Youth Day: Remembering for Good

I was recently asked to step in for a friend to train Event Management skills to some City of Johannesburg staff in Soweto. I tasked them with planning some actual events for the practical aspects of this course. One of the groups decided to plan a June 16 commemorative event. During the course of this process we considered possible themes and slogans for the event. I do not know what they finally chose but one particularly intriguing option was, "Remember for Good". It was clear that this community feels very strongly that the events of June 16 1976 should never be forgotten. Equally though we were struck by the importance of ensuring that our remembering should lead to a better future.

In his extraordinary work, "The Fifth Discipline", Peter Senge considers how organisations can "Remember for Good". This book examines the art and practice required to become a learning organisation. The principles of the Learning Organisation are:

• Today's problems come from yesterday's solutions.
• The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.
• Behaviour grows better before it grows worse.
• The easy way out usually leads back in.
• The cure can be worse than the disease.
• Faster is slower.
• Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space.
• Small changes can produce big results - but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.
• You can have your cake and eat it too - but not at once.
• Dividing an elephant in half does not produce 2 small elelphants.
• There is no blame.