Learning Lessons in Lebanon

Photo by Fares Jammal

As with technology, businesses in emerging economies have the opportunity to leapfrog the bolt-on CSR efforts and ad-hoc philanthropy of the developed world and put sustainability at the core of their enterprises straight away.

On an airplane climbing out of Beirut’s milky early morning sunshine, it was hard not to contrast my experiences there with the Core Dinner Debates held two weeks earlier in New York and DC.

Accompanied by my friend and Associate, Dalia Farouki, the Middle Eastern leg of my book tour started with a meeting with the head of CSR at one of Lebanon’s best-known banks and ended, via several other meetings, at the Suliman S. Olayan School of Business in the pristine grounds of the American University of Beirut (AUB).

Purpose: Not Quite in the Lexicon Yet

The first thing to note is that ‘purpose’ is not yet a common term in Beirut’s business lexicon—but there are murmurs. Whereas in the West I spend much of my time fielding questions on the meaning of purpose and the ‘purpose of purpose,’ in Beirut, there was no need to hack through the ‘purpose thicket’ to get to the point. We got to the practicality and benefits of a Single Organizing Idea (SOI) straight away.

Its role as a strategic management tool, a wealth creator, and a catalyst for businesses determined to change for good was immediately grasped. This was refreshing.

CSR in Lebanon: A Different Perspective

The second thing to note is that CSR is only practiced by a handful of Lebanese businesses. My discussions with the bank and others quickly led me to understand that CSR is neither standard practice nor seen as a necessary ‘license to operate’ there. There’s no need for it to be.

Like elsewhere in the world’s emerging economies, while there’s a growing middle class and increasingly vocal millennials who care about the actions of businesses, they remain a relatively small constituency. Add in lackluster government policymaking in this area, and it’s not hard to understand why the CSR that is being practiced is done for other reasons, among them:

• A real sense of responsibility
• The need to take a lead
• A genuine concern for the future

CSR may well help positively position businesses among peers and underscore a progressive reputation (I’m not naive), but I believe it when I’m told that’s not what is driving it in Lebanon on the whole. This is an opportunity.

No Cynicism—Just Action

It’s an opportunity that I was keen to share with the convener of the AUB Core Debate, Dr. Dima Jamali, and the guests that her fantastic team had invited to the event. Dima’s experience and enthusiasm for the subject ensured probing questions and a lively exchange. The whole point of the Core Debates is not to preach but to invite challenges and learn.

What I saw and heard topped up my glass-half-full optimism. Three things have stayed with me:

1. Immediate Engagement

I was struck by the eagerness and immediacy with which people engaged with my explanation of SOI. There was no cynicism, nobody made comparisons to other concepts, or wasted time dwelling on ‘why.’ What they wanted to know, pure and simple, was ‘how.’ How SOI works, and what and where were the examples?

2. Keenness to Act

I was thrilled by some people’s determination to act quickly. One attendee enthused about the need to introduce SOI to economic development agencies with urgency.

“Most businesses don’t have a strategy here at all,” she said. “It’s day-to-day survival. We need to look carefully at what you’re suggesting.”

3. Values Over Investment

I was deeply impressed by the comments of Samer Sfeir, a young social entrepreneur and founder of ShareQ NGO and M Social Catering. Both initiatives aim to integrate socially, physically, and financially challenged people into jobs so they can overcome their challenges, be productive, and live in dignity.

He explained how one of his enterprises had attracted the attention of investors. But there was a catch. His would-be investors liked the business but not the social cause—it was a waste of time in Beirut, they said, and an unnecessary distraction from commercial success.

He turned their money down.

I was humbled when he said:

“Listening to you and this discussion has confirmed I did the right thing and has redoubled my ambition to build a great social enterprise in Beirut and attract impact investors on board of my enterprise.”

Looking Ahead

It’s been a privilege to have my view of the world shaped by many such exchanges. I continue to listen, learn, and grow my understanding of what’s possible. Despite the enormous challenges, I’m convinced SOI is a solution. But perhaps businesses in the developing world are better placed to realise it first?

About the Author

Neil Gaught is a strategic advisor and author of CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business for Good, published by Routledge.

Find CORE here:

• Paperback (UK)
• Paperback (USA)
• Kindle (USA)

To Boldly Go Where We’ve Not Been Before Doesn’t Need to Be a Leap of Faith

Sometimes the future is not hard to predict—it’s totally logical. Widely cited, Star Trek’s Chief of Logic (COL), Spock, nailed it when he said:

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

If we are bold and if we act now to change our organizations and our systems, we will help ensure that future generations do that other thing the pointy-eared one said and “Live long and prosper.” Some people who hold the key to realizing that future seem to be finally getting the message.

The Investment Shift

A survey of fund managers responsible for a whopping $10 trillion (£7.7 trillion) says that oil companies will not remain an attractive investment unless they change. This was the headline that came out of the second report published by the UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association (UKSIF) and its partner Climate Change Collaboration at the end of April.

Contributors to the survey included some of the biggest names in the investment field such as Legal & General, Insight, Schroders, Aviva, and HSBC Global Management. Just under a third of those who took part in the survey do not “see IOC’s (integrated oil companies) as an attractive investment on any time horizon.”

A Shift in Business Thinking

At the launch of my book CORE in the summer of 2017, I stated on film:

“…businesses that are single-mindedly focused on shareholder returns are history.”

I was told by some that it was a bold thing to say, and I even received a Shakespearean quote about the futility of my quest to challenge the status quo from one ex-colleague. But I believed it then, and almost two years later, having engaged with leading businesses, NGOs, activists, and government representatives all around the world, I believe it even more so now.

Mindset Change Is Just the Beginning

There is hope, and while many businesses will indeed choose failure over change, the conversion of some fund managers is an indication of real progress. But right now, it’s only a change of mindset and still restricted to a minority, albeit a seemingly growing one.

Reading the report carefully, what is suggested is that while fund managers are acutely aware of the changing attitudes of investors, consumers, and employees—like the rest of us, they are hearing the increasingly alarming findings of surveys and seeing the resulting activism—they are being frustrated in two ways:

• By the short-term greenwashing tactics of oil companies who are seeking to deny, delay, or disrupt change.
• Through their own lack of knowledge about what change actually looks like for themselves.

According to the report:

• Only 39% of fund managers have a public commitment to achieving the targets laid out in the Paris Agreement.
• 13% have a private commitment.
• 47% have no commitment at all.

Beyond Climate: A Broken System

The fossil fuel sector is not the only one facing challenges, and unfortunately, climate change is not the only negative outcome of the systems we have created, as the Sustainable Development Goals clearly set out.

Leaders need to be bold to bring about the kind of radical changes required to overcome these challenges, but it doesn’t need to be a leap of faith. What is required to translate mindset change into the kind of action stakeholders are demanding is an inspiring but overwhelmingly practical solution that can be implemented, monitored, and measured.

The Single Organizing Idea (SOI)

SOI is a proven, values-led approach to business management that challenges the norms and overturns the business practices we have developed that are killing our planet and the prospects of future generations. Crucially, it unites and equips people with the tools and belief necessary to turn words and feelings of concern into proactive, tangible outcomes.

There is hope, and change is entirely possible. But the systems and rules we will need to live by to ensure that all stakeholders (human and otherwise) live long and prosper now and into the future cannot be the same ones we abide by today.

Upcoming SOI SparkLab Events

If you are serious about championing change in your business and want to learn more about how to identify, define, and align your business from the core with a Single Organizing Idea that goes beyond greenwashing, mere compliance, or brand management-inspired purpose promises, we are running short 90-minute introductions to our SOI SparkLab program at the following events:

• Sustainable Brands Detroit 2019: 3-6 June, COBO Center, Detroit, MI (Event Link)
• Business Fights Poverty Oxford 2019: 11 July, Said Business School, University of Oxford (Event Link)

Neil Gaught is the author of CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business for Good, published by Routledge.

Find CORE here:

• Paperback (UK)
• Paperback (USA)
• Kindle (USA)

Peddling the Purpose Paddle

So, Larry Fink has posted his annual letter, rightly called into question by the ever-alert Economist. Greta Thunberg has again castigated the great and the good at the annual bash in Davos, and Donald, the leading defender of the status quo, is carrying on being, well, Donald.

Welcome to 2020.

Beyond Petroleum – A Missed Opportunity

Exactly two decades ago, BP declared it was going ‘Beyond Petroleum’. Imagine if it really had. Imagine if its rivals and policymakers hadn’t abandoned Lord Browne to the vagaries of the marketplace but instead put competition aside, embraced his vision, stepped up, and supported the leadership being shown with immediate, radical action—emergency style. Today, we would likely be facing a somewhat less challenging era.

On its website, at the time BP declared ‘Beyond Petroleum’ as:

“A powerful way to unite 100,000 people under a single brand with a unified sense of purpose.”

It spectacularly failed. It failed us then, just as any ‘unified sense of purpose’ is going to fail us again. The reasons are plain to see in the thoughts of one employee who shared them in October 2006 with Fortune magazine following the life-ending explosion at BP’s Texas City Refinery, five years after the journey beyond petroleum began.

“Constant turnover only worsened matters, as new bosses would seek to beat the previous manager’s numbers. The values are real, but they haven’t been aligned with our business practices in the field.”

The Profit Card Still Trumps the Purpose One

Big corporations like BP are hostages to growth and wealth creation. There is no getting away from the fact that they are hooked, addict-like, on feeding on numbers. Despite all the evidence, despite all the talk of a new corporate consciousness being awakened by the monumental challenges humanity faces, the profit card continues to trump the purpose one. Money and the pursuit of it were still at the core of BP five years after the Texas catastrophe when Deepwater Horizon added another eleven people to the death toll, and it is still at the core of BP today.

The conclusion I have reached is that it’s not that big businesses can’t have a purpose—they can. The issue is that they are simply not ever going to be fit enough to deliver a purpose. They are simply the wrong kind of beast. Meat-eating wolves don’t become grass-eating sheep, though they can do a pretty good job of dressing up like them—some of the time.

Just as going ‘Beyond Petroleum’ was beyond, and some would say still is beyond, the big oil companies, so going ‘Beyond Purpose’ as being anything other than an aspiration is beyond them too.

Professor Colin Mayer’s Vision

Professor Colin Mayer, whom I interviewed for my book CORE and for whom I have the greatest admiration and respect, recently discussed the Principles of Purposeful Business that he and The British Academy have been busy defining over the past two years in a Business Fights Poverty podcast. Published in November 2019, what lies behind the eight principles is a determination to “reconceive the notion of business over the coming years.”

The ambition of the project is wide-ranging and simultaneously both exciting and sobering. Amongst the recommendations is that purpose, by law, be placed at the core of all corporations. That leaders of corporations be measured and made accountable for performance against a purpose, and that a set of values necessary to deliver purpose be embedded in their corporate culture.

The Reality of Change

I say yes to all these new ideas (they fit very nicely with my Single Organizing Idea – SOI), but here’s the sobering part. I know from first-hand experience just how difficult it is to even introduce, let alone implement, the kind of radical changes being proposed. Resistance, passive or active, is not just embedded at every level of top-down silo cultures but often also permeates the servile, self-serving, short-term-driven agencies (public and private) that surround them.

It will take years and years of the very limited time we are told we have left by scientists to change these businesses. So why bother? Why bother saving them at all when our first and foremost concerns are about achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and making our world a safer, more caring, and sustainable place?

The Purpose Illusion

It’s not new ideas like Professor Mayer’s that scare me. It’s the old ones that do. Purpose is a tarnished old idea that is being promoted by out-of-date, noisy, attention-seeking, and lobbying-reliant big businesses that are themselves no longer fit for purpose.

Businesses possess an array of unique attributes and the potential to make a huge contribution to all our futures. But it’s time to set old big businesses—and the purpose life-raft they are clinging to—adrift, and instead back and fast-track legislation for new businesses that are being founded upon and organized around a single, simple idea that makes things better.

Time for a New Model?

We don’t need to peddle the purpose paddle any longer. What we need is a completely new way of structuring business for the future. A way that ensures business is actively making the world better—not just claiming to.

Neil Gaught is the author of CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business for Good, published by Routledge.

Find CORE here:

• Paperback (UK)
• Audiobook (UK)
• Kindle (UK)
• Paperback (USA)
• Audiobook (USA)
• Kindle (USA)

If Progress Is This Way, Where Is Your Business – In the Vanguard, Main-Guard, or Rearguard?

Earlier this month, Unilever announced that 70% of its turnover growth now comes from an increasing stable of brands that have successfully defined or redefined their purpose and aligned themselves with the core Sustainable Living Plan (USLP). That’s up 10% on the previous year and comes hand-in-hand with what FT commentator Matthew Vincent described as a positive quarterly result. ‘Positive’ may not excite the short-term brigade, but if your core purpose is to be a force for good that benefits all stakeholders (human and non-human), it’s a great result.

Holding up Unilever as the pioneer of a new way to do business not only irks the one-eyed profiters. It also rubs up those on the other side of the fence, the social activists. There are plenty of others in the vanguard, they say. But actually, there aren’t. Very few businesses of any scale have completely redefined their core purpose in the way Unilever has done; most in the vanguard were conceived to do good in the first instance. But it’s a moot point anyway.

A Tipping Point Approaches

Talk to enough people with an interest in the future of humanity and the role of business, like I do, and you will quickly come to the conclusion that a tipping point is fast approaching. At long last, it seems the vanguard is being joined by the forward elements of the main-guard (or mainstream, if you like).

Leading the way are businesses that have concluded that the pioneers are on the right track. Spurred on by clear warnings from financiers about how investment decisions will be reached in the future (see Larry Fink’s annual letter to CEOs), these forward-thinking businesses have determined that doing good is not only good for business but may be the only way of being in business in the future. These businesses also have a clear understanding that doing a bit more CSR or Shared Value work on the side while delivering trendy purpose statements won’t wash.

Beyond the ‘Why’ – Moving to the ‘How’

These businesses have gone beyond the ‘why’ and are getting on with the ‘how’. They are determined to drive change, and they are determined to do it in a way that sticks. That means:

• Collaboration
• Employing practical, proven approaches and tools that engage people
• Putting ‘more meaningful growth’ at the core of their businesses

Those that continue denying, delaying, or attempting to disrupt the march of progress run the risk of being left in the rearguard. So where is your business?

Assess Your Business

Judge for yourself. Here are six quick questions to help you assess your position:

1. Do your business leaders support the idea that business should be a force for good?
2. To what degree are your products and services adapting and changing to meet fast-changing social expectations?
3. Is your business admired by society for what it does?
4. Is there a gap between what your business is saying and what it’s actually doing?
5. Do you think fast-changing customer, employee, and investor expectations are putting your business at risk?
6. Is your business organized around a single, compelling, relevant, and sustainable idea that will help ensure its future success?

Time for Change?

Neil Gaught is the author of CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business for Good, published by Routledge. CORE is available at Amazon and other stores in paperback, audio, and Kindle.

Find CORE here:

• Paperback (UK)
• Audiobook (UK)
• Kindle (UK)
• Paperback (USA)
• Audiobook (USA)
• Kindle (USA)

Heading to Utopia on Purpose

The first part of the latest leg of my CORE book tour took me to Boston, Toronto, and Montreal. Along the way, I encountered long-time campaigners with pipe dreams for a sustainable Shangri-La and business leaders with an increasing curiosity about what lies beyond ‘purpose’.

Sustainatopia: A Dream or a Plan?

My first stop landed me in the middle of Sustainatopia—not a place but an event, this year held in Boston. I was there as a plenary speaker supported by my sometimes tour partner, the Ipsos Sustainable Development Research Centre.

John Rosser, Sustainatopia’s exuberant founder, gave the opening address and explained the inspiration behind the name. Those gathered for two days of panel discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities were “on a shared journey,” he enthused, to help make a blissful dream come true. There were some puzzled looks on the faces of Sustainatopia rookies (including me), but no lack of enthusiasm to get the proceedings underway. For my part, I came away thinking that the pursuit of (sustain)Utopia was more about blind faith and hopeful optimism than a roadmap to success.

The Limitations of ‘Purpose’

Forty-eight hours later, I found myself in an entirely different environment (and indeed, country) as a guest speaker at the Conference Board of Canada’s Business [Un]Usual: Profit from Purpose bi-annual event.

In my keynote to the gathered business leaders, impact investors, sustainability consultants, academics, and government representatives, I noted that the word ‘purpose’ is suddenly very much in vogue. An awful lot of businesses are now expounding the virtues of having a societal purpose or declaring the benefits of doing things ‘on purpose’.

On one level, this might sound like progress. But I have to ask, what does ‘on purpose’ actually mean? And why does it sound suspiciously like ‘on-brand’? You’ve heard of ‘greenwashing’. Get set to hear a lot more about ‘purpose washing’.

For me, the problem is simply that ‘purpose’ is too vague. There’s no substance to it. Taken on its own, a purpose will always remain a vague intention. Not perhaps as wistful as a Utopian pipe dream, but nonetheless light on clarity and pragmatism.

Fear of the Unknown

My final stop was the CORE Dinner Debate hosted in Montreal by Lucie Bourgeois and her fantastic team at Umalia, atop a towering building with spectacular views of the city.

Here, the CEO of one of Canada’s leading banks echoed the sentiments of other senior executives I‘ve spoken to when he said: “We’re willing passengers on the train, but we’re in the dark about exactly where we’re going.” Not knowing where ‘the purpose journey’ might take them in itself inhibits action. It’s one explanation as to why, so often, short-term cosmetic ‘purpose’ makeover tactics have so little follow-through.

My argument is that when purpose is driven by a Single Organizing Idea (SOI), its potential becomes both clearer and more actionable. An SOI aligns economic and social purpose into a practical methodology that can be integrated into the daily operations of a business. In this way, an SOI serves as the critical bridge between having a purpose and actually taking meaningful action toward it.

While writing my book, I had the pleasure of interviewing Charles Handy, the recognized business thought leader and author of The Empty Raincoat (among many other books). I’m happy to say that he endorses my thinking. “Your SOI,” he said, “has so much more potential to make a difference than a simple purpose.”

What You Can Expect

Of course, not knowing where you’re going is a fool’s folly. So, having led several business leaders down the tracks to identifying and defining their organization’s SOI, I’ll conclude by sharing some of the things you can expect from the journey:

• You can expect that with the right challenger and facilitator helping you look at your business, you will fairly quickly uncover what your business stands for (your purpose).
• Having translated your purpose into a clearly defined SOI, you can expect to be able to set goals, objectives, and targets with greater ease across all the functions of your business.
• You can expect to see greater clarity in decision-making and consistency in communication across your organization, leading to more understanding and openness.
• You can expect to see the entrenched positions of skeptics and naysayers be undermined.
• You can expect that the espoused values of leadership will more readily align with the shared values of a wider stakeholder audience.
• You can expect to see new possibilities and opportunities to deliver greater and different types of value to your key audiences.
• You can expect to feel that the changes your SOI will demand will make you feel that your organization is more in step with a fast-changing world.
• At the same time, you can expect to feel uncomfortable and to be challenged about your ambitions and motivations.
• You can expect to be more closely watched, to fall short at times, and to be criticized for it.
• You can expect that success won’t come overnight.
• You can expect to demand that your leaders be leaders and not just managers.
• Over time, you can expect your business to become more relevant and more important to more people.
• But what you can’t ever expect is to reach Utopia; because that’s just a pipe dream.

Looking Ahead

Part two of this leg of the CORE book tour took me to New York and Washington DC. Reflections from these debates coming soon.

Neil Gaught is a strategic advisor and author of CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business for Good, published by Routledge.

Buy the Book on Amazon

Getting Away With It

Once upon a time, an enterprising young businessman bought a large amount of corn and set sail from Alexandria to Rhodes to sell it at a time when corn was particularly expensive in Rhodes due to a shortage brought about by famine. But what if he knew that his wasn’t the only ship on its way to Rhodes, and that just a day behind his ship was a whole fleet of ships with more corn than the people of Rhodes would ever need?

Put your feet in the shoes, or perhaps sandals, of this young businessman. What might you do? Sell the corn at a high price, as the people of Rhodes are desperate? Sell it at a low price, as there’s more corn coming? Or perhaps give it away?

The question is taken from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s latest book Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life.

Here’s another philosophical gem from Professor Taleb:

“An honest person will never commit criminal acts, but a criminal will readily engage in legal acts.”

It’s a statement that captures the very essence of what is wrong with the way some carry out their business.

Both examples are, of course, about ethics, but what they illustrate to me specifically is the idea of ‘getting away with it’.

Corporate Contradictions

Let’s look at a couple of examples of this in action.

Shell’s website is pretty adamant about its green credentials:

Our core values of honesty, integrity and respect for people – first laid out in the Shell General Business Principles more than 40 years ago – underpin our approach to sustainability. A commitment to contribute to sustainable development was added in 1997. These principles, together with our Code of Conduct, apply to the way we do business and to our conduct with the communities where we operate.

But then let’s compare that to Shell’s CEO comments reported in the Financial Times on 8th December 2020 by writers Anjli Javal and Leslie Hook.

According to the paper:

“Ben van Beurden, Chief Executive, said that oil will continue to be a huge cash generator and the company will expand its gas division. ‘There is going to be a place for our upstream business for many decades to come,’ he told a conference.”

Mr van Beurden has form. A year and a bit earlier, in an article entitled ‘Royal Dutch Shell searches for a purpose beyond oil’, published on 27th September 2019 in the same paper, it was reported that the “single biggest” regret for the Shell boss would be abandoning its oil and gas business prematurely. That, he says starkly, is something Shell “could not live with.”

Here’s another example. This is what McKinsey states on their website:

Our purpose as a firm is to help create positive, enduring change in the world. Our approach to social responsibility includes empowering our people to give back to their communities, operating our firm in ways that are socially responsible and environmentally sustainable, and working with our clients to intentionally address societal challenges.

Now look at what they said back in December 2020 regarding their involvement with Purdue Pharma.

“As we look back at our client service during the opioid crisis, we recognize that we did not adequately acknowledge the epidemic unfolding in our communities or the terrible impact of opioid misuse and addiction on millions of families across the country. That is why last year we stopped doing any work on opioid-specific business, anywhere in the world. Our work for Purdue fell short of that standard.”

A couple of examples of companies ‘getting away with it’—saying one thing on their websites but behaving differently when it comes to how they operate.

Where Do You Fit In?

As we decide what kind of future we want to create, I wonder where we all fit in. Professor Taleb’s book establishes that too many people impacting our world don’t have skin in the game. In my book, too many people simply aren’t walking the talk.

Have a look at these four types of business and decide where yours fits.

1. Emperors

These businesses have jumped on the purpose bandwagon. They are not driven to make a difference but are okay talking about it. Their modus operandi is to make declarations and cite meaningless values to support claims of social purpose that aren’t backed up by actions.

2. Champions

These businesses are proactively walking the talk. Doing good is at the core of their business strategy. The structure, plans, actions, and decisions they make are all guided by a Single Organizing Idea (SOI®) against which progress is continually measured, shared, and celebrated.

3. Squatters

These traditional businesses don’t pretend to have a social purpose. Maximization of profit for the satisfaction of their owners or shareholders is their primary goal.

4. Box Tickers

These businesses aim to do just enough by cherry-picking ‘do-good’ projects, tweaking their governance, making ad-hoc contributions, and meeting obligations set by external watchdogs when told to do so.

If you’re anything other than a Champion, it may be time to take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask what sort of business you’re building—and, just as importantly, what sort of society and planet you’re creating.

Time for Change?

If you’re prepared to change, take a look at my new book, the CORE Playbook.

It’s aimed at the millions of business leaders who see what’s happening now and are ready to plot a course that goes far beyond ‘getting away with it.’

Containing over 40 diagrams and detailed step-by-step explanations, the CORE Playbook is the most comprehensive resource available for those who understand that businesses have to change if they are to meet the challenges of the next decade and beyond.

The world needs more Champions. If that sounds like you, we would love to hear from you.

This is the story of how Martin Beyer helped change the direction and purpose of one of Norway’s largest supermarket chains. I met Martin when I was promoting my book CORE with Pure Consulting in Oslo last month.

Quite simply – while working in the supermarket’s bakery department – Martin couldn’t help noticing that every day a lot of not-quite-fresh food, such as loaves of bread, buns and Danish pastries, was thrown away.

This bothered Martin quite a lot. Not just the environmental or even the social implications – but the sheer financial cost of it. It was a bit like throwing money away. Martin discussed it with his colleagues and they agreed. Surely there was a way to be less wasteful?

Heroes and villains

It’s at this point that I’m tempted to compare Martin to ‘Saint Paul’ – aka Paul Polman – who is something of a hero, not just of mine, but of many of us camping within the big sustainability tent.

Polman – as CEO of Unilever – met initial opposition when he tried to persuade Unilever’s board and shareholders that their huge organization could only sustain long-term growth by reducing its environmental footprint while improving its social impact. “The more our products meet social needs and help people live sustainably,” he argued, “the more popular our brands become and the more we will grow.”

Martin Beyer instinctively held the same conviction. To him, selling the not-so-fresh baked goods at a reduced price would meet a social need. Meanwhile throwing away perfectly edible food was a poor use of the planet’s resources, and bad for profits.

Yet when Martin tried to argue his case he ran into obdurate opposition from the supermarket’s management team who continually regurgitated the same old arguments:

1. That selling cheap, older food would cut into the sales of fresh, more expensive food; and therefore the supermarket would lose money.
2. That theirs was a high-end supermarket whose brand would be damaged by the sale of sub-standard products. That definitely wasn’t the purpose of their business.

Getting past the philosophy

Eventually, and with the same courage Paul Polman has exhibited, Martin made his breakthrough by getting the management to set aside the philosophical arguments around the purpose of the business and focus instead on the cold hard cash.

He established that Argument 1 wasn’t actually based on facts, but on untested assumptions. Maybe, just maybe, they could run a trial? Head office finally gave in. And after a three-month test the results were clear:

• The customers who bought fresh food weren’t interested in buying cheaper, less fresh food but they liked the concept and said nice things about it. Sales from this segment didn’t decline.
• Meanwhile a new, more price-oriented customer segment was attracted into the supermarket. They bought the cheaper goods, and while they were there, also, naturally, bought other things. Far from diminishing the brand, the customer base grew, as did sales and profits.

Big oak trees from small acorns grow. The idea of discounting rather than dumping less-fresh products was adopted across the whole supermarket chain. Moreover, the practice of special displays and discounts for about-to-expire products is growing both in Norway and other countries. Similar initiatives are popping up everywhere with increasing frequency.

But here’s my point.

Martin’s organization had a purpose – and a good one at that: to serve its customers and look after its suppliers and shareholders. But funnily enough, for a long time this laudable purpose got in the way of doing a good thing. It actually took eight years for Martin and his colleagues to change the system.

I would argue that if only his organization had had a Single Organizing Idea (SOI®) it would not have taken nearly so long. Because the genius of an SOI is that it mobilises an organization’s purpose. An SOI takes ‘purpose’ and turns ideals into realities straight away. Which is what organizations need if they’re to get on with making the changes that are now urgently required.

In conclusion, thank you to Martin for sharing his story.

Martin Beyer starts a new job soon for the Municipality of Drammen as a Digitization Advisor. Once there he expects to help “change the organization (4.500 employees serving over 60.000 people) to work in new and smarter ways to make the public sector smarter, efficient and better.” I’m sure he will.

Neil Gaught is a strategic advisor and author of CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea can Change Business for Good published by Routledge.