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Top US biz strategist talks `change or die'
"What exactly is the crisis?" How can we - the bigger we, the post-Obama swearing-in united we - determine the real root causes of the world's current crisis and harness our forces to find a better balance? American professor Peter Senge has been having conversations with forward-thinking business scions for the past 20 years
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"What exactly is the crisis?" How can we - the bigger we, the post-Obama swearing-in united we - determine the real root causes of the world's current crisis and harness our forces to find a better balance?
American professor Peter Senge has been having conversations with forward-thinking business scions for the past 20 years. He has sat at the table when business leaders, even competitors like Coca Cola and Nestl*, collaborated to rethink their basic approach to how their businesses affect planetary elemental concerns like breathable air, drinkable water, and renewable energy.
"Money for a business is like oxygen for a person. You need it to live. But it's not the reason you live."
United in Diversity, a well-connected NGO chaired by Sinar Harapan's Aristides Katoppo, sponsored Senge to help their crop of young minds, fellows in their IDEAS Indonesia program, think new thoughts about business, government, and third sector collaborations.
The IDEAS fellows are themselves drawn from, the private sector, the NGO world and public service. With backing from MIT's Sloan School of Management and UID, some of the brightest are already forging relationships between these worlds early in their careers.
One participant asked, "Indonesia's private sector does not work that way - it's all about chasing the money. Businesses vie with governments, and the public vies with both. Here it's all about survival."
Senge responded with an example of an already done deal, EU product lifetime legislation. The EU negotiated for eight long years with European carmakers to craft revolutionary legislation. The gist? "If I make it, it's mine forever." Now, when Renault makes a car or Siemens makes a washing machine, they know they must take it back - they own their waste.
And it's not only the Europeans who are going down this path.
"The Chinese know they are in trouble with their use of coal to keep their industrialization process going. They are starting already to retool. They are talking about a circular economy, in which nature and industry feed off each other."
The biggest businesses already know they are the most quickly affected by threats to the environment. Unilever collaborated with the WWF to form the Marine Stewardship Council, given the 48 percent depletion of fish stocks in our oceans. Unilever's conclusion was, "No fish, no fish sticks."
