#BHAQ 1. How might we, the people, stop our demonocracies from trashing our planet and our future?

How might we cultivate the indigenous wisdom of Ubuntu to make amends and cultivate deliberative, participatory democracies guided by equity governance?

Introduction to #UniteEquityMuses

Equity is a community virtue: be fair and kind to everyone. Equity governance is about cultivating fair rules-opportunities-rewards for all.  

Equity governance involves zooming out to understand how our unethical meta-systems and socio-political-economic barriers impede our capabilities and capacities to address the complex challenges, such as advancing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEIB) initiatives, Environmental Sustainable Governance (ESG), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and climate change initiatives (COP 28).

• How might we cultivate solidarity economics and align our political-private-public sectors to co-create a fair-free-flourishing future and regenerate the health of the planet? 

Equity muses are transformational change agents who catalyze lifelong intergenerational learning journeys and story movements to build launching pads for Equity Moonshot: co-design and build an equitable, regenerative and sustainable future.

Equity Moonshot quest(ion)

As equity muses, we ask complex questions about how to empower people to take on the ultimate complex question.

How might we, as equity muse trainers, leaders and learning designers, to:

• Bend our dystopian trajectory away from the immoral abyss?

• Open, inspire and align our collaborative mindsets to work on the Equity Moonshot quest?

Each and every one of us can play a part in the Equity Moonshot quest.

• How might we, the people, negotiate shared meanings about what fairness means?

Equity Moonshot is a humanitarian-technological metaphor to co-create synergies between indigenous and modern wisdom in deploying the ethical enablement of scalable digital learning platforms for transformational change.

• How might we, as equity leaders, muses and champions, catalyze seismic shifts in transforming our mindsets and in redesigning our systems to serve the greater good of all?

The purpose of complex questions is to evoke new proactive ways of thinking about our future that leave behind the counter-productiveness of reductionist thinking.

• How might we, the people, align together to understand and address our complex web of self-inflicted wicked problems in the 21st century?

Wicked problems are complex in that they have no single, simple, or final solutions, with no definite answers: such as the abuses of political power that sets systemic isms and escalating inequities.

How might we, as equity muse trainers, leaders and learning designers:

• Enable people to zoom out and visualize the Big Picture of our dystopian trajectory in ways that develop compelling reasons to collaborate together on addressing our wicked problems?

• Develop scalable learning platforms to build networks of launching pads for Equity Moonshot?

• Exponentiate learning network power to generate synergistic mindset and systemic transformations to do good?

As Socratic Sherpas, we use an ecological framework of Big Hairy Audacious Questions (BHAQs) and Holistic Oxytocin Questions (HOQs) to scale up transformational learning, collaboration, and change.

BHAQs and HOQs respectively challenge and support us all to take on the EquityMoonshot quest. Orchestrating an optimal balance of support and challenge is essential to facilitate mindset and systemic transformations.

• How might we, the people, do good for the commons, humanity, the common good, and the health of the planet?

How might we detox our demonocracies?

The purpose of using the evocative frame, Demonocracy, is to highlight the demise of democracies and their failures to serve we, the people.

Winston Churchill’s quote: Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Our governments lack sophistication in disabling the abuses of power that sabotage our future.

How might we, as ethicists, equity thought leaders and social entrepreneurs, take the slow thinking time to inspire our imaginations to:

• Upgrade our antiquated governments that lack the transparent accountabilities and the capabilities of cultivating the peace, harmony and collaboration needed to solve our wicked problems?

• Co-create the fairness of equity governance to develop high-functioning, deliberate, participatory democracies with engaged, activated citizens?

In demonocracies, our demons arise from our shadows of egos, the dark sides of human nature, and the character flaws of Asocial Leadership Personality Disorder (ALPD): pathological megalomania, malignant narcissism, incessant sociopathy, and vengeful authoritarianism.

We live predominantly in disorganized, self-centered, atomized worlds of varying degrees of fragmentation, disconnections and dysfunctional relationships within and across the political-public-private sectors and systems.

• How might we learn holistic and collaborative ways of serving the greater good of all?

Ubuntu is rooted in Southern African philosophy. It means "humanity towards others" or "I am because we are." This inclusive concept embraces respect for all, compassion, interdependencies and mutual reciprocities.

• How might we, as transformational change agents, cultivate the indigenous wisdom of Ubuntu to make amends?

This BHAQ calls for using ethical guard rails of higher purpose, virtuous sense-making and moral meaning-making to generate interconnected network power of learning communities for transformational change.

• How might we, as open-minded free-thinkers, seek the truth together and collaborate on using our differences to make a difference for the good of all?

And yet, we are recklessly careening over planetary boundaries with no signs of reversing these trends. Too many of our problems are broken beyond repair.

We have missed the boat of salvation. Saviors and sages cannot save us from our self-inflicted wicked problems.

The abuses of power arising from poor governance, inept moral stewardship, and incompetent leadership have colluded to create a host of overwhelming wicked problems.

How might we address our governance failures by overcoming:

• The propaganda machines of political and religious fundamentalism?

• The rise of neo-terrorism: the weaponized war of words with sociopathic disregard for truth, integrity and transparent accountability?

• Truth decay, disinformation pandemics, and the demise of democracy?

• Isms, dysfunctional polarizations and toxic divisiveness?

• The battles between conflicting identify politics?

• Civil strife, terrorism and wars?

• The neoliberal and corporate hegemony of exponential wealth and power concentration that drives our escalating inequities?

These governance failures cascade a downstream of negative impacts.

How might we redress our planetary demise?

• Global warming, weather extremes, torrential floods and forest fires,

• The melting of glaciers, the Arctic and Antarctica with rising sea levels

• Mass migration

• Food and water insecurities

• Rising poverty levels since Covid

• Massive loss of biodiversity

• Plastic seas and toxic air

• Environment pollution and degradation

Our Anthropocene era has migrated to the phase of mitigation, adaptation, and resilience in addressing our wicked problems. We face catastrophic prospects and black swan events with varying degrees of destruction and collapse.

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Learn about how to become equity muses together

Join a learning community of transformational change agents. Begin your journey by telling your inequity story. I offer a 4-weekly Zoom sessions to interested organizations, communities and networks,

Join as a free member .

Participate in collaborative learning experiences of developing learning communities.

As equity muses, we ask complex questions that are ignored or not even being asked about solving our wicked problems

• How might we, the people, save ourselves from our self-inflicted wicked problems?

As Socratic Sherpas, we act guides-on-the-stage and not sages-on-the-stage, to enable lifelong intergenerational learning journeys.

We ask evocative questions to empower people to take on the Equity Moonshot quest.

• How might we, as equity muses and leaders, inspire the mindset transformations needed to design our systems for serving we, the people, and the health of our planet?

Doing more doing without deep learning about the Big Picture will not solve our complex web of wicked problems.

• How might we liberate ourselves from reductionist thinking and become activated citizens in responding to complex questions?

Small group community-building sessions

Click on underlined section links to read more about how to prepare for these group dialogue sessions.

Session 1: Understand why ethical discernment about the distinctions between individual values (freedom and liberty) and community virtues of (equity and equality) matters in solving our wicked problems.

Session 2: Explore what equity governance means.

Session 3: Explore an ecological framework of complex questions to solve our wicked problems

Session 4: Cultivate cultural humility to build equity story movements and networks for transformational change

Practice story-telling sessions

Share your untold story about why equity matters. Tell your own inequity story to inspire others to share their stories.

• How might we build story movements to redress the unfair of inequities and promote the fairness of equity?

Session 1: Discuss your hook, theme and article title

Session 2: Practice the opening of your story

Session 3: Practice the middle of your story

Session 4: Practice the end of your story

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