Big Bang Being

Developing the Sustainability Mindset

Isabel Rimanoczy, Ervin Laszlo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351277341
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

When asked for the definition of mental health and fulfilment, Sigmund Freud had two words: lieben und arbeiten, love and work. In this book we will find how 16 business leaders brought together their compassion, their caring for others and the world, with their work.

True, only on rare occasions are we able to meet the person behind initiatives that made a positive impact on the world, even less have an in-depth view into their feelings, concerns, hesitations, doubts and most intimate thoughts. What is seen publicly is the initiative, the impact on the bottom line and the community, or sometimes on the environment. Yet it is their _personal_ stories that can be most inspirational, since they draw our attention to the fact that amazing achievements start in simple ways, with just the thinking of one individual. And when we find out that the "exemplary individuals" have many very "human" aspects that we identify with and find in ourselves, it brings us closer; and, particularly, it may even trigger in us the question: If she could do it... I wonder what could _I_ do?

The interviews, however, were only the beginning of the journey. The lessons of the interviews made it possible to identify how we can all develop a sustainability mindset: in other words, the thinking and the being that can take us from breakdown to breakthrough on this planet. Each one of us can play a part in leading the change; in fact, we are already playing a part – we are just not necessarily aware if that is the part we would like to play, or aware that we choose the change we are contributing to unfold.

Part I presents the 16 leaders, including a summary of their story and their initiatives. Part II goes a little deeper, as you will find two dimensions that were not obvious but which underlie the way these business leaders championed the initiatives: the Thinking and the Being. Part III explores why sustainability change is so slow, and addresses the "elephant in the room": the values and beliefs that anchor our Western Weltanschauung, or worldview. Part IV addresses the alternatives that we have to convert the unsustainable values into opportunities that will permit humanity to thrive and to break through the obstructions that prevent us from stasis. Finally, Part V takes us beyond the tipping point, and presents us with an opportunity to evolve as humans developing a new way of thinking and being on this planet. This transformation is so radical and significant, that the author calls it the Big Bang Being.

Part I
Exploring the Iceberg

So who are these leaders? In the following pages you will meet the 16 exemplary leaders I interviewed and who helped me understand why and how they championed meaningful initiatives that made a difference in the world. You will get to know them, and learn about their special initiatives. Given the level of personal disclosure and sharing of their particular journeys, the identity of the leaders and their corporations has been protected using pseudonyms.

Chapter 1
Sixteen Leaders

Carl (75)ⁱ

Carl is the founder and Chairman of a successful mid-size U.S. multinational corporation in the floor treatment business. Armed with a degree in engineering, he joined a corporation in this field, and was inspired by the owners to start his own company – thus showing his entrepreneurial spirit, a characteristic that defines not only his current business, but also his sustainability journey.

In the mid-1990s, clients began to ask what the company was doing for the environment, and one of his managers was eager to set up a task force to address the situation. Carl initially was not particularly interested, but at his manager’s insistence he finally agreed. However, when he was asked to give an inaugural speech to this task force, he realized he didn’t know what to say. “We’re complying with all regulations! What else should we do!?” he wondered. Then one of his salespersons gave him the book, The Ecology of Commerce, by environmentalist Paul Hawken. As he began to read it, he felt very emotional; he describes his reaction as being “like a spear in the chest.” The author described how species were becoming extinct as a result of human behavior, and how industries were playing an important role in this process that was destroying the planet. “I would read passages in bed at night to my wife, and we would weep together over the plight of the Earth, and I was part of the problem. I was part of this industrial system that’s destroying the biosphere.”

Carl decided to bring this new awareness into his business, and began talking to the leaders in his organization about “restorative behaviors.” These behaviors referred to not only stopping doing harm to the environment, but also helping to restore lost resources. They meant influencing other industries so that other leaders could step up to this challenge, too. Today his company has become an international best-practice case, one that sets an example of what is possible and how a business can be both restorative to the environment and profitable at the same time.

Evan (53)

Evan is the Director of Quality in an organization in the apparel industry that advertises its commitment to environmental responsibility. His education is in botany and plant physiology, although it didn’t lead him to become interested in environmental causes. He indicates, “You might think that that would lead me to wanting to do something about the environment. But what the education tended to provide me with, was just an inability to look at anything and not understand how complex it was.” He does, however, trace back to his education the mindset and perspective that he has carried into his different jobs and his real passion to see the whole system. He is a very rational, analytical person, who talks about sustainability as a result, not a goal.

He cites as a positive aspect of his organization’s culture its “grassroots approach,” which encourages individuals to come up with innovative ideas to improve the business and then to seek resources to execute them. This stance, he believes, has helped him implement his ideas. On the other hand, this same organizational culture led for a while to some organizational incoherence, because the individual initiatives were fostered without ensuring that they fit under one strategic umbrella. Recognizing this, the CEO gathered the leaders of the projects and invited them to develop a unified strategy. Evan took this opportunity to champion a strategy that would aim at a higher operational efficiency, because “not being efficient is to be wasteful.”

In 1995–96, he proposed a more integrated business approach, one that required synchronization of effective operational, financial, and environmental plans leading to business success. He formed a group called Environmental Quality Development and converted the company into a leading recycling business. It now takes polyester and nylon garments, recycles them, turns them back into yarn, and manufactures new polyester garments out of them. No other company in the world, he indicates, has accomplished that yet.

He decided, further, to take on a teaching role in the organization, and he has talked to different internal audiences, written papers that provide a vision of how efficiency could be achieved, and shown the opportunities for attaining it. He is always looking at the bigger picture, and is well known for challenging assumptions, exploring the wider range of cause-effect connections, and assessing the impacts of decisions.

Paul (47)

Paul is a social entrepreneur, and is currently the President and Founder of a cooperative – a fair trade coffee business that he started in 1997 with the purpose of using the business to tell the story about coffee farmers, and their poverty level living conditions that “the 55 percent of American people that drink coffee are not aware of.”

He grew up in a small town, in a very religious middle-class family. His educational background is business administration, and he started his career working in the banking system. However, he was always an inquisitive and curious person, and early on he began to question what he really wanted to do, and what his purpose in life was. Opening his mind to new possibilities, he was curious to find out about alternate life styles, and he interviewed people who had chosen very different ways of organizing their lives.

One significant encounter was with a European biker who came “for a few weeks” to the U.S. but instead stayed several years, biking around the country, meeting new people from diverse backgrounds and a variety of interests. He did it to show that people were intrinsically good and not threatening as the media, which is known to portray only dramatic and violent stories, would warn. By doing this, he was planting seeds of peace. Inspired by this man’s experiences, Paul quit his position in the family business and went on a bike ride himself to educate himself about how other people lived, and how they dealt with their challenges. It was on his first trip to Africa that he had the opportunity to experience poverty from close up. “I had just seen what two-thirds, three-fourths of the world’s population live like, and I had never experienced this in my country.” This trip moved him profoundly and made him realize how many people in the world live in poverty – an awareness that he had not had in his hometown and country. This experience ignited in him the desire to do something to reduce inequity. He began to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity, traveled to Africa again and stayed several years there, deepening his understanding and personal connections with local cultures.

It was one trip to Guatemala that prompted him to take concrete action to deal with poverty. He decided to set up a business that supported local coffee farmers, one that would pay them a better price by selling the coffee in the U.S. He still very much enjoys this connection with the farmers, and describes it as the most rewarding part of his job. His personal mission is to use the business as an instrument to make people aware of the reality of coffee farmers’ existence.

Pam (53)

Pam is a former executive in a multinational corporation in the apparel industry, where she had a successful career at the Director level in the area of product design. She grew up as a bit of a “rebel” in a middle-class family with many siblings. She trained for many years in competitive sports, and her own professional career was marked by a strong need to compete and excel. However, this changed radically in her early 40s, when she had a number of transformational experiences and shifted her competitive attitude into a more collaborative one, which as we will see later is an important characteristic for championing sustainability initiatives.

A significant event in her life that changed her awareness about social injustice occurred on one trip to Asia in the early 1990s when she experienced discrimination; she felt she was not listened to, “not recognized as a person.” Another impact she relates came two years later, also in Asia, as she witnessed the awful working conditions, especially the toxic vapors in which people worked at one of her company’s manufacturing site. She felt the urge to do something, realizing that while technically progressive, the way the company was operating was not good enough. She began to ask herself if the corporation understood the implications of what it was doing. This was a “slow awakening,” she observes.

Then a critical incident happened in the mid-1990s, as she had another of several miscarriages and her husband was diagnosed with cancer. She read about the effects of a drug that was sold several decades ago to prevent miscarriages, effects that could be passed on the daughters. She found out that her mother had indeed taken that medication (later banned). In addition, her husband had been exposed to DDT and his cancer was connected to that chemical. These two discoveries made her wonder, “What else are we doing and NOT seeing the impacts?”

She began to wonder if the corporation understood the environmental and health implications of the materials it was using. She searched for experts in sustainability and learned about its demands and its benefits. She realized that the corporation had to become more strategic in terms of sustainability, that it was not enough to just have a CSR department that dealt with policies. She played a leading role in incorporating a systems perspective into the business, starting in the product design area but ultimately impacting the whole organization.

Willie (70)

Willie is a retired executive in a U.S.-based corporation in the technology area, where, with his background in engineering, he was VP of Product Development. He grew up in the countryside, very close to Nature, which is something that has had a profound impact on him. He is a critical thinker with an inquisitive attitude and tends to identify with the underdog. “When I was a kid we played cowboys and Indians and I wanted to be the Indian.” He likes high-energy “mission impossible” tasks.

Willie led a product development initiative in the early 1990s that was revolutionary, because it paid attention to the materials and components that went into the product, where they came from, and how they would be disposed. Although this was a very new practice in the industry, he thought of it as “common sense,” and determined to instill this attitude among his colleagues. He asked questions such as, “What is the purpose of my life? What am I here for?” to a group of product designers who had a very deep and transforming experience as a result. These people were simply not used to spending time reflecting on their life purpose, but as they did so, the experience changed their perspective about their roles, their contributions to the environment and society, and ultimately impacted their designs of new products. The team that worked with him for several years in the design of this breakthrough product was personally engaged and passionate about its task, which made it fun. The team members got the “big picture,” and once one does that, he indicates, one cannot go back. Our conscience tells us what needs to be done.

He feels a great urgency to accomplish what he has in mind and has a lot of hope in the younger generation, because they are proactive, imaginative, and have good values. He is currently teaching at a university.

Suzanne (39)

Suzanne, who grew up in an upper-class family, has a background in science, and is a VP in R&D for a multinational corporation in the food industry and agribusiness. As a teenager and college student, her desire was to find meaningful work, perhaps to do social work; she originally thought of being a doctor or working with health issues as a way of contributing to the greater good. However, she married and started her corporate life, and didn’t think of those values again. She feels badly now about having put them on the “backburner of her mind.”

A couple of years before our interview, her boss asked her to take his place at a meeting where other corporations would be represented, to discuss sustainability initiatives. She realized she didn’t know anything about the topic and so did some research before going. Once she was at the meeting, she noticed that no one actually knew much about the topic, and she felt she could contribute in a valuable way even though she was not an expert. At that point, her dormant values and socially oriented interests were revived in her and she determined to pursue them anew. She asked her boss if she could attend those meetings regularly, and she began to participate actively since she saw this as an opportunity to give back to the community.

By participating in the meetings she came up with ideas on how to spread the understanding of sustainability both inside her corporation and among its customers. She became an advocate and started talking to others in her organization, providing them with information, and educating the leaders of her corporation by means of presentations on sustainability. She noticed that while the organization was in fact doing quite a bit in this arena, the efforts were not well communicated and coordinated. As a result, she created a cross-functional task force where key stakeholders would participate in, and work on, common projects. The goal was to embed the concept of sustainability from concept to manufacturing and finished products – basically into all areas of the organization, as opposed to sustainability being a topic of reflection once the products were already developed.

She thinks her passion for sustainability began as an opportunistic means to instill hope at a time when the corporation was undergoing stress, restructuring, and job uncertainty. It also became, for the organization, a competitive advantage valued by its clients. And soon it took a value on its own: something that started as a means of taking the employees’ minds off their stress or gaining respect from clients was picked up by the employees as a valuable cause in itself. The company organized large training events, and developed materials to inform and prepare the sales force on how to use the company’s application of sustainability principles as a selling point, and accompanied them when they visited key clients. Furthermore, the sustainability task force trained the corporation’s leaders and invited them to cascade the learning throughout their organizations. The challenge was to embed it deeply enough, so that even in tough times people didn’t abandon them.

Robert (53)

Robert has a degree in engineering and is in charge of plant operations at a large multinational pharmaceutical company. His sensitivity towards issues of social justice and community action originated in his childhood when he was a member of an economically challenged family with many siblings and a working mother.

As an adult, he reflected on how he might use his role in the organization to influence his co-workers to take advantage of the multiple opportunities available to them in the area of sustainability. He is a self-learner and studied the issues and challenges of sustainability for a year, learning facts about the impact on the world of global warming, pollution, and social issues. The more he learned, the more he felt the need to share his learning s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Exploring the Iceberg
• Part II: Under the Surface
• Part III: The Elephant in the Room
• Part IV: Thinking of Alternatives
• Part V: Beyond the Tipping Point: Big Bang Being
• Epilogue
• Appendix: The Sixteen Leaders
• References
• Index
• About the Author
• Minervas
• Endnotes