Human potential. Time to start looking through the right end of the telescope.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the enormity, complexity and multitude of challenges we face as a self-appointed ‘intelligent species’. Indeed, with soaring rates of anxiety, depression, addiction and suicide, it’s clear that many of us do. 

Something is fundamentally wrong with the way we are approaching how we can exist on this earth in a way that nurtures a collective sense of prosperity and well-being.

What is the single biggest lever at our disposal that could create a seismic shift in our quest to transition to a more sustainable world? A world that delivers prosperity for all. A shift that moves us from a species with an existential crisis to a more enlightened and content one, that is able to live well within the means of our planet.

I have become pre-occupied with this questions over the last few years, and inspired by a wide range of leading thinkers, academics and writers, from Otto Scharmer and the Presencinig Institute, Martin Kalungu Banda, Pavan Sukhdev, Kate Raworth, Jessica Huie and Frederick Laloux to name but a few, I’ve arrived at what is, for me at least, a profound realisation. 

The single biggest lever that would unlock a wave of transformative solutions for a better world is to focus our collective attention on truly cultivating the capacity of young people everywhere to thrive. 

•  What if we did everything we could to truly unlock and develop the unique talents, perspectives and imaginations of the world’s young people?
• What could we achieve as global society if we created the optimum conditions for this to happen? 
• What catalytic changes would be brought about to our failing societal systems if we devoted ourselves to serving this objective? 
• What if this was the KPI at the top of our human scorecard? 
• What if everything was viewed through this lens?

Not quite a silver bullet, but a simple guiding principle, that if applied in its purest form across the various systems that currently shape our destiny, would transform our ability to live well on the beautiful but increasingly stressed planet that we find ourselves on.

If we started looking at the world through this lens, we could address all of the troubling manifestations of the flawed systems we’re currently at the mercy of and that are no longer fit for purpose. We could begin to design systems that truly nurture our progress rather than hurtle us further into the quagmire.

Yet when it comes to this seemingly obvious goal, we have a remarkable collective myopia. 

We’re simply looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope. How so?

Blessed as a species, though we are, with an abundant source of potential as new individuals arrive in this world, a beautiful and ever-flowing fountain of human ingenuity, what do we do with it?.....We process it to support growth in GDP.

Amounting to nothing short of intellectual and spiritual asset stripping on a global scale, our various systems collude to suppress the very talent, individuality and sparks of creativity on which our future prosperity depends. We allow ourselves to be processed by: 

• A political system that does whatever it can to ensure that the nation’s financial wealth grows year on year;  
• An education system that works tirelessly within restrictive parameters dictated to by the government of the day to rank, test and filter young minds against a fairly narrow curriculum that may have been fit for purpose in the industrial age, but is far from sufficient for the world young people find themselves in now;
• A financial system that continues to incentivise short term profit gain over all else, and that has honed to a fine art the conversion of externalities into returns for shareholders, and
• An ecological system that, for far too long, we have plundered and abused to deliver this. 

Like some sort of voracious addict we repeat the same destructive patterns, blind to the reality that there is a better way to nurture our development. As with other addictions, the hit is short-lived and the payoff bleak.

For the many who struggle with this brutal conditioning process, the options aren’t great: put up with it and make do; get sick; rebel and drop out; turn to crime; self-harm; or find comfort in substances that create temporary reprieve and the illusion of escape. At the extreme, choose to leave this world altogether because there don’t seem to be any viable alternatives.

Clever ape that we are, we invest trillions in the systems that provide ‘support’ for those that our prevailing model for ‘progress’ doesn’t suit. Crime, policing, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, counselling, prisons, law enforcement....the list goes on, all under pressure as more and more people fall by the wayside. 

Surely there’s a smarter way to get a meaningful return on our investment of money, time and resources? Surely there’s a better way to cultivate the potential of the world’s young people, in a way that will benefit all?

Too dramatic? Maybe. Overly simplistic? Probably. Idealistic? No more so than the fallacy that endless growth in GDP is our best route to collective prosperity. It is surely undeniable that the systems we’ve created to guide our ‘progress’ are failing to create the conditions for the world’s young people to thrive. 

Of the world’s 3bn+ ‘young people’ ie under 25, over 50% of those aged between 15-25 and able to work, are either unemployed or are in positions of vulnerable, exploitative employment. If that’s not an unforgiveable waste of talent and human potential I don’t know what is. This needs attention.

So what would a better model look like for cultivating the potential of young people to thrive?

Where could we start? 

Well, we could do worse than to start by engaging the world’s young people more meaningfully in the debate around the world we want to create. What are the core values that underpin this world? How should we transform our systems and industries to deliver this world? What constitutes progress for our species? What are the key enablers that will support our collective well-being? What should be the measures of success for our global society? Numerous surveys have demonstrated that they wouldn’t have financial wealth or economic growth at the top of the list. These are big questions. Critical questions. Essential questions to explore in enabling us to create the conditions for young people everywhere to thrive. 

The 2030 Global Goals are a great start in defining this ‘better world’ but they’re only a start. For them to become a reality, we need urgently to inspire, engage and unlock the creativity and potential of the world’s young people to become a generation of social innovators, entrepreneurs, enlightened leaders, change oriented employees and conscious responsible citizens whose collective capacity serves to accelerate transformation to a more sustainable world. 

We should also take seriously the phenomenal potential of developing mindfulness. As a tool for living well in a disruptive world; for unlocking creativity, for enhancing how we relate to others, for nurturing our sense of self-efficacy, our sense of belonging, and for tapping into the essence of our humanity in a way that will be critical to us becoming a more content, enlightened species, it is unsurpassable. If it were a branded drug espousing this range of benefits, it would be flying off the shelves. Why is mindfulness not embedded in the education system in the same way that PE is? Surely mental health is just as, if not more, important than physical health.

What about other early lessons that would establish healthier starting points for the type of innovation the world urgently needs in order to deliver the 2030 Global Goals. Such as learning that we’re part of wider, more complex interconnected systems than may not be immediately apparent to us; that nature already has developed, over many more years than we’ve been around, the essence of many of the solutions that we may now be seeking; that the world has natural boundaries and limits within which we must live; that money beyond meeting basic human needs, doesn’t make you happy; that ‘value’ and growth are a function of wellbeing, emanating from the strength of our communities and the health of the natural ecosystems that support us, rather than the size of our bank balance at the end of each month; that the primary role of business is to serve the needs of society in some useful way and that through doing this well it is able to generate a financial return; and that success and innovation are most effective when we harness diversity and collaborate to create shared value.

We must also harness the power of technology and social media as a positive rather than destructive force in young people, and create access to the tools, lessons and inspiring innovative methods that are emerging to harness the potential of young minds to design and create a better future.

It may seem that to deliver all of this would require radical changes across all of our systems, and put like this, it sounds overwhelmingly difficult. At another level however, if we were each able to do one small thing, in our sphere of influence, to better create the conditions for young people to thrive, to help cultivate the capacity of the young people in that sphere to apply their innate talent to shape a better future, just imagine the wave of positive change that would unleash.

Taking is a step further, imagine the impact that could be realised if we truly established a global platform that would help enable young people everywhere, regardless of socio-economic background, to thrive, to develop the skills most relevant to our progress in the 21st century, to innovate from their perspective, and to design a better blueprint for our collective future.

There is a profound, elegant simplicity to this concept that if applied in its purest form has the potential to completely transform how we live, in ways that we are not yet able to envisage – in the process, transforming the ability of the young people everywhere to fulfil their unique potential.

Wouldn’t this be the right way to look through the telescope towards our collective destiny? 

Steven Lang is co-founder and Director of InSpring