The ISIS Agreement: How Sustainability Can Improve Organizational Performance and Transform the World

Citation

Austin PhD, A. (2010), "The ISIS Agreement: How Sustainability Can Improve Organizational Performance and Transform the World", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 31 No. 4, pp. 372-373. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437731011043375

If you have a desire to make significant changes not only for your organization but also for the world more generally, you will find this book to be a treasure chest of useful information for leaders who want to build sustainable practices in organizations of any form including governments, companies, or educational entities. The use of ISIS in the title serves two purposes: First, it connects to the Egyptian myth where Isis and her husband Orisis ruled Earth and Heaven. After Orisis died at the duplicitous hands of his brother Seth, Isis vowed to find all parts of her husband's body and bring him back to life – if only for one day. And she did. Soon after, Isis learned that she was carrying his child thus sustaining his legacy. Secondly and more practically, ISIS is an acronym for the four steps in the method that author uses to design sustainable development processes: Indicators, Systems, Innovation and Strategy.

Author Alan AtKisson runs an international sustainability consulting company that assists organizational groups to plan for and institute sustainable practices. Examples of some of his engagements include Stockholm County Government, Toyota, Levi Strauss (Europe, Middle East and Africa), New Orleans (encompassing the time of hurricane Katrina), Imperial College London, and Earth Charter International. He writes with clarity about the processes and techniques he and his colleagues developed, and give examples from their work. Occasionally he also inserts a page from his personal journal often from several years previous that lends a perspective and demonstrates his own learning and evolution in the design of sustainable practices.

The book is composed of eleven chapters as well as a Prologue, Preface and Coda. The book begins by relating the myth of Isis and Orisis, and proceeds in the preface to explain why this book and why now through the use of a letter written to an anonymous person named only H, but signed “Warmly, Alan”. The first half of the book is spent setting the stage: showing how large the problem is and why we should be hopeful about solving it.

The first chapter establishes the optimistic tone that pervades the book. AtKisson assigns to all readers a new title and position, namely, saving the world. He's not kidding. This chapter is entitled The Hope Graph and gives the reader confidence of probable success in the new job The second chapter gives history and context for what the author calls a global conspiracy of hope. To further convince the reader, Chapter three describes some structural aspects of global economies and their regrettable side effects on living things.

In Chapter 4 a real example is offered – that of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Having established in the previous chapters that the world needs saving, Chapter 5 discusses the magnitude of the problem and the basis for continued optimism. Chapter six makes the business case for sustainable practices so you can save the world and make money too. Finally, in chapter seven AtKisson begins to address the “how” of his approach by defining the four compass points – Nature, Economy, Society and Wellbeing. Chapters 8, 9 and 10 get into more detail of his processes and the role of the change agent. It is here that he discloses the “Seven Secret Powers of the Change Agent”. In the last chapter he considers how to build a self‐organizing army for sustainability and positive change.

This is an author with breathtaking systems thinking capabilities. He is able to see the enormous system and all the conflicts formed by the intersections of the world economies, ecologies and governing structures; yet he is still buoyant about the future and our capabilities to bring about positive change. With his apt storytelling and on‐the‐mark examples, I'd wager that he could give hope to the most strident cynic.

This book will be of interest to practitioners and theorists alike. AtKisson gives clear, complete and even inspirational descriptions of his approaches, and yet I wonder how easily change agents and facilitators will be able to find success in implementing these techniques. Given the complexity and the sheer size of the problem space, the pathway to a sustainable solution will vary with each organization. This is not a quick off‐the‐shelf, do‐it‐yourself fix. Still, I sense that the effort put forth will yield rewarding outcomes for those who persevere.

I'm ready to try. Who's with me?