By the turn of the millennium, the dominant idea was that not only should the business of
business be only business, but countries, governments and civil society organizations should also
be run on principles of business.

Soon, the realization that, while economies had been growing, systemic problems of social inequality
and environmental unsustainability were becoming intolerable, led to the Sustainable Development
Goals, which all countries signed up to achieve. A new toolkit is required to attain these goals that
go beyond the precepts of good business management and prevalent best practices in government
as well as civil society organizations.

In Transforming Systems, Arun Maira stresses that a new toolkit has to be founded on disciplines
of systems thinking, ethical reasoning and deep listening. It should focus more on concepts of
governance of networks, rather than the management of organizations. Diverse points of view
must be heard and valued, not smothered beneath technology-driven quantitative data analysis.

Maira brings the wealth of his knowledge and experience to highlight the uncertainty of our
future that is bound to change dynamically, and points out how we can cope with the changes.
He insists that the most useful life skill for young people is to learn how to be lifelong learners,
sensitive to their own evolution within an evolving system.