Home Holistic Management was first developed through the collaboration of its prime architect, Allan Savory, a range and wildlife ecologist from Zimbabwe, and Don Green, a social psychologist from Canada. Since that time about 15 years ago the concepts have grown and the lessons learned have been many. Many details of Savory's ideas have changed, and various practitioners of holistic management have developed variations that work well in a multitude of contexts. As a result, there are certain fundamentals that tie all together. I generally will not capitalize the words, "holistic management" and will discuss the principles that carry many of his ideas, but implicitly acknowledging others from a variety of people as well.
Holistic management emphasizes the essential community dynamic bonding people in a common set of values, and the conceptual framework of living systems that are mutually influenced by our actions. All living individuals have a "footprint" of environmental and organic resources necessary for their life and life style. While each footprint will be unique, all living organisms depend on other living and formerly living individuals to exist. This the "Web of Life". Humans experience the features of the web from their unique perspectives, and it is by our imaginations that we "experience" the web through other organisms' perspective.
Holistic management also emphasizes the significance of examining alternative actions in the light of the holistic goal, and selecting the "best of the lot." Nevertheless, the "best" is relative to those options that are recognized, the skill with which an action is executed, and the multitude of unknown or unpredictable factors that enter as the effects of actions are realized over time. Therefore, an equally important principle is the need to monitor a wide array of changes to detect as quickly as possible any trends away from the holistic goal. A fundamental principle is that it is impossible to "do only one thing" to a complex system. The difference between expected effects and "side effects" is the focus of our attention and the incomplete knowledge of the systems affected. "Problems" often serve to focus attention, and cause us to observe unexpected effects when new problems emerge. The effort is to use the holistic model as a guide to continue monitoring effects with both a "wide angle" and a "zoom" perspective, and seek criteria that give indications of change before a problem is developed.
Sierra Blanca is a community that has been impacted in recent years by two directions of change, precipitated from outside the community. The State of Texas has been involved in siting a long term (thousands of years) depository (or "dump", depending upon your perspective) for low level radioactive wastes. Sierra Blanca is located in the most sparsely populated portion of the state, and thereby attracted attention for this siting. Soon after the community was thrust into the spotlight a company from New York, Merco Joint Ventures, bought a large ranch immediately north of the community, and received permission to begin land applications of treated sewage, "biosolids", from New York City. The public perception of this project immediately lumped it with the siting of the low level radioactive waste. The distinction between permanent entombment of a hazardous material and the reuse of organic materials for range restoration was obscured, sometimes intentionally and sometimes out of ignorance. Nevertheless, the emotions ran high and many people with good intentions came to the "rescue" of Sierra Blanca. But, the community has experienced detrimental effects from the "cure" as well as the "problem" of having little influence on decisions that had, and continue to have, profound effects on the quality of life, and the ability to maintain the values that have bound the community for over a century.
This discussion is derived from listening to members of the community discuss why they like to live there, and how they perceive their quality of life in the community threatened from both disregard and "helpful" attention from people who do not live and work there. Holistic management can be used effectively in such a situation because it fits well into the most important aspects of the community, but is difficult to implement in the confusion and stresses created by major changes in their "whole." For instructional purposes, let's see how this might be accomplished.
The first step in forming a community -- team, family, business or state -- particularly when there are different life styles, life experiences, and perspectives of values, is to form a single Holistic Goal. The process of forming the goal is the essential activity, and the product of the activity becomes a symbol for those in the community. However, in the absence of this process, we may leap to a temporary goal that may be similar to the product if we had the community effort.
The goal has three parts, the first of which is a value based statement of the quality of life desired by all of the community. For the community of Sierra Blanca, we might produce a temporary goal that has the Quality of Life described as:
Certainly the community process would lead to different wording of these statements, and very likely additional ones that are not included. Until this process takes place, however, it is unlikely that any of the above sentiments would be considered inappropriate or divisive.
The second part of the goal is the "action" oriented part of life, that gives rise to the feelings associated with the quality of life. One of the issues that has been recognized by the business leaders in Sierra Blanca is the potential detrimental effects of major retail outlets, such as Wal-Mart and factory outlet malls, could have on locally owned businesses. This is a major step for the community leaders' understanding that a holistic view is important, and that increasing the number of jobs is not necessarily the same as increasing the economic sustainability and health of the community. "Wealth" has many faces: wealth from primary ecological productivity is the most lasting and most valuable, while wealth from nonrenewable sources, such as mining, or the low level radioactive waste site storage, is temporary, and must be converted into productive forms dependent on the ecosystem to avoid eventual hardships in the community, and, finally, wealth that is based on other people's opinions, such as tax-derived sources, or a corporate decision, is the least dependable of all, and eventually will lead to economic disasters if it becomes a source of community prosperity. Therefore, after listening to these leaders and to others in the community when they describe their quality of life, we can make a temporary statement of this part of the goal.
The forms of productivity for Sierra Blanca might be described as follows:
With the third part of the goal, the community will need to recognize it's only permanent source of wealth, the land and what is produced from it. While this may sound strange for a semi-arid area, it is clearly possible when the soil is rich with high levels of organic matter, and the uses are appropriate to preserve topsoil and moisture. There is a direct connection between a sustainable community and the way land in the surrounding areas is managed. Of course, some of the management likely would be conducted by residents of Sierra Blanca. If a clear understanding is maintained and the community supports sound management of the ecosystem they depend upon, then closer ties develop between the rural families in the county and otherwise nearby and the people who live in town. A possible statement for the environmental component of the goal might be as follows:
The members of a community recognize their neighbors, but there may also be people that have a significant influence on decisions in the community. For example, some people in the community business or government may actually live elsewhere. They should be included in the process of forming a goal as if they lived in town. Thus, the first part of the Whole includes those who will produce the Goal -- the People.
A second part of the Whole may contain people, and things of value. The people in neighboring towns and cities, people in the State government, members of communities across the Rio Grande, and certainly others would be in this group. They may be viewed as part of the renewable resource base for the community, but only if they are nurtured in becoming compatible with the community. In addition, there is the inherent productivity of the natural system of biological and mineral resources. One must be nurtured, and the other conserved. However, the physical location of Sierra Blanca is a resource. It is close to a major vehicular artery, Interstate 10, likely to connect with a new road from a new crossing point into Mexico, near a site proposed to have a low level radioactive wastes to be stored forever and filled for about 30 years, and near many ranches, including one where the productivity will increase dramatically over the next few years. (Note that some of these may become "negative" resources, or liabilities, that could greatly affect the decisions of the community in the future.) The skills of the residents are vital to the community. Younger people who have been lured home after learning skills and making contacts become especially valuable to a community. In many ways this can be the biggest "resource" of all, and it is renewable!
A third part of the Whole relates to the financial resources, money and the resources that can be converted into money. This includes the environment that produces the basic raw materials for the area, including a major part of the food consumed in Sierra Blanca. While this is certainly not true now, nor in the past century or so, it will become more and more as the productivity of the land increases, as additional uses of water are identified, and as local businesses develop markets and "value added" aspects for local production. With the community supporting this development, guided by the Goal, the environmental resource base will grow. Without such growth, there will be no sustainable basis for the community to exist. The residents will undoubtedly rise to the challenge!
There is a procedure for each individual to make decisions that will support their Goal, and that of the larger community of Sierra Blanca. There presently are seven test questions or considerations that are applied to deciding among alternatives. More may be added, and some may be deleted, but the general procedure will remain the same.
Of course, a management plan needs to be flexible enough to take advantage of opportunities. The procedures in holistic management have been developed to allow this to happen.
Hopefully this example of a community beginning to learn a new way of thinking, and new ways of doing, will clarify how holistic management can be practiced with the guidance of the holistic goal. Each community is different, and each moment in a community changes from the previous. Management must become a way of making good decisions, not a "system" that can be "fixed" to run along untended. Systems, as commonly used today, are insufficiently flexible, and tend to exclude new and old technologies and insights as they emerge. Such flexibility is achieved by having a clear goal, a way to evaluate the progress of decisions recently made and acted upon, and a way of expanding and selecting among alternatives so that movement is continually toward the goal. Accidental success does not just happen. Success is the reward for good decisions made previously!
Maintained by Dick Richardson
d.richardson@mail.utexas.edu
Last updated 03/01/97; Copyright© 1997
R. H. Richardson.