While much of business media is filled with doom and gloom, positive coverage of innovation and enterprise is breaking through
Many moons ago, megatrends guru John Naisbitt analysed print media to get a sense of where the world was headed. In the dog days of August, in the spirit (but not style) of Naisbitt, we decided to buy every business magazine we could lay our hands on – tearing them apart as we hunted for evidence on whether coverage in key media sees us heading towards one of two scenarios: breakdown or breakthrough.
Breakdown is the 100% negative scenario. A world in which early experiments and enthusiasm fade in the face of wider incomprehension and resistance to change. Our businesses, cities and economies overshoot ecological limits, bringing the planetary roof down on our heads.
And then there is the breakthrough scenario, which increasingly shapes and informs our own agenda. This assumes that,...
Many moons ago, megatrends guru John Naisbitt analysed print media to get a sense of where the world was headed. In the dog days of August, in the spirit (but not style) of Naisbitt, we decided to buy every business magazine we could lay our hands on – tearing them apart as we hunted for evidence on whether coverage in key media sees us heading towards one of two scenarios: breakdown or breakthrough.
Breakdown is the 100% negative scenario. A world in which early experiments and enthusiasm fade in the face of wider incomprehension and resistance to change. Our businesses, cities and economies overshoot ecological limits, bringing the planetary roof down on our heads.
And then there is the breakthrough scenario, which increasingly shapes and informs our own agenda. This assumes that,...
- 9/3/2012
- by John Elkington
- The Guardian - Film News
Venture onto the top floor of many corporate HQs and the silence, the deference, and the sense that the air is thinner can be disconcerting. Most Boards and C-Suites live in reality bubbles, which may--or may not--reflect existing or emergent realities. Exxon CEO Lee Raymond famously presided over the 'God Pod'--the bubble within which his executive office operated with near divine powers. More recently, one doesn't need to look further than what went on at the top of companies like Enron, Lehman Brothers or Bear Stearns before they hit the wall. Trying to engage C-Suite leaders on wider environmental, social or governance issues at such moments can be a Sisyphean task, if indeed you can even get through the door.
But the world is changing--and at an accelerating pace. You can sense the change in many C-Suite conversations and agendas. And a key catalyst is the growing sense that there...
But the world is changing--and at an accelerating pace. You can sense the change in many C-Suite conversations and agendas. And a key catalyst is the growing sense that there...
- 4/14/2010
- by John Elkington
- Fast Company
In the first post of their 7-part series, John Elkington and Charmian Love look at how key C-Suite players are coping with the new wild cards dealt by environmental, social and governance challenges.
As sustainability activists and professionals are drawn into the corporate world as stakeholders and strategy consultants, we thought it might help to have a deck of cards identifying key players in today's C-Suite--the rarefied realm of business decision-makers like CEOs, CFOs and COOs, all of whom have the word "Chief" in their title.
We know we're not the first to describe capitalism as a high-stakes poker game, but in this series of seven blogs we'll take the metaphor at face value. After all, "Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy," wrote poker columnist Lou Krieger. "It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal,...
As sustainability activists and professionals are drawn into the corporate world as stakeholders and strategy consultants, we thought it might help to have a deck of cards identifying key players in today's C-Suite--the rarefied realm of business decision-makers like CEOs, CFOs and COOs, all of whom have the word "Chief" in their title.
We know we're not the first to describe capitalism as a high-stakes poker game, but in this series of seven blogs we'll take the metaphor at face value. After all, "Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy," wrote poker columnist Lou Krieger. "It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal,...
- 4/12/2010
- by John Elkington
- Fast Company
Traveling around Silicon Valley last week, I heard the David vs. Goliath story over and again, but in surprisingly different versions. In some, David (in the form of a cleantech start-up) aims to kill incumbent market giants, in others they end up in bed together. Yes, this was San Francisco, but it seems we are seeing a seismic shift in the cleantech industry's underlying narrative.
Nowhere was this more apparent than at the sixteenth Cleantech Forum. After trekking through the Valley of Death, as Cleantech Group President Sheeraz Haji put it, many cleantech firms see operating conditions improving--not least because of the $512 billion in direct government stimulus funding. But he warned that China's $200 billion cleantech stimulus is way ahead, with China and Hong Kong accounting for 69% of cleantech investment last year.
I was in the Valley to help guide a group of founders, CEOs and senior executives of 19 U.K.
Nowhere was this more apparent than at the sixteenth Cleantech Forum. After trekking through the Valley of Death, as Cleantech Group President Sheeraz Haji put it, many cleantech firms see operating conditions improving--not least because of the $512 billion in direct government stimulus funding. But he warned that China's $200 billion cleantech stimulus is way ahead, with China and Hong Kong accounting for 69% of cleantech investment last year.
I was in the Valley to help guide a group of founders, CEOs and senior executives of 19 U.K.
- 3/10/2010
- by John Elkington
- Fast Company
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