From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Everyone says, 'oh it's fine to make mistakes, it's fine to do things wrong'. But actually? making that true is really difficult.
Not only is it your responsibility as a business to look after your people, environment, community and world.... But if you don't have these kinds of conversations? Shame on you.
Well, do you remember those Venn Diagrams from school? Those overlapping circles to represent what two things do and don't have in common? The overlap of these two is incredibly fertile territory and this is exactly where businesses in the U.S. and UK see each other – places where they both need to do business and want to do business.
One of the most precious aspects of Glastonbury is specifically that we can't put our finger on it. It's evolved slowly over 50 years to become what it is today – we've tried things that have worked, some have not, and allowed it to evolve.
CSR does not help with me as a buyer, why? Because I'm cynical about it now, I don't believe it. After the success of Toms Shoes, every 23 year old told me they're starting an umbrella company and giving an umbrella to the people that need it in the Amazon. CSR has clearly become a tactic. Every strategy of every company and human being should come from a truth.
It's absolutely true that a lot of the time the market is indistinguishable from a coin toss. However, when the system is under some stress, when the market is undergoing changes, the coin toss model just doesn't work. The 'black swan' doesn't appear very often in coin-toss land but in agent based complex systems land, it appears quite a lot.
Trust is the golden thread that runs through not just a kidnap negotiation or a business deal, but life in general. It takes a long time to build, but it's lost in an instant. Trust is about following through—doing what you say you're going to do.
Having attention as an entrepreneur is the ultimate business development tool, and business development is the backbone of any great business- it's important.