Law of Nature | The Manifesto

For 2+ Decades

High- to highest-impact solutions — available today — get stuck in the system by default

Today

Our long-standing approaches to solving the growing problems we face have failed us

Future

Bureaucracy and fixed ways of thinking prevent us from solving the problems

Possibility

An enormous solution potential is waiting to be unleashed 

Why Our Long-Standing Solution Attempts Failed Us

Most damaging — yet solvable — Root Causes remain unresolved

Iceberg and Root Causes
Iceberg and Root Causes
  • The one-word policy to solve the crippling bureaucracy at its most damaging root cause is missing

By publishing the word and its implications as a top-level policy, bureaucracy itself can be used to bring it into decision-making at all levels — and to drastically reduce bureaucracy to healthy levels.

Before the word can be made available, its context needs to be established. This is provided through the Manifesto’s tutorials.

  • More Root Causes below

Popular expressions trigger:
Same Thinking — Won’t Work

Disbelief
Disbelief

These expressions may still work for the own group, but trigger “won’t work” when used with other groups.

As soon as three or more groups have to work together, adjusting the expressions to each target group no longer works.

Example groups 

  • Initiatives and movements: let’s connect or share, start small and grow, by the heart, co-create
  • Employees: common sense, agile decisions, root cause
  • Decision-makers, experts, and advisors: decisions by money, break into parts, method, and proof

What works in small environments gets stuck when scaled up.

Climbing over wall versus mountain
Climbing over wall versus mountain

Solutions, models, best practices, and IT tools are typically designed for a few parts of a complex problem — and miss the mountains of obstacles that appear when scaled up.

A Chaos of Guidance and Directions

Chaos of guidance and directions

A Chaos of Guidance and Directions

Chaos of guidance and directions

The same root causes
across industries, fields, and subjects

Quite often, simple solution possibilities
 are waiting to be used

Universally applicable — when a part or the whole is COMPLEX 

  • Aviation
  • Business services
  • Construction
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Health Services
  • IT
  • Public services
  • Manufacturing
  • Science
  • Social enterprises

     And more

  • Agility 
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Best practices & Methods
  • Education
  • Finance
  • Health
  • Human Resources
  • Indigenous knowledge
  • Innovation
  • Knowledge Management
  • Land use
  • Management
  • Natural Earth Systems
  • Organisations
  • Politics
  • Project management
  • Research
  • SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)
  • Societal matters
  • Youth & Children

      And more

  • Agile yet reliable decision-making
  • Artificial Intelligence: Downside prevention
  • Automation
    • Beneficial versus counterproductive 
  • Bureaucracy & Complexity reduction
  • Cooperation & Co-creation
  • Circular economies: Making them happen
  • Education and skill gaps
  • Fixed ways of thinking & Behaviour
  • Food security
  • Health of
    • People
    • Projects, organizations and  environments
    • Planet
  • Innovation
    • High(est)-impact getting stuck by default
    • Out-of-the-box, social and organizational  
  • Marine life
  • Safety
  • Security
  • Trust: (Re-)creating trust
  • Truth finding
  • Productivity improvements
  • Project failure rates far to high
  • SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals)
  • Social and organisational innovation needs
  • Water security

       And more

Needed: A Reliable Foundation to Create a Common Path

Roundabout approach
Roundabout approach

A Manifesto

Providing the highest-impact intervention possibilities

An Operating System 

Like Windows, Android, or iOS — but enabling healthy societal, organizational, and planetary systems

Based on …

Something powerful enough that it cannot be rejected

Intervening where …

The highest impact can be made at the lowest costs and risks — at the system level

Complete enough …

To turn today’s chaos of guidance and directions into a common path

Enabling decision-makers and initiative owners to …

Make the problem-solving decisions

Get impactful solutions through the systems with high speed and reliability

Emile van Essen, Founding Chair of World Sustainability Fund:

As far as I know, this is the only initiative worldwide responding to the following at the level required:

  1. What prevents us from unleashing the available solutions?
  2. Where and how do we have to intervene to unleash the solutions of high-to-highest impact within the deadlines set by Nature and deadlines agreed on by international treaties?

Nature’s Guidance

Nature

.

We Are All Part of Nature

So are the organizations we work for, the environments around us, and the systems we have created

Nature thrives when the environment is healthy

Nature’s Laws are present or occur

Nature’s Laws cannot be overruled, ignored, negotiated away, or changed by human will

It does not matter whether these Laws still need to be identified, require adjustment to the latest findings, or are expressed in exact, verbal, or illustrative ways — they are present or occur

No mathematics is needed for the main Laws
 guiding us out of the Polycrisis 

The end of the tunnel
The end of the tunnel

.

The same Laws of Nature that have been overruled, denied, or missed, guide us out of the devastating situation

Birds
Birds

.

The only solution left and powerful enough to solve the existential threats we face may be:

The (re-)integration of Relevant Laws of Nature
in Decision-Making

Before Nature’s guidance can be used

Action Paths

Three Solvable Root Causes of Devastating Consequences

The problems and SDGs
The problems and SDGs

When mainstream decision-making changed to decision-making by hard numbers, money, and linear practices ‘only’, information of critical importance — that could not be expressed this way — became invisible and treated as irrelevant

Alongside high failure rates, stress, and burnout, this created so-called management failures — while decision-makers and their advising experts believed they were applying state-of-the-art practices. 

Solvable Root Causes: see root causes 2 and 3

These mainstream practices are hereafter referenced as exact practices

In the wake of Root Cause 1, we lost the ability to apply two groups of Laws that match the above criteria for Laws of Nature

  • Laws from physics, chemistry, etc. — when a Tipping Point of Complexity is crossed, and they can no longer be expressed through exact practices
  • Laws impossible to express in exact ways

Solvable Root Causes

  • The Tipping Point Law of Nature applied to complex matters: missing ‘everywhere’ — see water example below
  • The missing education of decision-makers and experts in the Laws of Nature relevant to their fields — when these Laws cannot be expressed in exact ways

In the wake of Root Cause 1 … 

  • Individuals with the skill set to solve complex problems have been — unintentionally — excluded from hiring and job-advancement processes for two decades
  • Our children — who may have developed several such skills — have been, and continue to be, directed away from this skill set and into the exact skill set dominating our educational systems

This has led to few — or no — individuals in influential and decision-making positions with the ability to see highly effective solutions and get them through the systems. More to this in Manifesto Tutorial 3.4.3.

Example

  1. A public call is received for impactful or innovative solutions. It says out-of-the-box welcome.
  2. A submission follows after days or weeks of effort.
  3. Standard response: “Interesting! Can you now adjust it so it fits our processes and ways of thinking?”

One Law of Nature Stands Out Above All Others  

With water — and in countless other situations — we apply this Law without realizing it is, in fact, a Law of Nature. The practices through which we do this used to be called Common (Business) Sense and Intuition

Tipping Point

The Tipping Point Law:

“When a Tipping Point is crossed, something fundamental changes”

Tipping Point

How we applied this Law in organizations

We adjust our practices according to the state — solid, liquid, or gas. The same applies to other substances

Further Tipping Points:

  • Those of climate change
  • When the demand for a resource grows beyond its capacity (→ traffic jams, full agendas, waiting lists, etc.)
  • When well-working communication practices turn into “too much of the same thinking, won’t work”

Other expressions for Tipping Points:

  • Phase shifts
  • Break points
  • Inflection points
  • Trigger points
Tipping Points of Water

Beyond the Tipping Points of increasing Complexity, the Tipping Point Law demands different types of practices. 

Practices beyond Tipping Points
Tipping Points for organizations

Until about the turn of the century, switching to the suited practices happened automatically. It happened through practices that used to be integral to decision-making when exact practices could not provide reliable outcomes. These practices were called Common (Business) Sense and Intuition.

Where is the Tipping Point Law?

What happened when Root Causes 1 to 3 manifested themselves

Applying exact practices beyond the Level 1 and even Level 2 Tipping Points became common. This happened because the Tipping Point Law was not identified as a Law of Nature — let alone for complexity.

This led to the new trends of agility and self-organization, with their open and non-linear practices. However, those approaches also missed the Tipping Points. They are now criticized just as much as the traditional best practices and models.

Practices beyond Tipping Points
Tipping Points for organizations

The systems — within which the problems at the top of this page must be solved — are now beyond the Level-2 Tipping Point.

 

Beyond this Tipping Point, the systems …

  • Reject solvable Root Causes of the highest damage from being seen, accepted, and solved
  • Reject high-to-highest impact solutions
  • Drain yet more budget, time, and resources from the small and zero-budget initiatives providing high- to highest-impact solutions
Consequences of Tipping Points missed

Patterns of systems and organizations being beyond the Level-2 Tipping Point:

  • Ongoing cost-saving pressures and regular reorganizations
  • Productive people losing their jobs; vacated productive positions being removed
  • Unsolved problems offloaded to the weakest in the system
  • Divided populations

Effort and cost consequences 

Where are … ?

Question Mark

The journalists, initiatives and movements…

Asking the questions that guide all involved to the solvable Root Causes of the Highest Damage, to the relevant Laws of Nature, and to the solutions they guide to?

Our next-generation leaders — guiding us out of the growing problems and into a prospering future by…

  • (Re-)integrating the relevant Laws of Nature into decision-making?
  • Solving the solvable Root Causes of the Highest Damage?

The scientists in institutions — and the institutions themselves — who:

Ask: 

  • Why have the models used failed to deliver the urgently needed results for more than two decades?
  • How can this be solved urgently?

We could not find any researcher addressing — or  wanting to address — the following question to the level required to get it solved: What do decision-makers really need to make problem-solving decisions based on scientific facts? 

Identify: 

  • The Laws of Nature by which complex systems operate

By:

  • Applying the Einstein-Newton-Darwin practices (see Tutorials 1 and 2 for the practices)  

Call to Contribute — At Any Level That Feels Right

From

Simply sharing Calls to Action with Hard-to-Ignore Questions anyone can ask or seeking fresh insights

People seeking insights

To

Intervention possibilities of the highest impact and co-creation of impactful solution packages

You can simply:

  • Share the Calls to Action as they become available
  • Invite others to share the calls  
  • Invite others to ask the Hard-to-Ignore Questions that come with each Call to Action

Want to know how missing the Tipping Point Law may impact your life? Watch Tutorials 1 and 2   

Level 2

In addition to Level 1, you can simply:

  • Ask the Hard-to-Ignore Questions that come with each Call to Action — and point others to the Call where they can find links to further information
  • Encourage open dialogue that brings Fresh Thinking to the surface

Example questions to prevent costly mistakes and foreseeable failure:

  • Will the decision to be made improve or worsen the health of people, the organization, the environment, or the planet
  • What Laws of Nature could apply? What practices do they demand?
  • Why accept high costs and risks when a simple health check can substantially reduce them?

Optional

Level 3

At this level, the door to fresh thinking is opened. In your environment, you ask relevant Hard-to-Ignore Questions that guide decision-makers, advisors, and experts toward fresh insights and highest-impact solutions — while sparking meaningful dialogue. You might want to make it visible by doing the exercise in Tutorial 3.3.

You are free to use your own approaches, practices, and tools, or those of third parties. However, there are a few requirements:

  • Relevant root causes, gaps and conflicts identified through this Manifesto initiative, as well as environment-specific ones are addressed
  • What is being done is in line with relevant Laws of Nature, Core Human Values, and Essential Behaviours
  • The Integrity Law and its practice, Adaptive Integrity, are applied

A personal goal could be:

  • Get a problem-solving activity or project initiated

For an overview and links to more specific information, go to:

Level 4

At Level 4, an Executable Solution Framework is co-created for a specific task or project. This can be done by yourself or together with individuals who have the necessary experience and skills.

In addition to Level 3, the following applies:

Requirements:

  • The Solution Framework includes Manifesto-based education and coaching needs (or third-party alternatives that meet these requirements) for involved decision-makers, their advisors, task or project members, as well as target audiences
  • The Solution Framework is confirmed by knowledgeable representatives of the groups involved and impacted as being executable, scalable, and durable at the desired system level(s)

Your goals could be

  • Get an Executable Solution Framework created
  • Obtain approval for project design and execution

To see how this differs from traditional approaches, please watch …

More …

YouTube notification level: 

YouTube Notification Bell 2
Level 5

Why accepting:

  • Ongoing firefighting, stress, and burnout
  • High failure rates that drain time and resources
  • A crippling bureaucracy and capacity bottlenecks everywhere — like skill shortages
  • Blame, frustration, and shame
  • Risks to your role and credibility
  • What delivered needed results where our long-standing solution approaches failed us
  • A simple policy to reduce bureaucracy, capacity bottlenecks, and high project failure rates at their most damaging root cause
  • Easy-to-apply Laws of Nature — often highest-impact solutions at a fraction of the usual costs and risks

1.

Invest 2–4 hours to explore this homepage, the intervention and solution possibilities under the menu options Manifesto and Manifesto ++ / OS, and watch the tutorials that may be relevant

2.

Get somebody with the mindset of “what worked where our long-standing solution attempts failed us” into a leading position, and take on the responsibility to:

  • Free up time, resources, and budgets wasted by approaches optimized for a world gone by — but keep what works well
  • Guide the organization toward “what has worked where our long-standing approaches have failed” — as opposed to “what is the best practice, model, or framework?”

Or become this person yourself.

3.

This person has the skill set to solve complex problems — or is coached by someone who does

More …

YouTube notification level: 

YouTube Notification Bell 2

The Law of Nature Manifesto & Operating SystemTM

(LoN Manifesto+OSTM or LoN-OSTM)

Various practices to open fixed ways of thinking

Some visible, others emerging through the interactions between Manifesto and OS elements

A knowledge base of concise yet highest-impact insights and solutions

Natural process flows, Core Human Values, Essential Behaviours, etc.

Select what is relevant for the situation at hand — ignore the rest

Available from this webpage for immediate use

Free use —including free commercial use (Creative Commons licenses apply) 1

The LoN Manifesto+OS in only 30 minutes to 5 hours  1

(The 5 hours for implementation experts)

1 The pages under these menu options: Home, Calls to Action, Manifesto, and Manifesto+OS,  including short tutorials.
Extra time may be needed for the calls to Action and downloadable add-ons.

The Manifesto's Co-Creators

A group of independent individuals with extensive experience in what delivered needed results where our long-standing solution approaches failed us.

When they could not find anyone in businesses, public services, or universities responding at the levels required — for making impactful solutions executable, scalable, and durable at the system levels — they took on the challenge. It led to the LoN Manifesto + Operating System.

Netherlands, Germany

Polymath 
Initiator and main Analyst of the Manifesto
Consultant, Inventor 

Arti Ahluwalia

India

Polymath
Coordinator of Publications UN Commons Cluster NGO Major Group
Ecocivilisation Country Chair India
Director at Dimex India

Stephanie Barnes

Canada

Creativity for doing things differently

Sharon Bowes

Canada

Life of Meaning Strategist
Nature’s Wisdom Strategist

Prof. Manuel Casanova

United States

SmartState Endowed Chair in Childhood Translational Neurotherapeutics & Gottfried and Gisela Kolb Endowed Chair in Psychiatry (retired)

Margie Charpentier

Netherlands

Background support and out-of-the-box contributions

Netherlands

Former CEO
Sustainocracy: Initiative owner and author

Emma de Klerk

Netherlands

Translater
Creative Illustrator

Jennifer Fiedler

United States

Coach
Catalyst 
Filmmaking Mentor

Prof. Michael Fitzgerald

Ireland

Einstein-Newton-Darwin Researcher
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (retired)

James N. Rose

United States

Biologist (retired)
General Systems Analyst
Developer of Integrity Paradigm

Belgium

Journalist
Founder of Re-Story

Elly Rijnierse

Netherlands

Senior Advisor 
Civic Leadership and democratisation in Integrated Area Development

Ukpeme Okon

United States, Nigeria

Barrister
Ambassador for Peace

Catherine Schoendorff

Germany, France

C-Suite Coach
Former CEO

John Scholtz

Netherlands

Program Manager
Passion for sustainability

Serene Seng

Singapore

Executive Coach
Speaker

Dr. Mahendra Shah

Indonesia

Director
Co-author UN-IIASA climate change report 2002
Former IIASA scientist

Adina Tarry

United Kingdom

Polymath
Organisation & Leadership Development, HRM Strategy, Quality & Process management, Business & Consumer Psychologist, Mentor, Master Coach & Supervisor, Lecturer, Author, Speaker

Marion van den Eijnden

Netherlands

Avatar Master
Former Occupational Therapist

Harry van der Velde

Netherlands

Holistic analysis and visualization of organizational issues
Owner, ZICHT Visie en Verbeelding

Emile (Glans) Van Essen

Netherlands

Founding Chair WORLD SUSTAINABILITY FUND 
Polymath
Many sustainability projects across the globe have received (large) funds. Emile became a co-creator when he discovered that the Law of Nature Manifesto was addressing many of the obstacles undermining the projects funded and he didn’t see anyone else doing this.