Future Of Csr

A Conversation On The Future Of The Corporate Social Responsibility Movement
Led by Steven G. Brant
[email_address]
www.TrimtabManagementSystems.com

I dedicate today to…
R. Buckminster Fuller
W. Edwards Deming
Russell L. Ackoff

My promise to you
Education
Wisdom
Fun

My request of you
Participate
Appreciate

Today’s Agenda
Form relationships
Identify the mess we are in (“mess” is a technical term)
Develop an idealized design
Plan an implementation strategy

Forming Relationships
What brought you here?
Today should be just the first of many future meetings
“ To err is human; to forgive is divine.”

Who am I?

After all, so much progress has been made… even in America (with more coming when Bush leaves). What kind of mess could we be in?

It’s a mess born of lack of knowledge

The CSR movement has yet to adopt the principles of Systems Thinking + Innovation

… Which Is The Only Way To Deal With The Socio-Political Economic Challenges… … that coexist with our environmental ones

… Including The Biggest Socio-Political Economic Challenge Of Them All… … War And Peace

A “Blue Ocean” Strategy for the CSR/Sustainability Movement…

Here’s an example of Blue Ocean Thinking… First, the reality: Cars and water don’t mix

Here’s an example of Blue Ocean Thinking… Initial solution: Do more of what we already know

Here’s an example of Blue Ocean Thinking… Final solution: Do what has never been done before, and do it elegantly

… Championed by The Global Compact, Because of its Performance Model At its core, The Global Compact is about learning and internal motivation, not just meeting certain standards set by others. “ Raising The Bar” (Greenleaf Publishing, 2004) By Claude Fussler, Aron Cramer, and Sebastian van der Vegt

The Performance Model: The methods we use are as important as the results we want to achieve. Expanding from Plan-Do-Check-Act (the Deming Cycle, where mistakes are opportunities to learn and improve)… … To include the view that organizations are systems made up of interdependent parts (as Dr. Deming taught the Japanese, using this diagram)

Innovation and a Systems-Based Approach for the CSR Movement
Include the Sustainable Science and Technology movement (How many of you link to the Rocky Mountain Institute or McDonough-Braungart Design Chemistry on your sites?)
Expand from improving the parts of the world (the environment, labor relations, human rights) to improving the whole world
(Just how much good can the CSR movement create?)

The Essence of the Available Transformation: Going From a Reactive To a Proactive Movement
Our origins in risk management: Stopping bad things from happening to our reputations (meet external codes developed by others) which led to stopping bad things from happening to the world
Our future in inventing new options: Giving people - including the NGO community - what they don’t know they can have

Proactive Strategies: Expanding From Stopping Bad Things To Starting Good New Things
How much good can the CSR community create?
Just how “good” can a “good corporation” be?
Who defines what “good” is?

Innovation in the Sustainability Movement
Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute know how we can “win the oil endgame”. (see www.oilendgame.com)
Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart know sustainability isn’t about reducing waste; it’s about eliminating the concept of waste. To Mother Nature, there is no such thing as “waste”. (see www.mbdc.com)

The potential of a more fully integrated CSR/ sustainability movement
What if every socially responsible business championed “thinking systemically”, in addition to its company-specific CSR activities? (They could all just say “It’s time to think differently .”)
What if every socially responsible business - no matter what industry it was in - promoted the work of Lovins and McDonough on its web site?

Sustainability science expert William McDonough says, “Leaders must become designers, and designers must become leaders.” What if we in the CSR movement began thinking like designers?

The CSR movement as a “Design Exercise”
What can the CSR movement accomplish as a whole, that goes beyond improving the environment, labor relations, and human rights (the “parts of the whole”)?
What is “the whole system” which needs to be redesigned?

The System That Needs To Be Redesigned: How Humanity Relates To Itself

Since we really are one global community - one human family - how would we ideally like to live together?

Two UN Initiatives Can Help Us Answer That Question
MDG The Millennium Development Goals: (2015 is the deadline) Goal No. 8 - Develop a Global Partnership for Development
DESD The Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) “The…goal…is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning. This educational effort will encourage changes in behavior that will create a more sustainable future in terms of environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations.”

A Whole Systems Approach: Combine Your MDG and DESD Participation The CSR community could influence the nature of this “global partnership for development” so the entire human family “develops”- physically, intellectually, & ethically - by learning what it needs to learn and unlearning what it needs to unlearn so that it can transform from a family at war with itself to a family living in peace.

One thing we need to unlearn Although it was the true nature of reality for thousands of years, we no longer live in a “scarcity of resources” reality.

Other Resources That Can Help
Systems-based development experts such as Drs. Russell Ackoff, W. Edwards Deming, and R. Buckminster Fuller
Caring-focused economics theorists, such as Riane Eisler
Historian James Burke’s “Knowledge Web” project (Burke did “The Day the Universe Changed” and “Connections” TV series

Before Addressing What the USA Network of The Global Compact Can Do… The following related news crossed my desk just last week…

The Journal of Corporate Citizenship Issue 26, June 2007 A Special Issue on “The Corporate Contribution to One Planet Living in Global Peace and Security” McIntosh Waddock Kell “ There are common threads and themes…about how businesses can contribute to peace and security and to what we are calling, after (Hungarian political economist, Karl) Polanyi, the next great transformation. Clearly, there are significant signs that transformation is needed in the world today.” - from the issue’s Editorial, by Malcolm McIntosh (Coventry University, UK), Sandra Waddock (Boston College, USA), and Georg Kell (UN Global Compact)

This special issue is tied to… A conversation about the future “… a conversation taking place at the Eden Project in Cornwall, England from 24-26 October 2007 organized by the Applied Research Centre in Human Security, the UN Global Compact, Boston College and The Eden Project. Conversation, inspiration, music, food and change”* * From http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/default.asp?contentid=55

What Unique Contribution Can The USA Network of The UN Global Compact Make?
Focus on the need for a vision beyond war (and full of hope, as Tom Friedman - in “The World Is Flat” - says the world is missing today).
Invite that part of America’s business community with the ability to communicate the resulting vision to the public at large - “Hollywood” - to participate in The Global Compact .

It Can Also Help Make The Transformation Fun A transformation - especially a “great transformation” - must be about the adventure ahead, not just the bad things being left behind.

From Danny Kaye to Star Trek… The American media and entertainment industry has the unrivaled ability to inspire people to boldly go someplace they’ve never been before (and to help people learn what they need to know to get there) by making the journey fun .

In Fact, It Has Done This Twice Before for the Whole Country
During WW II, when new recruits were needed…and those recruits then had to learn the skills to win the war.
In 1955, when the general public learned that we had the science to make space travel a reality, sowing the seeds for the creation of NASA.

What Has Inspired You?

What might the Hollywood UN Global Compact Special Interest Group Look Like?
Some participants will probably continue to focus on stopping bad things
Some will champion hopeful things we have (or are close to having) the ability to do, like this celebrity is already doing

Catalyzing the Transformation of Humanity: A Powerful Future for The Global Compact
Beyond Meeting Standards…to Creative Innovation
Beyond Separate Parts…to The Whole System
From Improvements We Make Out of Fear…to A Transformation We Make Out of Hope and the Bold Spirit of Adventure
From Killing Each Other…to Respecting, Learning From, and Working With Each Other

Maybe Hollywood Will Dramatize The Journey To The Future We Finally Have the Ability To Achieve Here’s someone who knows how to do that…

Maybe Tom Hanks Will Do for The Global Compact What Danny Kaye Did for UNICEF

Here’s to the “unreasonable person” inside us all…

Thank you very much “ The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” - George Bernard Shaw

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Future Of Csr

by Trimtab Management Systems on Feb 08, 2010

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Future Of Csr — Presentation Transcript