From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Businesses have a tremendous amount of power to have impact through practices and business models that operate ethically, create useful goods and services, create jobs with dignity, and create opportunities in communities that may not have existed before.
For me it is extremely important that commercial interests and social benefits are not mutually exclusive, but that they can complement each other wonderfully so I always look out for products that are innovative, forward-thinking and offer a true value for society.
Few have the boldness to assert, 'Not my circus, not my monkeys,' choosing to focus on select issues rather than superficially ticking off an extensive list.
I had a brand who said to me 'You shouldn't name your book wonderhell, nobody is going to buy a book they don't know what the word on the front cover means', and I replied, anybody who's in wonderhell will know what that word means the second they see the word.
The potential for blockchain is to accelerate the digitization of financial markets. Blockchain gets everyone excited as it has the potential to convene these different parties together to reach the necessary agreements, in that sense it is a unique enabler, a coordination mechanism. That has massive implications on the structure of our financial markets.
One of the greatest myths in the lives of the people I coach is, 'I will be happy when…' as if there is some place to go to. There's only one book that ends with the phrase happily ever after, that's a fairy-tale.
For businesses to survive, let alone brands, you need a secure and stable base. You need secure economic and social conditions to reduce risk.
Other enterprises understand design for what it is, the backbone of their corporate culture as well as the summation of all experiences their clients will have with their services and products––and as such well worth the investment of time and resources.
I personally think that it's only the ignorant and populism pandering politicians who treat the hedge fund industry as a scapegoat for the financial crisis. It was the extremely heavily regulated investment banks who, risking their shareholders' money, levered their firms up to 40:1!
There's definitely a sense that regulators don't understand how firms operate and the practicalities of what they do- and hence that regulations won't help resolve the issues, such as governance issues, that are there.
It's about creating legal accountability around the creation of value for stakeholders, not just shareholders. That's what changes the conversation in the boardroom.
I think it's about usefulness! People talk of 'following your passion' but there are plenty of things people are passionate about that nobody will pay them money for, so you can't just tell someone to just follow their passion. The missing piece? usefulness... We say the magic formula is: Passion + Usefulness = Success.