Writing the Unfinished Symphony at the Base of the Pyramid

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Stuart L Hart is a leading authority on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. He is the founder of Enterprise for a Sustainable World, www.e4sw.org. This blog is shared with permission from Voice of the Planet. 
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When Franz Schubert wrote the first two movements of Symphony No. 8 in B Minor in 1822 (what would come to be known as the "Unfinished Symphony"), little did he know that he was modeling the behavior and skills needed to successfully create the markets of the future at the base of the world income pyramid in the 21st century.

In fact, a full decade after C.K. Prahalad and I first wrote the Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP), few large corporations have yet to realize the vast business potential of the world's four billion poor and underserved: Most have either sought simply to sell stripped-down versions of their current products to the emerging middle classes in the developing world, or have abandoned the profit motive entirely and moved their BoP initiatives to the corporate social responsibility department or corporate foundation.

Green from the Ground Up: One World Trade Center Builds with Green Concrete (Highlights from The CR CommitForum)

The new buildings at One World Trade 

Center are being built with green concrete. 

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This post provides highlights from a session of The CR CommitForum, held earlier this week in New York City. Find a mistake in the text? Write us here to share the correction. 

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Forum Speakers:

Michael Gentoso, VP, Atlantic Region, US Concrete

David Green, Eco-Efficiency Analyst, BASF Corporation

Forum Title:

Durability From the Ground Up

On September 11, 2011, many of us turned to our televisions to watch the memorial ceremonies at the World Trade Center complex. While our eyes were drawn to the waterfall and the stunning new building, we may not have noticed the miles of new concrete that fill the area. When complete, Towers 1, 2, and 3, the transportation hub, and the museum and memorial will have close to a total of 1 million yards of concrete. 

Sustainability experts, however, paid attention. One World Trade Center is being built from the ground up with Green Concrete, a new material for reducing landfill waste and improving a building's carbon footprint. 

Leading the Sustainability Driven Company - Part 2

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Keith Cox, Ph.D., is the Systemic Sustainability Lead for idGroup Consulting & Creative, where he focuses on positive business and social change. He is also an advisor to the Center for Values-Driven Leadership. For the first entry in this series, click here. 

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This time we look at what makes a sustainability-driven leader tick. While there is no one ideal leadership profile that guarantees success in driving a strategic sustainability agenda, research has discovered some core characteristics that seem to enable individuals to embrace sustainability principles and drive them through the organizational culture.

Perhaps the most significant characteristic of these sustainability-driven leaders is that they are “called” to lead social change. In responding to the call, they express a desire to help others to promote humanity, to protect the planet, and they continually “live into” their highest vision of themselves. These desires influence the intentions, choices, conversations, and interactions of these leaders on a daily basis and are ultimately transformed into organizational priorities. Almost everyone I interviewed had a life story where some combination of the influence of parents, schooling, peers, the zeitgeist of the times, or a specific life experience informed a personal sense of purpose that connected them to principles of social/economic justice, environmental stewardship, and/or corporate responsibility.

Are These Numbers Real? A Case Study in Ethics and Integrity

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Basil Chen, M.B.A., is a certified management accountant who has held various leadership positions in public and private Canadian companies. He currently teaches at Centennial College’s School of Business and is a Ph.D. student with the Center for Values-Driven Leadership. Here Basil shares a case study in integrity and decision making. 

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As I sat back in my office on a Friday afternoon looking out of the window before a long weekend, a nagging thought crossed my mind - we are not going to make the Q3 sales numbers as we had promised to the investors.

I walked across the hall to the office of VP, Sales and Marketing and said, “Carl*, I don’t think we can make the Q3 sales numbers this quarter. You have indicated many times that there is a big sales order coming this quarter. When is it coming?”

“Basil, you worry too much,” he said, reassuring me that it would all be okay. When I protested that we only had a week before the quarter’s end, Carl said, “Ok, give me 48 hrs.”

The weekend passed, and on Monday I found a pleasant surprise waiting at the office: a  purchase order for $2.5 million on my desk. Unbelievable. It was from a loyal client of the company. I read the Purchase Order (PO) numerous times before I faced the truth: It was too good to be true. I knew this customer extremely well and also knew that they did not have a need for such a large order.

Free Starbucks? A Business Lesson in Reciprocity

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Shannon Brown is a Ph.D. student at Benedictine University’s Center for Values-Driven Leadership (CVDL) and has served in leadership positions with Thomson Reuters, Tata Consultancy Services and BoomTime. In addition, she is an adjunct faculty member at Dominican University where she teaches courses in leadership studies.
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In June, I attended a Roundtable, hosted by the Center for Values-Driven Leadership, where I had the privilege of hearing renowned futurist Bob Johansen talk about the forecast that he and his colleagues at the Institute for the Future see for the next 10 years.

His three most prominent forecasts, based on the idea of the “VUCA World,” include the impact of the digital natives, the growing well-being economy, and the importance of reciprocity. (See a clip of Bob Johansen's forecast below.)

Of those, the one that gives me the greatest hope for our future is the idea of reciprocity. Bob and the Institute for the Future support this forecast with cloud computing, suggesting that the cloud will allow us to experience reciprocity in completely new ways because of the connectivity and communication available to us through new technology.

Leaders Fail

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Dr. Kathryn Scanland is the president of Greystone Global LLC, a consulting firm focusing on strategic planning, leadership development and organizational design. This post is republished with permission from Tuesday Mornings.

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If failure isn’t an option, than neither is success.  ~Seth Godin

I mentioned in a previous blog that I attended the Global Leadership Summit in August.  Seth Godin was another speaker at this event.  As I’ve talked with other attendees, one of the themes (which I believe was unintentional) that seemed to appear in a number of the speakers’ presentations was the idea of failure.

The Real Deal vs. The Fad: Authenticity and CSR, as Learned from a Marine

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Dave Smith is a Ph.D. student at Benedictine University’s Center for Values-Driven Leadership (CVDL) and has broad leadership experience including for-profit, non-profit, and military command.

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Some people are the real deal. Some are not. The real ones act out their values. They don’t struggle with it, they don’t have a checklist, it just comes naturally – and observation of their life shows congruence with the values that they speak. It’s who they are. And they are happy, even joyful, in acting out their values.

I was recently reminded of an acquaintance of mine, and older gentleman, who was in his 70s and 80s when I had the privilege of his acquaintance. He had retired from a long law career, with an unblemished record of integrity. But he had not always been a lawyer.

Leading the Sustainability Driven Company - part 1

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Keith Cox, Ph.D., is the Systemic Sustainability Lead for idGroup Consulting & Creative, where he focuses on positive business and social change. He is also an advisor to the Center for Values-Driven Leadership.

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Over the years I have been extremely fortunate to learn from some of the true exemplar business leaders at the forefront of the sustainability revolution (the pursuit economic prosperity, environmental stewardship, and social responsibility) – real pioneers that were blazing trails and showing what was possible long before the mainstream corporate world gave two hoots about “going green.” These individuals, such as Ray Anderson of Interface, Inc., Jeffrey Hollender of Seventh Generation, Anita Roddick of The Body Shop, and Bob Stiller of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, tell a new story of leadership.

These new leadership ideas depart from the more traditional leadership models born in the industrial paradigm which put the focus narrowly on the individual leader, corporate goals, and shareholder value. While those factors cannot be ignored, they simply do not adequately take account of the relationship aspects of leadership, other purposes of the corporation, and the multiplicity and complexity of interests affected by corporate actions.

The Key to Future Value Creation: Listening to the "Voice of the Planet"

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Stuart L Hart is a leading authority on the implications of environment and poverty for business strategy. He is the founder of Enterprise for a Sustainable World, www.e4sw.org. This blog is shared with permission from Voice of the Planet. 
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Since the Japanese Quality Revolution of the 1970s and 80s, companies have been obsessed with hearing and incorporating the "Voice of the Customer" into their management systems and processes.  Many still struggle to incorporate this elusive voice effectively--to be truly customer driven.  Indeed, many firms are still on the journey to learn how to "build quality in" rather than fix problems and mistakes after they occur.  It is now an article of faith that excelling in customer focus holds the key to sustained value creation.

Well, I'm here to tell you now not to get too comfortable.  Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water (as they would say), a new and even bigger managerial challenge--and opportunity--has arisen: incorporating the"Voice of the Planet" (VoP) into corporate missions, strategies, and management processes.

Yes, I Can Hear You Now: Thoughts on Controlling Your Smartphone

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Amber Johnson is the CVDL's corporate relations advisor and a non-profit and small business communications specialist. 

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Last week my smartphone had an unfortunate encounter with my kitchen floor. The face was completely shattered, which rendered the touchscreen device useless. It was late on a Sunday night, and I had a busy (and now phone-less) week ahead of me. Crisis!

Like many working parents, my smartphone is my lifeline to my kids when I'm not with them. And it's my lifeline to my work when I am parenting. I rest easier knowing that my boss or my kid's teacher can reach me when I'm needed. I rely on the calendar on the phone to tell me where I'm supposed to be, the mapping app to tell me how to get there, and the email function to get me the latest meeting notes right before the meeting starts.

Like many of you, I presume, I am utterly and totally dependent on my phone. And that's the problem, of course.