About a week before Christmas, I simply slowed down. Just before Christmas Day, I picked up my phone for the novelty of it all and called a few people I enjoy and admire.
The first person I called was @jan_morgan; Jan is one of my most favorite peeps in the #csr community nest of the world created by @elainecohen.
Just before Christmas Joe Sibilia, CEO, CSRwire.com, spoke about his powerful partnership with Jan. My quick summary is that Jan in this last year has woven into the heart and soul of CSRWire giving CSRwire the glue to bind more than 6,000 clients. Jan's enthusiasm, outlook and way of connecting is contagiously empowering and very kind.
Jan was of course working on a day that the office was closed because her staff informed her the day before that she had given them the day off and she forgot! She had booked herself for a day of conference calls.
At the start of our call, Jan told me she looked forward to " my big announcement"……..at the start of 2011.
I laughed and said, Oh…..I can see from how I tweeted that you might think I have some “big biz announcement.” In truth, I don’t think it is a really big announcement, I think it is more about making a statement after the New Year of how I plan to work.
Since early November more than 6 of the new and best CSR books prepublication and published have come to my desk. I am even proud to say I read all of them, including an early prepublication pre-peer review manuscript by @ericlowitt 's, Strategies for the Long Haul.
I began with Elaine Cohen's remarkable book, which is with all its detail is easy to digest through her conversational format of writing. Aman Singh, @vaultcsr, reviewed, recommended and described this book with her journalistic prowess. I took Elaine seriously when she told, “bring it on.” Elaine was inviting me to offer what I really think of her book. I grappled with this for a few weeks and even chatted a bit with Jan Morgan about it and then I realized how Elaine’s book CSR for HR, held meaning for me.
Elaine’s book is going to be featured as part of leadership curriculum that I am developing that will annotate and summarize all the books generously shared with me for review by Elaine, Aron Cramer, Joe Sebelius, Jeffrey Hollender, Carol Sanford, Dave Wann and Eric Lowitt. Okay I confess to am still waiting for @adamwerbach to send me a copy of his book. This annotation will be made available to subscribers of my new sustainability leadership teleconference series that I plan to launch in February. The learning group is for any leader or community organizer wanting to learn to embed a culture of sustainability into a leadership approach of sustainability.
Yet this idea was much too wide. I knew it could span a degree of thought that would burn out anyone. So I spent more quiet time, swimming a bit and meeting friend for for coffee and sharing a few late night calls. I used my meditation practice to find a more narrow sport from which to work that I could sustain and contribute value to an audience I really enjoy relating to.
While thinking through all of this from a professional view, I took sought out personal support as well. I participated in a conversation that began with a community of people linked to Joan Borysenko, @jzborysenko. Joan Borysenko began a personal examination of "burnout" for herself and discovered the topic was perfect for her 15th book.
I was drawn to this topic personally and from the perspective of sustainability. I believe ‘burnout’ holds real relevance to sustainability since CSR and Sustainability practices have grown in rapid popularity this year in response to economic, health and environmental burnout.
Often in the CSR, Sustainability world people express confusion and overwhelm. I think some of this overwhelm is also due to the experience people and company strategists or economic decision makers feel when a recession shadows everything they are doing to survive. Hence not only do many become personally depressed, many economic decision makers and leaders as a result of this depression obstruct change and cultural wellbeing because of what is implied by personal depression and a bottom line decline due to external events no one seems to be able to control.
So as a practitioner, I had to think about how I contribute to that and also how my work and pace was contributing to my own burnout.
Joan’s book arrived at my door just on time for my Christmas break from my twitter, hoot and blog dance.
The book now aptly titled Fried: Why You Burn Out and How to Revive, is a combination of quality neuroscience analysis of the growing rate of depression and its relationship to burnout; stories of how people experience burnout, and the passages for healing that people can consciously chose beyond simply fixing the symptoms with anti-depressants.
Most American in the state of the current economy would not be surprised to learn that Biopharm is in part a sustainable industry due to $9.6B in sales anti-depressants. Yet anti-depressants do not heal depression; they fix the symptoms. So what does it mean that the US gobbles 67% of the supply of anti-depressants on the market? If drugs aren't fixing the symptoms what will and can healing depression and the burnout that it implies lead to a more sustainable way of health?
Joan’s personal candor and sharing of her own experience with personal relationships and how her career is a valuable story for anyone working today in any profession or field. Her story of how she shifted from a career as a medical scientist in an academic medical school research settings led to her becoming licensed psychologist, who midwifed the field of mind body medicine while practicing in the Harvard Medical School affiliated Longwood Medical Area.
In some ways this experience runs a similar parallel to why so many professionals I know who are business leaders, environmental advocates, investors and financial analysts have chosen to become practitioners of CSR and Sustainability. I know it runs parallel to my own. Of a more synchronistic perspective, Joan and I went to the same high school, had offices across the street from each other and similar experiences with our father's end of life cycles that drew us together in FB, while we have never met in person. We even worked within the same medical community and share many of the same friends; but have very different paths.
As 2011 approached, I want to work to make this year blososm into the greatest impact I ccan have for my work. So I sought feedback from people I respect on how to shape that and I looked carefully at how people who engage with me suggest I shape my work for the “sale,’ where the sale does not imply the kind of work I want to do or the best result I can contribute to.
During a conversation with Joan's FB community about boundaries and self-love, I commented,
“If only the world I work in would catch up with this level of consciousness.”
This comment became the transition for into Fried's Chapter 6 – Letting Go and Moving On; a discussion on careers, burnout, when to move on and why.
Joan's offering clearly did not take into the account the challenge of today's economy. Where to go with that part of your considerations for a career integrating CSR and Sustainabililty is just one place and simple with an almost daily read of Aman Singh, @vaultcsr, on the state of the economy, jobs and working in CSR.
As anyone employed or not employed now knows, the most challenging place to do this kind of work beyond meeting “green requirements” and shifting practices to what @adamwerbach would call Blue Strategies is most challenging in any form of work related to personal health and well-being.
So if there is any big announcement from me this year. It starts simple, after producing the two series of blogs posts related to Seventh Generation and the CSRwire -Sanofi Aventis/Genzyme M/A Series, I had to pause. These posts were a result of a level of work that was intense, important and once completed opened me to some new thinking that is most critical to focusing my work and assuring its value.
My next couple of posts will start to roll that thinking out to you over the next week or two.
Happy New Year to all. I appreciate all my readers and the network of colleagues who take the time to read me. 2010 was a challenging year coming into the public view with my thinking and knowledge. I wish to personally thank Christine Arena, Elaine Cohen, Aman Singh, Susan McPherson, Jan Morgan, Joan Borysenko and others, who I will acknowledge in other ways. Thank you all your numerous generous contributions that often surprised me in form of reward that surprises you on a day when you are questionning yourself and wanting to assure value for your work.
Chuck Maniscalco's resignation as CEO of Seventh Generation in September, followed by Jeffrey Hollender's departure from Seventh Generation in October pushed me to think about leadership in a company committed to sustainable business practice and what that implies.
In the mix of my thinking, I recalled reading that Seventh Generation has $30M in investment lined up to expand and grow the company. So I began to wonder what does this imply or mean to all the stakeholders and its implication to leadership responsibility.
Seventh Generation is currently a privately held company, after a period of being a public company from 1993-2000. During its public status, its stock was never worth more than $5.00 per share. I cannot find any information on status of that $30M and its implication to the investment strategy or company incorporation.
In 2000, Jeffrey Hollender and others perceived that they had lost control of the company; and Hollender and 11 other investors bought back the shares for a premium to investors and took control of the company. At that time of transaction the stock was valued at $.87 and private investors bought out public shareholders for $1.30.
I believe that the way Seventh Generation - the board, stakeholders and current leadership prepare to measure Seventh Generation as an investment public or private for the future will be the critical to how a CEO is hired to replace Hollender and Maniscalco? The kind of CEO needed to answer to investors for a public traded company is very different than than a CEO preparing the company for IPO or a CEO hired by all stakeholders to lead solely focused on sustaining the company and guiding the adaption of the company strategy for the marketplace and regard to competition e.g. Clorox, Procter and Gamble or S E Johnson and Company?
Yet a $30M investment can also be an opportunity for a company to think of itself as an economy, create jobs and integrate a complete sustainability framework of continuous learning with regard for all stakeholder needs, where the needs of investors do not take priority over the needs of other stakeholders.
How do people think about "leadership?"
Leadership has become a buzz word like CSR and Sustainability.....yet in todays' world we are always looking for a leader to idolize or blame. We are quick to talk about leadership failure and the media has a constant our pouring of philosophical views on what it means to be a leader or what a leader did or did not do.
What we do not often talk about is what is a leader leading and for what reason in a context that goes beyond the idea that a leader heads something or sits over a group of people or is responsible for delivering on a promise.
Over the past decade leaders have come under microscopic view re: their behavior, value and ethics.
Rarely have I seen any leader judged or reviewed for his impact on an economy. Tyler Elm, past Senior Director, Corpoate Strategy and Finance, Wal Mart Stores, Inc. wrote in his foreward to Chris Laszlo's, Sustainable Value
I recall a colleague presenting me with the following statistic a few years ago: "Of the world's 100 largest economies, 42 are now corporations, not countries."....walmart Stores, ranked first on the Fortune 500 and approaching $350B in annual sales by 2007.
For 2010, the top 10 Fortune 500 companies again ranking Walmart as first followed by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, General Electric, Bank of America, ConocoPhillips, AT&T, Ford Motor, JP Morgan Chase and HP.
All these companies have the great impact on jobs and the economies local to their operations. These companies impact the health, well being, economic stability of the people they employ and all other stakeholders. Collusion, ignorance or an informed decision by any corporations of this size can impact millions of people that may have no direct involvement with a company in the way the BP Oil Spill impacted the Gulf Region of the US.
Yet in most instances corporations, their stakeholders and others do not think of a corporate system as a living economy. Living economies are geographical regions of dense populations of people who reside by each, who can experience direct and indirect harm due to economic decisions made by political, business or community leaders.
Residents within these economies can experience harm due to how economic decision makers carry out their jobs for people they perceive as their most immediate stakeholders without factoring in how a decision can create harm to health, the environment and a region, e.g. the BP Oil Spill. These decision makers make decisions from the view of benefit for their most immediate value chain of people, e.g. shareholders, investors, or customers.
What happens when leaders think of a company as an economy?
Two companies on the list of the top 10 Fortune 500 began a few years back at the leadership level began to think about the implications of company strategy and what that meants if the company stakeholders viewed a corporate strategy as a "economy." These two companies are Walmart and General Electric.
The Wikipedia about Walmart offers a thorough summary of how Walmart changed after embedding sustainability into the company culture. Walmart's CEO Lee Scott passed the baton to Michael Duke, after Duke was elected at the 2009 annual shareholders meeting. Scott has been serving as Duke's and will continue to as Chairman thru 2011. With Duke's appointment Walmart has expanded its application of sustainability in the company and throughout the global supply chain.
Walmart's format of success planning and strategy I believe is less relevant to Seventh Generation's needs today. I find the change that General Electric has gone through guided by Jeffrey Immelt much more relevant. GE like Walmart appointed a leader from within the company, unlike Walmart, this leader has been the one to embed sustainability into GE's business strategy and led a company through a culture of change that has included job creation, investment in new ventures and an outreach to its supply chain that is serving as a model for others.
GE has also developed and funded a non profit foundation with an educational focus. The GE Foundation foucs is on funding programs that supports US students to achieve a strong foundation in math and science. Skill in science, technology and math (STEM) are now viewed the most critical skills to learn as early as kindergarten, in order to join the new emerging sustainable workforce. Through GE's management education program, STEM skilled workers are supported to develop the emotional intelligence and holistic overview critical to working in a company that has integrated a sustainbility into its culture.
Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO followed decades of empowering a performance driven culture as led by Jack Welch. Welch was Chairman and CEO of General Electric from 1981 to 2001. During Jack's reign, the company culture was described as "the Welch Way.". There are many books and stories about how Jack led GE and what his values and leadership implied to others.
While Jack Welch fostered a system of professional development and management education in General Electric that is globally respected, the Welch Way has been replaced by an integrated sustainability strategy that fosters people as corporate citizens who define their work from a perspective of CSR through a new lens of what it means to integrate sustainability into a culture of change. Jeffrey Immelt began fostering GE's culture with this view when he followed Welch became CEO and Chairman of GE in 2002. Jeffrey, like Michael Duke of Walmart had a long career internal to the company where he was promoted to Chair and CEO. Immelt's personal choice was to lead his company to embed sustainability into its culture.
By 2008, Immelt began describing himself as a banker with "deep pockets, who also invested in people. Immelt differentiates himself from an investment firm because he devised and put into practice a sustainability framework that defined how General Electric could lead the world into the building of a sustainable economy describing practices within the company, plans for how to work with the supply chain. Outside of GE, Immelt announced and carried through on plans to invest in new ventures that are not entirely owned by GE. In some cases these small enterprises are competitors to GE divisions and businesses; creating a social network of coopetition as part of the GE Culture.
Immelt outlined this framework, September 2008 to students at University of Berkley, Hass School of Business. I have since listened to this video personally over 10 times as a source of influence for my own thinking on Sustainable Strategy, Leadership and Change. Immelts presentation to me has served to be one of the most practical guides for how I define, coach and think about leadership for any company. I view this as a manifesto of change for the 21st century.
While Immelt and GE's executive team were outperforming the stock which from 2004-2006 traded at about $35.00 a share; Immelt showed his belief in a company that under Welch grew into a performance driven culture. It is now 2010 and GE's stock value is at a low of $16.22 and considered a good stock pick with a outstanding portfolio of new innovative businesses in wind and bioscience and more. For all appearances, it appears that GE has become a culture of innovation and transformed from a culture of performance. Yet doesn't innovation imply performance?
In someways, Immelt and his teams' performance and leadership approach remind me Procter and Gamble as led by both John Pepper and Al Laffley. Laffley will step down in July and be replace by Bob MacDonald. What all these men share in common are their passion for developing people, investing in them, and supporting foundation activity that impacts the healthy and education of future generations.
What have I learned from Jeffrey Immelt, P&G and others I view as Sustainability Leaders?
1. They think! Each person presents when they speak publically provides a thought leadership and frameworkof learning and practice; they do not impose their will on others. These leaders offer their thought leadership as something for personal translation and relevance.
2. They ask questions! These leaders don't come on stage presenting their way of doing business as "the way." These men speak in plain english with out jargon in a form of authenticity that opens the door of possibility for another person to learn from and adapt for their own personal model of guidance.
3. They value others! They invest in people. Immelt made this clear in his presentation at UC Berkeley Hass. I have watched John Pepper as a long time observer of his work at P&G and Disney do this over and over again. Pepper pays attention to people by observation and reflection. without speaking and invited people into conversation without regard for hierachy. I have watched both Immelt and Pepper recognize value in network rather than hierachy.
4. These leaders invest in education and professional development for the people they work with. When these leaders ask for proposals, they view that proposals imply an investment in time, learning and resource allocation. Learning implies embracing failure and they insure that in any company they work in there is a professional development and education system that supports people to apply their learning on the job.
5. These leaders proactively respond to marketplace change. The video provided here shows how Immelt has responded to the demand of change re: energy, environment and health. At P&G, Pepper was the first leader to acknowledge the need to reward brand managers for retiring products out of date and innovating new products; Lafley took on the integenerational and cultural changes of his consumers working with his team to conduct research on the appeal of products and formulas for age and country. Bob MacDonald is now facing a frugal market that is not as brand loyal to Tide, Gillette or Olay and showing price points matter as much as brand.
6. These leaders have a strong value for sustainability. . I believe that Immelt, Pepper, Lafley and MacDonald not only embrace the company mission but line up the company strategy, organization and practices to take on the challenge of the times. GE and P&G have a history and score card of leaders of specific business units that shaped their jobs and response to the challenge their CEO embraced.
7. Each of these leaders is involved in mentoring the next generation by funding and building programs that invest in youth education, health and job creation.
These CEO's also know how to stand by people they work with, who worked hard to learn from failure. They continually let others lead with their own personal autonomy and don't perceive the job of a CEO is about taking credit for what others do. Recent reports from GE re: Ecoimagination and Healthymagination offer these stories. There are many stories in the business literature about P&G and some of their leaders who had the gumption to act on intuition and gut and create exceptional results.
What does this Manifesto imply to Seventh Generation?
Jeffrey was Seventh Generation's spokesperson. There is no replacement for Jeffrey's voice.I don't know Peter, I don't know if he is a leader or simply an investor who has inherited a lead position with a community now seeking leadership. At the, I wonder if Seventh Generation in its transition will rely on "a leadership voice" or inspire many voices offering different perspectives for a variety of topics e.g. stock value,chemicals and more.
What can Seventh Generation learn from Procter and Gamble and General Electric where it contributes to images of a generation of healthy workers, who work wisely to live well and contributes to what WorkEcology's Contributing Editor, Dave Wann would call the New Normal.
For now, I am looking to Seventh Generation to learn how the board responds to filling its leadership gap; and how the board begins repair of a failed succession plan. To me the real preparation re: succession is not in finding "a replacement leader;" it is how the people who worked for the most recent leader are prepared to respond to change and do their jobs with or without the appointment of a new leader.
I asked myself, "What I would do if I was Peter Graham or actually working at Seventh Generation?" My approach would be similar to the answer to the question John Pepper asked me years ago. When John Pepper asked me what I wanted to do at P&G at a time P&G was preparing for change, my answer was this:
1. I would meet with every employee in any business unit I was assigned where I could have impact to find out how they want to give their best performance;
2. I would synthesize this into a report into a learning report and present the report to everyone influenced by these employees (all stakeholders) or seved by these employees and convene a meeting to launch a learning community with representation from the investors.
In addition, I would place this list of intention on a wall above my desk with guidelines for my own behavior:
1. Make no assumptions about what I want to do.
2. Find out what others want to do and where they have not been heard and provide people a framework to request what they needed to give their best performance?
3. Compare all the requests and see where there are replications and ask people who replicated each other to meet in small groups and unite in a new proposal framework?
4. Map out a base of operation that cannot change that keeps the company stable with the leaders of all operational aspects of the company.
5. Select a person on the transition team as acting CEO, with the understanding that the CEO job description will be written at the end of one year and there will be a recruitment process created at that time to select a CEO based on insuring a CEO who is respected by investors and representation from all stakeholder groups.
6. Ask everyone to map out how they Seventh Generation can define itself as an economy, similar to GE and Walmart or if it can? Guide a cultural shift in view beyond how people's jobs are defined; and imagine how Seventh Generation can create an exemplary performance in the contet of the Earth Charter's Precautionary Prinicple.
7. Run an election for all stakeholder participation to recommend people to participate in a transition leadership team. Bring to this team a specific list of legitimate competencies and skill requirements that are needed now for the company to perform in a stable form?
8. Survey all stakeholders to submit a list of values, ethics and principles that matter to the all stakeholders in how Seventh Generation operates in the world?
9. Finally, create a review and final summary for the transition team to review and approve. Begin to see who within the transition team is demonstrating leadership and taking responsibility and let them author formal job descriptions reflecting this and prepare their own metrics for performance review.
At the end of 1 year have a meeting with the investors to review performance and get their feedback. Take the investor feedback and begin a new stage of work
Then for begin a new stage of work as follows:
1. Select a group of people who do not ordinarily work together to begin to identify views, perspectives that have not previously been discussed in the company that others would like to learn more about.
2. Begin to build out a method for a community to form a continuous learning group that identifies activities of learning important for the future of the company for which the company does not have resources or people in place to evaluate the implications of what is identified as a learning ladder for the company to sustain and operate with stability.
3. Based on these intentions and principles of behavior and practice, begin bi-weekly meetings of everyone on the transition team to continually review and audit the process and improve on the process based on the outcomes harvested and the observations of the transition team and well defined methods of review with representation of all stakeholders.
Why value this approach?
In my experience many companies formed out of an entreprenuerial vision become about the founding heroes or an idea of how to protect the original intent and product line of a company. I believe one of the most challanging transitions to any company today, is to create an activity drawning on input and participation from all stakeholders to examine how a company brings life to the economy it contributes to or creates.
Anyone who takes a look at the story of Walmart, GE and Disney through 2000, will see that that company story is about what the leaders want and do. Today Walmart, GE and Disney that have taken their portfolio of assets, knowledge and talent and shaped those assets into something of value in many different forms for millions of people.
My belief is that this is the most critical leadership framework any company can create for itself and through observation I can now see that if the CEO's or Chair's of each of these companies mention were unable to perform their job, there are many other people who can continue with inspiring and acting on what really matters and is reflected in the purpose each of these companies has integrated into their strategies, decisions, products and services that delivers on a brand of with a reputation for influencing society today to work toward sustainable change and inject life into our global economy for people, planet and environment.
My own work now is to test this manifesto within communities of people I engage with out of my own passion to empower companies to create a societal scale means of healthy living for people of all generations.
Seventh Generation like many companies I know is at the threshold of contributing to building a great capacity of health and wellness for generations to come. I hope that the company can muster their capacity to do this at a global scale and make that difference. This is why I have always believed in Seventh Generation as a potential investment and a company deserving of my attention as a sustainability leader and consumer.
Will Seventh Generation, grow, become public or stay private, sustain the same culture, use a $30M investment? I have lots of questions to watch for answers. At the same time, based on my Lavinia Homegrown Manifesto, what can I predict? I can't predict anything at this time.
My approach to learning is to simply join a conversation if the door is open for that or to simply observe. From a distance, my instincts tell me not to predict or place bets and to identify the people who roll up their sleeves like I do to do the hard work of change and to see how they work as a community to build the company future.
Key to this approach is a recognition that Seventh Generation is a living social network of economy where it is up to the leaders to sustain this economy for eco-growth and safe chemical practices.
It was a challenge this weekend to try to make sense of what Jeffrey Hollender's departure from Seventh Generation represents. It inspired in me some thinking that was completely unexpected and actually resulted in my completing a draft chapter for my book, Tales of Meaningful Use.
Background for this Post
By the end of the weekend, Bernie Kelly, my partner in Melbourne AU, read the draft and we took some time on Skype to look at the implications of what I wrote in this book chapter to the current stage of our progress to convene the WeCareHealth Community in Australia. As a result of my conversation with Bernie, we decided that the draft chapter as written now is something we wanted to have reviewed by the people who are forming into our global alliance advisory group and our launching partners for our project in Australia.
I shared this draft chapter with numerous people I turn to for advice before the end of the weekend. It became clear that this draft chapter was a valuable piece of work that could leverage a dialogue of relevance for Seventh Generation that I want to give much greater thought to. Bernie Kelly and I have decided to do just that and mapped out a process for the chapter review that we will be acting on beginning next week to incubate our next stage of work and action research with people we trust.
By reflecting on these words, I found myself writing this post.
This important question helped me see how the draft book chapter I wrote shed light on Jeffrey Hollender's departure.
1. Can Anyone Replace Jeffrey Hollender?
After I completed my "business analysis" of the implications of the Board's resolve to let go of Jeffrey Hollender, I thought back to two years ago when a very important person in my life, Rabbi Alan Lew, went for a jog at a rabbinical retreat where he was teaching in Baltimore and fell to the ground dead. His heart had finally given out. Alan was a very important person in my life, like Jeffrey Hollender is to many people I know in CSR. I happened to be in San Francisco the day Alan died, where I had lived for 10 years. So I joined his congregation and very sizeable personal network of people for a week to celebrate Alan's life.
A few years before Alan passed away, he had decided, like Jeffrey, to start a transition in his congregation and prepare them for a new congregational leader. Alan's talent and capacity as a human being related to spirituality, social justice and hospice had woven into his life a demand on his time from an international audience that was hard to tend to while tending to the needs of his local congregation in San Francisco where he lived.
The first rabbi hired to replace Alan failed and was fired. A search for a second rabbi took considerable time and I had occasion to talk to to two of the candidates that did not end up with an offer. In the Jewish Community it has been a repeated pattern that when a "beloved rabbi" transitions into retirement or moves on to a respected global role, the rabbi that is hired to replace the "beloved" rabbi lasts less than a year.
I actually know a "beloved rabbi" that was hired away from a congregation in the Southeast US and brought to replace another "beloved rabbi" in Southern California. So after serving one congregation flawlessly for 25 years, this rabbi was rejected by a new congregation in one year.
As I thought of this and Jeffrey Hollender, I was left with the question, can anyone really replace Jeffrey Hollender at Seventh Generation?
2. Was Peter Graham behaving like John Sculley at Apple in 1985?
By Tuesday afternoon, I was completely confused by @janmorgan's remark on Twitter: "Jeffrey Hollender gets the boot." The previous week, Seventh Generation had released its annual CSR report. In that report was a letter from Jeffrey and the CEO that had been selected to replace Jeffrey who had also recently left his post at Seventh Generation. What the heck was Jan Morgan talking about?
As the news of Jeffrey's departure leaked into digital ink on the Web, I found a blog post from @marcgunther on the “sad and shocking news”. This was the first report I could find about the incident that was grounded in some fact and contained a message from the Chairman of the Board, Peter Graham, who described Jeffrey's departure and the current goals of the company. Peter Graham is a friend of Hollender's dating back to childhood. Hollender's wife is also a significant shareholder and board member. One could only imagine the kind of tension this implies.
As I read the detail offered by Marc, this situation reminded me of the episode of change at Apple when John Sculley, Apple's CEO recruited from Pepsi, fired the founder, Steve Jobs. Recently, Sculley apologized to Jobs. It is now 20 years past this episode. It made me wonder: As years pass, what will shape from this episode in the story of Seventh Generation?
I have been a follower of the Apple story back to its founding. I became an even more serious follower when Jeffrey Pfeffer, faculty at Stanford Business School, summarized his analysis of the cost to Apple of hiring Sculley as CEO and Sculley then firing Steve Jobs. Pfeffer’s book, The Human Equation, provided a remarkable analysis of the cost and impact of this change within cycles of ups and downs at Apple.
There had been rumors of a growing tension between Chuck Maniscalco and Jeffrey. Like Sculley, Maniscalco has a Pepsico background as a President of a $10 billion division of Pepsico. This made me wonder if Maniscalco was acting as Sculley did, driving a company with a story and history of leadership and product excellence into the ring of operation dominated by brand and advertising operations?
I did a bit of a check-in and thought about other CEOs pushed out of service, e.g. HP's Marc Hurd, Carly Fiorina and Disney's Michael Eisner, and the rocky times those transitions created for these companies. Then I thought about a CEO who was not managed by his board and stakeholders, who led a very healthy company into decline and near death, Ken Olsen. Ken was founder and CEO of Digital Equipment Corporation.
3. What do these CEO departures have in common?
By week's end, Elaine Cohen’s post in support of Jeffrey offered an emotionally mature view from the position that as an outsider looking in, we may never know the real story. Her post also offered a very human side from the heart that spoke about the Jeffrey's contribution to the world of CSR. Elaine, with a posture of dignified emotional intelligence, expressed her concerns for the implications of this abrupt departure. She summarized her view and what this meant to CSR and Seventh Generation, its future, its performance and its moral, ethical and stand on transparency.
After reading Elaine's post, I ran into a couple I am friendly with at Whole Foods Market on Saturday morning. The two were taking a morning to relax with no plans. They were both exhausted. The previous day, my woman friend had lived through a pink slip session at Genzyme of 100 layoffs. Her life-partner told me they were were both vegging and he was going to cook and pamper her the entire weekend.
My woman friend currently works in a company that is going through the stress of change. If you read reports about Genzyme in the paper, the problems with the bad performance of the CEO, Henri Temeer, and the harm to Genzyme's reputation and performance have been spiralling since 2009. The Board went through a period of tension without being aligned, and now in light of the Sanofi bid to purchase Genzyme the board is aligned on one thing and one thing alone: The estimated share value of $89.00 they want from the sale of the company.
By the time I got home, I thought: Seventh Generation is not for sale like Genzyme, it is not being acquired, it is positioned for growth, its products continue to be relevant more than before. But the Founding CEO, the Board members and a short-term CEO, now candidate for the next generation of leadership, are all at odds and brought Seventh Generation into a transition grounded in a form of conflict—and that can result in harm.
4. What about the people?
Whatever I think of Jeffrey Hollender, Peter Graham or anyone in their networks of outreach, at this time, I am left with the same question Elaine and Aman asked at the end of the BSR conference: What about the people?
As a person more mature in years and age with a history of experience in the generation of CSR and Sustainability as a global practice, I have lots of opinions, stories and more. Some of them are now in my new book chapter.
In writing my book chapter, I concluded, as I often do with any project I work on: How has the leader I am writing about altered the lives of the people this person worked with, and what does his absence imply to these people?
My first answer is this. My hope and prayer for Seventh Generation is that the many competent people who served with Jeffrey to build Seventh Generation as a company of "sustainable excellence" do not have to suffer from a rocky transition that harms their capacity and ability to continue to work wisely to sustain personally, for their families and communities of residence.
In my own career experience that drew me to help contribute to the formation of sustainability and CSR as a practice, I simply have seen too much harm to the hard-working people. I hope 10 years from now, I won't be writing a case study similar to what Jeffrey Pfeffer wrote about Apple in his book The Human Equation.
Just as I am a follower of the Story of Seventh Generation, I have been a follower of the Apple story back to its founding. I became an even more serious follower when Jeffrey Pfeffer, faculty at Stanford Business School, summarized his analysis of the cost to Apple of hiring Sculley as CEO and Sculley then firing Steve Jobs. Pfeffer’s book, The Human Equation provided a remarkable analysis of the cost and impact of this change within cycles of ups and downs at Apple.
In my experience it is simply difficult for the "good people," who represent all the stakeholder groups that surround a company, to maintain and leverage from the good work they do in an environment of conflict where there has been an abrupt leadership change as a result of conflict within the board or with potential investors carving out a new stage of business for a company.
5. Serving and sustaining the future.
While I don't always agree with Jeffrey and his approaches within his closest network of colleagues, Jeffrey and I are aligned on the one thing that brought me to CSR in 1993 and led me to form WorkEcology Thought Leadership.
Like Jeffrey, I became committed to creating organization, business and economic forums that would serve seven generations forward. I wanted this personally to move beyond the harm my daughter and I experienced with millions of others from the abrupt changes imposed on us in Massachusetts during Digital Equipments's late 80's decline, followed by a very harmful recession cycle in Silicon Valley in the early 1990's. This harm imposed on millions in both California and Massachusetts became the dress rehearsal for the global chaos of 2008 and the worst two economic years in the United States, worse than the Great Depression.
The reign of a founder is often challenged when it is time to steer a course that is new and different. Only the passage of time will help the CSR world understand what the change in leadership at Seventh Generation implies, and if Peter Graham will be apologizing to Jeffrey Hollender 20 years from now.
Perhaps both men will find a new form of friendship, or both come to recognize they are both setting out to engage a new form of learning that is not based on Seventh Generation's success of the past. Any company, no matter how innovative, has to face change. This rings true for Seventh Generation and all the people associated with the company. A strategic framework will have to be shaped for all people working with Seventh Generation to allow them to work wisely, live well and sustain.
As a Massachusetts resident, I have been following the story of Genzyme back to Sept. 2001 drawing on my understanding of the ecosytem that surrounds a corporate balance sheet and the intersection of a business game with government, people and non government organizations.
While I have not worked at Genzyme, I have developed an opinion that Genzyme operates a culture lost in its past success based on a founders passion and has not adapted itself in an ecosystem that can sustain itself and influence a health ecology around the globe. Genzyme is operating in the tradition of any company responding to "Wall Street" ups and downs and has shaped its agenda to sustain.
This is no surprise. Most US based companies that mustered fast growth profits based on a tradition of investment that limits its focus on ROI for shareholders rather than a triple bottom line. Most of the companies and economic decision makers perpetuate a corporate culture based on historical success profitable until a harmful event occurs. The response to the harmful event become the roadmap for the future.
Genzyme has experienced this kind of event. June 2009, a virus outbreak in its Allston MA manufacturing plant resulted in steep delays of production of drugs critical to the treatment of people with Gaucher or Fabry Disease. The initial response shut down this plants operations. In the months that followed, it became clear that Genzyme had not developed manufacturing production systems that prevent hazardous exposure. The delays to correct the problem indicated Genzyme did not have skill and competence in applying the systems and processes for manufacturing that comply with FDA requirements or are standard practice for a mature and stable company with profit. By April 2010 the FDA levied a $175M fine on Genzyme for the event and poor response.
The incident and the lack of quality response that follows is smaller scale than the impact of the BP Oil skill, but reflects the ongoing types of drama that occur when a profitable company grows in size and does not put systems in place to respond strategically to the requirements of GRI, GRI or ESG metrics.
Most of the ongoing drama's in industry today and years past reflects this viscious cycle. The State of Massachusetts where I lived has not been successful in breaking its this destructive pattern. I saw this pattern form in the mid 80's with the demise of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). In 1986, DEC stood strong with 160,000 employees globally. Then through the dysfunction of its CEO, Ken Olsen, who did not believe personal computing was the new wave, DEC began a cycle of destruction and downsized over the next 5-7 years from 160,000 employees globally to fewer than 35,000. DEC was then acquired by Compaq. Compaq was absorbed by Hewlett Packard and the drama continues with a focus on CEO behavior and ethic that has resulted in HP dismissing its past two CEO's; Carly Fiorina and Marc Hurd.
On the brighter side, I view Genzyme can shift away from this vicious cycle because of the current progress by 7700 companies that comprise the membership of the UN Global Compact.
Genzyme today stands at a door of possibility to sustain its company by adopting the action research practice of the UN Global Compact and can learn from the progress of companies, e.g. Danisco and Sanofi Aventis and the results they have achieved from defining a a steep CSR/Sustainability Agenda.
In this particular case, Sanofi Aventis happens to be a company that offered an unsolicited bid to Genzyme which was refused and is now rumored to be positioned to be conversing with Genzyme Board of Directors, e.g. Carl ICann; who are open to selling their stock to Sanofi Aventis.
Whether on its own or merged with Sanofi Aventis, the solution for Genzyme to sustain is to organize itself to view the Genzyme economy as a participant in an ecosystem that can sustain if it shifts its attitude and perspective to adopt a global agenda for sustainability from which to survive. If Genzyme economic decision makers embark on embedding sustainability as part of a global agenda, they could even influence a struggling state that has had massive economic decline and job loss and shift the US challenging experience of a declining economy.
Sanofi Avenits' virtual report provides an audio presentation Christopher A. Viehbacher, CEO, Sanofi Aventis outlines in less than 2 minutes Sanofi Aventis clear commitment to its steep global mission to improve the health of as many 6.8B people walking the planet. The strategy includes addressing present and future public health agenda, increasing innovation to R&D and opening the company to merger acquisitions and building infrastructure to make the world a better way to live.
How is the EcoSystem that surrounds Genzyme Responding?
If you take the time that I did last night to trace through 2 years of press dating back to June 16, 2009 - you can view some serious glitches in the the system of regulation that surrounds Genzyme based on the American tendency to respond to issues in business by evoking "laws of fear" or fall back on the drama of the shareholder reports authored by investment sites and legal authorities that Genzyme is leading itself into a corner to end up with a "hostile takeover." Yesterdays headline in the Boston Globe announced a 1,000 person layoff. If you read closely in the fine print, there is no immediate threat of a 1,000 person pink slip day of layoff. The threat of layoff was defined as a workforce reduction over the next 15 months of 1,000 employees.
The other feed to Genzymes instability has been it price per share dance since 2008. With the outbreak of viruses that contaminated the Allston plants drug production of Fabrizyme and Cerazyme that Genzyme's stock value fell from its all time high of $80 a share in 2008 to an all time low of $47.16 this Spring. With the press buzz regarding the Sanofi Aventis offer the stock climbed slightly above $70.00 a share by the end of July 2010. This would make any company ripe for a merger acquisition.
In contrast to share value, Genzyme profits in 2009 of $422.3M on $4.5B in sales sustains its position as a Fortune 500 company. So the $175M FDA fine paid from profit seems to have sparked more harmful activity rather than inspire a change to leadership based on ESG investment practices.
Biopharm has been slow to move into a Sustainability framework beyond the metrics of corporate citizenship, green building and volunteerism. Genzyme is proud of its Green Building Corporate Headquarters in Cambridge, MA. But none of this allays my continued concern as a person who residees in the United States in Massachusetts where Genzyme is head quartered. Successful Biopharm of the 90's is no longer the path for success today. Matthew Emmens, CEO made this clear in his presentation last April at Babson College Conference for the Life Sciences.
The ecosystem that surrounds Genzyme is a system of defeat perpetuating the economic downturn in Massachusetts that also swells throughout the United States. Genzyme lives in a system of government, regulation and economic development that is faltering on a federal and state level and does not speak the speak of a company living in a global economy. The FDA views this fine cutting into their profits as a constructive step. This makes me wonder why the FDA could not have simply asked that these funds of profit be directed to resources that correct the problems and steer Genzyme to a sustainable future?
The tradition of response in the United States to catastrophes of this kind, is to fire a CEO, fine a company or make the company directly responsible for the harm it has caused its consumers. Massachusetts now stands to have another decline in its job census the the Massachusetts High Technology Council and our State Leadership has failed to alter.
I could not find through my screen to the "Internet," anything that showed me that Genzyme has formed productive partnerships with government and NGO economic development leaders to breath life into a regional and global ecosystem in the economy of suppliers, patients, distributors through out is global geography.
The most popular news outlets reporting on Genzyme are perpetuating the tradition of reporting that focused on lost profits, hostile take overs, lost jobs, and a stock valuation that is unsteady and emotionally reactive. A human side to this story was brought to life by reporters, who interviewed patient families about their history of loyalty, but I could find no story on how Genzyme was going to assure a response of quality for the production and supply maintenance of the drugs these families have come to rely on. .
Can Genzyme find an Ecosystem to Regroup ?
No where have I found in the reports, a "tale of meaningful use," where Genzyme is adopting the priniciples modeled through strategy and action similar to the approach led by Kathryn Winkler, Chief Sustainability Officer for EMC. Aman Singh, Vault.com CSR and Diversity Editor interviewed me last April on how I perceived Kathryn's CSR role and why this is different response than most companies as to how they approach the green, csr or sustainability practices. In my interview with Aman, I pointed out that
"Kathrin's skill of engaging the EMC workforce into the vision of sustainability is based on a simple premise: 'corporate sustainability is really about business survival: Take the long view, or your business won't survive in a failing global society or environment. Long-term sustainability affects customers, employees, suppliers, neighbors, partners, governmental bodies, and civil society. If we make our business choices based on how we interact with those stakeholders, then we are promoting sustainability."
This view of engagement, which I teach in a program to my leadership clients hold high regard for the social network that surrounds an economy of resource that serves all stakeholders with a global view that we now live in a time of business, work and living that requires values, principles and infrastructure that sustains health, environment, and planet. Without this view, we will continue to perpetuate a more rapid stream of destruction as evidenced by the BP Oil Spill and the increasing number of hazards impacting the health of the environment and people.
What is in the future for Genzyme?
I chose not to approach Genzyme's current situation by writing a tale of woe that predicted more failure or advised a Sanofi Aventis purchase or merger. I cannot directly influence Henri Temeer, CEO of Genzyme and its Board of Directors on what strategy to follow. Ultimately the market will see a future for Genzyme, whether it remains standing on its own as a Fortune 500 global company or merges with another global biopharmaceutical leader. Ultimately Genzyme still has time to chose its own future if they are prepared to act to #sustainnow that exercises precaution.
Cordially,
Lavinia Weissman
Lavinia Weissman is an ecologist and sustainability leadership coach with a practice based in Boston MA. Through her practice, Lavinia draws on people representing all sectors of thought to build ecological approaches to work and the economy to sustain health and the environment. Her imagination and passion is to empower practical and concrete strategies of action that exercise precaution.
About Lavinia's Approach to her Work.
Lavinia's practice draws on knowledge of ESG, CSR and Sustainability pracitces and the system of network that surround this subject matter expertise based. She is a capacity builder who draws on social network analysis and to develop deliberately designed methods of educationthat lead cultures of change through the convening of people to learn to do and act sustainably.
Lavinia is available to guide the imagination and development of thinking from a practical view for anyone who choses to navigate the chaos at the present time and find a personal path that is more productive to assuring the eco system is nourished and lives so employees, patients, shareholders and economic regions can survive.
Four Mile Canyon Fire on the outskirts of Boulder Co on this morning of the 9th anniversary of 9/11, is now 56% contained. The ecology of this 6427 acres is now destroyed for years to come. Over 170 households have lost their homes. A place of home is sacred and essential form of stability from which people can refuel and nurture their mind, body and spirit. This disaster is gripping its victims similar at the edge of the envelope that swept New York Citizens with the terrorism attack on the World Trade center.
The cause of the 4 Mile Canyon fire remains unknown. It is unlikely it will be equated to an act of terrorism and certainly is not in the realm of impact of a Tsunami, Katrina or the BP Oil Spill. It is a symbol that opened the eyes of many others to the impact of an explosion and fire that followed in San Bruno, California. This incident destroyed 38 homes, injured 50+ people and took 4 lives. This morning's news carried another report from Manhattan of a fire on East 39th at 3rd was responded to by 200 fireman of which 12 were injured along with 2 EMT's.
Groups of people convened on Facebook to report, form conversations for the victims, announce community response activity and to pray for the residents of the town of Gold Hill, which experienced the most harm. This response is by far visible by nature of virtual reality where a group of people bonded by friendship, spiritual practice who have historically combined their voices on FaceBook out of common interests are articulating the real cost of harm like this. This harm is life altering, traumatic and no matter the history of the person or emotional intelligence; it strips anyone of their health, spirit and faith. It leaves the world a very clear message, "How do you respond to stripping experiences like this that good people did not ask for?" What is the format of the Earth Charter Principle in this instance to the idea of 'exericsing precaution."
The outpouring of response from over 90 fire brigades, mental health counselors, clergy is more person to person and integrates a form of comfort that no government agency, rescue instution or political figure of prestige can offer anyone. It is the hidden story that may not have been reported by mainstream press and bloggers who responded to Katrina and 9/11. This hidden story recognizes a value for sustainability and a respect for the extensive loss that is leaving so many speechless. This response is caring and far different than the political responses in years past to the invisible turmoil so many know from the American pattern of economy, real estate foreclosure, corporate downsizing or the criminal impact on ordinary human beings and workers afflicted and victimized with losses of home and retirmenet by Enron, Worldcomm, Digital Equipment Corporation or the rapid belt tightening of the technology and telecommunications sector during economic downturn or the health care institutional response of reducing insurance coverage for catastrophic illnesses or the response of employers to chronically ill workers who can't sustain a 24/7 schedule.
The picture of the falling towers 9 years ago at Ground Zero
portrays a different ecology than the film of the 4 Canyon Fire
Social media in 2010 is bringing a different look, feel and touch to disasters and the impact of the experience on people living local to the disaster. We no longer rely on mainstream media to see the real impact.
Since 9/11, the United States taxpayer dollars of $3 Trillion plus have gone to fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our country now has to heal the harm of our response in 2001 that has resulted in a declining infrastructure, qualty of health care delivery and education. This has resulted in double digit recession and a government focus of attacking harm by authoring laws of fear and corporate response to thsoe laws of lobbying and freezing the use of assets and cash reserves so the layoffs continue. The US real estate market continues to decline and more people are jobless or income less if self-employed and have lost their power to influence change through a consumer market and a consumption pattern of a growth economy that is no longer realistic to sustain.
Perhaps the residents, community members, and good people of Colorado will embark on a journey that is about restoring human spirit and an ecology that can only repair and thrive with a new approach to economic development, health and treatment of trauma that strips any human being of their health and strenght to survive the dying 24/7 pattern of work and consumption that has put Americans at risk to sustain. I am seeing very strong hints of this already on FaceBook through the people in my social web.
There is a lot of work needed to structure a response of repair that grows beyond an emergency response to hardship. It is not business as usual for NGO's, government or commercial ventures. To bring life back to an ecological balance, we have to begin to act like our monetary systems and economic formulas that respect the need for health and well being.
This all implies the necessity for a new human consciousness that embodies - mind, body, spirit and economy. To achieve this kind of consciousness is more than an act of individuals living on spiritual values of forgiveness, letting go, compassion and loving kindness. This consciousness will integrate an ecological platform as a center of practice that draws on resources that are spiritual, scientific and adopt use of technology in support of the new practice. Expertise will not be a dominating factor. Expertise will be a backdrop for building responsive innovation through learning new forms of strategic response that measures value.
Communities of people will build a foundation of practices that will build a sustainable economy. ecological. These communities will learn to assure the resources, knowledge and education access for people who want to live with an advantage to sustain themselves to work wisely to live well; rather than work agressively to accumulate for a rainy day. Rainy days are not the issue any longer. We have to investigate new values and principles that help hard working and good people to recover from disasters they did not cause.
The September 11th attack opened the door to this learning. But the lessons learned have not been sufficient to date. We have not safeguarded our citizens from less destruction by events. The BP oil spill impact on the Gulf Coast and 4 Mile Canyon Fire impact on Colorado make this the case.
The learning that followed 9/11 and Katrian has been choppy at best. The intitial response to terrorism and economic upheaval has added more harm and created more people in strife over this past decade.
September 11, 2010 should be a benchmark in time to #sustainnow. Communities need to be able to call on resources from government, non profits and commercial interests to build sustainable infrastructure that equates protecting human health, the environment and economy with individual or commercial methods of earning. The people of 4 Mile Canyon have opened our eyes to that possibility out the voices of conscious citizens e.g. Joan Borysenko and many others.
Please take a moment to reflect, breathe and find strength to empower the same in your community after you read this editorial.
@elainecohen has been using her twitter and blog posts to mix up a lot of ideas that added great value to the idea of chemistry (#safechem) as a metaphor for a sustainable leadership practice of "sensemaking." Elaine directs us to think of the chemical practice of "mixing up of ingredients" as a metaphor from which companies can build learning and sustainable outcomes ( OR NOT).
I pointed out something similar this past week, as a guest blogger at IN GOOD COMPANY.In this post I provided my thesis for how CSR and Sustainability has to move from its frontier form of startup into a practice that mixes up all the ingredients that sustsainability implies.
By the time I completed and published this post, Elaine had me on my toes again without permitting me any time to take a breath!
Interacting in the CSR Social Media world has most certainly become an opportunity to gain more precision with life balance. While Elaine finds stress relief with Chunky Monkey; I have taken to the treadmill and nautilus for my own stress relief. Right now I can't imagine doing anything else but breathing and sweating my way through the chaos of opportunity that has shaped in CSR and Sustainability.
On a daily basis, I am pushed to distinguish my writing time to the art of research and story telling versus the art of summary and analysis. Your combined intelligence productively distracts me!
In the last few weeks, Elaine's blog posts and twittering have generated rapid forms forms of response and analysis that set me back from doing the thorough reearch my work requires to teach and capture the story of change in sustainability. Hence, I am getting far more selective in what I read and harvested these links most recently that are relevant to my own work.
This is keeping me on my toes to perform a more in-depth of analysis on how companies are embedding education in their culture to lead change responsive to a need for sustainability.
Within Elaine's Dow Chemical analysis, she asserts an important meta-perspective using the practice of chemistry as a metaphor for sustainable business practice, when she asserted:
"This rigid structure, together with the impersonal nature of the report (only one photo of the Chairman and none of employees or any other stakeholders) made me think of comparing the Dow report to a chemistry experiment - sterile laboratory conditions, detailed lab notes, exact measures of all materials, a process conducted in perfect sequence and an output which delivers a predictable result. A CSR Report is, after all, not just a report. It is a story. A story of how PEOPLE are doing sustainable business. Even chemistry labs need people."
This metaphor implies and supports how critical PEOPLE and HUMAN CAPITAL are to '"mixing the ingredients" of CSR into sustainable business practice.
As a consultant to @jeffreyhogue, Elaine provided the idea and driver for the the Danisco synthesis of its report with the title she gave to Danisco for their 2010 report, "Ingredients for Sustainability."
This morning, Elaine twittered the link to Sanofi Aventis 2009 CSR report
After quick review of these links, I formed these questions:
1. What is the obligation of a company in a merger acquisition to to repair any harm created by the previous CEO and Directors?
For example, what lessons and change did Dow Chemical lead with the acquisition of Union Carbide and its repair of the Bhopal Chemical Crisis?
2. What can other companies can learn from Danisco's culture as to how they Danisco embeds a sustainability agenda into its operations at 80 sites around the world? What does this imply?
Is Danisco seeking to follow Walmart and General Electrics' example of reorganizing as an ecological economy by design rather than focusing on strategy as an exercise of organization and business planning?
3. Will Sanofi Aventis rapid position and action steps their leadership has taken to acquire Genzyme for $18.5 Billion embed sustainability into its agenda?
Will the focus for the merger be based on how much Genzyme's CEO, Henri Temeer can personally gain ($23M projected personal gain). Or will Sanofi Aventis bridge its sustainable agenda with Genzyme influenced by Sanofi Aventis' membership in the UNGlobal Compact?
Deloitte is inside Genzyme now as we speak conducting an analysis or audit. Given their role in developing the UN Global Compact Framework for Sustainability will they use this as away to value the company and contribute to the design of the merger/acquisition?
If Sanofi Aventis acquires Genzyme, will it introduce an initiative that leads current Genzyme employess into a culture of change that engages Genzyme's social network to experience sustainable improvements through the supply chain
What is at risk here?
Will competent employees be put at risk by downsizing and layoff for what or will Sanofi Aventis value the richness of human capital and address the barriers within the culture that have prevented competent people from performing for the benefit of all Genzyme stakeholders?
How will Genzyme improve on the delivery of current and new treatments to patient populations suffering with illnesses related to diseases, e.g. renal failure, leukemia gaucher disease?
The implications of questions like these are critical to embedding education into a culture of change initiative. This type of perspective requires looking and engaging outside the traditional boundaries of organization.
What are the core group economic decision making patterns within all these companies and what makes their CSR performance distinct and valuable or not?
A Personal Thank You to Elaine
Elaine, thank you so much for inspiring my week with your fast pace and intelligent analysis; While keeping me on my toes to shape my message in a productive and cohesive form, please forgive me if I occassionally seek out quiet from your very on demand world of media, please forgive me for not reading every valuable word of what you write. It seems after a year of posting on AboutWorkEcology,
it has become time to focus on my book, the indepth analysis I am doing to
to market and conduct workshop program (for individuals, communities of practice and organizations) to inspire new formations fo social networking that embed sustainability into Stakeholder Engagement to construct education formats of learning that impact and measure economic metrics for sustainability;
defining a new forum that is responsive for #safechem practices;
getting focused on taking my book proposal for Tale of Meaningful Use; Giving Economic Backbone to Sustainability the attention it requires to complete the book sooner rather than later.
And for now, simply adding a note of Congratulations to @Jeffrey Hogue on his marriage. Jeff, I saw you could not keep away from twitter, before your 9/6 projected return to work. Jeff, I hope I can connect with you constructively sometime post 9/12 so we can review my questions on the impact of Danisco's sustainability agenda from an economic point of view beyond organization practice.
Through Joan Borysenko, I learned about Peggy La Cerra's work on neural networks and the impact of neural networks on positive consciousness. As a result, I started digging more into Peggy's work on consciousness. After reading her most recent editorial in Spirtuality and Health, it did not take me long to remember a book that I read a few years back by Ervin's Laszlo on the Akashic Field that describes where spirituality meets science. By late Sunday night, I was rereading everything I enjoy and value about Multiple Intelligence and the work of Howard Gardner that have sparked new horizons in the disciplines of leadership, education and health.
Joan
Ervin
Howard
Peggy
All this synthezing spurred my imagination and creative process to begin to think through a new approach for developing a new scheme of thought leadership material my forthcoming book, The Tale of Meaningful Use. I have refocused to examine how to tell the story of where the intersection of science meets spirituality and healing. This is challenging subject matter to conceive and frame, and to embed in a culture of positive intention and healing.
Right now it seems very timely to convene people from science, investments and health to create a neural network of condition that inspires a change in scientific practice that builds sustainable practices for health, environment and economy.
The inspiration for this new line was a result of some wandering around I did this week attending events and investigating some stories and work of other people.
1. First, I attended a meeting of the Epilepsy Advocates hosted and funded by UCB Pharma. UCB has funded a unique program that I saw need for in the mid-90's after advocating for a family with a son, who had tonic seizure disorder. There was no easy way to synthesize the knowledge about seizures at this time, even with my exceptional skill of research and ability to contact and interview the intelligence that surrounded epilepsy at that time. The activity I sustained for Epilepsy, I found had relevance for numerous other communities of people suffering with or learning to construct a quality of life after a chronic or life threatening diagnosis.
My inquiring mind, assessed and synthesized what I knew about health, scientific research, medication, clinical trials and alternative medicine: how anyone who was chronically ill could claim a quality of life in the United States that assured them the capacity to function in the best way possible even when there was no cure.
There is an increase of people and families afflicted with this challenging diagnosis. There are now 68K elderly and a total of 200K people diagnosed annually with some form of seizure disorder. Seizure disorder usually accompanies another form of chronic or life threatening illness and results in a challenging pathway the patient and caregivers similar to what was depicted in the movie Lorenzo's Oil relative to Aleuko Dystrophy (ALD). Lorenzo's Oil is part of the AboutWorkEcology Film Roster.
While neither UCB or the Epilepsy Foundation are directly addressing issues of the cost of medications and access to the quality brand medication that works for all patients, this program was an exquisite representation of what kind of progress can be achieved through education that is patient centric.
2. In talking with Peggy LaCerra @ Joan's FB page in the company of some other good people, I was reminded how limiting I often see the new age movement in the US for all its glory. The focus seems to be so deeply on empowering an individual to act and claim a power of consciousness to take control over his/her life without regard for the complexity of circumstance that surrounds this person, e.g. economy, health and environment.
This raised a red flag for me in thinking about the people and communities harmed by the BP Oil Spill.
I see the region and people afflicted by the harm of this spill as individuals, families and communities of people faced with responding and learning through a crisis of change which most individuals cannot survive on their own. A case in point simply is the impact we know already on human health re: Benzene and how it can implode a rise in lymphoma and leukemia.
Bottom line, people have been inflicted and exposed to a form of harm that requires a response that is far greater than any one individual can muster.
This left me with 2 questions
a. How do we construct a health system to surround these people in the context of a new format of consciousness that assures everyone the resources they need to live and sustain?
b. How do we move beyond the boundaries of the economic system and mess that surrounds the US Federal Government and BP --- which empowers the world of blame and devastation? instead of empowering the opportunity for growth in our consciousness to work with others to create a neural network of conversation that gives rise to a quality transformation based on consciousness and quality science?
3. Everyone needs some good entertainment and work in front of them when the influx of media and news is depressing. In fact, Paul Krugman's New York Times' editorial on Where did the Economists Go Wrong? inspired me, opposite what one would think in reading about how Paul views that the global recession has become a depression and why that is so.
The basis for Paul's editorial gives me a foundation from which to frame and present my own work as a positive opportunity and response. Paul believes that those who have money to spend have stopped spending it and therefore the response to the downturn in inhibiting innovation and creativity for much needed change. Paul also asserted that one significant symptom of the problem is that our system of government globally as reflected in conversations that surround the G-20, are out of date and not responsive to the change that is needed on a societal and global scale.
By the week's end, there was more positive inspiration that came my way and provided more fuel for my thought leadership described as WorkEcology and the fuel for my blog posts, AboutWorkEcology.
The real grappling for me at this time, comes with trying to gain an understanding of what conditions can give rise to a more rapid method of meaningful discovery of science that impacts the growing array of diseases that have resulted in 1 our of every 2 American's living with a chronic or life threatening illness and the recent news that 41% of Americans have cancer.
Is it solely about praying for miracles or can we stand behind people like the Crowley Family,
who organized themselves to care for two kids in need of treatment for Pompe Disease, where there was no scientific evidence that a treatment was possible. Dad John Crowley out of the inspiration he saw in his daughters will to live after a week of 3 near death experiences went out and raised the $100M required to assure the research that resulted in the clinical trial that saved her and her brother's life. While Crowly a BioTech Executive supported himself in the discovery process, he did not stop short of resigning to assure the ethic required (no conflict of interest) so his kids could be eligible for a sibling clinical trial.
You have to wonder why in this culture where there is money to fund activities like this, emotions and anger have to be part of the path of consciousness on the path to discovery which is a less than satisfying positive experience.
Danisco is a top 10 global leader in biotechnology. Danisco has a workforce of 6800 people who have formed a stakeholder engagement based on a a possibilistic risk assessment and future scenario. Danisco has chosen the top 4 most challenging areas of sustainability relative to its company and network of outreach business to business that include:
1. Food - reduce excessive waste, inefficiencies in production and challenges presented by a degrading environment:
2. Health - identify and act on the implications of an aging population of people who are obese and malnourished;
3. Energy - move from use of oil based energy to renewables;
4. Chemicals - find biobased alternatives with which to replace petrol based chemicals:
Danisco's claim and key driver to taking such a complex agenda few leaders would be willing to tackle. Of its 6800 person workforce, 80% of Danisco employees are inspired by an agenda of sustainability and view this kind of agenda an opportunity to use innovation as a key driver of influence to draw on imagination and creativity to create a "new reality."
While many people and companies use the excuse that sustainability is to complex, to costly and too difficult to innovate, within the Danisco report is a story and organization of achievements and metrics that assure innovation, progress and change.
Last Thursday when I received a link to this report, I was captured by its layout, presentation, journalism quality and much more. I replied to Jeffrey's twitter, "@JeffreyHogue, Extracting from how you map out the ingredient of your report.
I learned all of this from my initial skim of the report. By Sunday night, I learned that Danisco has "embedded a format of education," into its culture. The report left me with an impression that where While the report scored an A+ from GRI and achieved Deloitte stamp of approval, I found this report distinct from all other reports I have read in story, format, graphics and journalism.
This report conveyed to me that Danisco leaders have brought to life a company culture of change based on the key driver of innovation. This innovation practice had embedded a new format of education that I so frequently write about as a possibility. Danisco has made this culture real.
I am now organizing questions and a more detailed review of the report to deepen my understanding of this report. I want to learn how the authors, contributors and team that worked on this report brought to life so effectively through graphics, technology and journalism a description of a company at work that has actualizes sustainability through stakeholder engagement.
I want to capture a story fundamental to Danisco's mission, purpose and vision that conveys a story of why challenging opportunity is a qualification for the next wave of Sustainable Investing and a forum in which some of the most challenging issues relative to health, chemicals, foods and supply chains can be addressed for the common good.
Whether Danisco can or chooses to cooperate with me, I most appreciate this report for the possibility it represents for my documenting proof of concept regarding a thought leadership I have been midwifing for many years. Thanks you Danisco.
Today, I sought some quiet to begin to imagine the world without BP. In my life-time and through my work, I have had opportunity to think in this way. The last time was when I began to imagine life without Digital Equipment Corporation.
Since the BP Oil Spill occurred, I have been reading and listening to news reports portraying the views of reporters, leaders and analysts that I respect. One such leader and analyst is Simon Thomas, founder of Trucost.com. Simon has turned his personal mission to build sustainable investment analytics and metrics by building a highly skilled and innovative network of people he has by founding Trucost.com. Simon's blog post this week provided context and relevance to what I have been synthesizing in my own mind since the beginning of the BP Oil spill.
"Since I founded over a decade ago I have often feared that it would take an environmental disaster for capital markets and society in general to start taking the environmental impacts of companies seriously.
In the same way that the Enron and Parmalat crises catapulted corporate governance into the mainstream investment agenda, so the BP oil spill is likely to change investment behaviour forever.
The Deepwater Horizon crisis is of course the result of a terrible accident and terrible accidents are impossible to predict reliably. Research providers struggle as much as anyone else in predicting such events; they are not clairvoyants.
Clearly the extent of the environmental impacts that are associated with the oil industry are well known, despite the concerted attempts of oil company public relations executives to paint an entirely more benign."
Before Thomas's post, members of the #griconference live reporting group sent a link to Marc Gunther's report sharing Gunther's view that the next debt crisis will be ecological.
Gunther known for his perspective,
blogged live from Amsterdam:
that the event was generating in his opinion" a lot of words to describe an event that is, at heart, about ... living within our means, understanding that we are interdependent and getting the accounting right."
I began to take note of a swarm that has grown around me over past few weeks in various leaving me an ache inside my gut that is loudly shouting that "we can no longer afford more of the same." This voice has echoed loudly numerous times through my life.
To get to the point of thinking about life after BP, I remembered a number of devastating catastrophe's that I have experienced or witnessed. I was born and currently live in Boston. People from Boston are very stoic. The experience of catastrophe or devastation to the New England economy is not new to most born here. There are very reminders of my numerous experiences with catastrophes with polio epidemics, hurricanes, recessions, fuel shortages and wide spread shut down due to a domino effect of lost industry. New England has a rich history in its experience of economic harm suffered from lost manufacturing, challenges to the fishing industry, lost defense contracts and the Harvard Community's HMO put into state receivership.
I remember in 1986, the explosion of the Space Shuttle, Challenger explosion took the lives of 7 astronauts
Americans had to own that their perfect space program could make mistakes and the magnitude of a mistake could take the lives of people.
Shortly after that experience, I found myself working and living in a community of people employed directly by Digital Equipment Corporation or within DEC's supply chain. Ken Olsen as CEO could not see that the personal computing revolution was going to overtake his obstinate view that DEC mini computers would dominate the market. This resulted in a loss of business that reduced a global workforce from 160,000 workers globally to approximately 35,000 workers who were absorbed into a Compaq acquisition followed by the 1990's HP acquisition of Compaq.
I lived in the Bay Area during the next two recessions and watched more Fortune 2000 companies disappear, e.g. Amdhal. By the end of 1993, I had seen the impact of pervasive downsizing of 800,000 workers in California destroy communities, make families homeless and strip children of any hope for a future.
Around 1994, while living in Cupertino, CA, (home of Apple.com) during one of my numerous episodes of layoff, I participated as a volunteer in a meeting of a community group with the Superintendent of the Cupertino School System). As a member of this group, I was privy to the results of a school based study to diagnose why children in the Cupertino School System were malnourished.
The findings of this study challenged a very "thick denial" in the room by the wealthy people in the room, who were not personally derailed by the recession. These people were shocked to learn their neighbors who were laid off could not feed their children. Most of these children were going through a school day with no food, because their parents had lost their jobs. Parallel to this study in San Jose, CA diagnosed the source of a growing homeless problem in San Jose. The problem was accelerating as a result of economic challenged families; the homeless population no longer could simply be seen described as the drug addicted, alcoholic or depressed PTSD diagnosed Veterans.
This past week, John Sculley, former CEO of Apple 35 years ago, spoke with Daily Beast's Thomas Weber about his regrets and rift with now Apple CEO, Steve Jobs in 1986. Do you think it has occurred to Sculley to examine the harm that he followed by Michael Spindler, CEO of Apple in the early 90's? These layoffs and a phase of decline grew out of the rift with Jobs that Sculley sparked and spiraled into a recession that left children malnourished and causing families to lose their homes.
Through May and into early June, as the BP Oil Spill continued and I did my best to absorb the implications of the message from the Global Reporting Conference 2010 and the overwhelming value of reports from the Ceres 2010 Conference, the week prior to GRI, I found myself at a meeting in Washington DC with a safe chemical community partnership that has been formed to help lobby and advocate for to revise update US Chemical legislation and policy.
Hard working people from around the country attended this meeting. They represented Ngo's, corporations and government agencies, Everyone participated with a sincerity and intent to have impact. The meeting was well designed, informative and presented an opportunity for quality networking.
Along with my experience of research re: REACH and Non-ionizing radiation, I left the meeting knowing intuitively all the quality legislation in the world in any country will not prevent the equivalent of a chemical BP Oil Spill. All the legislation passed cannot protect people from disasters as they occur if business perpetuates a culture of harm, government invests and writes laws of fear that create expensive bureaucracies and non profits continue a focus of raising philanthropic investment for media campaigns and protests that create confusion and do not empower learning to lead change and repair harm.
This week, the volume of my intuitive message increased in decibels. This voice was shouting in my head as loudly as it did during other occassions when
I resigned from Harvard's HMO in the early 80's;
I experienced the DEC frenzy resulting in my layoff late 80's,
The eruption of E-commerce turning into a recession in the late 90's;
I returned from California to Boston in 1999, to witnessed the full cycle of harm from years of financial mismanagement that put Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in receivership.
What is MIssing?
That question has been burning in side of me since I returned to Boston from WDC last week from the meeting related to TSCA and Safe Chemicals.
Nothing is going to escape what I know is the only way to construct an economy of change through lots of people to bring about a new form of complex work that breathes life into the global and local economies to become a living ecosystem of sustainability. Within companies, government entities and non profits that oversee the payrolls of workers , who want to carry out their jobs with the intent to live stable lives there is now absolutely no escape from doing the hard work that it means to assure and build a sustainable economy.
You see it would have taken hard work to synchronize the medical record system at Harvard Pilgrim with the financial system; and more hard work to get the information organized and feeding in synch with the hospitals that billed Harvard Pilgrim insurance. This was know years ago even before my resignation in the early 1980's when I made the decision to leave while I could still be viewed a success. For some reason my voice among many other hard workers was not heard.
Many at Digital Equipment Corporation knew that Ken Olsen's view of mini computing was not responsive to the new frontier of personal computing. The people could not counter act Ken Olsen's stubbornness and the harm that followed.
I recall at one point in grad school seeing a film simulating the engineering conversation about the Challenger where one male engineer's voice expressing concern about something faulty was overlooked and what he said diminished. I recalled a conference call I attended with a major petroleum company (not BP), earlier in this decade with a team was working with an $800K investment in software for an oil and drill knowledge management system. Again those of us who were hard working, questioned how a corporation could invest $800k in a system that was not put into wide use, could not get heard.
Many say they are confused by the term sustainability and don't know what it means. Let me offer you a simple definition I provided to Aman Singh, Vault.com's CSR correspondent, in a review of Kathrin Winkler's role at EMC as Chief Sustainability Officer,
" sustainability is based on a simple premise: 'corporate sustainability is really about business survival: Take the long view, or your business won't survive in a failing global society or environment. Long-term sustainability affects customers, employees, suppliers, neighbors, partners, governmental bodies, and civil society. If we make our business choices based on how we interact with those stakeholders, then we are promoting sustainability."
Let me in this moment return the chemical agenda I have been researching that has grown out of Europe's REACH legislation and the movement of other countries to adopt this regulation or build new legislative platforms e.g. the US revision of TSCA.
Again somewhere in the crowd is a chemist who understands that one of the 80,000+ chemicals in use in a small amount may be showing signs of doing wide spread harm and at present this chemist cannot prove it. This hard working individual has an idea that needs research and support and encouragement but from a financial view and from the perspective of shareholder investment pushing on the perception of this voice who understands it is necessary that a large volume of this chemical is in use.
REACH regulation contains a 1 ton qualifier. It does not apply to a potential chemical in use where the proportion is much smaller than the potential harm. There are now 350+ chemicals that have been identified that are worthy of research and further investigation that are not based on this 1 Ton in use qualifier. The 1 Ton qualifier diminishes the voice of a hard working chemist or health professional, who loves his/her job or has a feeling in his/her gut that a chemical they recognize should be of concern. This is one point of vulnerability of many that investors and economic decision makers or company leaders never gain insight into potential harm.
In following the rapid change over the past few years at General Electric and Walmart, I have been slowly grasping what it means when a major global corporation views itself as an economy rather than a company and a player that influences the natural ebb and ecological flow of an economy. Neither GE or Walmart have perfected their science and they are demonstrating methods of continuous learning that convene the small voices of natural leadership to do the hard work that assures a viable scientific agenda and resources to assure no harm.
This week, Elaine Cohen, found a hidden jewel in Warren Buffet's complex of business. She found one company Shaw Floors wrote a CSR report., I wondered if this could be a door of possibility through which Berkshire Industries might follow Walmart and General Electric and begin to lead itself as a sustainable economy? I am holding similar thoughts for HP to do the same. Last week, I learned that HP's material purchases from its supply chain over 179 countries totals $79B. I bet HP could benefit from sitting at the table with GE and Walmart it may find a formula to invest in the research of numerous chemist within its supply chain to exercise precaution based on the Earth Charter Principle to do no harm.
This week after a sinus infection, I discovered a love for mixing Trader Joes' rasberry and lemon sorbet to lighten that sour feeling in my mouth from learning to be patient as people in reaction from all sectors learn to stop the BP oil gush and sort out a system by which to repair harm and prevent further harm. Hopefully the press and community voices and groups will move into a format of reporting on the emerging resources and activities that are surfacing to repair the trauma, harm and fee of unproductive chaos of reaction.
Over the last few days, my tracking conversations and news through JustMeans.com has given me some clear ideas on the relevance of the WorkEcology Thought Leadership and how I am integrating a new system of thought to add to it related to all my writing on a Culture of Change
Marcia Stepanek and others on JustMeans.com provided editorial news analysis of a quality that I could find no where else.
The quality of analysis and news on Davos and other articles exceeded other social media outlets, I subscribe to. With this analysis and some private analysis sent
to me from a leading financial thought leader in CSR and
BioPharm, I believe I am on track for a new type of thought leadership
that I can teach and write about so the average person in any locale
can understand.
The Sustainability movement (as opposed to the CSR movement) is now
showing significant success in investment analysis through this
economic meltdown. This news report from World Business Council for Sustainable Development by SocialFunds.com shows that 65% of sustainable investment mutual funds outperformed other funds.
So to catch people's attention about these type of investments, I believe we are going to have to see more provide datarom
outside the Fortune 2000 global marketplace and its supply chain, e.g. Cisco. According to Fortune Magazine, Cisco's
revenues in were $557B (March 2000) and recent report is they are at
$132B for a loss of $425B.
I believe it is now even more important to set a data point for mid cap, start ups, non profits to begin to
look at why adoption of a new thought leadership that is linked to the
bottom line and balanced locally and globally is so key. I have just
come upon a string of energy businesses where we can show sophisticated
methods of thought in practice rather than going about business in the
context of a core group pattern local to culture or carved out of
ownership determination for gain.
This makes the course, Foundations of Portfolio Work, a greater value now to other cultures and the non
profit world. The course will guide individuals to form a foundation practice
of learning based upon a landscape view of practice within local communities. Even if your employment source is through a corporation, all workers need to learn to rally their resources through social networks. Mechanical responses through supply chain don't work in the emerging system of ecological economic practices. The Earth
Charter Principle of Exercising Precaution begin with local communities that have learned to operate in with a global perspective.
