Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society [First Edition] - John W. Gardner

John W. Gardner (1912-2002) held many high-level leadership posts, including Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare under President Lyndon B. Johnson. His book, On Leadership, is one of the finest I have ever read on that subject. Gardner was an academic, activist, WWII veteran, and an astute reflective practitioner.

Partial Excerpts (antilibrary)

1963

INTRODUCTION

Decay is hardly the word for what is happening to us. We are witnessing changes so profound and far-reaching that the mind can hardly grasp all the implications

That is a story of dynamism, not deterioration.

Yet no one can fail to see in some segments of our society the dry rot produced by apathy, by rigidity and by moral emptiness

In my earlier book, Excellence, I stressed the importance of high standards.{1} But high standards are not enough.

But social renewal depends ultimately on individuals; and the individual today has his problems

Many people today fear that such echoes of Orwell and Huxley are an accurate omen of things to come. They doubt that individuality in the old sense can survive the complex and impersonal demands of modern mass society. (BigWorld)

If a society hopes to achieve renewal, it will have to be a hospitable environment for creative men and women. It will also have to produce men and women with the capacity for self-renewal.

But renewal—of societies or of individuals—depends in some measure on motivation, commitment, conviction, the values men live by, the things that give meaning to their lives

The renewal of societies and organizations can go forward only if someone cares. Apathy and lowered motivation are the most widely noted characteristics of a civilization on the downward path

Books that discuss creativity do not ordinarily discuss moral decay and renewal. Books on social organization do not usually examine the individual’s capacity for lifelong learning

Unless we attend to the requirements of renewal, aging institutions and organizations will eventually bring our civilization to moldering ruin. Unless we cope with the ways in which modern society oppresses the individual, we shall lose the creative spark that renews both societies and men

Finally, we shall renew neither ourselves, nor our society, nor a troubled world unless we share a vision of something worth saving.

THE EVER-RENEWING SYSTEM

Suppose one tried to imagine a society that would be relatively immune to decay—an ever-renewing society. What would it be like? What would be the ingredients that provide the immunity?”

a society that has learned the secret of renewal will be a more interesting and more vibrant society, not in some distant future but at once

It is necessary to discuss not only the vitality of societies but the vitality of institutions and individuals. They are the same subject. A society decays when its institutions and individuals lose their vitality.

Every businessman knows of some firms that are “on their toes” and others that are “in a rut.”

What are the factors that account for such differences?

in all the examples given the same processes are at work. They are the processes involved in the rise and fall of human institutions.

All of this seems to suggest that the critical question is how to stay young. But youth implies immaturity. And though everyone wants to be young, no one wants to be immature. Unfortunately, as many a youth-seeker has learned, the two are intertwined.

Does this mean that there is no alternative to eventual stagnation? It does not

In the ever-renewing society what matures is a system or framework within which continuous innovation, renewal and rebirth can occur.

Our thinking about growth and decay is dominated by the image of a single life-span, animal or vegetable. Seedling, full flower and death. “The flower that once has blown forever dies.” But for an ever-renewing society the appropriate image is a total garden, a balanced aquarium or other ecological system

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

A modern view of the processes of growth, decay and renewal must give due emphasis to both continuity and change in human institutions.