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OPINION: THREE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT – THANK YOU, AND GOODNIGHT

by | Jun 29, 2020 | Articles, Climate change, Coronavirus, Three Minutes to Midnight | 0 comments

OPINION: THREE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT – THANK YOU, AND GOODNIGHT

As lockdown continues, it’s time to move on with many things. And this column, Three Minutes to Midnight, is one of them

 

By Neil Scotton

The world has come a long way since this journey began in 2011. Back then, unbelievably, it felt really edgy to asking what our role was in relation to the (totally predictable) social and environmental events unfolding.

Nothing had been learnt from the banking crash; it was still all about doing whatever the client asked for and not daring to probe further and explore the effect of the ripple out of our actions. Writing about the legacy we are creating, and consciously taking responsibility for it was cutting edge.

Personally, I’ve never set out to be an activist. For me, it’s all about One-ness. So saying anything outspoken has been a challenge. It’s a deep debt of gratitude I owe to Liz Hall and Stephen Palmer for their unfailing support in this magazine. And to Alister Scott for his own unfailing support, challenge, inspired contributions and for diving in when inspiration failed me. And it’s been a pleasure to use this space to enable the voices and experiences of so many good people to be heard.

 

Be moved

Now, with the floods and fires that started the year, any leader who denies there’s a climate change doesn’t deserve the title ‘leader’. They’re too much of a laggard. Any leader who is unmoved (and personally unchallenged) by the recent gender and racial events could only have no concept of what it is to be human. And any leader in the lockdown who doesn’t get how we are all connected, and how all the systems are all connected, is a dangerous liability to their organisation and their people.

So let’s end the ‘It’s not their agenda’ stuff once and for all. We’re all in this together. The wellbeing of ourselves, our neighbours, our planet, and the future are the interconnected responsibility of, and agenda for, us all. BTW, If you want a proven coaching tool to invite clients into a bigger conversation, go Google Neil’s Wheel.

Three minutes to midnight has passed. The midnight bell rings. What does the new day have in store? New leaders and influential voices are coming through.

It’s been an honour to be part of the journey for Charly Cox, Zoe Cohen and others. I look forward to the thoughts and actions of new voices and a new generation who perhaps wonder why the heck we all made such a big meal of this.

I hope this column has spoken to you at some time over the years – perhaps with a thought or story that has been of some use to you. I certainly want to thank everyone who came up to me, usually at conferences for some reason, and said how much they appreciated it.

Personally I’m still driven by the thought of having a grandchild on my lap, asking me “What did you do, Grandpa, when you knew…?” As it happens, God willing, I will in fact become a grandfather this autumn.

But it is clear to me that the child in my dream is every child. We owe it to them all to do something to protect their world, their freedoms, their rights, their planet.

On the cabinet behind me is a quote, apparently from Minor Myers Jnr.: “Go out into the world and do well. But more importantly, go out into the world and do good.”

I’m putting my boots on. Though remembering to stay 2m apart for now, obviously.

 

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