Can we capture, identify and teach the essential lessons that make business leaders focus on corporate responsibility?
I have had the opportunity to work for and with some remarkable leaders who have focused their organizations on being 'sustainable' (or corporate responsibility) as a business model. They have recognized that the balance between short term results and long-term success does not have to be a contradiction and that programs that reduce environmental impacts and improve conditions for people are not 'costs' but rather investments that pay off over time.
And while it makes intrinsic sense that founders of a company would have a sense of legacy and want to build something to last, some of the most outspoken and leading CEOs in this arena are those who have come into the organization from outside. And yet, even facing the reality that CEOs often are in their roles for less than five years, they embrace the concept of the long term and seek to instill that into their business models, sometimes radically shifting the focus of an organization.
What I have been searching for, and have not yet been able to discern (despite interviewing several prominent leaders who fit into this second category), is the ingredient, or set of ingredients that makes some corporate leaders turn their backs on the conventional wisdom (I would argue it is herd mentality not wisdom) and reject the on maximizing short term 'shareholder return.'
Leaders in sustainability cross gender, race, cultural background, age, etc. etc. etc. I have even asked; and some have tried to help me with my inquiry. Arianna Huffington writes in her book Thrive about an epiphany after she collapsed at her desk, but no one else has been able to point to a specific moment, or critical juncture, when their consciousness of something greater was born. One, while encouraging my inquiry, suggested that is was something that she herself had assiduously avoided trying to figure out (about herself) because she thought that there were multiple paths to realization. And there may be something to that. But that's not good enough.
Why?
Unlike Jimmy Buffett who has made a wonderful career perennially searching for his lost shaker of salt, this is a critical element for us to understand for the 21st century. If we are going to harness the unparalleled power of capitalism to improve conditions for people and stop doing it in a manner that is so resource intensive that it threatens the progress we have made, we need more business leaders to follow this path. So, figuring out what the key ingredient, juncture, or attribute that they have in common is essential. It's one of the key ingredients, not just a garnish* on the rim of the glass.
*I hope the Margarita drinkers will forgive the analogy. I too don't consider it a real Margarita without the salt.