‘Good’ often doesn’t get the attention it deserves. This needs to change.
The next couple of months (February – June), my posts will focus on learning to recognise opportunities to do good and avoid bad. To ‘make good more doable‘ (my mission), we should start by focusing our attention on what ‘good’ is, and in what situations we should make an effort to pursue it. As this ‘moral awareness’ is not as easy to achieve, I will try to add a bit of ‘doability’ to it. In line with my 2024 resolution, I will keep on posting on a weekly basis.
Let’s start by exploring the reasons why good doesn’t always get the attention it deserves, for example in the context of an organisation or when a decision is about to be made. It will start with a metaphor to introduce three ways of looking at good followed by an exploration of these three ways in the context of an employee, society and an organisation. Finally, we will explore some of the challenges we face while trying to be good people, good organisations or a good society.

Good is currently not doable and this is a problem. Because of the soft, intuitive and emotional nature of our discussions about morality they often fail to have any significant effect on our predominantly hard and rational world. And as the world seems to be getting more interconnected, dynamic and complex by the day, the demand for clarity around what is right or wrong is increasing too.
Is it possible to find ‘harder’ ways of talking about good, without ignoring the value of the emotional side of it? Can we dissect discussions around what is good or bad into distinct components, each with its own benefits and handicaps? And once we recognise these distinct components, can we learn how to apply them effectively?
Key take-aways:
Following my posts about Rosetta the coming months will lead to the following key take-aways.
- There are three frames through which we can look at ‘good’. It is important to recognise which is dominant and which might need activation.
- Three perspectives let us look at good in context.
- These frames and perspectives combined form a ‘good matrix’ that help us recognise where good needs most attention.
- An inbalance in the three frames can lead to specific problematic situation in the context of individuals, organisations and society as a whole.
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