ABSTRACT
This chapter continues the discussion of practical means toward flourishing with suggestions aimed at specific institutions. Giddens’s structuration model of institutional/societal behavior is presented as a design framework, elucidating places for intervention to change routine behavior to raise the possibility of flourishing. A new word, caraction, is introduced to pave the way for institutional design that intermixes meaningful authentic interactions (caractions) and impersonal exchanges (transactions). The importance of communication/conversations is stressed. Specific steps for 1) academic institutions, 2) businesses, 3) government, and 4) individuals are presented. The outline for a college degree in flourishing is developed. Existing business programs involving system thinking, for example, “lean thinking,” are already designed to activate the right-brain. Planners in government and elsewhere are encouraged to use methods designed for complex systems, such as the adaptive system management ideas of Holling and co-workers. The “wicked problem” scheme should be required reading. The danger to the balancing of the brain hemispheres from an excessive focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in secondary education in discussed.
