“Today is not just another day and not just another conference. Today, we present to you the result of two years of voluntary work by many many passionate people who deeply care about ensuring that business schools and management education truly contribute to a better world. In this process, John Cimino’s song the CALL which he just performed has been our inspiration to be daring and courageous.
I was 22 years old when the original Rio conference took place in 1992. I was studying business at BSL, the school I now run as a Dean. Stephan Schmidheiny‘s book “changing course” changed my life. While I was environmentally conscious in my private life, my experience at work had taught me that I better leave personal interests at home and be strictly “professional” at work. With Rio 92, I sensed a new world opening up – one where I could integrate my personal passion into my professional work and help companies to become sustainable.
Today is not business as usual. We need something different from the usual conference debates. We have seen and heard all this before … The same words, the same arguments. We are busy rearranging deck chairs while the titanic is sinking! This cannot be another Copenhagen! The stakes are simply too high. The time is up – it is OUR generation and this is OUR time. We are the ones, who need to drop what we do, reflect and take courageous steps in a new, right direction. Now!
50+20 is a collaboratory, an open-source effort of GRLI, the WBSCSB and UN PRME. Our aim was to come up with a radically new vision for management education. A vision that started by asking big questions, like
– what kind of a world do we want?
– what does this mean for the kind of society we will need?
– what is the role of business and the economy in this?
– and what should business contribute to such a new world?
– what kinds of leaders do we need to achieve such a transformation?
– and as a result, what would that mean for management education?
We worked in a collaborative process with people around the world, including more than 100 thought leaders. Many people in this room have been involved in ways large and small. And we invite you all to stand up.
Together we created a vision beyond incremental change. Management education FOR the world, management education in service of the common good. We see 3 fundamental roles. We reframe education, we give a concrete purpose to research and we introduce public engagement as a new responsibility for business schools.
This is about new benchmarks and the benches you see here symbolize that. They have been created by artists around the world from re-cycled materials. We invite you to look at them, sit in them and feel the creativity and the fire for a socially just and environmentally sustainable future they embody.
Today, right here, right now we officially release the 50+20 Agenda. Here it is in physical form.
Digitally it’s in the conference documents and online at 50plus20.org. Its the start – we have developed a process of engagement, there will be a book in the fall, there are over 100 emerging benchmarks on the website which may serve to inspire. We have worked hard to strip out the
greenwashing the blue washing and well meaning intentions.
But what matters is not what others do, it is your engagement and whether we personally take up the challenge of service to mankind. If you share the passion to drive deep change and would like to take action in an advanced community please give me or Katrin your business cards.
So now we bring you the voices and faces from around the globe who have helped us define the 50+20 vision. Turn off your email open your hearts and souls, and enjoy what the people out there have to say to us.
Finally, the moment arrived. We met the members of the 50+20 team on the beach in front of the Windsor Barra. People flew in from all over and we even managed to bring a bench from South Africa which we assembled. 9 other benches are being assembled.
The security measures are very impressive: the marine has boats in front of the beach, helicopters are circulating, soldiers on the roofs and beach front.
But, our mood is excellent: we have received the scarves made out of recycled PET bottles and cotton (see picture) and are a bit overwhelmed by the volume and weight.
So, after a few beers and caiphirinia’s and pizzas, we feel ready to start the conference.
I woke up to a grey and rainy skyline of the outskirts of Sao Paulo. During my breathing exercise I reflected on the many million of my fellow global citizens who will leave their homes in the country side to join cities like this. Apartment blocks lined up until the distant horizon in a general hazy, grey heavy and overcast sky. The heavy rainstorm suited that mood well. Are we crazy? Who on earth would in her right mind design such a picture of inhuman living cut off from nature as the dream of so many of us with otherwise limited futures?
Why do we design and build cities for our fellow citizens to live and work in that offer subhuman conditions and that are totally disconnected from nature. If I was an alien visiting planet Earth, I would seriously wonder what the inhabitants had in mind when they figured out how to live together. Somehow our societal governance structures don’t operate in the best interest of all. Why do we accept this? And what if we could and would actually start doing something about this?
I started my part of the 50+20 pre-RIO conference with this picture of the Sao Paulo skyline which I took this morning. I talked about where we as a global community are today versus where we need to get to to ensure that the 9 billion of us will be living well and within the limits of the planet (as per vision 2050 of the WBCSD). Nobody took offence. As a matter of fact, I didn’t have to spend more than a short moment on why we need a better world, new societies and as a result a new role for business. Swiss ambassador Meier who opened for us set the stage by highlighting all the things that are going wrong today and everybody was nodding. Given that this was the first time we talked about our project in front of a non-captive audience of mostly business executives, this was significant. There was no question about the fact that business must contribute to society and the common good. But: there was much blame on “others” and much frustration about things not going fast enough.
Thomas Dyllick from the University St. Gallen and I had lunch with Angelica Rotondaro who runs the St. Gallen hub here. She is doing a great job finding internships for St. Gallen students who want to experience the NGO or SME worlds in South America. She has an amazing network of social entrepreneurs in the fair-trade sector and she shares her challenges with us. Before long, we are in the burning issues of the agricultural world. I can’t help it but I get mad every time I reflect on the abuse that is taking place around GMO seeds of just about anything by now. The importance of fair-trade as a small but important new growth development supporting small regional farmers in their nearly impossible struggle against the multinational superpowers.
The other main issue that comes up today is the big difference between the challenges of developed vs. developing countries. As Julia von Maltzan Pacheco of University FGV points out correctly, people here in Brazil are craving for getting to the lifestyle we have achieved in the North or West (I am coining Northwest as a global new term for the developed world). People in the South and the East want that refrigerator, that car and that TV they have been longing for. We cannot tell them that “growth” is not sustainable (even if it isn’t). As Martin Bernard from Amrop points out: “there is no such thing as sustainable growth, the planet does have finite limits”. Well, we cannot even publicly say that to the folks in the Northwest! I liked Christian Cetera’s perspective (Director Training & Development of GE for South America) who humbly stated that his organization is nowhere despite having achieved an unheard of shift in their business reducing their financial services business from 55% to less than 15% of their net profits. While GE defines their ideal manager today very different from the days of Jack Welsh, he concludes that GE “has a long way to go.”
I walk away from our presentation happy with the unilaterally positive reaction of our vision. I also realize that we need to ensure that our audience understands that we have completed but the first step in a long journey: we propose a far-out, new vision that now needs concrete next steps in order to generate action and a relevant pace to realize it. We have passed the “fire drill” or “dry run” and are now ready for RIO+20!
Incremental change is not an option when looking at the planetary boundaries[1]. We need radical, disruptive thinking and vision that fundamentally question the unconscious underlying assumptions that form the mainstream discourse that determines the way we look at business, society and the world. While many traditional business programs today have a focus on leadership or entrepreneurship, few fully integrate these areas and even fewer integrate responsible leadership, sustainable entrepreneurship or enlightened statesmanship. As Kenneth Mikkelsen (2010) notes, the speed of change is now so intense that firms must adapt faster than ever before, thus, linking leadership and entrepreneurship is mandatory if the adaptive organization is to be realized.
Holding the space for sustainable leadership for a sustainable world is a tall order and the single ideas brought together in this vision are not new. In fact, many of them are well established in other fields. We are hopeful that the magic of the vision lies in the clarity of focus in which these state-of-the-art ingredients are brought together and the purpose which they are dedicated to.
The future management school not only develops globally responsible leaders, it does so by walking the talk. It embraces globally responsible leadership by embodying its key dimensions of entrepreneurship, leadership and statesmanship as defined by GRLI[2]. We suggest that beyond developing leaders, the future management school needs to also support organizations, particularly business organizations, to successfully transform into operations to serve society and the world. And, we believe it is high time for the management education profession to actively engage in and lead the public dialogue on how to transform the existing flawed economic system into a structure that isn’t purely self-serving but contributes to the world vision we have defined above.
Figure 1: Holding the space for providing responsible leadership for a sustainable world
[1] Johan Rockström: “Planetary Boundaries” (2010)
[2] As defined by Philippe de Woot of the Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative (GRLI)
The capability to “hold a space” becomes the central purpose of management education. The capability of holding a space grounds deeply in our human heritage; it represents the ultimate duty of the Elders among many indigenous people. In our world, this capacity is known as the fundamental skills of a good coach; the degree to which a coach is able to create and hold such a space determines the potential outcome of a coaching session[1].
Figure 2: Holding a space is about the ability to create the right frame. The black frames above represent the common thread among these different expressions of our vision: a) a fertile ground, b) putting the fire in the middle symbolizes respecting future generations in every decision taken, c) a visual of the management school of the future.
Collaborative learning platforms for action learning and research (collaboratories) become the distinguishing factor for future management school. They represent the preferred meeting place for citizens with a desire to act responsibly for the world. Participants come from all walks of life and from all 4 corners of the planet. They share a common passion for wanting to make a difference and they co-share the responsibility of learning with the faculty. They include both the so-called 99% including the 4 billion at the “bottom of the pyramid” as well as the 1% currently in function of responsibility and power.
Collaboratories can be located in business, in society, communities, at management schools, virtually or a combination of all of these. The key of these platforms is that they are organized around issues rather than disciplines. Issues addressed include: hunger, energy, water, climate change, migration, democracy, capitalism, terrorism, disease, violence. Systemic thinking and design thinking enable step-changing innovation and rapid prototyping as fundamentals of magic: finding solutions to the impossible. Action learning and research meet in order to jointly immerse in a new type of activity: issue-centred learning focusses on environmental, societal and economic issues both globally and locally.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever does.” Margaret Mead
At the management school of the future, we see the faculty as lead-learners and guardians of this space. They reflect a rich combination of stakeholders: coaches, facilitators, business and management faculty, citizens, entrepreneurs and elders [2]. They see themselves as transient gatekeepers of a world in need of new solutions and stand out with their attitude of service.
[1] Students tell us that we are preaching to the converted; that they realize the world is at a critical place. They want to address the issues and perceive professors as self-absorbed by their own shift in consciousness. Source: GRLI Meeting Stuttgart 2011.
[2] The energy of an elder, or the stereotypical grandmother, complements a learning environment with an essential factor: grand-mothers (uncles, retired professors, god-mothers, etc.) are storytellers able to put a current issue into a larger perspective. They have experienced many phases of success and failure, exploration and disappointment not only from a global, economic or societal perspective, but also from a human point of view of individual cycles of life.
The influence of management educators is vast. They train the majority of leaders of the most influential business organizations worldwide and they impose and promote their vision of the firm and their philosophy of management. If they chose to, they could become major change agents for a better world. To understand the link between a better world and management education, we need to clarify and agree on some upfront parameters:
Figure 1: The call to service for management education for the world by holding the space for provide responsible leadership for a sustainable world
Business schools and institutions, public or private, engaged in educating managers and leaders need to extend their scope beyond business to educate existing and emerging leaders active in organizations of any type, shape or form in business and beyond. To stress this point, we shall consistently replace the term “business school” with “management school”. The challenges described above are summarized in a call to service to provide management education for the world by “holding a space for responsible leadership for a sustainable world”. Its parameters are leadership, entrepreneurship and statesmanship.
If we consider what the world needs us to do and what is expected of business schools in order to contribute to successfully address the existing and emerging societal, environmental and business challenges world-wide, we recognize that we are invited to embrace a call to service:
A call to service: To educate citizens to act responsibly for the world.
Let us look in more detail at this call of service in order to understand the amplitude of what is implied by this vision:
A call to service = a clear purpose beyond and above keeping our institutions alive, enriched by the understanding that education stands on equal footing on external knowledge and internal wisdom.
To educate = an issue-centred education complemented by subject or domain knowledge focused on the big issues of this world, replacing teaching with a powerful and safe learning environment. Learning embedded in action-learning platforms of collaborative laboratories (collaboratories). Research supporting global issues by involving stakeholders in the definition of research topics and delivering results to them in appropriate formats.
Citizens = you and me, business professionals, artists, activists, consultants, coaches, women in emerging countries, micro entrepreneurs, collaborative networks, seniors, everybody with a desire to make a positive contribution to this world.
To act = empowered learning to enable action, facilitating participants to wake up to what is inside of them, embracing the adventure ahead, becoming eco-literate and fluent in divergent thinking and courageous action, learning to act as a result of being.
Responsibly = creating a space to reflect on action and choices, to connect with true purpose and inner values, embracing the choices and consequences for society and planet in the long-term.
For = rather than against, rethinking strategic product & service needs, complementing competition with collaboration and understanding that we are all part of the same larger Unit. Sustainability is the obvious and essential guiding principle of life, business and anybody with a desire to act. Example: waste-free closed-loop cycle inspired by nature.
The world = beyond the current paradigm of capitalism: serving society and the planet.
If we consider what the world needs us to do and what is expected of business schools in order to contribute to successfully address the existing and emerging societal, environmental and business challenges world-wide, we recognize that we are invited to embrace a call to service:
A call to service: To educate citizens to act responsibly for the world.
Business education has been a victim of countless unconscious, un-reflected choices that have deeply affected what and how we teach business and management. If we want to make progress in developing reflective and responsible managers and leaders, we need to reflect on the underlying paradigms in management education. These debates have been conspicuously absent in the classroom. As a result, we have robbed our students – future business leaders – the chance to reflect on these crucial issues and to develop their own perspectives. These include the following:
Who do we educate?
We need to start by defining who such leaders will be, what positions they will occupy, where they will be needed most, and what competences, skills and attitudes they must possess. We should discuss if we best educate a limited elite or as many potential leaders as possible; if we should re-educate current leaders, emerging talent or today and tomorrow’s youth. And which “investment mix” would have the biggest positive impact. How do societal changes, gender issues and other relevant issues provide new requirements and voices to leadership issues[1]. As such, is it more important to ensure that every citizen assumes his and her personal responsibility for a common good or can such a burden continued to be left on the shoulders of a selected and elected few? How do we address the issue of individual vs. collective leadership? What is the importance of educating women, parents and minorities both for direct leadership as well as indirect role modelling in society’s smallest unit, the family and stomping ground of future leaders? Today, leaders with a general business and management knowledge are sought in domains far beyond “only” business. NGO’s, governments, not-for-profit organizations, small family business, start-up companies, independent consultants, schools (including business schools) all need to be managed more professionally and more effectively. Our client is no longer “just business” and it is no longer just business that we should be teaching.
A new wave of change is emerging just now: the 4 billion of people at the bottom of the pyramid – these people in developing and emerging countries who desperately need to know how to go about becoming effective actors for the world by providing products and services in their communities that are relevant for the society. Channelling these people’s desire into effective entrepreneurial thinking that is embedded in responsible and sustainable behaviour is the biggest emerging challenge in education world-wide. What is the role business schools can, should and must play in there?
[1] In May 2011, the Swiss government voted for a controlled shut-down of its nuclear power plants over the next 20 years – of the seven elected ministers, the three men were overruled by the four women. The Swiss president, one of the four women, stated that such a decision came with a price and that new solutions needed to be invented to compensate for the loss of energy provided, however, that this was the only right decision to take for future generations.
Business education has been a victim of countless unconscious, un-reflected choices that have deeply affected what and how we teach business and management. If we want to make progress in developing reflective and responsible managers and leaders, we need to reflect on the underlying paradigms in management education. These debates have been conspicuously absent in the classroom. As a result, we have robbed our students – future business leaders – the chance to reflect on these crucial issues and to develop their own perspectives. These include the following:
What is the purpose of business?
Milton Friedman was convinced the business of business is business. But is it true? And why is this? In looking at the impact of business today, it seems much rather the business of business is definitely more than just business. In the same vein: Is business an economic institution or is it a social institution? Does it serve its shareholders or a larger group of stakeholders and society overall? These questions need to be raised again and answered anew, if we want to make progress with regard to sustainability and responsibility.
Why do we need business growth?
We blindly accept the conviction that business growth is a necessary key factor in economic development. Business theories have been developed in a period of high-growth. And there are no useful models for business in an economy without growth. A business that doesn’t grow is considered a failure. Everything must grow: profits, market shares, reputation, salaries and shareholder value. This assumption has guided decision-making across all fields of business from strategy and finance, to marketing and HR. In the past two decades, new perspectives have emerged (see the de-growth movement). There has been little debate and reflection on the many unwritten rules and underlying assumptions of economic and business growth.
