CORE

How a Single Organizing Idea can Change Business for Good

Neil Gaught

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781783537860
• eBook ISBN: 9781351266109
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

CORE is shortlisted for the Best Business Book Awards in the Engaging Change category.

At the core of the world's most admired businesses lies a powerful Single Organizing Idea. These organizations deliver sustainable economic and social benefit; they unite people, attract investment, inspire innovation, pioneer new efficiencies, and enjoy positive reputation.

Such businesses are admired but they remain a rare breed.

Though the tides of change are engaging the minds of business leaders, most are still trapped behind their brands and an approach to corporate social responsibility that is out of step with a connected society that increasingly questions 'who' these businesses really are and what drives their purpose.

This book is about how businesses can adopt a Single Organizing Idea and, more importantly, why they have to. Drawing on stories and case studies, and with reference to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, its no-nonsense approach sets aside the ideals to confront the realities of business reform. It demonstrates the power and potential that a Single Organizing Idea can bring to any business prepared to take its head out of the sand and proactively respond to today's challenges.

Part 1
A change of fortune— a story of our times

Introduction to part 1

What you are about to read is fiction. It’s an entertaining short story that takes place across several continents, and contrasts a corporate catastrophe with the founding of a bright new enterprise. Nevertheless, as you will read, there is more than a grain of truth behind every word. So, please do read between the lines. For, whatever your response to this tale of misfortune and endeavour may be, herein lies a wake-up call for any business that wishes to change the nature of its fortune.

A change of fortune

Public Hearing: “The Cost of Heating”

European Parliamentary Committee on Industry, Research & Energy

József Antall Building, Brussels

Right now

With one comment, composed in haste and primed like a grenade, the chief executive of Europe’s largest domestic energy supplier is seconds away from destroying everything he values in life.

“Mr Halle, would you agree that the company policies you’ve outlined have placed customer lives at risk?”

“No, Ma’am, I would not.”

Glancing only briefly at his cell phone, while pretending to consult his briefing notes, Tomas Halle, Head of FuelGlow, finds the send button with his forefinger. He feels no need to check the line he’s just dashed out. It’s only a private message on Twitter, intended for one recipient only. Even with some typos, she’ll understand why he hasn’t been able to give it his full attention. Facing Tomas across the chamber, the committee chair peers over her glasses. She’s been gunning for this showdown for months now. In the 20 minutes since the hearing opened, he’s handled every question levelled at him without once leaving the script. Tomas congratulates himself for having personally appointed FuelGlow’s Communications Director who sits one row back, and dispatches his message to her.

“Then maybe we should explore the tragic case of Edith Benoit?”

That name. The one name Tomas Halle had been assured he would not hear. He looks up with a start, his hand shrinking from the desk. Three men sit to his right, all of who have played this inquisition with the same pre-prepared statements. They’re industry competitors, maybe, but just then this trio of energy bosses bristle like him.

“With respect,” says Halle, “until the inquiry is complete I wouldn’t wish to comment on –”

“With respect to Edith Benoit’s family,” the committee chair cuts in, and this time she waits until she has his full attention, “you really should be more forthcoming with your answers.”

For six years now, Tomas Halle had steered FuelGlow with the calm authority of a captain on the bridge of a supertanker. In his experience, the waters could get a little choppy and nobody on board would notice. The key, he maintained, was in assembling a crew he could depend upon to manage such a massive vessel. Take the individual seated behind him, in what suddenly feels to Tomas like a gladiatorial amphitheatre. As soon as the committee summoned him to this hearing, prompted by what was frankly a provocative report linking a rise in hypothermia cases amongst the elderly with increased energy price rises, he had instructed her to deal with it. When it came to protecting the brand, Eve Grainger possessed the spin and bite of a black widow spider. “We’re seeking to stall the Benoit claim,” she had told him only the week before over breakfast at the hotel where they liked to meet. “It’s a non-starter.”

“Mr Halle, do I need to refresh your memory?”

The committee chair had leaned in to her microphone before pressing him once more. Not that she needed to make herself any clearer in the silence that seized the chamber. Despite his media training, with all the focus on symbolically grasping ownership of each question with his hands, Tomas instinctively reaches for his headset as if the translator has just caused him a problem.

“Exactly when did FuelGlow become aware that Madame Benoit was receiving treatment for clinical depression?” The chair continues. “What mechanisms do you have in place to safeguard the welfare of customers in her situation?”

Tomas Halle offers her a puzzled smile.

“We service millions of households,” he says as if to remind her. “Not just one.”

“Which is all the more reason to be sensitive to the impact of your behaviour as a company,” she replies with no hint of amusement. “The fact is this poor woman felt so intimidated by the year on year rise in her fuel bill that she switched off her heating completely.”

Tomas Halle senses his pulse points throbbing. He wants to tell her that nutters can be found in all walks of life, but is well aware of the sinkhole of grief that would open up for him. Halle might have found himself on the back foot with this question, and in need of some support from the figure sitting behind him, but he wasn’t stupid. Only recently, in fact, FuelGlow’s parent company had sent in some consultant to assess the company and report back to the president. Tomas had the guy’s measure before they’d even shaken hands, and made it abundantly clear that he was in charge for good reason. Not that it really matters, he reminds himself briefly. Ever since the president turned his attention to developing world markets, Halle had been left to get on with what he did best: guaranteeing a return for the investor. There was no way he would let the actions of one muddled old lady undo his position now, or his share-price-linked bonus.

“We operate within industry guidelines,” he tells the committee chair, wishing at the same time that Eve would hurry up and message him the response he so desperately needs. After the private joke he’d just sent, Halle expected her to come back at him straight away. It might’ve been in poor taste, concerning the warm temperature of the building and what it would take for her to cool off, but his phone just sits there uselessly. Much like Tomas at that moment. A line is all he needs from her right now. A response to steer the agenda back on his terms.

Across the chamber, with her eyes on the FuelGlow CEO still, the committee chair nods to herself.

“Indulge me for a moment, Mr Halle. Let’s just say we were talking about your grandmother here –”

“Oh, come on!”

The voice from behind him, little more than an exasperated whisper, at least confirms to Tomas that Eve is still present. It’s just enough to fire up a sense of indignation at the direction the chair has just taken.

“Ma’am, that’s unkind.”

“For a company that raised its domestic prices on the cusp of northern Europe’s coldest winter in a decade,” she continues, “I hardly think you’re in a position to protest about unkindness. And that’s what this all comes down to, Mr Halle. It’s all very well to cite industry guidelines, and use them to justify obscene bonuses and salary increases, but when those guidelines put profit before humanity I feel a duty to take you to task.”

Tomas Halle draws breath to respond, only to hold the thought he was set to express in case anger gets the better of him. Did he need to remind her that he was responsible for a multi-million dollar organization that was answerable to its shareholders? Yes, he had a duty of care to his customers, but that was based solely on the concept that they were able to pay! It was a simple business transaction. FuelGlow wasn’t a charity, after all. The organization didn’t exist to benefit society, though Tomas knew not to get into that argument and draw fire towards their tax practices. Even so, he thinks, this whole thing was so unnecessary. Did this woman with her high and mighty attitude have any idea how many people the company employed? Without FuelGlow, he thinks to himself, thousands of people would be without a salary, struggling to feed their families and keep them warm.

For this reason alone, Halle drops the argument from his mind.

As for the Benoit woman, well that was a tragedy, of course. A grieving widow slides into a fog of despair, and then cuts herself off from the world around including the power to heat her house. It was a damn shame, in Halle’s view, but that didn’t make the company wilfully complicit in her demise. If anything, the family that kicked up such a stink should take a long hard look at themselves. Where were they when Grandma stopped opening her curtains? For this reason, Eve had been quite correct in keeping Tomas out of the debate that followed. When a dead pensioner becomes the poster girl for an anti-fuel poverty movement, his role was to chart a steady course and have faith that the storm would weaken and fade.

What he hadn’t banked on was the human iceberg currently refusing to break his gaze. Laura Valk, the Baltic Euro MP charged with chairing this hearing, belonged to some democratic green party Halle had never heard of before Eve briefed him. In her mid-fifties, he guessed, and with those glasses attached to a fine silver chain, Valk had offered him one brief smile when she formally opened the meeting. Even then, it had struck Tomas that she would be offering no further gesture of warmth. Mindful of his body language just then, Halle resists the urge to fold his arms.

“May I take this opportunity,” he says after a moment, “to extend my sympathies to the family of Madam Benoit. “

“In what capacity?” asks Valk without even a blink. “Personally or as a company?”

“As a company,” says Tomas, and glares right back at her, “we have nothing to apologise for.” His response prompts a gasp from the public gallery. In his peripheral vision, Tomas notes several committee members confer, and yet this is between him and the chair now. “As a human being,” he adds just to clarify, “of course I am sorry.”

“If I may add something here.” Seated beside Tomas, the CEO of The Charont Group speaks up in a way that sounds like a university professor addressing squabbling students. Tomas has respect for Anton van der Boor, but dislikes him intensely on a personal level. It wasn’t just his trim figure, full head of silver hair or the fact that he outscores Halle on Glassdoor (Halle 25% CEO approval rate, van der Boor 38%). The guy just has this habit of making everyone around him feel inferior. On the upside, Tomas thinks, it takes the spotlight away from him. “It would be very easy to paint a picture of the energy industry as some kind of pantomime villain,” continues van der Boor, “but let’s not overlook our accomplishments in the field of corporate social responsibility. No doubt you’ll be aware of the recent efforts made by Charont to encourage energy efficiency in the home. Our recent campaign saw just over 20% of our domestic customers install discounted smart meters.”

Van der Boor looks around as if expecting a round of applause from the men flanking him. Halle wishes he’d been first to flag up their world-class CSR commitments. You just couldn’t argue against a company that spent a bit of cash on the community, after all. Under the circumstances, however, he’s quietly grateful to his business rival. Not only has Tomas forgotten the name of the guy who runs the CSR outfit, and whether it had been outsourced to Milan or Zurich, this intervention gives him a chance to check his phone. There’s still no response from Eve to his direct message, though a mounting number of tweets await his attention when all this is over. Glancing up from his home screen, drawn by a muted cough from one of the committee members, he finds Laura Valk assessing them all.

“Gentlemen,” she says eventually, “I don’t wish to be drawn away from the reason why we’ve asked you before this committee.”

“You can’t just dismiss our good work in that field!” Van der Boor takes Halle by surprise with the force of his response. It’s as if he’s suddenly lost control of the irritation and annoyance that they all feel on being paraded here. Halle notes how he’s just delivered his point by curling one hand into a particularly awkward looking thumb pointing fist. He hopes Eve is aware that he would never make such a basic error, and seizes the opportunity to regain control of the situation. When it comes to CSR, he thinks, his guys are leaders in the field.

“We provide a free domestic insulation assessment for all our customers,” he begins. “Ultimately, FuelGlow aims to improve the lives of our customers.”

“Apart from those who are scared of you!”

The outburst comes from the public gallery. It causes heads to turn. There, a young man is on his feet looking close to tears. At once, the security guard on the floor makes his way towards the gallery. Seeing him approach, the guy extends his palms to signal that his moment in the sun is done before dropping into his seat once more. Halle recognises the protestor. He’s seen him on the TV, he thinks. A member of the Benoit family. Some nephew or a son-in-law. A troublemaker, for sure.

“I’m sorry,” says the guy, gesturing toward Halle and the men beside him. “But you’re letting these people get away with murder.”

Tomas can feel his heart beating hard. This isn’t how the hearing was supposed to shape up. In their briefing session, prior to coming here, Eve assured him that the answers she had prepared would see him through. He glances at the bullet points, noting her line about corporate social responsibility. That was the get out of jail card, as Eve had put it, only now that doesn’t feel like such a certainty. With his pen in hand, Tomas Halle finds himself drawing a box around the line as if to set it apart from everything else. At the same time, his muted phone lights up to indicate an incoming message. Immediately, he sets the pen down, only to flatten his palm on the table and direct his full attention to the figure addressing them once more.

“If we can just return to the matter at hand,” says Laura Valk, having taken a moment for everyone to settle down. “Setting aside all the creative ways you reduce your tax liability,” she continues, which draws some amusement from her colleagues, “I want to understand your awareness of potential customer hardship when reviewing prices.”

“It’s complicated,” replies van der Boor, like she wouldn’t understand.

Valk sits back in her chair, removing her spectacles with one hand so they hang freely around her neck.

“Try me,” she says, with a hint of relish.

All Tomas can do is focus on his body language, and reveal no hint of the fact that he’s squirming on the inside. As van der Boor begins to outline the industry’s revenue requirement calculations, he notes his phone screen light up once more to remind him of the waiting message. This time, feeling lost and close to panic, he presses the home button. It’s with relief that he sees it’s from Eve. She might be sitting in the row behind him, close enough to lean down and whisper in his ear, but since despatching that private joke to her Tomas has been feeling entirely adrift. His push notifications icon continues to tell him he’s mentioned in a lot of public tweets. Nevertheless, his sole interest is in hearing from his Head of Communications.

With van der Boor purposely outlining every figure in the formula, Tomas Halle discretely opens the message. He scans the single line. It’s a question, he registers—simple and to the point—but it’s enough to trigger such a profound sense of dread that he looks up with a start.

What have you done?

*

FutureWorks Hybrid Seminar 4.0

African Union Conference Centre

Addis Ababa

Five minutes later

Bibi Okira passes through the security check with a sense of shared excitement. Having waited in line for some time, chatting to her fellow delegates, it’s good to be inside such an impressive building. Looking up and around, she admires the combination of marble and vaulted glass. Outside, beyond the parade of national banners snappi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• PART 1 A change of fortune—a story of our times
• PART 2 The case for change
• PART 3 Changing for good
• Sources and inspirations
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index