Intro to the Blog

Intro to this blog

The Zeitgeist Blog

Why This Blog?  Well, why not?  I really enjoy thinking about who we are, why we are, and where we are headed.  The socio-political cultural zeitgeist is endlessly interesting to me.  I am definitely an armchair pundit, as my friends and family know too well.  I have a real intellectual curiosity about these things, and I like to think about them from multiple perspectives.  I like it when I can see a connection between political, psychological, philosophical and geopolitical perspectives on an issue, for example.

I also think that when we can look at issues from multiple perspectives, we are more likely to find common ground, or we can develop a more defensible idea or perspective.  Given how fractured our political dynamic is, and how polarized our society is, the more we can look at an issue broadly, the more we find ways to talk about it, and ultimately address it.  I’m also a fan of historical perspective.  Most patterns repeat themselves, and if we can step back and look at a situation or an issue from a historical perspective, we can often develop a more grounded sense of what is happening and what we can do. 

Professionally, my focus is on diversity, inclusion, and leadership development.  For 30 years I’ve been working with organizations that want to understand how to create more inclusive leaders and more inclusive cultures.  A sub-specialty is organizational and personal change and transformation. I do believe we are in a hugely significant time of transformation, in many ways, but clearly in ways that intersect with my professional expertise.  Perhaps we thought that the biggest recent change was the technology revolution of the 90s.  It certainly was significant, but it was just the start.  I think the bigger challenges, and opportunities, are seen in the convergence of a lot of forces, including but not limited to technology.  In the U.S. it seems that we are confronting something in the limits of how our current economic system is structured.  At the same time we are redefining the kind of governance that we prefer.  This is happening at a time when much of the world is experiencing many of these same changes.  I am an optimist.  I see times of change as risky, yes, but as huge opportunities for progress and even transformational change.  I think we are in that kind of period.  If this blog can be one tiny contribution to a dialogue and thought process that helps connect people and ideas, if it can be helpful in creating more common ground, if it helps me and you learn and think differently about challenges, then I would consider this a huge success.  Maybe we can do a bit less demonizing of each other.  Maybe we can see that we are all in this together.  I’ve never tried anything like this before.  Thank you for reading.

MGK