Learning for a Change. It's been almost 10 years since Peter Senge, 51, published "The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization" (Doubleday/Currency, 1990). The book was more than a business best-seller; it was a breakthrough. It propelled Senge into the front ranks of management thinkers, it created a language of change that people in all kinds of companies could embrace, and it offered a vision of workplaces that were humane and of companies that were built around learning. Along the way, the book sold more than 650,000 copies, spawned a sequel -- "The Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization" (Doubleday/Currency, 1994) -- and gave birth to a worldwide movement.
But that movement hit a few speed bumps. People who adopted the themes and practices of "The Fifth Discipline" sometimes found themselves frustrated by the challenge of bringing about effective change -- and sometimes found themselves out of work for trying. It will change. Wb_sysarch. "Systems Thinking" Guru Peter Senge on Starbucks, P&G, and the Economic Power of Trash. One of the world's top management gurus is spending a lot of time these days thinking about trash.
I spoke with author of The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge, because of his work with Starbucks on their pledge to provide recycling in all their stores. But it turns out that his interest in the waste stream goes far beyond that. True to his reputation as the major popularizer of "systems thinking," Senge sees the potential for a whole "underground economy" of great wealth that's literally being tossed away under our noses. "Nobody likes to throw stuff away," he told me. "It’s just antithetical to our sense of being a person. On the Starbucks cup: It’s an archetypal problem and I liked it right away.
On the Starbucks "Cup Summits": So you have a compostable cup, so what? On recycling and detergent jugs: My friend from the oil company has a great example: look at polypropolene detergent containers. 100% recyclable. On the "underground economy" and the future of trash: Pegasus Systems Thinking in Action | The Value Web. At the Pegasus Systems Thinking in Action Conference this year, a cross-sector community represented by nearly 500 people from each continent gathered to connect, learn, and reflect in regards to the session theme: “Fueling New Cycles of Success.” We all know in our bones what it’s like to find inspiration from leading thinkers. We follow their books, talks, ideas – seeking to absorb their insights into our own, apply their provocations to our best intent and action. But to recently scribe for some of the people who are most influential to my own facilitation practice brought a kind of mental model and process high.
This feeling, combined with a series of truly gut-reaching questions, leads me to share highlights here – so the word can spread and take root in as many concerned global citizens as possible. Here are some threads of particular relevance to the whole of our work: Andy Hargreave presented his thinking on The Fourth Way: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change. Mmunicating sustainability: the rise of social media and storytelling | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. As the SMI-Wizness Social Media Sustainability Index documents, big bold campaigns still played an important role in 2012 – Sony's Futurescapes, Siemens' Answers and Microsoft's Youthspark stood out. However, an increasing number of companies, including GE, Renault, Ford and this year's index leader, Levi Strauss, put stock in developing a strong editorial voice.
We call it a "magazine mentality", enabling an always on and always accessible channel of sustainability communication with investors, employees, media, NGOs and, yes, customers. This magazine mentality was triggered by a simple yet complicated reality: sustainability is no longer only of interest to niche stakeholders. For companies, that poses an intriguing opportunity of communicating sustainability to a large audience and a thorny problem of how to do that in an engaging, compelling manner. A smart editorial approach isn't the only best practice theme highlighted in the research. The 5 Best Free Tools For Making Slick Infographics. It's not enough to simply write about data any longer; the world wants visuals.
While there are many professional information designers making a name for themselves, such as Nicholas Felton of Feltron.com, the majority of these digital artists are up to their eyeballs in high-paying work. Where does this leave you? Well, if you want to spruce up your documents, blog posts, and presentations, there are some free tools online that can help.
Many Eyes This IBM Research tool gives you two choices: an option to browse through existing sets of data, or use your own. The public database includes everything from population density across the U.S. to Internet browsers by popularity. Google Public Data Explorer Like IBM, Google has made a public version of one of its research tools. Hohli There are many occasions when a Venn Diagram is the perfect way to describe a concept or compare relationships among a few different things. Wordle Visual.ly Watch more Work Smart: 5 Rules For Remembering Names. How to make an infographic online: five essential free tools. Given the popularity of infographics, you’d be wise to consider using them to help achieve your content marketing goals. They can be great for social sharing, blog fodder and inbound links. The last time I created an infographic I used – wait for it - Microsoft Excel.
Thankfully there are now some far better options, and they're surprisingly easy to use. I have compiled five of online tools that will help you to create infographics. They’re all free, though some require registration (or to connect your Twitter or Facebook account) and most have the upgrade options. Hold on a moment! Before you begin, consider that many infographics are often – to quote Econsultancy Research Director Linus Gregoriadis – “high on graphics and low on information”. As such it is important to map out your story / message / goals before starting to work on the design itself. There’s a great post on the LEWIS PR blog that explains how to optimise an infographic, based around three key questions, which are: 1. 2. 3. Academy for Systemic Change. Can 'nexus thinking' alleviate global water, food and energy pressures? | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional.
With the world population growing at a rate of around 80 million people a year, it is estimated that by 2030 the world will need 30% more water, 40% more energy and 50% more food. That's not just to feed, water and power the new arrivals, but also those currently living "off grid" in developing countries as they rise out of poverty. In the past, water, food and energy have too often been dealt with as separate issues. Biofuels are a classic example. Once the great hope for sustainable energy, bio-diesel's insatiable appetite for wheat saw global food prices spike in 2008 and 2011, causing civil unrest. Panicked into action, the international community spoke out at the German government's Bonn 2011 conference and the water-food-energy nexus. What is nexus thinking? The nexus is a recognition that any solution for one problem, for example water, must equally consider the other two in the nexus. China as a case study China is an interesting case study.
But these are not strident solutions. Telling stories is great for sustainability marketing | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. For more than a hundred years, advertisers have used stories as their primary weapon for persuading people to make decisions about who they are, what they want, and (obviously) what they buy. In Winning the Story Wars, Jonah Sachs' book on how to be heard in an overcrowded marketplace, he points to Listerine's "often a bridesmaid, never a bride" ad in the 1920s as one of the most successful story-led campaigns of the last century. But for Sad Edna, the ad's unlucky heroine, the story is one of inadequacy. Edna's halitosis, and, her lack of awareness of it, means she's doomed not to marry while other, better sanitised friends bag the man and the life they've always dreamed of. Humans have used story power to remember, entertain and persuade since we used rocks as knives.
Stories engage our senses; their fuel is emotion and the journey they take us on is measured in feelings. Psychology Today describes stories as a "Trojan Horse" that can get inside our psyche. But there is hope. Finding a sustainable model of economic growth fit for the future | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. The best days to post to Facebook, based on industry. Sustainability adoption faces numerous barriers: Jim Harris | Strategy | Executive. In October, sustainability consultant and former federal Green Party leader Jim Harris presented the business case for sustainability to delegates of the CIMA Canada Conference 2012. Mr. Harris put forward the argument that sustainable business practices weren’t just a matter of ethics, but also tools for cost reduction and profitability, citing several studies and examples that proved his thesis.
However, he also noted that few organizations have adopted sustainability practices because the issue simply isn’t on their radar. He recently spoke with the Financial Post’s Dan Ovsey about why he believes this to be true and what he sees as the biggest barriers to sustainability. Following is an edited transcript of their conversation. Q: I get press releases several times a week from companies looking to get publicity for their sustainability initiatives. Q: Have you pointed these numbers out to the cab companies? Now, if this is so good, why isn’t it happening? How CEO Mark Parker Runs Nike To Keep Pace With Rapid Change. “The last thing we want,” says Nike CEO Mark Parker, “is to be a big dumb company that feels we can put a swoosh on something and people will buy that.”
I first met Parker three years ago, at a quiet lunch in New York. He’s a tall man, a former college track star and competitive marathoner. He’s designed enormously successful sneakers. He’s hung around with every bold-named athlete you can think of, at venues around the globe. You might expect him to be a larger-than-life presence, an intimidator. But he’s not. He isn’t without confidence, certainly, and he’s highly competitive. We profiled Parker two years ago, calling him “The World’s Most Creative CEO.” Parker and I had dinner after my first Generation Flux feature, and he encouraged me to continue the thread of coverage. Business At The Speed Of Swoosh “Things are accelerating,” Parker says.
This type of climate, he contends, fits into Nike’s longtime culture. How To Be Goliath In A David Market Top-Down Vs. We're all in this together: engaging employees on sustainability | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. As sustainability finally starts to make an appearance on chief executives' agendas, and reluctant chief financial officers – hoping that some savings might be on the horizon – set aside funds for sustainability strategies, businesses face the perpetual hurdle of how to transform an elaborate strategy into a carbon-reducing reality. This is where employees come in. Employees are on the frontline of any business. Getting them to do something as simple as putting paper in a recycling bin all adds up when carbon emissions, waste, water consumption or energy use are concerned.
But as businesses move beyond the basics, employers need a greater level of commitment from employees: why stop at switching lights off when you could be improving processes, innovating products, and generally making the workplace sustainable? Unfortunately, getting employees motivated by sustainability can prove just as challenging as getting the boardroom to sign off on a sustainability strategy.
Strategy Facilitation. Steven Cohen: The Growing Momentum Behind Sustainability Management. For the past three decades I have taught public management at Columbia University. Since about 2000, my growing focus has been on the emerging field of sustainability management. This new field of study combines organizational management with the field of environmental policy. In a blog post I wrote in June 2011, discussing my book Sustainability Management, I observed that "all effective management must be sustainability management.
" In the year and a half that has passed since then, the centrality of sustainability issues has only been reinforced. In the past several decades, we have developed what I sometimes call a brain-based economy. Shutting down this economy is not an option. The cost of mistakes will continue to grow if we do not learn how to manage our organizations and their production according to the principles of environmental sustainability. The principles of sustainability management are built on an understanding of our dependence on nature for human well-being. Invitation to a Dialogue - The Corporate Citizen. Guest Commentary: Beyond Sustainability to Supply Chain Resilience. Businesses around the world are increasingly becoming more vocal and active around “sustainability” issues and managing the breadth and depth of the “carbon footprint” generated by their operations.
While both of these terms are getting lots of airplay, what they really point to is the need to plan for greater “resilience” in supply chain design, management and execution. How resilient are you in your thinking, and does that reflect itself in your supply chain’s processes and management? The risk of sudden change is growing, so in addition to optimizing supply chains for current conditions and to cope with traditional disruption scenarios, companies should also give more thought to their macro-vulnerabilities. They can use the same sophisticated network tools they use today for optimizing their supply chains to answer questions like “What should we do to minimize the impact if oil prices were to double?”
For example, how do you plan for the effects of climate change? Be Sociable, Share! Small Is Beautiful #1: How Small Brands Are Making Sustainability Look Like It’s No Sweat. Small is beautiful, that’s what they say. A few decades ago E.F. Schumacher suggested we “suffer from an almost universal idolatry of giantism” and should “insist on the virtues of smallness — where this applies.” Not a great deal has changed, and I would agree wholeheartedly, except that so much of sustainability requires us to go big. Widespread awareness, mass behaviour change and big-time aspirations for a better, cleaner and happier world. I could go on with how "mass" we need to get to come anywhere close to meeting our global challenges of gaping inequality, environmental degradation, diminishing biodiversity, climate change and the rest. We’ve been relying on a dangerously false sense of security: that small, incremental improvements to our products and business models are enough.
In this series of blogs I want to concentrate on the smaller, newer businesses that are paving the way for new systems, business models and ways of meeting customer and consumer needs. Driving the Sustainability Consortium's ambitious agenda. Running the Sustainability Consortium is not for the faint of heart. The research organization, whose members include many of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies and their key suppliers, is housed in two different universities based 1,000 miles apart. It was formed by the retail giant Walmart, under whose shadow it still operates, despite the diversification of funding and interests the consortium has doggedly developed in its three years of existence. Its membership includes 90 multinational giants, each with its own agenda and interests. Since its founding, the consortium has struggled to define itself publicly, even as it developed an ambitious research agenda; some of its own members complain that they don’t understand what the group is up to.
Enter Kara Hurst. Hurst has been CEO of the Sustainability Consortium — TSC, as it’s commonly referred to — for barely a month, operating from her base in New York City. Next page: A failure to communicate. Wendell Berry’s 17 Rules For A Sustainable Economy – Mendo Island Transition « UKIAH BLOG. The New World Of B2B Marketing. Greener Fields Together Targets Continuous Sustainability Improvements Through Entire Produce Supply Chain -- MONTEREY, Calif., Oct. 2.
Most widely used lead gen tactics. Nike profits fall on rising product costs - Portland Business Journal. Enlightened business strategy: closing the sustainability gap | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. (1) 4 Marketing Paradigms Brands Can NOT Ignore. Data Driven Marketing for Best Inbound Marketing Results. Designed To Move - A physical activity agenda to fuel the future. Ecosystem of Lifecycle Marketing Infographic. Using Social Media For Sustainability: WiserEarth Does It, And Well. Sustainability is 'the ultimate design brief' | Guardian Sustainable Business | Guardian Professional. (7) Jeremiah Owyang - Google+ - RESOURCES: Social Media Voice and Brand Style Guides. … Channel Sustainability Retail IT Leaders Weigh In. Social Marketers Don’t Walk The Talk. (4) Social Media Marketing for the AEC Industry. GE Software: A Massive Startup In The Bay Area.
The $1.3 Trillion Price Of Not Tweeting At Work. Case study: Finnair puts social media community to work.