Creating a Sustainable Future through Holistic Decision-Making
Donald D. Nelson, Ph.D.
Extension Beef Specialist
Director, Kellogg Integrated Farming Systems /Holistic Management Project
Washington State University
This article presents an overview of holistic decision-making and looks at how it can help us move toward creating a sustainable future.
What is Holistic Management?
Holistic Management is a goal driven, ecosystem based, decision-making process that concurrently considers the economic viability, ecological soundness and social acceptability of the choices under consideration. The conventional method of decision-making is mechanistic and linear and is typically focused on short-term considerations (e.g., quarterly profit or solving a problem). This linear approach considers the world to be made up of a bunch of interconnected parts, like a machine. It believes that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This leads to the conclusion that if you understand the parts, you understand the whole. This works well for machines, but not so well for complex, living systems.
On the other hand, Holistic decision-making recognizes the complexity, interdependencies (i.e., economic, environmental and social aspects) and synergies that exist in living systems. It concurrently looks at both short and long-term effects of decisions on whole systems. In their book, A Simpler Way, Wheatley and Kellnor-Rogers (1996) describe a holistic view of a system as follows: "A system is an inseparable whole. It is not greater than the sum of its parts. There is nothing to sum. There are no parts. The system is a new and different and unique contribution to its members and the world. To search backwards in time for the parts is to deny the self-transforming nature of systems. A system is knowable only as itself. It is irreducible. We can’t disentangle the effects of so many relationships. The connections never end. They are impossible to understand by analysis."
Many people assume that the holistic decision-making process is only applicable to decisions affecting the management of a piece of land. This is not true. This decision-making process is applicable at all levels in people’s lives (i.e., individual, family, community, organization and government) even though they are not directly managing land. We must remember that, ultimately, we are all dependent on the health of the underlying biological resources to provide us with the basics we need to survive (i.e., clean air, clean water, etc.) as a civilization.
The following is a schematic diagram of the Holistic Management decision-making model (Figure 1). This diagram falls short of what we normally think of as a model in that it does not show the flow of the process, merely the elements within it. The relationships shared among the various elements will vary depending on the management or decision-making context.
Figure 1
(reprinted with permission of the Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management)
The starting point in this decision-making process is to define the entity being managed (also known as the whole under management) by identifying the decision-makers, the resource base and the money available to them. The whole under management can be a family, a farm or ranch, a non-agricultural business, a community, a government, or any other entity. After defining the whole, the decision-makers form a holistic goal that describes three elements: (1) the quality of life they collectively seek, (2) what they will have to produce to create that quality of life and (3) a description of what the resource base will have to be in the future to sustain all of this.
All of the decisions made in planning how to achieve their holistic goal will be evaluated using traditional decision-making plus an additional, non-traditional step. This step involves asking seven simple questions to ensure that their decisions are socially, environmentally, and economically sound and will lead them toward achieving their holistic goal. The management guidelines are a set of principles that help determine the most appropriate course of action to take. The planning procedures provide holistic approaches to annual financial planning, the layout of facilities and infrastructure on extensive land areas and the management of grazing animals. To ensure that the decision-makers are moving toward achieving their holistic goal, a feedback loop is established so that if monitoring shows a decision is not taking them where they want to go, they can immediately correct it.
Defining your whole under management
Priorto forming your holistic goal you must define the boundaries of the whole you will be managing. You must first identify the decision-makers, the resource base (i.e., land and infrastructure), and money available to them. Doing so is critical because, in the process, you are identifying who will form the holistic goal and what they will be responsible for managing. The decision-makers are the people who will form the holistic goal. This should include anyone who makes day-to-day management decisions in the family, farm, ranch, business, corporate division or whatever entity your whole is based on. If there are people who, while not making decisions, can veto them or in some way alter them, they should also be included.
The resource base available to the decision-makers includes the major physical resources from which you will generate revenue or derive support in achieving your holistic goal (e.g., land, factory, machinery, office building, home, etc.). These resources do not have to be owned, but merely available for you to use. The resource base also includes all of the people who can influence, or be influenced by, the management decisions you make but who don’t have veto power (e.g., customers, clients, suppliers, neighbors, advisors, and family).
The money availableto decision-makers might include cash on hand, money in a savings account, or money available from relatives, shareholders, or a line of credit at the bank. It would almost always include money that could be generated from the sale of physical resources. It is important to not get bogged down in details at this point. The result, no matter how rough, should be adequate to enable you to get on with forming your holistic goal.
Developing a holistic goal
Once you havedefined the whole under management, you are now ready to form a holistic goal. The holistic goal describes the quality of life you desire, what you will have to produce to create the desired quality of life and a description of what the resource base will have to be in the future to sustain all of this. The holistic goal is the heart of holistic decision-making. It is what gives you direction in all things that you do. For this goal to be truly effective, it must be a vision that is shared by all decision-makers in the whole. Achieving this goal should become a driving force. There should be a deep feeling of commitment and ownership.
Start with a temporary holistic goal. Development of a holistic goal to which people are deeply committed can take several years. It takes time for people to feel comfortable enough to express more than superficially what they want in terms of quality of life, to gain clarity on what needs to be produced, and to fully envision a future resource base. You overcome this by first forming a temporary holistic goal and start working toward achieving it.
Quality of life: This step should define what "quality of life" means to you. The quality of life portion of your holistic goal should describe how you want your life to be. It expresses the reasons you are doing what you are doing, what you are about, and what you want to become. It is a reflection of what motivates you. It speaks not only of the needs you want to satisfy now but also of the mission you seek to accomplish in the long run. It is your collective sense of what is important to you and why. It should include the things that you value most, the things that give you the greatest satisfaction, and the things that make your life worthwhile. This is not intended to be a list of material possessions that you want, but rather the meaning and/or purpose underlying these things.
As with anythingelse, if we identify what we want, plan for it, and guide our actions by our plan, we are much more likely to get what we are seeking. Our vision becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most people agree that quality of life is only partially provided by money. Values and life purpose provide the meaning. In describing the quality of life you want, think about what gives you a feeling of deep satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, the feeling that you have done something worth doing or that makes life worthwhile. What kind of world do you want to leave for your children or grandchildren? What kind of a legacy will you leave behind when you depart this earth? The more we live in alignment with our values, the higher our quality of life will be.
Three of the most common mistakes people make when describing the quality of life in their holistic goals are: (1) Not expressing the underlying value or purpose of what you want, but instead describing the "stuff" that reflects the value or purpose. (2) Not being specific enough in describing the quality of life described. For example, if "more leisure time" is part of your quality of life, describe in detail what you mean (e.g., one day of rest per week). (3) Not re-evaluating your quality of life statement at least every year to accommodate changing needs and desires. When someone new becomes part of your "whole", you need to re-evaluate (e.g., a child is born or gets married or you enter a different stage of life and your priorities change).
Remember that quality of life is only the first step in developing your holistic goal. The forms of production you list and the future resource base you describe will be based on your quality of life statement. When you begin testing decisions toward your holistic goal, the testing questions will force you to become more specific in defining your quality of life.
Forms of production: You must also define forms of production. These are the things you have to produce to create the quality of life you envision. They will take many forms. Each of the needs or desires expressed in your quality of life statement will have to be met by some form of production. If any of the desires included in your quality of life statement will require money, profit from whatever source(s) you specify will need to result from at least some of the forms of production. In specifying the sources of that profit, it is important to do so in very general terms (e.g., profit from livestock or profit from crop production). Don’t be limited by what you already do. Think outside of your box. Most people leave the door open for new forms of production by simply listing, "anything that does not conflict with our values."
There are several things to avoid related to the forms of production in your holistic goal. First of all, don’t skip describing the forms of production and go directly to describing the future resource base. Just as the forms of production support the quality of life statement, the future resource base supports the forms of production. Second, keep "how to’s" out of the forms of production. "How to’s" need to be tested to determine if they will move you toward achieving your holistic goal and therefore cannot be part of the holistic goal. An example of a "how to" would be to describe a form of production as profit from the production of organic tomatoes, instead of crop production. "Organic" refers to a particular management system that may, or may not help you achieve your holistic goal. Tomatoes might not be the most profitable crop for you to grow. You won’t know this until you test specific actions against your holistic goal.
The quality of life and forms of production portions of the holistic goal address what you want to achieve as quickly as possible. The next portion of the holistic goal, the future resource base, addresses your long-term vision and largely ignores the present situation.
Future resource base: The future resource base portion of your holistic goal describes (1) a long-term vision of how you will have to be perceived by your stakeholders, customers, community, and other people and (2) a landscape description that will be necessary for your whole under management to be sustainable. The landscape description is important even if you operate a business that has no direct connection to the land. This is because your sustainability is going to be affected by what happens to the landscape that surrounds you. Examples could include air and water quality and social acceptance of your operations. Other elements that may need to be considered are the community you live or work in and the services available in that community.
Ecosystem processes
The health ofour global ecosystem is dependent on the effective functioning of fundamental processes. These processes are listed as four separate processes in the Holistic Management model. In reality, they are not separate. They are only listed separately in the diagram so that different aspects of each of these processes can be discussed.
In order to work with nature’s inherent complexity, we focus on the four fundamental processes that operate in any ecosystem: water cycle, mineral cycle, energy flow, and community dynamics (i.e., the patterns of change and development within communities of living organisms). These processes are interdependent. Modify any one of them and you automatically change all of them in some way because they are only different aspects of the ecosystem. It helps if you think of them as four different windows through which you can observe the same room.
All of us must begin to acquire a basic understanding of the fundamental processes through which our ecosystem functions, if only to better understand our dependence on them. We need to develop a better understanding of how ecosystem services provided by these fundamental processes support life on this planet – from the production of oxygen to soil genesis and water detoxification.
Key insights
Allan Savory, thefounder of Holistic Management developed four key insights that when, taken together, proved critical to the development of the Holistic Management model. For a more in-depth explanation of these insights, I direct you to the textbook, Holistic Management – A New Framework for Decision Making by Allan Savory with Jody Butterfied (1999).
The first insight was that a holistic perspective is essential. The world functions in wholes that cannot be separated into parts without destroying the properties of the whole.
The next three insights contradict long-held beliefs about the causes of land deterioration in different parts of the world.
- There are two broad categoriesof environment, brittle and non-brittle that had not been recognized before. They evolved in different ways and responded differently to the same influences. In brittle environments, rainfall and humidity are distributed erratically throughout the year and dead vegetation breaks down slowly (e.g., the Sahara Desert). In non-brittle environments rainfall and humidity are more abundant and more evenly distributed throughout the year and dead vegetation breaks down rapidly (e.g., tropical rain forests). Resting land restores it in non-brittle environments but damages it in brittle environments. Resting land means eliminating disturbances such as livestock grazing and mechanical disturbance.
- In brittle environments, relatively high numbers of large, herding ungulates, concentrated and moving as they naturally do in the presence of pack-hunting predators, are vital to maintaining the health of the lands we thought they destroyed.
- Much of the land deterioration that has occurred in the brittle environments of the world (a majority of the earth’s surface) was initiated by humans when we severed the vital relationship between herding animals and their pack-hunting predators.
These insights allow us to more accurately predict how any piece of land might respond to our management tools.
Tools to manage ecosystem processes
The tools listed in the Holistic Management model schematic (Figure 1) include everything that gives humans the ability to significantly alter our ecosystem. The decisions you make will involve the use of these tools either directly or indirectly, even if the whole you have defined is limited to your own personal life. Human creativity, money, and labor always come into the picture when the use of the other six tools is considered. The six tools that we have available for use are technology, rest, fire, grazing, animal impact and living organisms:
- Technology includes all artifacts made by humans from stone-age axes to genetic engineering.
- Rest, or non-disturbance, is a deliberate action we can take and thus serves as a tool for management. There is an almost universal belief that resting any environment is beneficial. This belief, however, is extremely damaging in a brittle environment where rest leads to the premature death of many perennial grasses, increased soil erosion, and increased droughts and floods. These results occur primarily due to an increase in bare ground that decreases the effectiveness of the water cycle. Partial rest occurs when herding animals (wild or domestic) are on the land, but in low numbers, at low density and seldom bunched. Partial rest can be as destructive as total rest in a brittle environment.
- Fire is the burning of rangelands, forests, and crop residues to produce a variety of results. While fire is effective at removing old plant material, it has several serious side effects (e.g., releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere) – the more brittle the environment, the greater the side effects (e.g., increase in bare ground) which must be considered when testing against your holistic goal.
- Grazing ranks as a tool alongside fire and rest because management can manipulate the intensity and timing of it and the animal/plant relationships that govern it. Overgrazing occurs when a severely bitten plant is re-bitten before it has had adequate time to recover, not as the result of too many animals. The key here is the control of time.
- Animal impact refers to all the things grazing animals do besides eat (e.g., trample, dung, urinate, dig, rub, and salivate). The recognition that these actions can be harnessed and used as a tool for restoring a degraded landscape is a relatively new idea. Brittle environments need periodic disturbance to maintain stable soil cover (i.e., similar to cultivating your garden). Historically, large herds of grazing animals, bunched tightly to ward off predators, provided this disturbance. Today, we simulate this herding behavior with livestock in two ways: (1) through stock density (i.e., concentrating the animals) or (2) through herd effect (i.e., exciting the herd to the extent that they break down coarse plants, raise dust, and chip soil surfaces, thus opening the soil to aeration and water infiltration).
- Living organisms can be used as tools to alter an environment in variety of ways. Increasingly, we will return to using plants, insects, birds, small animals, and livestock as tools to achieve agricultural production that is more socially and environmentally responsible, versus the heavy use of chemicals and machinery.
Testing your decisions
There are seven simple testing questions, or guidelines, that you should ask prior to implementing any decision. These questions test proposed actions or decisions to see if they will move you toward, or away from, your holistic goal. Once you become familiar with the testing questions, it is usually more effective to quickly answer each question as you test a proposed action. The only exception would be the gross profit analysis question used to compare two or more enterprises that requires some calculation. It is also important that you confine your evaluation to the specific focus of each question. When all seven questions have been asked and answered in quick succession, the answers to these questions will give you an overview of the likely effect of any decision on the whole you manage. This testing helps you make decisions that are simultaneously economically, environmentally and socially sound, both in the short and long terms.
For some decisions, certain tests will not apply and you can skip them. If the proposed action or decision passes most or all of the tests that apply, you should feel fairly confident in implementing it. If it fails one or more tests, you may want to modify the decision, abandon it altogether, or in some cases, go ahead anyway, having been warned of the possible consequences. Answers to the testing questions can be pass, fail, pass/fail, don’t know at this time (i.e., need more information) or not applicable. Your final decision will seldom be based on any one of the tests. By using each of the testing questions, you build a mental picture that is made up of the answers to these seven questions.
The seven testing questions are:
- Cause and effect
Does this action address the root cause of the problem?
Are you dealing with a symptom or the underlying cause of what appears to be a problem? If the problem concerns the environment (e.g., soil erosion, an outbreak of insects, a decrease in the numbers of a certain species), look first at the four ecosystem processes for an answer, particularly community dynamics. Then consider the tools (i.e., technology, rest, fire, grazing, animal impact, and living organisms) that may have been used in the past. How they have been applied will affect how the ecosystem processes are functioning now. When the problem is related to human behavior, you should generally look first at how your organization is structured and then at how management functions. Generally, if you remove the cause first, the symptom will disappear at no additional cost.
- Weak link
In any given situation, only one of the following three categories will apply. Using the analogy of a chain, there can only be one weakest link at a time. When the weakest link is strengthened, then another link becomes the weakest link. It is not an efficient use of resources to continue to strenghten the former weakest link, if another link has become the weakest. Therefore, it is important to continually evaluate the current situation.
Social weak link
Could this action, due to prevailing attitudes or beliefs, create a weak link in the chain of actions leading toward our holistic goal?
Any action that runs counter to prevailing attitudes and beliefs is likely to meet with resistance, creating a blockage that, if not addressed, will at some point become the weakest link standing between you and the achievement of your holistic goal.
Biological weak link
Does this action address the weakest link in the life cycle of this organism?
Thistest applies when you are dealing with populations of plant or animal organisms that have become a problem – either because they are too many or too few in number. If you address the weakest link in the organism’s life cycle, you are likely to maximize the effectiveness of the treatment and ensure the results will be lasting. Most plants are most vulnerable during their initial establishment when the seed has germinated and the root and leaf must find sustaining conditions in a limited time.
Financial weak link
Does this action strengthen the weakest link in the chain of production?
The chain of production has three links to which human creativity is applied. These are resource conversion, product conversion, and marketing. There are two broad categories under resource conversion.
(1) The first category is sunlight (solar) harvesters that include businesses whose primary production is based on the conversion of solar energy through plants to a saleable or consumable product (e.g., food, fiber, lumber, or wildlife). The money realized from the sale of products produced in this category is referred to as solar dollars.
(2) The secondcategory is resource enhancers that include businesses that are one step removed from the solar conversion business (e.g., shoe store, bakery, or accounting firm). Their primary production is based on the conversion of raw materials and energy to a saleable product. The money their efforts produce is referred to mineral or paper dollars.
In the product conversion link, the solar harvesters convert plants grown in the first link into a marketable form (i.e., food for humans and animals, wildlife or fish). The resource enhancers convert the resources in their first link into a multitude of goods, services or marketable skills.
In the marketing or money conversion link, the products or services of the product conversion link are marketed and money is derived from solar conversion or the raw materials and energy used in the first link.
Marginal reaction
Which action provides the greatest return, in terms of our holistic goal, for the time and money spent?Marginal reaction is a concept very similar to the Pareto Principle that asks, "What are the 20% of the things that I can do that will produce 80% of the desired results?" These are the things that you want to do first to maximize effectiveness because most of us have a limited supply of time and money. This guideline is used to help you compare two or more actions. In the end, this test is always a subjective one because you are not just comparing actions in order to earn the greatest profit but also in terms of everything else included in your holistic goal. There will be times when profit is secondary to other needs and desires, particularly those relating to quality of life.
- Gross profit analysis
Which enterprises contribute the most to covering the overhead costs of the business?Thistest is used to when you are comparing the profitability of two or more enterprises. In the gross profit analysis you simply look at the income likely to be derived from each enterprise and deduct the additional money you will have to spend to bring in that income (i.e., the difference between money in and money out is the gross profit). In most businesses a great deal of money is tied up in overhead, or fixed, costs (e.g., land, buildings, machinery, salaries, etc.). While essential to the business, most fixed costs do not generate income. To be the most profitable you need to find that enterprise, or combination of enterprises, that brings in the most income for the least additional non-overhead costs each year. The greater the spread between income per year and additional non-overhead costs, the greater the contribution of that enterprise, or combination of enterprises, to covering overhead costs and producing the surplus that becomes profit.
- Energy, money – source and use
Is the energy or money to be used in this action derived from the most appropriate source in terms of your holistic goal?Will the way in which the energy or money is used lead toward your holistic goal?
Sources of energy
In terms of availability, energy sources fall into two categories – sources that are abundant or unlimited (e.g., sunlight) and sources that are limited in supply (e.g., petroleum). In terms of their effects on the environment, energy sources also fall into two categories – benign (e.g., solar, wind, tidal, or geothermal) or potentially damaging (e.g., fossil fuels, firewood, or nuclear fission).
Sources of money
The money used to implement any action can be derived either from internal sources (e.g., from your earnings) or external sources (e.g., bank loans, foundation grants, government cost sharing programs or subsidies). External sources of money can become addictive and have led to many bankruptcies. Often times, there are requirements that go along with these external sources of money that may lead you away from, rather than toward, your holistic goal.
Energy and money patterns of use
Is the proposed use providing infrastructure that will assist in reaching your holistic goal?
Infrastructure refers to things that are essential to running your business more effectively (e.g., knowledge, skills, trained staff, buildings, roads, equipment, or machinery).
Is the proposed use merely consumptive, with no lasting effect?
A use of money or energy is consumptive if it is consumed in a one-time use. If the same action were to be undertaken again, it would require new money and/or energy (e.g., fuel, accounting fees, or salaries).
Is the proposed use cyclical in that once initiated, it would not require more money, or the purchase of more energy?
An example would be using animal impact to breakdown crop residues. This might require an initial expenditure of money for the temporary fencing to confine the animals in any one place. But each year thereafter, it would merely require planning, implementation and reuse of the moveable fences to have the animals do the job using only solar energy. Generally, a cyclical use that makes your money grow, or enables you to forego further purchases of energy is highly desirable.
Is the proposed use addictive in that once initiated, you risk an undesirable dependence on further inputs of energy or money?
The most obvious example of energy used in an addictive fashion is the fossil fuel-based economy we live in today.
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Sustainability
If you take this action, will it lead toward or away from the future resource base described in your holistic goal?This test asks you to focus on the future resource base of your holistic goal (i.e., the people affected by your decisions and environmental considerations). It is one of the few tests that focus on a specific aspect of your holistic goal. The sustainability test assures that all the decisions you make to meet short-term needs also provide lasting gain (i.e., that they are socially, environmentally, and economically sound in terms of the future as well as the present).
The people affected by your decisionsNo matter what type of business you are in, you need to consider how the perceptions of the people included in your future resource base are affected by the decisions you make. This is called the future resource base, rather than merely resource base, because it is the long-term component of your holistic goal that looks far into the future.
The community you live in
You need to make sure the decisions you make do not adversely affect your community.
Community services
If the future resource base in your holistic goal includes a description of the sort of services that will need to be available in your community to provide the kind of life you aspire to, you want to be sure that your decisions gradually lead to those services being available.
The future landscape
If you are in the sunlight-harvesting business (e.g., farming, ranching, wildlife, or forest management) you will have described a future landscape in terms of how each of the four ecosystem processes (i.e., community dynamics, water cycle, mineral cycle, and energy flow) should function. You need to be aware of where the land you are managing is on the brittleness scale and whether or not the tools you choose to use will have the tendency to move you toward your future landscape description.
If you are not specifically engaged in land or resource management, you will probably have a general reference to the environment in your future resource base that refers to the landscape surrounding the community in which your business or home is located. Although you may find it difficult to see how your actions affect land you are not directly responsible for, your consumption of raw materials manufactured into a product and your use of technology have a tie back to the land and affect the functioning of the four ecosystem processes.
None of what is described in your future resource base will be attained quickly and with only a few actions. Yet every action, however small, that takes you in the direction you want to go is progress, and cumulatively, small actions add up to a big difference.
- Society and culture
How do we feel about this action now?
Will it lead to the quality of life you desire?
Will it adversely affect the lives of others?
The society and culture test is normally performed last because it should take into account the mental picture that has formed after passing the action under consideration through all the other testing questions. Where each of the other tests asked what you think, this one asks how you feel. To a great extent, how you feel is going to be based on the values reflected in your quality of life statement. And these, in many respects, are a reflection of the traditions, customs and culture shared by those who have formed the holistic goal. This test also asks you to consider how an action could affect the lives of those outside your immediate whole (i.e., from the society you live in to the greater society all humans comprise).
The feedback loop
Once you make a plan, monitoring becomes essential because even though the decisions involved have been tested, events rarely unfold exactly as planned. You approach this by assuming that the decisions you have made might be wrong. Therefore, you want to develop monitoring criteria that will provide you with early-warning signs that you are getting off-track in terms of moving toward your holistic goal. In any situation you manage, you should be monitoring in order to make happen what you want to happen (i.e., to bring about desired changes in line with your holistic goal). This means you need to plan, monitor, control, and re-plan, with positive action following each step in what is a continuous feedback loop. In Holistic Management, this is an on-going effort. Throughout the process you should be seeking indicators of change and responding to the feedback you receive, constantly adjusting your actions to stay on track.
Anytime you plan to alter the ecosystem processes in any way, you must always assume you could be wrong, even though the decision(s) involved have passed all the relevant tests. The earliest changes are most likely to occur at or near the soil surface. They could show up in plant spacing, soil litter cover, soil density, aeration or organic content, insect activity, seedling success, quality of water runoff, and a host of other things. Once you have determined which criteria will give you the earliest warning of change, monitor those things in the simplest way you can devise. Remember that you are not trying to record change, you are trying to steer all changes in the direction of your holistic goal.
Conclusion
The best way to learn how to manage holistically is to make the decision to begin doing it. A good place to start is to read Allan Savory’s book, Holistic Management. Holistic Management workshops are also available at various locations around the county. If you would like more information about holistic decision-making or how you might receive training in Holistic Management, please contact Donald D. Nelson, Washington State University, P.O. Box 646310, Pullman, WA 99164-6310; 509/335-2922 (office); 509/335-1082 (fax); nelsond@wsu.edu (e-mail) or the Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management, 1010 Tijeras NW, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102. 505/842-5252 (office); 505/843-7900 (fax); chrm@igc.apc.org (e-mail); www.igc.org/holisticmanagement (web site).
The more you practice Holistic Management, the easier it will become. This is an on-going learning process, not a quick fix. It also helps to become connected with other people in your area who are learning to manage holistically and form a support group.
References:
Holistic Management in Practice. Special edition, 1998. A quarterly publication published by the Allan Savory Center for Holistic Management. Albuquerque, N.M.
Allan Savory with Jody Butterfield, 1999. Holistic Management-A New Framework for Decision Making (Washington, D.C.: Island Press).
Margaret J. Wheatley and Myron Kellnor-Rogers, 1996. A Simpler Way (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers).