For business to be part of the solution to our collective challenges, we leaders must see companies not as soulless moneymaking entities but as “human organizations” made of individuals working together in support of a shared goal. This goal must contribute to the common good by making a positive difference in people’s lives — what author and consultant Lisa Earle McLeod calls a “<a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ec/Leading+with+Noble+Purpose:+How+to+Create+a+Tribe+of+True+Believers-p-9781119119807">noble purpose</a>.” In this approach, making money remains an imperative, but profits are not the ultimate objective; rather, they are the outcome of a successful strategy rooted in purpose.

The Purpose of Business Is to Contribute to the Common Good

How can we as leaders transform companies into places where all employees are willing and able to give their very best, not only to customers but to each other, to suppliers, to their communities, and to shareholders?The foundation or spark of this magic is to treat work as an essential element of people’s humanity and as a way of finding meaning and fulfillment in life. Start by asking yourself and people across your organization, “What drives you?”. The answer helps people discover a sense of personal purpose, which in turn determines how they relate to their work.

Unleash Human Magic

Leaders' role changed in three fundamental ways:1) it is no longer about maximizing shareholder value; it is about making a positive difference in the world. 2) the leaders' job is to maximize performance not by choosing among stakeholders but by embracing, mobilizing, and serving all of them in line with a noble purpose, and refusing zero-sum games along the way. 3) the purposeful human organization cannot flourish with the traditional top-down model of the powerful and infailible hero-leader. What is required now is a leadership approach that puts purpose and people at the heart of business.

The End of Zero-Sum Leadership

Focus on purpose and people. The profits will follow.

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

How to Lead in the Stakeholder Era

There are two key parameters that an organization needs to put in place to guide decision-making:&nbsp;1) the organization’s clearly communicated strategy - leadership has to determine which decisions are “strategic” (and should be undertaken only by top management) and which decisions are “operational” (and can be undertaken by employees)2) the organization’s values and purpose - they will help employees decide what actions support the purpose and values and what actions do not support them. This will help them decide what to do themselves and what to refer to top management to decide.

How to guide decision making

In his new book, London Business School’s Constantinos C. Markides explains how leaders can ensure that employees know how to deliver on a company’s strategy.

Discover the world of business and economics.

economics

Economics

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

strategy

Strategy

business

Business

humanresources

Human Resources

Granting autonomy without losing control

Having a completely vaccinated workforce (with exceptions for those with medical conditions that prevent them from being vaccinated) — and getting there via an open, informed, and ethical conversation — is a way to create the safest possible environment for employees and customers. In turn, that can build stakeholder trust and a strategic reputational advantage that can be helpful when it comes to recruiting employees, building brand loyalty, and reducing reputational risk.

Creating safe workplaces while respecting employees’ concerns and choices presents challenges for company leaders.

Weighing the risk ethics of requiring vaccinations

The future of humanity is uncertain. Despite our best efforts to build a better tomorrow, we still don’t know what tomorrow looks like. In many ways, we can’t even come to a common understanding of what a positive future even is.

Imagining the next future

Many of the best scifi movies of all time were just released in the last few years. This is a list of great sci-fi films about dystopias, utopias, and far futures in space, like Fury Road, Alita, The Purge, The Martian and more, streaming on Netflix, Amazon and beyond.

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

sciencefiction

Science Fiction

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

movies

Movies & Shows

artificialintelligence

Artificial Intelligence

15 great sci-fi movies that imagine our next future

Buffett has a smart strategy for making ethical decisions: “I ask the managers to judge every action they take — not just by legal standards, though obviously that’s the first test — but also by what I call the ‘newspaper test.’”If a manager expresses uncertainty, Buffett says he asks them how they “would feel about any given action if they know it was to be written up the next day in their local newspaper.”“It’s pretty simple,” he says. “If [the decision] passes that test, it’s okay. If anything is too close to the lines, it’s out.”

The ‘newspaper test’

Money will come and go, but reputation follows you forever.

productivity

Productivity

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Billionaire Warren Buffett has a 'simple' test for making tough decisions—here's how it works

Excellence does not result from quantitative changes in behavior. Quantitative improvements involve doing more of the same thing.Rather, excellence Requires Qualitative Differentiation. A qualitative change involves modifying what is actually being done, not simply doing more of it.Excellence is accomplished through the doing of actions, ordinary in themselves, performed consistently and carefully, habitualized, compounded together, &amp; added up over time.

Excellence

Daniel F.Chambliss observed 100s of swimmers at every level of ability, over some half a dozen years to analyse what causes ‘excellence’. By ‘excellence’ he means “consistent superiority of…

How to Lead in the Stakeholder Era

Granting autonomy without losing control

Weighing the risk ethics of requiring vaccinations

15 great sci-fi movies that imagine our next future

Billionaire Warren Buffett has a 'simple' test for making tough decisions—here's how it works

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