reads;
- An intelligence of efficient resource use, hyper-smart, low tech, low cost, knowing how to create lots of value, starting off with very little;
- A real intelligence of the heart, empathetic, sensitive, capable of open collaboration, instead of patronizing and ego. Having taken their leap of faith to “serve Common Good”, sincerely serve their community, wanting to leave something of value behind, instead of personal, short term agendas;
- Able to quickly transform a shock, a problem, a challenge, into an opportunity to move forward. Live on-the-go. Concretely, showing tangible results;
- Humble, doing very very little show off, staying under the radar. Continuously progressing, learning together, non-judgemental , non dogmatic, using diversity and collective intelligence as a power-tool.
I have a few names. Jean-Philippe in Goma. Joseph in Masisi valley. Dominique and Olivier in Belgium. Claudine in Tanzania. Mandaiye in Senegal. David in California. Mohsen in Tunisia. Hugo in Mexico. Ebrahim in Durban. Ben and Diana in Andalucia. Yves in Raleigh. Olivia in Lyon. Moshe in Brussels. Carlos in Santiago. Orianne in Portugal. Christian in Brussels. Jaime in Curitiba. Luc in France. Kaloma in Kinshasa… And, there are many, many more. I wish I could hug them all and thank them, in the name of all our descendants. They wake up every morning to serve, whilst questioning themselves, learning all the time. Many times I had tears in my eyes, moved, and feeling privileged to witness such servant leadership with those amazing results.
Thanks to all of them, from the deepest of my heart.
And thanks to you, to be moved and inspired by them, wake up, and walk towards a bright future together.
Prof. Michel A. de Kemmeter
