The Inspired Protagonist

Be The First To Read Jeffrey Hollender's New Book: The Responsibility Revolution

Inspired Protagonist — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:37:38 -0500

On the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, President Obama summoned corporate America "to a new era of responsibility." Considering that 2009 marked new low points in the decline of business behavior, the growing mistrust of business by the public, and the outrage over executive compensation, we have no choice but to rethink corporate responsibility. It's more critical than ever before that we discover new ways to get past the greenwashing and lip service to truly put corporate values on par with profits. The costs of not doing better at doing good are simply too high.

The new book I have written with my co-author Bill Breen, The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win (Jossey Bass; March 15, 2010. $27.95), argues that for too long, our definition of what constitutes "responsible" corporate behavior has been dangerously timid. To confront the daunting challenges facing society and the economy, companies must do more than monitor factories, donate to charities, and trumpet efforts to be a little less bad. The Responsibility Revolution is a road map for reimaging companies from within: innovating new ways of working; instilling a new logic of competing; redefining the very purpose and possibility of business.

The book provides a blueprint for CSR 2.0 that details how revolutionary companies -- ranging from industry heavyweights like IBM, Nike and British merchandising giant Marks & Spencer to emerging dynamos like Linden Lab and Etsy -- are winning customers and driving profits by:

Taking on a cause. Revolutionary responsible companies believe that what you stand for is far more important than what you sell. When Organic Valley organized itself around a mission that mattered -- saving the family farm -- it sparked employees' imaginations and became a magnet for powerful partners. The result: it's now the nation's second largest brand of organic dairy products.
Daring to wear the see-through. To be a truly responsible company, you can't be opaque. So the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, the world's largest maker of insulin, invites animal-welfare activists to tour its labs and improve its protocols for animal experimentation. The drug-maker understands that by acting transparently, it stands a better chance of turning critics into collaborators.
Scaling innovation. Green marketing campaigns don't cut it anymore; insurgent good companies focus on innovation rather than reputation. Nike harnesses the creativity of its designers through the Considered Index, which rates the ingredients for each product and suggests more sustainable alternatives. The 2009 Air Jordan XX3 is the first version of Nike's most celebrated sneaker to marry sustainability and performance -- and is expected to sell 500,000 pairs.

These and many more actionable strategies from the book will help businesses large and small win the race to the future. A recent study by A.T. Kearney found that during the recession, companies authentically committed to sustainability outperformed their industry peers by an average of 15%, adding an average of $650 million to their market capitalization. As the economy improves, doing good will be the key to doing well.

Why? Because responsible companies outdo their competitors at addressing the transformational forces that are changing the way business is done today. With Internet-savvy customers scrutinizing companies' activities and organizing boycotts at the slightest sign of misbehavior, "bad" businesses have nowhere to hide.

I hope you'll find it both an entertaining and inspiring read. Visit Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com to buy an advance copy or read the e-book version right now.

Please let me know what you think of the book!

Middle East Journal, Part 3

Inspired Protagonist — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:51:07 -0500

From speakers throughout the city, four or five times a day, loud enough to reach through the sealed windows of our 38th floor hotel room, calls to prayer beckon millions of the city's residents. Thousands of stores shutter almost simultaneously. On the hard floors of shopping malls, on the rough cement of side streets, in mosques where I am not allowed to venture, they pray.

Through black veils, heavily made-up eyes stare out in a mysterious and alluring dance. Black from head to toe, with hands cradling cell phones that are in almost incessant use and fashion statements made through watches, shoes, and bejeweled embroidery, the women of this country are mysterious yet invisible.

I find it hard not to stare yet there is so little to see. This is a country of stark contradictions wherever you look.

With contrasts as vivid as the black and white dress codes of women and men, an equally perplexing quandary plays out in the discussion of sustainability and energy efficiency in an economy that survives by selling an unsustainable resource. It costs Saudi Arabia about $1 to produce a single barrel of oil that today is selling for around $75. In a world market willing to supply such astronomical profits, the urge to innovate is muted by these gigantic profits and the huge restraints they create. Intellectually, most leaders, especially those of the younger generation, understand that this fountain of profit won't last forever. Though some old schoolers still argue the only limit to the availability of oil is the willingness to continue to develop in new technology, increasingly fewer people believe this argument -- even in the Middle East.

The reticence to change, despite often overwhelming signs and signals urging us all in a new direction, remains glaringly pronounced. Sadly, though I've met many enlightened Saudis, I can't say the same for the U.S. finance industry representatives at this conference. By and large, they remain deeply rooted in the oil-economy paradigm and exhibit the same unbridled greed that is at the root of so many of our problems.

photo: Lars Plougmann

Middle East Journal, Part 2

Inspired Protagonist — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:37:41 -0500

As we disembarked in Riyadh we were greet by a group of young men dressed in white robes with red and white headscarves. They ushered us past the long security lines and into a waiting car. We were driven directly to our hotel. It was late at night and I had to wait until the next day to begin to explore the city.

Riyadh shows little evidence of having a history. Long avenues running in perfectly straight lines are filled with shops and businesses that no one appears to enter. The streets are almost completely empty.

The city is almost perfectly flat. There is a huge amount of new construction even as many of the recently completed building sit empty and unoccupied. Tan is the color of almost everything you see. In the market there are many men yet virtually no women and children.

My experience is shaped by a long New Yorker article, "The Kingdom of Silence," by Lawrence Wright from January 2004. I downloaded it to read on the plane. Wright's words in many ways shaped my thoughts.

"The self-effacement of an entire sex, and, in consequence, of sexuality itself, was the most unnerving feature of Saudi life. I could go through an entire day without seeing any women, except perhaps some beggars sitting on the curb outside a prince's house. Almost all-public space, from the outdoor terrace at the Italian restaurant to the sidewalk tables at Starbucks, belonged to men. The restaurants had separate entrances for "families" and "bachelors," and I could hear women scurrying past, hidden by screens, as they went upstairs or to a rear room."

As of several years ago, women outnumber men at university, yet only six per cent of all women are employed, a fact that has led some religious conservatives to argue that education is wasted on women.

Men dress mostly in white. Though some avoid traditional robes and wear western clothing, it's hard to tell if these men are expatriates, who make up almost half the population. The contrast between men in white and women in black is stark and quite striking.

The country is built on oil wealth but there is no visual representation of it. The oil wealth of the country runs first through the royal family. Wright noted that, "various businessmen and economists speculate that as much as thirty or forty per cent is skimmed by the Al Saud family."

Wright also described what he called a split between "virtual" Saudi Arabia and "real" Saudi Arabia. "The virtual Saudi Arabia actually exists in its rules and in the minds of the people." "For instance, in virtual Saudi Arabia (at least in 2004) there was no satellite television. In principle, and by law, you are not allowed to own a satellite dish. In reality the Saudi's were the biggest consumers of satellite television in the Middle East.

Alcohol is forbidden in the country. I had assumed that rules such as these would be liberally avoided. Not a chance. The immigration form I completed before leaving the plane noted that drug possession is punishable by death.

The fact that resonates the most is the number of September 11th terrorists that came from Saudi Arabia. Theories abound about the circumstances that would lead to one country being the source of so much anger and discontent. The smiling faces I encounter provide no insight.

Read Part 3

photo: Pedronet

Middle East Journal, Friday January 22nd

Inspired Protagonist — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 15:52:03 -0500

I've arrived in Amman, Jordan in transit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Out the window, the late afternoon sun paints the ground a sandy brown. Though there are houses scattered among the hillsides, there is no sign of any greenery to be found. There are no back yard swimming pools or playing fields. Few people here look like me, though my wife, a Persian Jew, at least fits into the visual landscape. My daughter, Chiara, who shares my wife's dark completion, looks like a local, too, with the exception of her teenage fashion accessories. Even though it's not required in Jordan, most women cover their heads with a scarf.

Many months ago, I received a letter on very official looking stationery. "I am writing to formally invite you as our guest of honor to the 2010 Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF), held in Riyadh under the patronage of HM King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz, from the 24th to the 26th of January," it read. "The theme for 2010 is "Sustainable Competitiveness." I was being asked to speak with other well-known leaders, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems; Michael Dell, Founder and CEO of Dell Computers; James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank; James Turley, Chairman and CEO of Ernst and Young; Nicolas Hayek, Chairman of the Swatch Group; Glenn Lowry, Director of the Museum Of Modern Art. The list went on and on.

But why me?

Seems they know the oil won't last forever and want an expert on sustainable business and product design. They specifically mentioned their interest in products designed with alternatives to petro-chemicals. I figured why not? I'd have the chance to address 1,000 of the world's top business leaders, and I wasn't about to pass up such a rare opportunity to talk to such an extraordinary audience about the dangerous state of the planet and what business and government need to do to prevent disaster.

Shortly, we board our connecting flight to Riyadh. In route, Sheila and Chiara will need to change into their abayas, which will cover them head to toe, leaving nothing exposed but their faces. This is going to be quite an adventure. Stay tuned...

Read Part 2

photo: Vyacheslav Argenberg

Bold Ideas in a World of Incremental Thinking

Inspired Protagonist — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 11:36:30 -0500

I recently wrote a piece about the pace of political change in the country.

The full text is available on Care2.com.

I invite you to read it then come back here and discuss it with me.

More Greed and Misbehavior at Goldman Sachs

Inspired Protagonist — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:55:24 -0500

Gretchen Morgenson, the brilliant business writer at the New York Times, continues to dissect the greed and misbehavior that led to the economic collapse. In another exceptional story, "Banks Bundled Bad Debt, Bet Against It and Won," she tells the story of one of the ways that investment firm Goldman Sachs effectively screws its own clients.

We already know that pension funds and insurance companies lost billions of dollars on securities that they believed were solid investments, but according to Morgenson's article, Goldman's behavior hits new lows.

"The simultaneous selling of securities to customers and shorting them because they believed they were going to default is the most cynical use of credit information that I have ever seen," said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R & R Consulting in New York. "When you buy protection against an event that you have a hand in causing, you are buying fire insurance on someone else's house and then committing arson."

That certainly helps explain how the company makes so much money, but I can't understand why their clients don't revolt. I can only imagine that either:

They haven't noticed they're getting screwed, or
Goldman has made so much money for them that they just write this off as a business expense and wait for the next "good" deal.

This is complex stuff but it's necessary to know. Check out Morgenson's complete story.

There's a Ballot in Your Wallet: Use It

Inspired Protagonist — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:34:25 -0500

We may think we vote on the first Tuesday in November, but in reality we vote every time we open our wallets and buy something. That's the idea behind a new initiative called Big Green Purse, and it's one we should all get behind.

The concept is simple: When we buy a product with a positive benefit -- whether it's a pound of fair trade coffee, a BPA-free water bottle, or a hybrid car -- we're supporting good ideas at the expense of harmful ones and funding people working to make positive changes. In essence, we're helping decide what products get made, what services get offered, and what impacts we're going to have on the environment, on human rights, and on the kind of world our kids will grow up in. That makes responsible shopping one of the biggest things we can do to build a healthier future, which is great news because it means that one of the easiest and most common acts of daily life can make the greatest difference. (Of course there's a difference between buying a green product and supporting a good company -- not all good companies make green products and green products by themselves are not enough. Since we need to have more good companies in the world, no matter what kind they are, we shouldn't necessarily make the "greenness" of a product our only purchasing standard.)

When our shopping efforts are combined, this difference is magnified. People start to take notice, and things start to change. That power in numbers is the power that Big Green Purse wants to tap. Since women are responsible for 85 cents of every consumer dollar spent, the organization wants a million women to commit to shifting $1,000 of their annual budget to green goods and services. The goal is a $1 billion effect that will get a lot of good things done and be impossible to ignore.

You can join this movement at the Big Green Purse website, where you'll find guides to pre-screened products that help you make the most of every penny and other resources. You'll also get a digital balance sheet to track your purchases and progress. It's a great idea, and I urge everyone reading this to join the cause. Together, we can get where we need to go, and Big Green Purse can show us where to buy our ticket.

Arthur Gray: Ode to a Man of Faith and Fortitude

Inspired Protagonist — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:00:25 -0500

On Monday, December 14th, Arthur Gray passed away. Arthur was a member of the board of directors of Seventh Generation since 1991.

Arthur was a humble man, never one to boast or focus on his own accomplishments.

Arthur was a man of principle, a man of conviction, compassion, and courage.

Arthur was a man of great faith and fortitude.

Arthur was one of the few people who knew me before I knew him. He was there on the day I was born, and remained a close friend of our family for my entire life. Arthur met my father at the Republican convention in Chicago in 1952. They worked together on Eisenhower’s campaign and forged a bond that lasted decades. The two men could not have been more different. Arthur was a man with a gentle and soft touch; my father was a small man with a loud voice.

On June 1st, 1979, Arthur helped form my second business. I was 24 years old and Arthur served as the Chairman of the Board, chief cheerleader and fundraiser for the Network for Learning. My father later joined him on the board. There would have been no Network for Learning without Arthur Gray.

Network for Learning had no shortage of successes and near death experiences. In 1984 after years of growth, the company was virtually out of business and we were forced to let go all 120 employees. Arthur, as ever, stood by my side. Just over a year later, quite amazingly, we sold the company to Warner Communications. Arthur, still the Chairman, presided over the ceremony as his faith was once again confirmed. For someone not yet 30, Arthur’s support led me to the first significant financial success in my life. Everyone who had initially invested in the company back in 1979 made a 10 to 1 return on their investment.

Arthur joined the Seventh Generation board in 1991, and other than me, was its longest serving member.

Arthur never gave up on anything he was committed to. Guided by deep belief, he lived in a world that was not ruled by the obstacles that deterred others. His faith enabled him to believe in possibilities others could not see. His commitment was unwavering. At the darkest hour, he was as confident as he was at the height of success.

There is something we can all learn from this exceptional man. In a world filled with cynicism and disbelief, in mistrust and faithlessness, Arthur showed us another possibility. The possibility we need to confront the huge challenges we face in the world today, challenges that can’t be conquered by facts, technology, power and brute force.

The faith and belief that Arthur best represented is often the only solution to enable possibilities that simply transcend logic and analysis.

When I stood alone, facing more than once, the all but certain failure of Seventh Generation, Arthur’s faith never wavered. He remained my most vocal cheerleader when others were convinced the end was just around the corner.

Arthur’s faith was not merely the stuff of kind words and encouragement, though that was always comforting, Arthur brought to bear his relationships and financial resources that kept the company alive when all else had failed.

There would be no Seventh Generation today without Arthur Gray.

We would have not survived the numerous crises that were the hallmark of our first 10 years in business without him.

Arthur’s legacy is everything that is good about this company. The jobs created, the hugely positive impact on the environment, the millions that have been educated and the leadership in corporate responsibility we have shown other businesses are in many ways possible because of his support.

I don’t think Arthur ever missed a single board meeting in 20 years Whether he was in New Hampshire, St. Croix or Spain, he would ensure that he was available to lend us his valuable council. He was also endlessly available to take my call, read my letter or respond to my email.

And while that is more than enough, what I will miss most is the man who was my second father. the one with the soft, comforting touch my father never had, the way he always found an opportunity to provide support rather than criticism and reveled in my successes rather than focus on my failings.

I have been very lucky to have a man like Arthur in my life. The world would be a much better place if only it was filled with more men with his faith and compassion, men who are concerned with others before themselves.

Arthur was a humble man, never one to boast or focus on his own accomplishments.

Arthur was a man of principle, a man of conviction, compassion, and courage.

Arthur was a man of faith and fortitude.

We will all miss him deeply, but were blessed to have had him in our lives.

--Jeffrey Hollender
Chief Inspired Protagonist
Seventh Generation

Short Term Thinking Shorts Us All

Inspired Protagonist — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:27:19 -0500

There's been plenty said about Wall Street's incredible collapse and the byzantine practices and illusionary (some would say delusionary) financial products that almost brought down our economy. But not enough has been said about the pervasive mindset that caused all the trouble in the first place.

The real problem with our current economic system has little to do specifically with derivative implosions, mortgage-backed securities meltdowns, and the like. These are just the symptoms. The disease itself is short-term thinking that treats companies, people, and necessities like jobs and mortgages as commodities to be manipulated for fast and easy profiteering. Short-term thinking is embedded in the strategies used by venture and private equity investors and hedge funds, thanks to a vast assortment of rules and regulations that encourage it. Raise short term capital gains rates dramatically, and you'd quickly see these vultures look elsewhere for the outsized returns they've become addicted to.

An autumn article in the New York Times offers a chilling case study. It tells the story of the Simmons Bedding Company of Beautyrest mattress fame, which has spent the last 25 years being bought and sold by a steady stream of investment firms that would purchase the company on credit and then make a ton of money charging fees and borrowing cash using the company's assets as collateral to pay themselves back and then some. Once the merry dealmakers had gotten rich, the company would be sold to a new group that would start the process all over again, leaving the employees of Simmons to clean up the mess.

It's the corporate version of house flipping, and now after being bought and sold multiple times by firms including Merrill Lynch Capital Partners; Investcorp, a Bahrain investment group; Fenway Partners; and Thomas H. Lee Partners of Boston, Simmons has a 1.3 billion dollar debt it can't repay. It's been leveraged to death by a parade of investors that treated the company like a personal ATM without giving a single thought to what might come next.

Here's the collateral damage: People lose their jobs, pension funds are destroyed, towns shutter, and the misery piles up. Add up all the companies in all the places that have suffered a similar fate, and you have a lot more than an economic crisis. You have a moral calamity that's rippling across the country -- shattering families, destroying communities, destabilizing the country, and leaving everyone but a few with less than they had before.

Stronger regulations that encourage and reward slower, longer-term growth strategies at the expense of naked short-term profit grabs can fix some of this, but until we see companies for what they really are -- groups of real people whose families' and communities' very survival hinges on the work each business provides -- we won't fix the deeper troubles that are our most serious economic problem.

As a nation, we must start basing our personal and professional financial decisions not on what's in it for us alone right now or soon thereafter but on what's in it for all of us over time. We need to question whether our banks and investment firms have financed some of these deals. We should know if our pension funds provide capital to such bankers. We have to seek the broader wisdom that will allow us to see past our own self-interests and think bigger and better than we've been thinking. Only then will we build the just and sustainable financial system that's the real answer to our economic crisis. That system will understand that when we plunder a company like Simmons, we're stealing a lot more than just the hopes and dreams of a handful of people we'll never know. We're robbing our collective future and ultimately doing little more than stealing from ourselves.

photo: Alan Stanton

The Sustainability Imperative

Inspired Protagonist — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:29:11 -0500

The Harvard Business Review turned their attention to "green" business in their September 2009 issue. "Why Green Is Growing (When Not Much Else Is)," they ask. The answer comes in a lead article, which makes the audacious claim "that companies won't innovate successfully -- and as a result won't grow -- unless they throw themselves whole hog into green initiatives."

"Smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new frontier," write authors Ram Nidumolu, C.K. Prahalad, and M.R. Rangaswami.

And so "green" continues to rise even as the economy sinks. According to the Cone Consumer 2009 Environmental Survey, about 34 percent of consumers are more likely to buy environmentally responsible products and 44 percent of consumers indicate their environmental shopping habits have not changed as a result of the economy.

Other statistics hint at the inexorable creep of environmental ideals into the marketplace. More than 50% of the global population, for example, is now aware of the term "carbon footprint," up from 38 percent in 2007, and The McKinsey Quarterly estimates that $170 billion a year will be invested in energy efficiency between now and 2020.

Seventh Generation has been on the leading edge of this trend for over two decades, and now we're wading even deeper into the environmental imperative with the most exciting educational initiative in our history. On December 1st, we will launch the Kaplan/Seventh Generation Sustainability Institute, an online learning program designed to teach the strategic integration of sustainability to thousands of businesses and their millions of employees.

The Sustainability Institute will provide an online library of courses, including such initial topics as Sustainability 101, Sustainable Supply Chain, and Greenhouse Gas Management as well as a series of ten video teaching modules designed to promote ongoing learning via topics that range from "Developing a Sustainability Mindset" to "Being Transparent."

Seventh Generation is thrilled to be partnering with Kaplan EduNeering, a pioneer in online learning. Given our goal of transforming the way America does business, online courses will be offered for as little as $45 for a small business and $10 per employee for larger companies.

For more information visit the Sustainability Institute.