Social Enterprise Leadership – ancient wisdom needed!

Social Enterprise Leadership – ancient wisdom needed!

A social enterprise is an innovative business vehicle focussed upon creating sustainable wealth and at the same time being a great corporate citizenship, a focus upon people, plant and profits. The business is more complex and so it follows the governance and leadership most also be more sophisticated. Around 1760 the industrial revolution and industrial economy started in Europe and spread across the world. The focus was upon managing physical and financial capital for internal efficiency often with an internal win and external loose outlook. In the 1970’s the knowledge economy started with widespread computing and communications technology. The focus is on managing human capital.

Corporate governance creates wealth by setting a clear mission, vision, goal and strategy. The business operations may actually be simple yet setting goals across people, planet and profit makes the governance more complex and the operational leadership more challenging. Very simply the governance and leadership capability and style of the industrial economy or even the knowledge economy are unlikely to suit.

Dr Stephen B. Young of the Caux Round Table suggests that there are five types of capital to manage: physical, financial, human, social, and reputational capital. This is based upon far reaching research on best business practices and ethics across USA, Europe, Australasia and Japan. Therefore we have a hint that industrial economy and even knowledge economy management styles and capabilities are insufficient to manage all five core capitals, specifically social capital and reputational capital.

The Caux Round Table proposes that key governing principles for sustainable wealth creation must include the following two aspects: Living and working together for the common good, mutual prosperity, with healthy and fair competition; and Valuing human dignity and the sacredness of each person, be they employees, customers or stakeholders.

Although law, regulation and commercial market forces can go a long way towards ensuring these principles are adhered to, it is really determined by the mission, vision and values and conduct set by the Board of Directors. External forces can drive compliance. It is an internal Board choice, that determines the tone, spirit and behaviour.

Recently, Dr Deepak Chopra has been leading workshops on the Soul of Leadership, awakening us to the possibility that there are seven different types of leadership each more appropriate in different times and situations. In our new economy, where we must value all five types of capital, we require different leadership style then the aggressive and arrogant win-lose styles of the last 50 years.

Dr Jane Houston, is a guru on human potential and has been working with the United Nations to develop new leaders for our modern time. Her own mentor was Margaret Mead. She calls this style of leadership, social artistry. Social artistry is about ancient wisdom. Modern management seems to believe that there is nothing to learn from our ancient forefathers and fore mothers. Modern business and especially social enterprise shows that we can learn a great deal from our ancient lineage.

A group focussed upon developing human potential is the Society of Jesus, known as The Jesuits. They have over the centuries contributed to personal development and contribution to society, far larger than their small numbers.

Lets also, look at the history of commerce.  The first corporation limited by shares was the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Prior to that time the only expansive commercial vehicle was partnership law. The earliest body of limited liability partnership law suitable for trade is the Qirad in Islam. It is likely that the Qirad originated in the Arabian Peninsula with the Arabian caravan trade. It later became one of the most widespread tools of commercial activity. It was an arrangement between one or more investors and an agent where the investors entrusted capital to an agent who then traded with it in hopes of making profit. Both parties then received a previously settled portion of the profit, though the agent was not liable for any losses. From AD650 to AD1250, the Golden era of Islam the commercial world was largely driven by such trade partnerships, one of the key reasons why Islam spread across the world.

Partnership law was adopted in Italy in tenth century. Even today most accountants and lawyers use the partnership vehicle for business. This vehicle has also been updated in recent years to offer limited liability partnership business vehicles. The partnership vehicle is alive. The partnership has as owners the leaders and operational managers and expectant staff that one day they too may become partners. The partnership often has a paternalistic approach. Hence, just looking at 200 hundred years of industrial age contemporary management thinking ignores 1500 hundred years of ancient commercial wisdom.

We have a wealth of management knowledge on managing human capital, physical capital and financial capital.  Social enterprise leadership will therefore also need to draw upon more wisdom about managing social capital and reputational capital, which intrinsically is about people and the planet. The old administrations and government agencies based upon managing less than all five are like the dinosaurs under pressure of extinction.

Social enterprise and the governance and leadership of the five types of capital is one of the transformational trends of this period of time.

Paul A Zaman is the CEO of Qualvin Advisory, would you like to know how to create sustainable wealth and become a good corporate citizens  email: pzaman@qualvin.com or visit www.qualvin.com.

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Champions of the World!

Corporate Governance – Champion of the Earth

By Paul Ali Zaman

The Global business summit for the environment, “B4E” was held a couple of years ago in Singapore and recognition was given to the winning “Champions of the Earth”. One champion was Al Gore, for his work and some say crusade, for all of us to take action to prevent and reverse the effects of global warming.

Global warming is a very high profile topic and has steadily caught the attention, hearts and minds of many people. Al Gore’s movie – -An Inconvenient Truth, won two Academy Awards and he won a Champion of Earth award from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).  The movie has helped create global warming awareness, however the issue of global warming gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and others is just one of many pressing environmental and governance issues. Others include, the scarcity of fresh drinking water, over-fishing of the oceans, destruction of bio-diversity due to the logging of rainforests; and avian bird flu; and electronic e-waste.

A key source of Global Warming is Carbon Dioxide gas from burning organic fuel. In broad terms 2/3 of the environmental carbon dioxide gas is created by the industry and 1/3 by agriculture and farming. In a little more detail it is the power generators and heavy power consuming industries that are the biggest culprits. Factories creating cement from line, bricks from clay, aluminum and steel from ores, all have large furnaces and are heavy fuel users. Internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, trains, ships and airplanes are also culprits. Carbon Dioxide is a global warming gas because it affects the atmosphere. The airline industry only contributes about 2 to 3% of Carbon Dioxide gasses and yet these millions of tones of gas are discharged at 30,000 feet. Carbon dioxide is heavier than Oxygen and Nitrogen that make up air, thus discharging it at 30,000 feet has a much greater impact. Rachel Dodds, Director of Sustaining Tourism and Associate Professor at Ryerson University, Canada suggests a 5 time impact multiplier, indicating that air travel contributes to around 10 to 15% of carbon dioxide based global warming effects. Rainforests and algae in the oceans are two main bio-systems that consume Carbon dioxide and give out oxygen. The destruction of the rain forests therefore removes the “lungs” of the earth and the land is then used for rearing cattle for human food. There are around 1.4 billion cattle today, about half of which are used for dairy production and half for human consumption, each animal creating huge quantities of methane and carbon dioxide. Methane is 23 times more potent in causing global warming than carbon dioxide is. Our modern excessive eating habit of meat thus greatly contributes to ill health and global warming gasses.

Water scarcity and excessive consumption are also a key environmental issue. An average individual in a western household uses 50 litres of water a day of which only 3 litres is needed for drinking. A hotel guest, on an average, consumes 500 litres of water a day. “Households use around 10%, industry around 15% and agriculture around 75% of water resources in the world”, says Anders Berntell, of the Swedish International Water Institute. Water consumption in agriculture is very high, because of wastage – Growing crops to feed beef cattle, which could be used directly by humans. Cattle are heavy consumers of water, and each kilogramme of beef mince requires around 30,000 litres of water according to Johnathon Buckley, University of Michigan. Growing inappropriate crops such as rice is another wastage. It requires 5,000 litres of water to yield 1kg of rice, great to grow in monsoon areas, not so great an idea in Australia!

So the clear picture is that our modern fast-living lifestyle is a major contributor to global warming. Therefore consumer awareness, interest, desire and action are a critical part of the solution to global warming. Citizens must choose their goals and define actions that are their personal governance role and commitment.

There are many things we can do at an individual governance and corporate governance level. Energy efficiency is a dramatic one. If USA became energy efficient in line with European best practices they could save around 30% of their energy bill. This would immediately mean that as a country they achieve the reductions in global warming gas as highlighted in the Kyoto Protocol. Simple energy savings initiatives include:

• Insulation of windows, doors, floors and ceilings in buildings
• Ensuring air-conditioning and environmental climate control set at a healthy 18 to 26 degrees temperature, matched to the external natural climate and season.
• Convert to modern fluorescent energy saving light bulbs;
• Adopt energy efficient home appliances and cars, engines
• Unplug unwanted appliances.

Who is the villain in all of this? Well, we are, The Consumers. Our defense is that we are not educated in the facts and in what we can do. Once we are aware, many of us will choose to behave differently as consumers, employers and managers of business operations. Citizens of the world are increasingly remembering that they are stewards of the earth, keeping the earth vibrant as a legacy for their children.

The weakest link has been our Governments. Al Gore tried to promote the Kyoto Protocol and environmental issues however this was one factor a few years ago that contributed to his political election failure. Global warming and environmental issues have a real cost. One that is currently not visible or borne throughout industry and certainly not passed on to the consumer. Many politicians just want to be elected and green issues appeal to environmentally aware voters, however there is a larger negative political impact of legislation that will drive consumer prices up.

In October 2003 The Pentagon published a report saying that global warming was now a national security concern. A Washington insiders’ poll in February 2007 found that 95% of Democrats and only 13% of Republicans agreed with the statement “it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that the Earth is warming because of man-made problems”. Global warming skeptics have been promoted in the past by corporates like Exxon Mobile and newspapers like The Australian, The UK’s Daily Telegraph and Canadian’s National Post. At the Global level the United Nations has a huge role in nudging and prodding developed, developing and under-developed countries to be wiser and to adopt good environmental governance practices. Conversely there is need for political grass root developments. Seven Northeastern USA states have gotten together to form a regional greenhouse gas initiative. Such state level initiatives will apply pressure on federal government to support Kyoto. In the UK, the government commissioned a study called the Stern Review which led to the electorate sensitive prime minister, Tony Blair saying, “we accept we have to go further than the Kyoto protocol”.

Let’s leave the last words to the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger who supported an aggressive global warming emission reduction law and declared, “We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late… The science is clear. The global warming debate is over.”

Paul A Zaman is the CEO of Qualvin Advisory and to know how to do a core business makeover for survival or going green email pzaman@qualvin.com www.qualvin.com.

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Social artistry, unleashing the power of your archetypes!

Social artistry, unleashing the power of your archetypes!

Dr. Jean Houston is a scholar, philosopher and researcher in human capacities.  She is long regarded as one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement.  To me, Jean Houston, is a luminaire of solar brilliance. She is a mentor of the contemporary leaders for our society.  The leaders the world needs today to bring us into living our glorious future.  This new style of leadership and living she describes as social artistry.  They care about prosperity, society and the environment.

In Los Angeles, in June 2008, I was fortunate enough, due to stepping up and taking action, to be at the Humanitarian Unite Brilliance conference called Igniting your Brilliance.  With around 500 like-minded and hearted people, focussed upon stepping up and making a difference the event was electric.  Ask yourself this question – Where were you?

Humanity Unites Brilliance is a new social enterprise designed to have a major social and environmental impact whilst being sustainable by having a profitable business engine to create income.

Research shows that many people are disappointed with traditional charities due to factors such as the lack of accountability, transparency and inefficiency. Emergency relief is always critical and fortunately always widely and quickly supported. However other charity themes are focussed upon giving aid rather than teaching someone how to fish and regain their dignity and responsibility for their own life. Charities also spend money and time competing with each other for funds rather than their vocation of providing assistance.

Humanity Unites Brilliance is a social enterprise. It generates its own income, distributes 40% of subscription income to grass root causes, and provide transparency, connection and accountability for money spent.  Its income is generated from self-development programmes and live trainings, such as Igniting your Brilliance. XL Results Foundation was a founding sponsor of Humanity Unites Brilliance in 2007.

Jean Houston is a young lady of 70 and yet her energy and presence is that of some half that age. She has a very interesting background.  She was taught by Buckminster Fuller, worked with Joseph Campbell and had as a frequent house guest Margaret Mead. Buckminster Fuller and Margaret Mead are perhaps two of the greatest thinkers of the 20th Century.  With these mentors it is of little surprise that Jean Houston is an incredible transformational mentor in her own awesome capacity.

Buckminster Fuller was a recognised author, architect, designer and futurist. He was keenly interested in sustainability and believed human societies would soon rely mainly on renewable sources of energy, including solar and wind.  He taught that competing for scarce resources, which drove the industrial revolution, must give way to co-operation.  He explored principles of energy and material efficiency in his specialist fields of architecture, engineering and design and coined the phrase “Spaceship earth” and invented the geodesic domes.

Jean works the stage with a friend Peggy. I say works, because both Jean and Peggy are thespians, lovers and actors of the stage and also the theatre of life. The wonderful pleasure of experiencing Jean and Peggy present Shakespeare and dramatic prose live and impromptu on stage is unimaginable. Jean and Peggy are epic performers. Why is this important? Simply because they use their artistic talents to lead and pace us through archetypal stories that dissolve our limiting values and beliefs in moments of theatrical time.  Even more powerful than the dissolution of your un-serving memes, virus of the mind, is that the archetypal stories resonant with your ancient reptilian brain and unleashes new capabilities in you. These are the capabilities of social artistry.  No wonder that Jean Houston has held a mandate from the UNDP, since 1994, to train thousands of social artistry leaders world-around.

Jean Houston also asserts that the chunking down of language into sound bites means that the rich language of our forebears has been denatured. The tonal and vocal quality has disappeared. This speech quality conveyed the emotional content and it triggered our emotional brains, the ancient reptilian brain into action. Our ability to sense and feel connections to each other, ideas and our environment has disappeared. We are lost and disconnected more than we have ever been and our ability to take wise mindful action has also been diminished. There is a real dramatic need, survival of the homo sapiens species, that depends on the reinstatement of poetic and dramatic language to convey messages more fully.

Some of the social artistry capabilities are: the ability to connect people and ideas together effortless and spontaneously; the ability to listen and hear the full rich and deeper meanings of what is said and unsaid; the ability to dig deep inside of yourself and facilitate the same in others to unearth talents, truth and motivation. This style of leadership is about being connected to people and the planet and about moving beyond narrow self centred agendas to serve the global agenda; it is about knowing when to step up and take mindful action.

Ask yourself this question – Where were you?

Find out about HUB at http://paulanthony.hubhub.org/ .

Paul A Zaman is the CEO of Qualvin Advisory. What to know more. Embarrassed by your limp share performance, wake up to the maestro IR share system, and get firm shares and a corporate reputation that investors, customers and suppliers want. Email: pzaman@qualvin.com. www.qualvin.com.

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