Agents of Change @ Work

Brands should be "agents for change," says Unilever cmo - WARC News - WARC.com

The big firms are slowly waking up. At Media Week's Media 360 Conference, Simon Clift, the global CMO of Unilever responsible for selling €40bn worth of "soap, soup and tea", said the world had changed more than marketers have accepted or absorbed, and heralded "a new era of remarkable opportunity" - see here

While that may not be earth shattering, what I did find exciting to learn is the fact that Mr. Clift went on to say that "brands should be an agent of change" - a sentiment my colleague Leon Benjamin and I have,  in our own more modest way,  been pushing for nearly a decade as you can see here on an old, homemade site called Business For Good. 

See: Brands should be "agents for change," says Unilever cmo - WARC News - WARC.com.

If Simon Clift or someone at Unilever is reading this (he, he), I would strongly recommend Terry Barber's excellent post on what business leaders can learn from non profit organizations. He gives four suggestions:

1. Inspire customers by helping them believe in something they once thought was impossible. (It worked for Barack Obama)

2. Show genuine appreciation for their business (how many companies have you ever received a thankyou card or email from?)

3. Help him see that he is a part of a bigger community of world changers. One of the most powerful fund-raising terms is the word join. “Join the fight.” “Jointhe cause. “ “Join me”—all indicating that you can be a part of something much bigger than yourself.

4. Communicate how you are making the world a better place - see excerpt below...

I recently met with a CEO of a Fortune 500 Company and saw this principle illustrated in the most dramatic fashion. Throughout the building there were maps with pushpins marking various towns, cities, and villages around the world where this company and its employees were providing clean drinking water for indigent people groups. There was an underlying message there that said, What we are doing as a company is helping to make the world a better place. No matter what kind of business you are in, learn from the nonprofit sector that you can inspire your customers by illustrating how you are making the world a better place.

Do you aspire to inspire your customers? Give them something to believe in that they once thought was impossible. Demonstrate genuine appreciation for their business. Help your customers connect with other customers to illustrate that they are part of a bigger community, and communicate how you as a business are making the world a better place.

Lead and they may follow. Teach and they may learn. Inspire . . . and they will never be the same.

Alot of my work is for destinations - very rarely do Destination Marketing Organizations lead their communities and invest in making the destination a better place. As marketers they feel they can and should leave this to others. New Zealand is different - if you read their tourism development strategy. they believe that tourism should take the lead in ensuring the country lives up tothe highest standards of sustainabiility. They have to, after all, they're 100% Pure.

The Power of Passion and Service

Here is a man who has found his passion and now has the power to lead and inspire. This is the second of two talks at the wonderful TED conferences by Al Gore. He's my Hero because he has triumphed over injustice and major setbacks; he has enormous vision (he not only made us aware of climate change but embraced and communicated the power of the Internet very early on as a force that could help educate and democratize); and, finally, because of his commitment to serve his fellow man. There must have been many nights, after the election defeat and while roaming from one airport to another, when it felt really lonely. This is the curse of the visionary - to be able to see what others cannot.

When Europeans first arrived in the Americas, they hired scouts - local people who knew the lay of the land; who could read the signs and get over the mountains to see what was on the other side. Wise colonists listened carefully to their reports and advice - it was the only intelligence they had.

Click here to watch the video here so you can enjoy this man's new found sense of humour and get some practical suggestions as to how to play your part in race to slow the ticking time bomb that is global warming.

Soul @ Work 1

• What is the soul?
• What is it’s relevance to business?

Apparently, Voltaire once said: "Four thousand volumes of metaphysics will not teach us what the soul is".

A Lakota Medicine Woman once told Anna to give up her addiction to reading as she would never find soul in the arid, dry and dusty pages of books but only through experience of nature and in silence.

Thomas Moore, who is one the most popular contemporary writers on the soul wasn’t more helpful on definitions either: “it is impossible to define what the soul is. Definition is an intellectual enterprise anyway: the soul prefers to imagine. We know intuitively that soul has to do with genuineness and depth, as when we say music has soul or a remarkable person is soulful. When you look closely at the image of soulfulness, you see that it is tied to life in all its particulars – good food, satisfying conversation, genuine friends and experiences that stay in the memory and touch the heart. Soul is revealed in attachment, love and community, as well as in retreat on behalf of inner communing and intimacy”

For Lance Secretan a Canadian leadership “elicitor”, soul is the immortal or spiritual part of us.  It is our essence – our moral and emotional fiber, our warmth, and our force. It is the vital part of us that transcends our temporary existence. We each individually know when it’s there or not there.

In his latest book, Good Business, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi provides the most satisfying explanation of “Soul” not only as a definition but also in relation to business. On a physiological level he suggests that soul is the manifestation of the complexity achieved by our nervous system – we are aware and aware that we are aware (i.e. we manifest self-reflective consciousness) plus we use some of our surplus energy and consciousness to care not just for ourselves but also for others. At the human level curiosity, empathy, generosity, responsibility and charity are noteworthy expressions of the soul at work in each of us. Even though the soul may be the end product of material evolution, it does not imply that the soul is nothing but matter. On the contrary, the fact that a material organism has somehow become able to reach out to other beings and to see itself part of a cosmic patterns is an extraordinary step in evolution.

Csikszentmihalyi further observes that we are not always soulful beings. Given all the threats from “out there”, we couldn’t survive long if we did not devote most of our attention to self preservation. But, on the other hand, if that’s all we did, we would stop growing. So in that respect, what we call soul can be viewed as the surplus energy invested into change and transformation. As such, it is at the cutting edge of evolution. Later, he says “the search for a life that has relevance or meaning beyond one’s material existence is the primary concern of the soul.

So what’s this got to do with business?

Well to the extent that businesses comprise human beings and they are individually as well as collectively on some form of evolutionary trajectory, the search for meaning is becoming increasingly apparent. Employees are less interested in material rewards, they want to serve a greater purpose and be associated with companies that stand for something worth standing for. Shareholders are increasingly interested in the net contribution that companies make to societal well-being.  More and more customers won’t buy from companies that are perceived as exploitive, unethical and environmentally destructive.

And why is this?

We believe that the soul is shaking each of us, for various reasons. As a collective in western industrialised economies, we are experiencing a form of mid-life crisis. We have enough stuff. Most of have more friends and familiy than we can nurture. We are confident that the "how? " questions will be answered by someone and the answer is but a mouse click away. It's the "why?" questions that are starting to trouble us. Why are we here? Who are we, really? What is our destiny? Will it all turn out alright? Can we make a difference? Can we grow into deeper understanding of the answers to these questions? Are we willing to live with the questions? Could we be more than we are now?

Chances are that you are a leader of an enterprise and these questions are troubling you. If yes, then chances are that they are troubling your customers, shareholders and employees. Can your company make a difference? Will addressing the soul-related yearnings of your constituents strengthen your enterprise. We believe the answer to the last question is a resounding yes....Stay tuned for our reasons why.

In these trends we see the Soul at Work. Visionary, soulful leaders will display a unique set of traits that will enable them to prosper in the Age of Meaning and a so-called Transformation Economy.

Spiritual Capital

Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By

Book Review

This book inspired by the need to answer a child’s question – why do I have a life?

Zohar and Marshall were inspired by Carl Jung’s observation:

If things go wrong in the world, this is because something is wrong with the individual, because something is wrong with me. Therefore, if I am sensible, I shall put myself right first……In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual. This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations just take place, and the whole future the whole history of the world, ultimately spring as a gigantic summation from these hidden sources individuals. In our most private and most subjective lives we are not only passive witnesses of our age, its sufferers, but also its makers. We make our own epoch.

The authors observe – along with many others (see Joel Bakan, The Corporation, Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power) – that capitalist culture, as currently practiced, is in crisis and non-sustainable. One of the reasons for this is that the concept of “wealth” has become too narrowly defined to mean only money and material wealth despite the origin of the word – welth- which means “to be well”. The limited meaning of wealth fails to nourish our humanity and draw upon mankind’s perennial search for meaning, purpose and value. 

The author identifies three kinds of capital:

1. material capital associated making money to spend, invest and buy advantage, power, influence, goods. It is associated with linear, rational thinking and thinking intelligence (IQ). In the world of computer processing it is associated with serial processing and problem solving. IQ is the intelligence with which we think.
2. social capital is the wealth that makes our communities and organisations function effectively for the common good. It arises from trust and shared social values and depends on the amount of emotional intelligence (EQ) we can bring to our relationships. EQ[1]reflects our ability to understand and feel for other people and social situations and behave appropriately. EQ is the intelligence with which we feel.
3. spiritual capital addresses those personal and collective concerns about what it means to be human and the ultimate meaning and purpose of life. It enables us to make choices about where we place our attention and to identify priorities and motivation. Our spiritual capital is our shared meaing, our shared purpose, our shared vision of what most deeply matters in life – and how these are implemented in our lives and in our behavioural strategies. It is associated with a spiritual intelligence (SQ),  an intelligence with which we are.

The book’s primary thesis is that unless modern capitalism is transformed to deliver a wider interpretation of wealth that includes social well-being and some sense of spiritual meaning and fulfilment for the human individuals involved (as consumers, producers, employees, shareholders, stakeholders), it will ultimately destroy itself and the context in which it operates.

What makes this book so helpful is that the authors define a practical path towards such a transformation and shows individuals how, by developing their own spiritual intelligence, they can contribute to the broader transformation of society and culture.

What is Meant by Spiritual?

The word spiritual comes from the Latin origin Spiritus which means “that which gives life or vitality to a system” The spiritual in human beings makes us ask why we are doing what we are doing and makes us seek some fundamentally different way of doing it. It makes us want our lives and enterprise to make a difference.

Features of organisations rich in spiritual capital show the following features:

• They are not just sustainable, they are evolutionary. These organisations move; they have life; a deep sense of purpose and direction;

• They are self aware – they know what they stand for

• They are vision and value led and the values are deep human values – saving life; healing the planet; improving education etc

• Have a high sense of connectivity and responsibility for the whole. They internalise externalities. They have a sense of vocation.

• They are compassionate companies that understand and support the entire community of individuals involved in producing, distributing and consuming the goods and services they produce;

• They celebrate and practice diversity

• They are curious, constantly ask why and maintain a deep sense of humility. Their curiosity and spontaneity foster creativity and innovation. As a consequence, they are more adaptable and agile

Does Spiritual Capital “Work” in the Real World?

Zohar highlights Hewlett Packard, Stabucks, Merck and the Cooperative Bank as exemplars of companies with high spiritual capital . According to the authors of Built to Last, such “visionary companies” outperformed ordinary companies by 665% over a 64 year period.

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[1] A term first introduced by Daniel Goleman