Some ideas we accept without question: Time is Money.

But what was it before it was money? We had all the time in the world until we had money, and now we need money to buy time. Let that sink in.

Some logic is so deeply ingrained that we can barely see it. Once recognized, it’s even harder to find alternatives that make sense from the here and now, rather than “nose to the grindstone” or an imagined future.

Two titans of modern thought and practice keep popping up: Albert Einstein and Peter Drucker.

The existential challenge we have created, in which we’ve pitted our dominant economic model against — rather than in synchrony — with Mother Earth, is forcing us to come to grips with the here and now. Thinking and acting — not just to a different degree, but in a different way — to address today’s crises is daunting and counter-intuitive, disruptive and costly.

With increasing intensity, the best and brightest are trying to tackle an emerging complex of challenges that resist solutions.

Two titans of modern thought and practice keep popping up: Albert Einstein and Peter Drucker. We invoke them repeatedly, often without question. But look beneath the surface and try to appreciate how radical these two thinkers were in their own context and how far beyond our current invocations they were thinking.

Einstein is said to have proclaimed that “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” Call for Einstein when when radical change — or a whole new set of leaders — is advocated as a remedy for dysfunctional systems. Clear away the old, in with the new, and never the twain shall meet. Today’s make, break, discard mentality is strong in this one, even among those with the best intentions.

Sage and cautionary guide Peter Drucker was to have admonished “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” We are urged to be data-driven in creating value, progress, and winning. This by-the-numbers interpretation leaves little room for humanity or social value: it reflects the primacy of business and its metrics as the centerpiece of social evolution.

No doubt this guidance has been used for good, but what served us in the last chapter may not serve in the next.

“a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” Einstein

Thankfully, Einstein and Drucker left traces of deeper intent as they navigated the context of their own times.

In 1946 Einstein made his case in a letter to the New York Times to fund a project that would help humanity move beyond the destruction of the atomic bomb. He said “a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.” It was a specific statement about a particular situation. How could humanity make productive use of nuclear energy?

Einstein’s letter was not intended to repudiate atomic energy, and scrap all of humanity’s systems, but to advance societal thinking about how such power could be used for human benefit. It is in this context, rather than abandonment, Einstein advocated the difficult work of evolving social values: a fundamentally integrative approach we must prioritize now.

Einstein grappled with the potential for catastrophic, or beneficial, outcomes and sought to bend national priorities toward the latter. His voice along with others comprising the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists sought to inform and ultimately redirect public priorities toward the alternate uses of atomic energy for human wellbeing. (See Paul Mainwood’s Quora post for the fascinating detail and references https://qr.ae/p2tAQk).

“Drucker never said ‘You can’t manage what you don’t measure.’”

Peter Drucker’s famous maxim also grew out of a context and experience that was far more nuanced; and it is even more relevant today. According to Zack First, director of the Drucker Institute, quoted by Paul Zak in a 2013 article entitled Measurement Myopia, Drucker never said “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” (https://drucker.institute/thedx/measurement-myopia).

‘It is the relationship with people, the development of mutual confidence, the identification of people, the creation of a community. This is something only you can do.' Drucker

A less cited bit of wisdom from Drucker is instructive. Quoting from the same article, “‘Your first role is the personal one’, Drucker told Bob Buford, a consulting client then running a cable TV business, in 1990. ‘It is the relationship with people, the development of mutual confidence, the identification of people, the creation of a community. This is something only you can do.’ Drucker went on: ‘It cannot be measured or easily defined. But it is not only a key function. It is one only you can perform.’”

Curiously the examples of Einstein and Drucker demonstrate critically important and omitted dimensions to their popularized maxims. These giants in their fields actually urged us to be connected to reality and to each other, and to think very differently, in ways that are at odds with today’s practices and popular wisdom. Where does that leave us, and what hopes do we have for forging new paths that start at — but depart significantly from — our existing economies?

It is important to know that hundreds of thousands of people and projects have put the popular maxims aside and are already experimenting with integrative systems approaches that are radically different than those underlying our current economies. They exist, they are innovating and weaving together new and old wisdom, practice, and technology for extraordinary outcomes.

These contemporary creators exist in every sector and across the globe. Many are supporting themselves through products and services already demanded in today’s economy while trying to figure out how to value and recognize the many other benefits they are generating for individuals, communities, and the Earth.

The systems in which these projects are trying to gain a foothold are highly tuned and regulated for profit-maximizing entities.

Developed in parts or as new “beautiful systems” that craft integrative social, environmental, and business relationships into new mutually beneficial synergies that benefit each other and the broader communities in which they exist, these are efforts that Drucker or Einstein may have recognized and appreciated.

But this budding regenerative development movement is swimming against the tide. The systems in which these projects are trying to gain a foothold are highly tuned and regulated for profit-maximizing entities. The un-conventional creators of this movement find this environment an impediment when it should be an incubator. In many of the ways capitalism was created and cultivated with substantial public support, so too should be the regenerative movement.

The adoption of new logic in policy and the recognition of the need to deliver value across societies is becoming increasingly important as environmental stress and extremist-fueled dysfunction emerging in many countries shifts us away from objectives that enable cohesive societies. Macro-level governance and enabling environment changes are increasingly gaining visibility. The work of practitioners and academics like Kate Raworth and Mariana Mazzucato are starting to make the emergence of a new governance ecotones imaginable.

A metrics race is underway, but the likely beneficiaries of this race will be those designing metrics systems along with those who can fashion capital market outcomes around them. This is needed work, but it profoundly misses the point about the broader societal transformations that must take place and how we understand them as systems rather than “solutions.”

Many assume that business can solve these “problems.”

For the rest of the economy — and a majority of small businesses and citizens — these are not adequate answers. Broad discontent is visible across all countries and almost all demographic groups. To imagine, as many boosters have done over the years, that individual agency can be fulfilled through consumer choice feels more empty than ever.

Many assume that business can solve these “problems.” But, the more impacts companies and markets must account for, the more costly operations become, and the more contorted are markets. Just follow the trajectory of ESG politics and policies in company operations and markets and the debate about the value and comparability of such metrics. Can organizations designed to make and distribute profit usefully pursue beneficial public policy outcomes and still maintain their independence and competitive positions? Efforts to do so are laudable, but without governments functioning as they should, these efforts will remain much less impactful than they could be.

On top of this, metrics and performance management are multidimensional systemic challenges. Efforts to measure biodiversity, for example, will be essential in helping to make public policy decisions and create the frameworks that can help to direct economies toward greater societal and natural wellbeing. But equally, assessment and action frameworks will be needed within countries, states, towns, and even villages. They may draw on similar principles but be of a very different nature in terms of accountability and actions. We’re just at the beginning of this work. And, will the cost be worth the price?

When I think about what ordinary or less-resourced organizations would do, one of the projects I admire, the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming. APCNF has taken a systemic, multistakeholder, regenerative approach to agriculture that has been truly transformative — without throwing everyone out and without advanced metrics.

I mention them here because participants knew for a long time — in the absence of sophisticated metrics — that they were improving crop yields, soil fertility, biodiversity, and farmer health. They were fortunate to have all these impacts validated by GIST Impact (an independent metrics / advisory firm see link above), which was reassuring to many, but it was not news to those participating.

Most organizations are in the same position, without the resources or the potential return in today’s markets to support the adoption and evolution of complex metrics. There are few adequate (or affordable) metrics that capture the value of such projects or the complex social / economic frameworks in which they exist that contribute to their success or failure.

As with most labeling schemes that might help to gain access to more lucrative markets, today's choices are still standard- market-centric solutions rather than farmer, producer-based solutions. The variety of metrics and certifications is already overwhelming and unaffordable for small producers. How do we think differently?

Perhaps then, we are thinking of measurement in the wrong way. Many experiments are underway to find alternative pathways — some of them very promising — using alternate currencies and technological approaches for sharing value across systems. These experiments are worthwhile, although their evolution outside the existing economy leaves a question as to how they would eventually integrate or displace today’s systems, and how they might work across borders.

Perhaps it is the expressed interests of a wide array of actors that provide the realization of potential value as diverse initiatives benefit from synergies with each other. In such systems the regulatory and market conditions would help to reinforce the value of contributing entities, with the final value being reflected in the value for any given piece of land.

Tim Gieseke has proposed something called a Natural Capital Unit. It’s a farmer-centric, metrics agnostic approach that is designed to do just such a function. This approach offers a lot of promise especially if the social enabling conditions are strengthened for beneficial systemic outcomes.

Bioregional development collaborations present another approach, enabling the meshing of impact and metric approaches that fit the needs of different actors and specific challenges.

Expressed interests, new instruments, and coalitions of the willing can demonstrate what might be done in other regions and across economies. Rather than creating a one-size approach, such undertakings engage the shifting of perspectives and combining of interests, much like Einstein or Drucker would have appreciated.

In respect to societal objectives, the point is not to choose a winning strategy at this stage of the game. The goal should be to support a massive scale up of people trying new things that fulfil emerging needs, recognizing that most will not succeed, but that cultivating the field of experimentation — the ground of the third horizon — is a valuable strategy for innovative development and social change.

This calls for experimental policies from governments, philanthropies, and businesses to promote widespread innovation, not just the “massive innovation” that the big players keep hawking. Picking tomorrow’s winners among today’s behemoths is a losing strategy — it doesn’t take Einstein to figure that one out.

The concept of “helicopter money” and universal basic income have faced harsh scrutiny, but the critiques — especially in relation to the way most governments do business today — is no longer convincing. The COVID pandemic left us with convincing natural experiments. Where money was put into the hands of people directly there were significant beneficial changes — for example in child welfare in the US. So too were the effects of overfeeding large corporations with even more funding than they could manage.

Widespread change will take hold when the resources are put directly into the hands of those creating new alternatives. The additional benefit in livelihoods, wellbeing, and a culture of innovation and experimentation that goes beyond VC-land, has great potential, but honestly it requires political action as well. There’s no way to avoid it.

At every level the popular maxims of Einstein and Drucker should be discarded in favor of pursuing their larger intent and the tasks before us; not more metrics or radical revolution, but the widespread support of the many who are trying to shift the values of our economies and human existence for all in the process.

To be clear, this is not about capitalism or communism: it is about employing everything we know — from traditional knowledge to tech — to the most intractable challenges of our times, including the most fundamental aspects of how we live and behave as the dominant species on Earth. Some people are doing it — even if at small scale today — and some are following the old maxims of the last century. Take your pick.

Third Horizon Earth, a Swiss Nonprofit Association I founded in 2023, is finding and telling the stories of regenerative creators and the enabling environments that will help them thrive and sharing them with others in the field: practitioner to practitioner. If this is you or your organization; or you would like to contribute in any other way, reach out to us at Third Horizon Earth (info@thirdhorizon.earth), and follow our page on LinkedIn