A Deeper Unsettling Grid

My friend Jim Henderson turned me on to a Substack from an astute Gen Z economics-whiz and author named Kyla Scanlon. 

In This Economy? How Money and Markets Really Work; Penguin Random House 2024

I’ve since seen her on several national interviews helping to make sense out of the economy in a way that my IQ points can handle.

Plus, I think she’s a Jesus-follower. And, by the way, from Kentucky, my country of origin. And believe me, it’s a country.

Anyway, she recently wrote a passing comment that captured my attention. She was quoting Kenneth Griffin, the CEO of Citadel, a multibillion, multinational financial services and hedge fund company. He was at the World Economic Forum where he said—and this is a fuller quote of what she wrote:

“The area of recklessness is the spending of governments around the world, who are all, with little exception, all spending well beyond their means … The world needs a savior, and the hope is that AI is the savior that we need for productivity.”

Although he was using “savior” facetiously and metaphorically (I hope), that was enough to rattle me. But that’s a subject for another time. The point that Scanlon goes on to make is along a different line. And that led down an even different track.

She writes:

“…It’s important to understand what the AI race is actually about, which is energy. It fundamentally 100% does not matter who has the best AI girlfriend/boyfriend if they do not have a grid to support it. China now generates more electricity than the US and the EU combined, with 40 new nuclear power reactors under construction, compared to… zero in the United States. Energy is what matters, the real economy.”

(A quick side note: while China is indeed maximizing hydropower via the Three Gorges Dam—the world’s largest hydropower station—the focus of the current energy race has shifted heavily toward that nuclear expansion Scanlon mentions.)

But it’s her statement that “energy is what matters, the real economy” that grabbed me.

Energy is the vital economic element. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got The Next Big Thing if you don’t have the “grid to support it.” The real economic engine is the energy it takes to make it all work.

Likewise, without a grid to support the heart of your organization’s mission, it won’t happen. The rubric we use for healthy, effective organizations is ultimately about four key elements we’ve written about before: Integrity (systems/infrastructure), Passion (commitment to mission), Servanthood (outward and others-focused), and Imagination (adaptability and change-capacity).

Yet there’s actually a deeper, more crucial grid. And it’s hard to pin down, challenging to maintain, and sometimes even difficult to define operationally. Plus, it’s unique to organizations that are specifically attempting to fulfill the mission of Jesus in whatever way.

It’s Him. Via the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit.

I don’t care how amazing your support systems are. Or how inspiring your vision statement is. Or how high-capacity your leaders are. Or how professional your programs are.

It really comes down to this: “Apart from me, you can’t do anything.”  JOHN 15:5b

What a startling, discombobulating statement. And, might I say, egocentric, if not true.

It’s that intangible, inner-something, that creates deep, transformative effects in whatever you’re longing to accomplish. A Real Power, beyond your capacities and competencies. Fed only by a real recognition of dependence in him. It’s the apostle Paul writing dramatically, “if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”  1 CORINTHIANS 13:2b

That kind of Deep Love is found exclusively in the Holy Spirit. And without that, we can’t do much of anything of real lasting consequence and power.

And so the questions are: how are we ensuring that in the organizations we lead? How am I consciously pursuing that in my own life as a leader? Am I intentionally attempting to connect with and learn the ways of the Holy Spirit?

Dave Workman | The Elemental Group

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