Can the humanitarian sector be fit for todays challenges without revisiting its purpose? And are the humanitarian principles an obstacle for this important conversation to take place? These are two of the central issues that Paul Skinner and Lars Peter Nissen discuss in this episode.

Paul is the founder of the Agency of the Future, which helps clients drive purpose-led change and better mobilise stakeholders for lasting success. He advises global businesses and pioneering charities and social enterprises as well as institutions of international and global governance. He is also the founder of MarketingKind, a membership community which brings together business leaders, marketers and change-makers to tackle social and environmental problems through their businesses, volunteering and advocacy.

Paul's recent book The Purpose Upgrade is the point of departure of this essential and complex .conversation.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (0:52 - 2:30)

A recurrent theme on Trumanitarian is how to align humanitarian action to the humanitarian principles, the purpose of humanitarianism. If you are a regular listener, you will know that I tend to be fairly traditional in my position with respect to the principles. I think we rarely fully live up to them, but that they are important because they guide us and show us how to improve. And I have a very deep fear of letting go, for example, of the principle of neutrality, because I think that will dilute the strength of the humanitarian approach. This week's guest, Paul Skinner, brings a fundamental challenge to this position. His point of departure is that we need to revisit the purpose. We need to tell a different story about humanitarian action, and that in a sense, the humanitarian principles are obstacles for that fundamental reset that he believes we need in order for us to be able to evolve and be fit for the future. Paul is the founder of the Agency of the Future, and he helps clients drive purpose-led change to better mobilize stakeholders and to create lasting success. The point of departure for our conversation is Paul's latest book, The Purpose Upgrade, where he explores how revisiting purpose can transform the way we do business.

You'll find a link to the book in the show notes. I can warmly recommend it. For now, as always, like us, review us, make some noise on social media, send us an email to let us know what you think. But most importantly, enjoy the conversation. Paul Skinner, welcome to True Monetarian.

[Paul Skinner] (2:30 - 3:46)

Thank you. It's a tremendous pleasure to be on the show, actually, and I wanted to start by paying a bit of tribute to the show because True Monetarian is not just the name of a podcast with an unusually good theme tune. It's a really important idea. The idea that a humanitarian should put need first and organizational interest second is so important for the world. Ultimately, it's the only way that humanitarian organizations will end up thriving anyway, is if they have the capacity to keep doing that. And it's not just a great idea, but I really think it's an idea that you live up to. And even more important than you living up to it, you enable the people around you to live up to that as well. I know from my own collaboration with you that you've always wanted everyone to say and aim for what they think is the best possible thing that we can do. And that's a really important quality of leadership. So I'm really delighted to be here on the show.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (3:47 - 4:37)

We've known each other for, I think, five, six years. We've collaborated on a number of really interesting projects. For example, HNPW, the Humanitarian Networks and Partnership Week that takes place every year here in Geneva. You've also been really helpful for ACAPS in terms of helping us understand our brand position and our brand agenda. And we've done some work together on the H2H network, sort of exploring what is that idea and how do we position it. And so I've always really treasured your way of thinking about things and the way you challenge us as humanitarians to think differently and do better. And I wanted to have you on for a while, and it's just great to have you on now. So the occasion for having you on is that you've written a new book called The Purpose Upgrade. Now, if you were to do the elevator pitch of that book, what is that?

[Paul Skinner] (4:38 - 8:17)

So you'll have to interrupt me if I assume too many floors in the building for the elevator to go up. But essentially, the idea for the book was somewhat inspired by our work together in disasters and emergencies, in that something that we've learned or I've learned from you is that when a community is hit by a disaster, actually, in the aftermath of that, that community can be at its most purposeful. And that was a really intriguing lesson for me, because most of the ways that we think about organisational purpose is rather fixed and linear. It doesn't really explain that circumstance. I suppose the most repeated narrative, at least in the West, is the redemption narrative. Problem is A, solution is B. If we achieve solution B, then C, we get to live happily ever after. And of course, happily ever after doesn't really come. And I think we get, you know, we borrow from the redemption narrative and thinking things like, you know, the North Star is our organisational purpose, and maybe that comes from Nations of the Star of Bethlehem. But that doesn't really explain, you know, for example, President Zelensky's memorable line, Ukraine didn't seek greatness, but Ukraine has become great. We're often at our most purposeful in response to an unexpected circumstance. We're told that purpose is about authenticity, but I don't think that purpose comes from introspection alone. There would be no point in providing an authentic experience of gastronomic delight in an environment of food poverty. We're also told that purpose is about single mindedness. And of course, you need focus to achieve progress.

But in an enterprise context, you have to integrate and align all of the different aspirations that are in play. Otherwise, you end up shooting yourself in the foot. I think of Brewdog, for example, a carbon positive beer where they have an exemplary performance on the environment, but undermined that with their reputation for how they engage with their colleagues. And I would say that when people talk about organisational purpose, often the floor in the thinking doesn't come from within their train of thought. It comes from the variables that they're overlooking. Today's problems are a bit like equations, simultaneous equations, where the important thing is to know how many variables you're solving for.

And it's often the variable that is overlooked that comes to bite us on the butt. And so I really argue in the book to give it its full title, The Purpose Upgrade, Change Your Business to Save the World, Change the World to Save Your Business. I argue that we need to think about purpose as a renewable resource, as an adaptive capacity, and that a purpose upgrade can be an always available event for any organisation. And I'd be happy to complete the description with some thinking about how the implications for human psychology, organisations and society. But I sense the elevator may be near the top of the building anyway.

[Lars Peter Nissen] (8:18 - 8:43)

Yeah, I think we're at the penthouse now. So if I can paraphrase what you say, you're basically saying the world is in big trouble. We're faced with some existential threats. Those threats in them also hold an opportunity actually for for-profit corporations to reconsider the way they do their business and make even more money by doing that. That's sort of your argument, right?

[Paul Skinner] (8:43 - 9:43)

No, I was trying to make the point that it seems like a book you wrote for the commercial sector, for helping them rethink and adapt a more maybe organic way of working with purpose, a more dynamic way, and to then show them a way of not only of actually branding themselves, not just as being great at doing toothbrushes or whatever it is they produce, but also helping to solve the world's problem and to sort of marry those two things and integrate into their brand a genuine effort towards solving the problems we're facing, we're faced with.

Absolutely, yeah.

I would like to also ask you, what are then the implications for do-gooders like us who are all about purpose? If you look at the humanitarian industry, that's what we are. We are purpose driven. So what is in it for us? Why would we want to read the purpose update?

So I would say I'm probably best known in the sector that you're describing, particularly the humanitarian sector, for my first book, Collaborative Advantage. And I would say that that has got some real traction in the sector. Now, in a sense, collaborative advantage is born of the idea that most of us have problems that we can't best solve on our own. So we need to forge a shared purpose with others to be able to be equal to those problems. And I would say the purpose upgrade comes in and says that if our problems are worsening and taking on a greater scale, then we may need a more ambitious purpose. And so in the sector, a lot of, as you alluded to earlier, I've worked with quite a few exciting initiatives on how to create collaborative advantage. And I think that has been quite successful. I think there is space for further progress. And I think that comes from in the humanitarian sector with how humanitarian actors get better, not just at creating collaborative advantage with each other, but at reaching out and enabling a greater purpose to be achieved within through more whole of society approaches. And so that does involve all of the other sectors. More completely.

But let's try to get concrete, right? Because we have the humanitarian principles that I know you're a big fan of. And why would we need to upgrade them? That is our purpose.

That is a really interesting question. So you're absolutely right. The humanitarian principles are incredibly important. And the humanitarian sector through those principles plays a unique role. It can be a backstop when other people are not addressing a problem. It can play a vital role when governments cannot alone marshal the resources to protect their people in the most difficult circumstances. But if we look at the nature of the problems today, the climate emergency, according to a study published in The Lancet last summer, is already connected to one in 10 deaths globally. Since we're good friends, I've seen you only a couple of times in person since the pandemic. And of course, that was the biggest global health emergency of our lifetimes, associated with the biggest interruption to life and work as usual, on the biggest scale that we've known. I was actually, when I first had the idea for the book, I was going to call it the end of business. Because picking up from my first book, Collaborative Advantage, I'd argued that the crisis landscape is much closer than we realise and can reach each and every one of us. But of course, by the time I was drafting the book, that was really quite apparent because half the world's population were in lockdown. And so I thought the end of business, it was a play on words, end as in purpose, choosing either purpose or decline. And that felt a little bit too harsh in the circumstances. So that's how I ended up calling it the purpose upgrade. But I think that for humanitarian organisations, to meet the scale of that problem, we need a conversation about, is the humanitarian sector going to continue to play its exceptional role as the backstop and inevitably be a smaller proportion of a bigger problem as the space for protected humanitarian action is in some way shrinking in the case of conflict that doesn't play by the rules, but is also challenged just more broadly by the huge scale of today's existential threats. So is the humanitarian sector going to be an exceptional backstop doing what it can, where it can, or can the humanitarian sector actually be a platform for enabling a more systemic approach or improvements to systemic approaches that really reach through whole of society solutions? And I'll give some practical examples, if you like.

Yeah, I'd love that. But first, I'd like to just go back to the principles. So you're talking about a platform, talking about changing the exceptional role we are playing, but are we still guided by the humanitarian principles in your world, this platform? Are those principles still the foundation for that?

I think they can be. I think that, I mean, maybe for your particular audience is going to be very familiar with the principles, but you might like to just restate them in case anybody doesn't memorise them.

Yeah, I mean, I'm probably going to get in trouble now. So we talk about, I think there are four principles that really are key. It's humanity, it's impartiality, neutrality and independence.

Now, I think that all of those values are positive, and I would hope that we could expect the whole of society to buy into the principle of humanity. Now, what's interesting about the others is that they're somewhat the definition in the negative. A bit like NGO is a non-governmental organisation rather than a thing in its own right. And so if you take the example of Ukraine, for example, then, of course, we would want humanity to guide all our response. And ultimately, we love the Russian people as well as the Ukrainian people. So there is a shared humanity there. It's worth pointing out that the Russian people are victims of the invasion as well. But most of us are probably not neutral and impartial. And a lot of the energy providing support for Ukraine is specifically because we see, first of all, there is something to put right. There is an injustice and it is important for Ukraine to survive and overcome this invasion. And also, I think there is some genuine self-interest that we need to live in a world where the Ukrainians of the world are protected from invasions of aggression. And so there is an enormous amount of energy, intelligence and cooperation that we need to support.

Yeah, and I think the discussion then is because, of course, the way we think about it from inside the echo chamber is that those four principles are the way they are because of the nature of the problem we are trying to address. We are trying to help the people that fall through the cracks, where the state and civil society either don't have the capacity or don't want to help these people. And in order for us to be able to operate, we need to position ourselves in a way so that we can actually access these people, sometimes against the will or intent of the de facto authorities on the ground. So we operate on the margins. And so, nice to talk about platforms and collaboration and all of these things, but I think the question is, do we sacrifice that single-mindedness that I think we should have on helping the people that nobody else seems to want to help? Also the bad guys.

So let me introduce a sort of principle of the third element. So what are some of the limitations of one narrative and how might we change that? So first of all, the idea of humanitarian action, of course, wasn't present throughout history. There have been prior moments in history where if a disaster happens in another part of the world, we might have felt bad about it. We might have felt sorry for people. We might have considered it as a tragedy, but it wasn't necessarily self-evident that it was something that we were in some way responsible for addressing. And the notion of the humanitarian emergency and the architecture of the humanitarian system that has scaffolded that narrative is a big jump forwards. Now, there may be shadows to any good idea. So one shadow, for example, I think to the notion of humanitarian action is that it too readily gives us the idea that the people we're supporting are the passive recipients of our support, that our support is benevolent and that we deliver our greatness to them as the recipients of that change.

And I think that we need to change some of these variables. So what happens, for example, if the organisations in the humanitarian sector who engage with effective people are not just seeking feedback on the great work that we've done for them, but are actually seeking to understand fundamentally what is somebody who is either affected, escaping from or potentially affected by a disaster? What do they want? What are they doing? What are the people around them doing? How can they be helped to better escape? How can they be helped not to get involved and not to become victims of trafficking and smugglers? How can we harness their agency? How can we stop thinking that a refugee is somebody who simply ends up in a country receiving some kind of benefit?

How might we invest in them so that they are improving their own lives, building their own future livelihoods and contributing to their new environment? If we take the example of ACAPs, for example, I see a decent amount, albeit I would say an insufficient amount, in the global news and current affairs shows about the situation in Ukraine. I'd like to see more about it, but obviously I see in the mainstream news very little about the 10 or 12 other crises that the crisis insight tool that you lead rates as a similarly severe, also has the highest severity rating. So are global narratives right? Or should global narratives be better influenced by the insight of organizations like ACAPS? Should we have a better understanding of the world? How do we achieve solutions that really reach from the person affected, because if they don't buy into it, it doesn't work, to the person funding, you know, the actual taxpayer without whose support that aid isn't really possible.

So I agree with all of the criticisms that you raise. And I think that that is a lot of what we talk about on this show, like the saviorism, the colonialism, the, you know, seeing people as passive recipients of aid. And as victims rather than people with agency. So I get all of that. But I also hear you saying that you're not trying to throw the principles out. You think that that is a valid point of departure, but that we need to do maybe something more on top of that. Is that right?

Yeah, I think that the principles were intrinsically and are intrinsically a very important thing. And I think that I've actually learned much of their value through you. You've definitely evolved my thinking on the humanitarian principles. But I think that there are variables that just sit outside that narrative. So it's not that those principles are wrong. It's that there are other variables that need to be solved that are not necessarily best addressed directly through those principles.

So that I fully agree with. So that I fully agree with. And I just want to recognize that I'm so happy that we have converted you into a principled humanitarian now, because there have been times where you have been quite critical of those principles. But I'm happy that we don't have to have that conversation again. So now let's jump to the other things we need to do, to those variables, to those questions that cannot be contained within the humanitarian story or narrative that we have. And let's explore what is the complementary story we need to tell by complementary story.

You mean, what is the what is the alternative additional role that the sector could play?

Exactly.

So I think in the case, let's take ACAPS as initial example, then work outwards to some others. So one of the things that we've done together at ACAPs is seeing ACAPs as the enabler of change. And so we frame that in the idea, see the crisis, change the outcome. So it's not that the purpose is restricted to producing analysis and narrative.

It's that the purpose is actually enabling other actors to use that analysis to drive change. But in the example I've just given, it may make perfect sense. Also, in the specifics of ACAPS, the primary users of crisis insight, the primary uses of the tools that you bring to the world are going to be humanitarian directors, other humanitarian leaders, people allocating resources in the humanitarian sector. And so that might make sense for that organisation. But I would say that that knowledge needs to reach much further. And I'll give two examples. One example is that in our more crisis prone world, businesses can no longer just have or are starting to realise that they can no longer just have business continuity strategies, because if the communities in which they operate fail, then there isn't business continuity available as an option anyway. So we're seeing businesses actually develop humanitarian strategies where they have operations or where they have stakeholders who are important to their business, who are threatened by the world's worsening crisis landscape. So what analysis do they need? What analysis do I need simply when I turn on the news? You know, why does even a high quality news media such as the BBC, why do news programmes not reflect the global state and the national state of human need? So there are powerful ways in which the kind of approach that you're developing at ACAPS could be incredibly powerful in unlocking a more whole of society approach. And I think we could apply similar analysis to any of the organisations and collaborations that we've been involved in together.

So the example you give is very much around how we can position the humanitarian narrative in such a way that we can turn other industries, other sectors of society into, if you want, non-humanitarian force multipliers.

Yeah, I'll give one specific example that I'm working on right now. So I'm working with a couple of organisations, one organisation that is one of the leading organisations globally in disasters and emergencies, and another organisation that has its roots in health and safety. And so they preserve, they seek to preserve the health, safety and wellbeing of workforces. Now, in today's crisis prone world, we sort of all have to ask ourselves, are we psychosocially ready for the jeopardy, the disappointments, the setbacks, the uncertainties, the complexities and the challenges of doing our usual work or what becomes very unusual work, actually, but doing our jobs in a more crisis prone world? And so what can we learn from an organisation that has been on the frontline of disasters and emergencies for decades, since World War I? And how can we translate that into something that makes our workers, ourselves, our teams, our organisations more psychodynamically ready for that more crisis prone world? And that has many benefits. It will make our businesses more resilient. It will make our communities more resilient. It will make ourselves more resilient. And it will help us to preserve national and global conditions that are better adapted to that crisis prone landscape. So there's just one set of benefits where we can take something from the humanitarian world and deploy it in a non-humanitarian context that has absolutely nothing to do with the humanitarian principles, really. It's not that it's against them. It's just coming from a different place. And I think that there are myriad ways in which we need to do that so that all of our organisations are playing their part in preserving the conditions around us and improving, you know, rescuing us from a global landscape of crisis rather than propelling us into it.

So you're saying on one side, position the humanitarian narrative so that others can ingest that and start almost like infect them with the virus of the humanitarian narrative so that they start changing their behaviour. And then secondly, use the muscle memory that you develop from working in situations of chaos or the repeated loss of control that I think we as humanitarians experience. That gives you some instincts that are useful in a world that is becoming more uncertain and more risky.

I think that's absolutely right. I mean, when you talk about those difficulties, I know that I've never known whether it was with good intentions or an element of naughtiness. You've had the idea of putting me on the triplex, which I think many of your listeners will know better than I do what the triplex is. But it's essentially, I think, a course where you are put in conditions such that you are really physically and cognitively challenged to see how you can operate in those conditions.

Yeah, I think the great philosopher Mike Tyson put it like this, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the head. And I do think that it's good to think about these things and conceptualise them. But really, the personal experience of a loss of control, and this is why we do exercises and simulations, it's hard to actually understand before your pulse goes up and your brain stops working and you experience it yourself. It is hard to understand just how dysfunctional you become and then that you have to plan for that.

Now, I think to address your question more directly, though, you talked about, can we extend the humanitarian principles into these other domains and infect them? And I think there's an element of truth to that, a strong element of truth. At the same time, I think we need to recognise how small the sector is in the scale of the problems and the scale of people's responses to the problems. So one of my frustrations with the humanitarian sector is when leaders talk about systems change, when what they actually mean is sector reform, because the crisis system and the crisis response system is global. There is no part of that, there is no part of that that we can overlook, there is no part of that that is somehow separate from our crisis-prone landscape and that is not implicated in creating its condition and in adapting to its condition. And so in a sense, I think we also have to recognise that the sector is already a part of a vastly greater wholeness. And so it's about questioning the role of the sector in the bigger picture, but also questioning what that bigger picture is and what is needed. And so that's, again, where I come back to, I think the humanitarian principles are fantastic. And we also have to look at what is the full range of variables that we're starting with when we're looking at the context of crises and complex emergencies.

And I do think I agree with you there. I think obviously that we need a new humanitarian approach, a new humanitarian paradigm. And I don't know exactly what that looks like, but I know that it's going to be collaborative and complex. And what I haven't figured out yet is what do the humanitarian principles mean in a distributed complex adaptive system? How do you actually ensure, or how do you make it more likely that there's a principled outcome that comes out of this system where we don't have the sort of almost command control that we aspire to within the IASC family?

In a sense, there's nothing wrong with the humanitarian principles. There is a lot right with the humanitarian principles. But what should be the starting point for a lot of our conversations? And a lot of our conversations just need to start in a different place, not from introspection, but from looking at what does the world need without our humanitarian or organisational hats on. How can that be achieved still without our organisational hats on? And only then, once we have an understanding of need and how that need can be met, should we put our sector hats on, our organisational hats on and think, OK, in that context, what is the most valuable role that we can play in enabling that need to be met in that way?

What do you think is holding us back from achieving that?

So that's a very interesting question. I would say it is, so I think that we are held back quite often subconsciously. So, you know, if we think what is purpose, you know, I would say purpose is our most adaptive capacity as a species. So in my book, I actually describe us as homopropositors, because you could say that our ability to tell ourselves stories of purpose that help us pursue more abstract goals that really transcend our immediate circumstances is the fundamental difference between humans and other species. And so that's why, for example, we have developed from generation to generation rather than just evolved as other species have. And by the way, I'm not necessarily implying that we're better than other species. And one reason I'm not implying that is because that ability to tell ourselves stories of purpose that has helped us develop in these ways from generation to generation in a way that you don't see in other parts of nature could become maladaptive. You know, our very ability to pursue purposeful goals and to see a bigger opportunity for ourselves and act and orchestrate our collective activities at a huge scale to achieve that could become maladaptive, given the nature of the existential threats that we face on the climate emergency, on biodiversity collapse. You know, the secretary general has said on the climate emergency, we're in a code red situation for humanity and on biodiversity that we've made ourselves a weapon of mass extinction. So it could be that that becomes maladaptive. And so in a sense, I think that this conversation may reflect it in a sense in that, you know, humanitarians for very good reasons formed a purpose aligned with the humanitarian principles. But it just may be that in today's context, the center of gravity for where the most important conversations need to begin may be in a different place. Now, then, you know, there's an argument over then do the principles come back in once you know what's needed and how it can be achieved. That's a separate conversation. But I think what we need is to overcome human purpose can be a valuable lens through which we direct our actions. It's a valuable conscious lens. But the way that it works in the human mind is that once you've formed that purpose, you then relegate it to your subconscious so you can get on with fulfilling it. And in that moment, you know, that's fine if circumstances don't change. But if they do change, that very purpose can go from conscious lens to a dangerous, unconscious set of blinkers that blinds us to more important realities and may prevent necessary action from taking place. And I think that may be the most fundamental dimension. And then there are organizational traps. You know, there's the there's the psychological effect of the sunk costs. You know, we've invested ourselves and our organizations in behaving in a particular way. And there's the fragility that comes from the the plan continuation biases of our leaders and colleagues. You know, there's the progress traps through which the actions that got us embedded with particular donors that got us into a particular set of relationships with stakeholders could also be the very things that created today's success, but create tomorrow's limitations. So I think there are many factors in play that prevent us from thinking about purpose in a sufficiently adaptive way, a sufficiently renewable way, and recognizing that a fundamental purpose upgrade may be an always available event.

And here I was thinking that I had converted you into a principled humanitarian and you then turned into the thing that prevents us from actually solving the real problem. But no, I get your point. And I think I think it's a really interesting way of thinking about it. Suspend, get out of that mindset for a while until you really fully understand the problem and then devise solutions that suits the problem. I can see that.

I mean, as a hypothetical question, OK, and it is a it is a hypothetical. You know, it's not one that can be answered. But just as a thought experiment, does ACAPS achieve more for humanity by influencing the decisions of humanitarian actors, or would it achieve more for humanity if it could actually influence global narratives so that the state of the world's disasters and emergencies is driving the news agenda in a way that it currently isn't? Now, I put that as a choice as if you could just choose A and B. And of course, that's not possible. But as a thought experiment, I think it's really interesting.

It is, it is. And I think the answer just off the top of my head is, one, it's not a zero-sum game. I don't think it's a neither or. It's the first thing that comes to mind. And my second sort of instinctive reaction is, I see what you're saying. But I am so scared of losing sight of the people affected by this and reducing this to. I guess I don't trust the world to fix the problem or to care enough about people to actually deal with the problem. I think you can reduce the burden through non-humanitarian force multipliers, as I said before. And I think we need to get much better at activating other industries and creating, making the humanitarian narrative travel and infect other parts of society and all of that. But there's still that principle of humanity, the value of every single person's life that it's imperative that we help that person. And I don't want to sacrifice that drive and that urge to sort of some kind of influence the system and complex. And no, don't forget that. I think that's my second reaction.

But I think that it's precisely because we can't forget that, that we need to start with an assessment of need rather than a presumption of solution. So to give two responses, when we took the Syria crisis, of course, there was the criticism that a majority of people fleeing Syria for long periods of time bypassed the humanitarian system altogether because it wasn't meeting their needs. And if we fast forward to today, how does it help people in need when we've allowed a situation where the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom, which has formerly been a superpower of aid in some ways, the Home Secretary can say to a national newspaper that her dream is for there to be front pages of the newspapers of asylum seekers on planes from the UK to Rwanda if they have arrived through a route that she doesn't agree with, or if you have the Prime Minister of the UK talking about refugees as if somebody is no longer a refugee if they happen to have passed through another country en route, which is, you know, for me, a refugee is somebody who is fleeing conflict. If they're unable to go back to the country of that conflict for many years, then they need to contribute to and be a part of a society and an economy somewhere. So they're no longer a refugee just because they happen to have spent a few weeks or months in fairly difficult conditions exposed to daily violations and crime in poorly resourced, you know, semi-formal camps somewhere. I won't say where because I'll get in trouble. So I think that the starting point is the need. And then, you know, I'm not, I'm pro-humanitarian principles. I think intrinsically they're a fantastic thing. I just don't think that our whole, I don't think that the conversation of the sector should begin in an inward-looking place. It should begin in an outward-looking place. And of course, this is facilitated by the work of a great organisation like ACAPS, which is putting needs, making an understanding of needs, far more accessible to people.

Maybe my last question on my mind would be, what do you think is the best case scenario for the, maybe not the humanitarian sector, but then the humanitarian cause in 25 years from now? What's your vision? Where should we be in 25 years?

So I think, again, that the starting point has got to be what's the best vision for the world? So we have an increasingly crisis-prone environment. I mean, we've been aware of existential threats for some time, but I think it is now, the reality is impinging on people in far more direct ways and far more knock-on ways. You know, we've had that big global emergency in terms of health. We've had the knowing that we can be knocked completely out of life and work as usual with the lockdowns all around the world. We've got serious conflict in Europe and have done for some time. We know that even that conflict in Europe could be dwarfed by the peril of the potential conflict if, for example, the US and China were to get into more serious difficulties in the year ahead, in the years ahead in their relationship. You know, biodiversity collapse, loss of some of nature's most important systems. Now, we don't know to what degree these challenges will lead to greater global cooperation. There's certainly risk multipliers so they could lead to greater global conflict. We don't know where things like the cost of living crisis, or which I think could easily be rebranded as the cost of inequality crisis. You know, is that going to lead to breakthrough thinking and greater inclusion in the end, or is it going to just simply drive retrenchment in a greater extremitization of the world with more and more people being the victims of a dangerous system and fewer and fewer people being the beneficiaries of that system.

So I think that what we need is a global context where we better adapt at the level of purpose to a radically changing environment. So this means as individuals, we're going to need to be more adaptive in our organizations. We're going to need to be more adaptive. And as civilizations, I mean, we know that whole human civilizations have fallen in the past when they were unable to renew their stories of purpose when faced with new social or environmental stresses. The ancient Sumerians civilization collapsed when they were unable to wean themselves off the agriculture that they'd grown to love when it became apparent that it was leading to salt buildup in the soil, rendering it infertile. The Roman Empire collapsed under its own weight when its model of slave dependent, slave labor dependent growth became too unwieldy for them to manage quite apart from being wrong on every level. And of course, today, we face social and environmental stresses on perhaps a greater scale than we ever have done. So the question is, can we upgrade the stories of success that we're working towards? You know, ultimately, even in the case of a disaster scenario, the narratives and the direct and unavoidable impact of a disaster is less great than the total cumulative impact of the narrative that drives how we anticipate, prepare for, reduce, avoid, address, and recover from those effects. So in a sense, I think what we need to do is we need to become, to foster our capability for creating new visions of success and then scaffolding those visions so that we make it more possible for people to pursue them. And I happen to believe that particularly when we're all in the same boat, letting go of an outmoded model of success that no longer is adapted to our needs can be a relief rather than a burden. And that embracing a new vision of success can unlock a tremendous amount of energy. So really, the skill that we need is to narrate our way into better patterns of living and working and to scaffold those patterns as fully as we can so that we're able to achieve whole-of-society solutions to deeply complex problems.

I've sometimes heard you describe that as United Beyond Nations. Is that still, for you, a good brand to sort of capture what you just described?

So the founding charter of the UN, I think, begins with the words We the Peoples. But actually, the reality of the UN is that it would have been more appropriate for it to begin, albeit more prosaic, We the Governments. Now, you know, the whole system that was born in response to World War II was an adaptive response to a major problem. And globally, we responded to World War II in a way that we didn't respond to World War I. And we paid the price for not responding in that way to World War I. So there was a bigger vision of change.

And I think that we're at an inflection point, which I won't say it's similar because it's more complex. It's more multidimensional. So it may not be an inflection point. It may be a series of interlocking inflection points. But I do think that we need to renew our vision of what kind of successes we are striving for in quite fundamental ways. And I think they can be compatible with human nature. Tell a little micro story that might give us some inspiration. So during the war of, well, at the start of the war of liberation against Napoleon, the Prussian royal family did something quite genius. They asked the aristocrats to send in their gold jewelry to fund an uprising against Napoleon. But the genius bit was they sent back in return replicas of that jewelry with patriotic slogans. Now, all of a sudden in Prussia, you weren't going to impress anyone wearing that gold jewelry anymore. But actually your iron jewelry might spark an interesting conversation with that girl you wanted to meet. Now, I think that we need to get more Prussian in that sense. There are many ways, you know, as a species, we like to survive together. And so we like to create impressions on each other.

And we like to share experiences with each other. What we need is to provide people with new ways of doing that that they can embrace. And I think that achieving that can actually be a life upgrade, not just a purpose upgrade.

Paul, thanks a million for yet. Another mind-stretching conversation. I never regret spending time with you. It's such a pleasure. I also really enjoyed spending time with your book, The Purpose Upgrade. So I'd like to recommend that really warmly. Thank you for your work. Thank you for coming on the show. And I look forward to seeing your next project.

Yeah, well, hopefully you'll be involved in it. Don't underestimate the degree to which my thinking in the book has been triggered, inspired by, and drawn upon conversations we've had together, initiatives that we've started together, and trouble that we've got into together.