Thursday 25 March 2010

What cause makes you jump out of bed every morning?

The Harvard Business Review blog of 12th March 2010 makes very interesting reading and reporting that Indian companies are doing well because they do good.

Of course this is no secret to readers of this blog! I have been writing about how doing good is great for business for nearly two decades!

What I find particularly interesting about this HBR blog by Peter Cappelli is the findings My colleagues and I recently completed a study of Indian businesses based around interviews with the leaders of 100 of the biggest companies in India (the basis of our book The India Way.) Every executive interviewed described the main objective of their company in terms of a social mission.

Nobel Prize winner, author of Creating a world without poverty, founder of perhaps the most successful social enterprise on our planet, The Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus believes that the successful future for all organisations will have a lot to do with travelling the social enterprise path.

What is your social mission? What is your cause?

A great question to ask to find out what our social mission is comes from The Chief Community Officer of Meetup and author of The Culting of Brands Douglas Atkin:

What do you want to have happen? If you’re not out to cause anything then you might as well go back to bed.

What cause or social mission makes you jump out of bed every morning?

You can read Peter Cappelli’s full HBR article here.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Sign-up here for a least one free resource per month and to get your complimentary copy of my ebook Differencemakers - how doing good is great for business.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

Sustainability is about actually doing good. It is not about being less bad.

One of my heroes is Jeffrey Hollender, Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Seventh Generation. His 2004 published book (written with Stephen Fenichell) What Matters Most - Business, Social Responsibility and the End of the Era of Greed really inspired me to quicken the pace and settle on the direction of my own work.

I subscribe to Hollender's blog The Inspired Protagonist. The March 23rd post contains reflections on a recent corporate citizenship conference and this quote by Hollender - Most sustainability and corporate responsibility programs are about being less bad vs. good. They are about selective and compartmentalized "programs" rather than holistic and systemic change. I believe this statement really gets to the heart of sustainability becoming mainstream. It is not about being less bad; it is about fundamental changes to how we live and work, changes that must address the main enemies to sustainability, namely population growth, profit for profit's sake, partisan politics, and unenlightened self-interest.

Hollender's March 23rd post also contains some great insights into the inspired thinking of role model company Procter & Gamble.

Please read Jeffrey Hollender's full March 23rd post here.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Sign-up here for a least one free resource per month and to get your complimentary copy of my ebook Differencemakers - how doing good is great for business.

Wednesday 17 March 2010

The economy is part of our society not the other way round!

The following is just one paragraph from a very insightful and powerful article by John Ikerd of the University of Missouri. I highly recommend you read the full article here. It is called Rethinking the Economics of Self-Interests. A big thank you to my friend Liviu who alerted me to this article.

It’s economics that is out of date – not small family businesses, caring communities, loving families, nations with integrity, and cultures with values. We have no ethical or moral obligation to accept economics as the final arbitrator of who gets a job and who doesn’t, who stays in business and who doesn’t, what we do in communities and what we don’t, where food is produced and where it is not, whether or not we trade, or of anything else. We don’t have to abandon "good" things from the past just because something "more economically efficient" comes along. We don’t have to accept "bad" things in the future just because they are "more economically efficient" than some "good" alternative. We can choose what we want to keep from the past and what we want to accept in the future. The market is not God – no matter what the economic priests would lead us to believe. Economics is a creation of people. We simply cannot turn loose the thing we created for our benefit and allow it to exploit the very people it was designed to serve. It just doesn’t make any sense.

And rethinking self-interests is indeed what we must do in order to making sustainability simple and attainable.


And more food for thought a great article by Ben Coe called What Truly "Wealthy" People Know about Money.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Sign-up here for a least one free resource per month and to get your complimentary copy of my ebook Differencemakers - how doing good is great for business.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

Wednesday 10 March 2010

Linchpins, Trusted Agents, Family, Friends, Colleagues, Who do you rely on? Who is relying on you?

I feel despair when so called world leaders fail to collaborate and therefore what needs to happen with climate change, economics, you name it, doesn’t happen.

On the other hand I feel excitement, inspiration, and exhilaration when I see or hear of so called ordinary people making a difference. I am convinced more than ever that positive and productive change is personal first, local second, the world third.

Aside from law and order, maintaining some infrastructures and safety nets, politics is irrelevant in the modern world in my view.

We must be the change we want to see in the world as Gandhi suggested long ago. The change journey then continues in our homes and in our neighbourhoods and local communities, then the rest of the world.

Having people we can rely on and who can rely on us by our sides on this change journey is crucial to success.

My personal reading in the past month has focused on this and I have been inspired by three people’s work in particular.

Geoff McDonald’s book summaries on steroids as he calls them! If your reading time is short check out Geoff’s summaries here. This month I gained much from Geoff’s Web Line summary about trust agents, Design Advantage about how design may be the new competitive advantage in business, and Brand Worship why people are loyal. These all helped me to get really clear on who is helping me and who (albeit unknowingly) is hindering me.

Who is helping you? Who are you allowing to hinder you?

Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin about how to be indispensable. I get Seth’s blog every day however I think this is his best work yet. It helped me to get really clear on who is indispensable in my life and why, and how I can be better in being indispensable in the lives of others.

Who is indispensable in your life? Have you shown appreciation to them this week? Who are you indispensable to?

Peter Sheahan’s Making $#IT Happen is a great read. We all have great ideas. The issue for most of us is turning our ideas into great results. I have never read a better book on this subject than Peter’s. It helped me get really clear on who and what I need to focus on to really make the difference I was born to make in my world.

What is happening with your ideas? Are they in your head? Are they in your heart? Or are they out in the world making a difference?

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Sign-up here for a least one free resource per month and to get your complimentary copy of my ebook Differencemakers - how doing good is great for business.

PS Alexander Blass plus a special guest speaker in each city, and myself, will be calling the world to action in a very special one day master-class.

Dubai 21st June 2010
Toronto 13th July
Southbend 15th July
Manchester 27th July
Oxford 29th July
Singapore 17th August
Perth 19th August
Melbourne 24th August
Sydney 26th August
Brisbane 31st August
Auckland 2nd September
Adelaide 7th September

If you live in or nearby or can get to one of these cities I hope you will register today.
Find out all about the tour and register from here.

Saturday 6 March 2010

Fulfilling our promise

Achieving what we want requires much more of us than simply doing what we love.

If we are to believe some of the self development guru’s, if we do what we love the money follows. I think this is way off the mark.

Steven Farber, Author of The Radical Leap and Greater Than Yourself says “Do what you love in the service of people who love what you do.” Now this is on the money.

Doing what we love is just the first step to achieving what we want. Doing what we love in the service of people who love what we do is the key.

Here’s 16 questions for you to ponder about doing what you love and doing this with people who love what you do.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Sign-up here for a least one free resource per month and to get your complimentary copy of my ebook Differencemakers - how doing good is great for business.

Wednesday 3 March 2010

Differencemakers Master-Class Tour - 12 cities, 7 countries

I am very excited to let you know that this year the master-class has been extended to a one day program and that I will be sharing the platform with Torchbearer member of differencemakers community and Innovator of the Year Alexander Blass, as well as a special guest speaker who is based in each of the 12 cities and 7 countries the master-class will be held in.

Our schedule is:

Dubai 21st June 2010
Toronto 13th July
Chicago 15th July
Manchester 27th July
Oxford 29th July
Singapore 17th August
Perth 19th August
Melbourne 24th August
Sydney 26th August
Brisbane 31st August
Auckland 2nd September
Adelaide 7th September

Alexander and I are fully energized by our research into and design of this master-class and are raring to go. Our master-class will bring together three powerful forces of responsibility, sustainability, and innovation into one awesome force for good. Our aim is to mobilise the world to take the next essential steps in the evolution of the systems and structures that govern the world so that we no longer offer yesterdays solutions to todays challenges rather create tomorrow today.

Find out more about the tour here.

Be remarkable
Ian
Founder Differencemakers Community
Sign-up here for a least one free resource per month and to get your complimentary copy of my ebook Differencemakers - how doing good is great for business.