Exposing those who refuse do good! What an interesting idea! A shift in the perspective from exposing dishonest or illegal activities (misconduct). Gunter Pauli says, “It’s a problem that people do bad – worse is that people refuse to do good”. It is not enough to stop negative attitudes. We need positive actions. Asking someone to do less harm is simply not enough. According to Gunter Pauli, a shift in thinking is required “from doing less bad to committing to do more good”
Several courageous whistleblowers have exposed violations of laws, rules, regulations, or direct threats to public interests, such as fraud, health/safety violations, and corruption. Whistle blowers frequently face illegal actions against them, sometimes at the hands of the organisation or group that they have accused, sometimes from related organizations, and sometimes under law. Whistleblowers are prepared to risk their careers and they have the guts to think and act. A number of movies have been made on the subject of the whistleblower: All the President’s Men, The Insider, Fair Game, The Whistleblower, Chasing Madof, Silkwood, Enron: the smartests guys in the room.
But it is enough to fight bad practices? What about all those situations and actions that are signs of a refusal to do good? Spotting and detecting actions that lead to waste or not a fruitful use of resources, human or natural resources, requires a different approach. Bad results are often more apparently and visual. Few people are trained in detecting opportunities from a description of problems.
A positive whistleblower may expose companies who do not do good by using their waste (Gunter Pauli uses an example from instant coffee producers). Burning waste instead of looking for good ways of using it is not a positive action. And it is a missed opportunity to make more money. A shift from preventing companies and organisations to make money to actively search for opportunities to make more money, while working towards better conditions for employees and the environment. So go ahead and be a positive whistleblower today. And if you are a movie maker, well, we like to see movies about POSITIVE WHISTLEBLOWERS!
To read more about how to detect opportunities look at our eBook.
Go here, here or here to read more about Gunter Pauli, Blue Economy, and Innovative Thinking.
Photo: “Eye Of Earth” by Idea go
