The real incomes of about two-thirds of households in 25 advanced economies were flat or fell between 2005 and 2014. Without action, this phenomenon could have corrosive economic and social consequences. Most people growing up in advanced economies since World War II have been able to assume they will be better off than their parents.
As recently as between 1993 and 2005, all but 2 percent of households in 25 advanced economies saw real incomes rise. Yet this overwhelmingly positive income trend has ended. A new McKinsey Global Institute report, Poorer than their parents? Flat or falling incomes in advanced economies, finds that between 2005 and 2014, real incomes in those same advanced economies were flat or fell for 65 to 70 percent of households, or more than 540 million people (exhibit). And while government transfers and lower tax rates mitigated some of the impact, up to a quarter of all households still saw disposable income stall or fall in that decade.
While the recession and slow recovery after the 2008 global financial crisis were a significant contributor to this lack of income advancement, other long-run factors played a role—and will continue to do so. They include demographic trends of aging and shrinking household sizes as well as labor-market shifts such as the falling wage share of GDP.
The economic and social impact is potentially corrosive. A survey we conducted as part of our research found that a significant number of those whose incomes have not been advancing are losing faith in aspects of the global economic system.
The encouraging news is that it is possible to reduce the number of people not advancing. Labor-market practices can make a difference, as can government taxes and transfers—although the latter may not be sustainable at a time when many governments have high debt levels. In the United States, lower tax rates and higher transfers turned a decline in market incomes for four-fifths of income segments into an increase in disposable income for nearly all households. Efforts such as these—along with additional measures such as encouraging business leaders to adopt long-term thinking—can make a real difference. The trend of flat and falling real incomes merits bold measures on the part of government and business alike.
Two of the report’s authors discuss the global implications of their research. Listen to or read the conversation.
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A century and a half ago, city dwellers in search of fresh air and rural pastures visited graveyards. It was a bad arrangement. The processions of tombstones interfered with athletic activity, the gloom with carefree frolicking. Nor did mourners relish having to contend with the crowds of pleasure-seekers. The phenomenon particularly maddened Frederick Law Olmsted. He repeatedly complained of it in his essays and letters. A “miserably imperfect form,” Olmsted lamented. “A wretched pretext.” The cemetery problem, he felt, was an expression of a profound, universal desire that cities were neglecting to meet: the desire for public parks.
Until Olmsted created a new occupation for himself—he and Vaux were the world’s first professional landscape architects—he lived what he called a “vagabond life, generally pursued under the guise of an angler, a fowler or a dabbler on the shallowest shores of the deep sea of the natural sciences.” Olmsted’s formal education ended when he was 15. He professed interest in becoming a land surveyor but soon set out to travel the world.
It was a trip by foot through England in 1850 that awoke him to the value of public pleasure grounds. In a suburb of Liverpool, he visited Birkenhead Park at the urging of a local baker and was flabbergasted:
Five minutes of admiration, and a few more spent in studying the manner in which art had been employed to obtain from nature so much beauty, and I was ready to admit that in democratic America, there was nothing to be thought of as comparable with this People’s Garden.
Since the dawn of civilization, human beings had viewed the natural world with suspicion, if not terror. In the Bible, the word wilderness connotes dread, danger, bewilderment, chaos. This view began to change in the early 19th century when Alexander von Humboldt wrote about the natural world with a sense of wonder and delight, influencing such acolytes as George Perkins Marsh, Charles Darwin, and Henry David Thoreau. As cities grew increasingly mechanized, populated, and ordered, residents sought transcendence in rural landscapes.
Olmsted recalled that the Birkenhead site had not been in much better condition before that park’s creation—“a flat, sterile, clay farm.” In Central Park, Olmsted applied the lessons he had learned there, re-creating the winding paths, the variety of shrubs and flowers, the vast open meadows, the irregular clustering of trees. He developed a series of rules that he would follow in his subsequent projects, which included not only dozens of municipal parks but college campuses (Stanford, UC Berkeley, Gallaudet, Trinity College); private estates (George Vanderbilt’s Biltmore and John D. Rockefeller’s Kykuit); national sites (the grounds surrounding the U.S. Capitol, and Niagara Reservation, the country’s oldest state park); and Riverside, Illinois, one of the nation’s first planned suburbs. Olmsted’s success helped create not only a profession, but an aesthetic.
- His first principle was that a park should complement the city to which it belongs.
- A park should also be faithful to the character of its natural terrain.
- Man-made structures were also out of key. When bridges or buildings were absolutely necessary, they should be built from local stone, heavily camouflaged with shrubbery and vines. In his notes on Central Park, Olmsted called for thinning forests, creating artificially winding and uneven paths, and clearing away “indifferent plants,” ugly rocks, and inconvenient hillocks and depressions—all in order to “induce the formation … of natural landscape scenery.”
Olmstead was one of the earliest preservationists, demanding the protection of the Yosemite Valley, and among the first to explain why rural areas must be defended against the “anxiety to sell out.” But Olmsted did not foresee that the entire planet would become a park. Biologists, if not the general public, have understood for decades that the Earth is our canvas. The question is, what kind of artists will we decide to be?
We have already become landscape architects but we have not used our powers as artfully as we might. We have left too much to chance, too little to design. We remain apprentices. But Olmsted, the master of the form, has left behind a clear instruction manual. From the grave he urges us to use our increasingly sophisticated tools to make our global landscape more beautiful—more “natural.”
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Two musicians stood before the audience, each watching the other’s eyes. With a nod of the head their performance began. They moved effortlessly through their cues, gesturing subtly to indicate who had the lead and who should follow. In less than five minutes, an audience journey that began with apprehension ended in applause.
This wasn’t a new duo debuting a song. It was Berklee College of Music students sharing their pitch deck for a new digital product for an experimental class co-taught by Becky Bermont and Michelle Kwasny, design leads at Ideo.
Two musicians stood before the audience, each watching the other’s eyes. With a nod of the head their performance began. They moved effortlessly through their cues, gesturing subtly to indicate who had the lead and who should follow. In less than five minutes, an audience journey that began with apprehension ended in applause.
This wasn’t a new duo debuting a song. It was Berklee College of Music students sharing their pitch deck for a new digital product for an experimental class co-taught by Becky Bermont and Michelle Kwasny, design leads at Ideo.
Classes like this at the Boston-based school are the brain-children of Panos Panay, director of the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship. Panay is on a mission: to help music students—and the world—recognize the natural entrepreneurial skills rooted in their musicianship.
At Ideo a designer serves as the project leader of a multidisciplinary team. This person keeps a team inspired and focused throughout the course of work but is not "the boss." Our teams work more like jazz ensembles; members know when to solo and when to comp (a jazz term for accompanying behind the soloist). Often the project leader is not functioning as the decision maker. She knows when to rely on the experience of another team member and to step out of the spotlight. This dynamic team play permits everyone to contribute his or her best at the right moment.
A seasoned design researcher can quickly identify people’s needs simply by watching how they live. In both cases these are skills developed over years of practice. We are often asked to teach design thinking, and many clients assume that simply by deploying formulaic methodologies (without the years of practice) they can solve innovation challenges. Sensory development is key to making creative methods effective.
Designers prototype ideas early and often—sometimes even in public—iterating toward a final solution. Large companies often feel they have to fully bake an idea before releasing it to market, and that lack of user feedback may keep them from alighting upon ideas with staying power.
If "music thinking," like design thinking, can unlock innovation—music schools may become drivers of a new economy. The stereotypes of musicians being "flaky" or "artistic types" who can’t be relied upon reminds me of the dismissive comments I once heard about designers. One doesn’t need to look further than Panay himself to see clear evidence. The 1994 Berklee graduate founded Sonicbids, an online platform to connect venues and performers, which he sold for $15 million in 2013. Not bad for a trombone player.
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(My whole adult life I've been the one saying "Don't just stand there, Do something." Now along comes an article saying exactly the opposite. Paul)
In a PBL classroom, students do things. But what about the teacher? What do we need to be doing while the students are doing things? What does it look like when the teacher is a coach? Are we still doing things, and if so, what are they? In Making Space for Thinking, we made the case that good facilitation is largely an internal process of observation, data collection, and questioning that, while it requires the full attention of the teacher, looks a lot like "standing around drinking my coffee, watching the kids." We may worry, "What if my principal walks in and sees me not doing things?" So we get into the middle of student processes, correcting and nudging and answering questions before we need to, because that's what we think teaching is -- doing things.
What if we took a page from the mindfulness community and chose to not do things, but rather to be present with whatever's happening around us and within us? Here are five things that you can do now, no matter your level of experience with mindfulness, to become a better facilitator.
- Pause
Claire Stanley defines this as "a moment taken intentionally before one begins." The PBL classroom is busy -- it's hard to focus our own attention. Rather than rushing headlong between groups and tasks, take a pause. - Just One BreathTry to be present in your body for just one breath. This technique can be used during your pause or in any moment when you feel anxious or too busy (which is sort of all the time for most of us).
- Tuning Into Your BodyYou can stop at any moment and ask yourself, "What is happening in my body right now?" How often do we find ourselves feeling crabby and frustrated with our students just before lunch, at the end of the day, or when our classrooms are too hot or too cold? Checking in with our physical selves can help bring us back to the present moment and keep us from overreacting or losing our cool with the kids.
- Nonjudgmental Observation"Paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally" is a commonly-cited definition from Jon Kabat-Zinn, and one that can be very helpful. By asking ourselves, "What is really happening right now?" we can separate our expectations of what we think should be happening from what is actually taking place, without labeling what we see as right or wrong, good, or bad. If you're thinking,
- "Don't Know" MindThis way of thinking, also sometimes called beginner's mind, is the essence of PBL done well for both teachers and students. The "don't know" mind is a delight in letting go of control and accepting the limitations of our own perspective and conditioning. We embrace the idea that our students might actually know some things that we don't.
Give one of these mindful facilitation strategies a try in your classroom and let us know how it goes.
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