Inter Business Transcending Sustainability
Standing in the Royal University of Technology’s Innovation Building in Stockholm presenting the Inter Business Index for the very first time, I felt a rush of fear. And I mean that in the best possible way.
In this traditional academic institution, founded in 1827, facing a room full of business leaders, opinion leaders, experts and students, I am far from where I pictured my scene of impact. I always imagined the important aspects of my work as probably happening in any of the 70 plus countries I’ve worked in during my career. Anywhere but in a room full of suits in Stockholm.
Yet, this is it. I’m wearing kitten heels and I have never been more proud and more con dent that this is pushing the agenda in a way that is res- pectful to every person who I have met and interacted with. And scared.
The eld of sustainability is informed by at least thirty years of focused e orts taken by government bodies, as well as the private sector and civil society. That has closed the knowledge gap on a wide array of issues. Long gone are the days when economics were the only parameter of interest to business leaders, owners and investors. Today, environmental and social sustainability issues are front and centre.
The gap we are now facing is not one of knowledge, but one of skills. What is needed for leaders to handle sustainability holistically? What is needed for leaders in an era beyond sustainability? Those were the questions the research project I led during the last two years had begun to find the answers to. By working with 14 global experts within human centred design, systems change and social innovation and, by leveraging my team’s expertise within sustainability and applying my own experiences as a business leader, we developed a framework of Inter Business.
Inter Business transcends sustainability and has the courage of a deep connection to core business. With an ever-growing number of relevant perspectives and angles, each and every one with the potential to impact the business, we must master a new set of skills to remain agile and relevant. The skills of Inter Business allow for connectedness in a rapidly changing world.
Inter Business entails leading with:
Purpose: Meaning derived from carrying forward values-driven work. Purpose is described and acted on in relation to core business. Actions of company align with a core purpose.
Empathy: Empathy, or putting oneself in the shoes of the stakeholder, is embraced as a foundational element of better business and business communication. Empathy is embedded into initiatives of the company. Company is aware of the importance of empathy delivered to the entire marketplace – from customers, to employees, to the public.
Systems-approach: Business moves away from “linear” thinking (focus is on fixing isolated problems) to a systems perspective (holistic view of sustainability).
Transformation: Adaptability, flexibility and willingness to innovation and iterate in order to solve problems.
This is not about re-imagining sustainability. It is about transcending into Inter Business: mastering the skills to integrate lessons from a multitude of stakeholders across the traditional understanding of sustainability, and leveraging these lessons in strategy and business development.
To facilitate discussion and highlight great examples of businesses that are future prepared in strategy and operations, we have introduced the Inter Business Index. The measurement is a prism through which one can view businesses, and see a projection of future readiness. The Index itself has the aim of highlighting the frontrunners of Inter Business, to encourage others to follow their example and to inspire discussion about the future of business.
Tara Sophia Mohr thought me a word for the rush of fear I felt as I was presenting this new framework: yirah. The fear that strikes us when we are about to transcend the ego and find ourselves in possession of considerably more energy than we are used to. It is the second of two words meaning fear in biblical Hebrew. The first word is pachad, meaning projected fear that leads us to act irrationally and to avoid challenges. It is the fear that paralyses us, while yirah is the fear that makes us y.
During the 20 years I have been running businesses I have been dedicated to global development. I believe that companies have a unique potential to make a difference. It is a platform to work from that offers quick and effective decisions, an innovative approach to problem solving and, above all, a tremendous opportunity to change the life of many people in both the short and long term.
A vision of a just world, curiosity and the tradition of my first profession — journalism — have given me the chance to meet people in all walks of life, all over the world. And an important part of this has been the opportunities to meet people who live in extremely vulnerable situations: I have spoken with young women enrolled in commercial sexual exploitation on the streets of Maputo, Mozambique; I have been working on democracy projects on the understanding of democracy with children in villages in Burma, close to the Thai border, and I have facilitated discussions on freedom of speech with journalists in Belarus, White Russia. These have been irreplaceable sources of information and I have learned things from the people I met that have been key for me as a leader, as a strategist, as a human.
But it took me many years before I realised the true value and potential of the stories I encountered. I thought the point was shining a light on invisible narratives, I thought the solution was empowerment alone and that the potential for change was something to be handed to those less fortunate. I was wrong.
Instead, the key to unlocking the meaning of these interactions was working with people at the other end of the hierarchy — it was in dialogue with other business leaders and entrepreneurs. The true gap is in our underestimating businesses as engines for development and change, and more specifically in the ability of businesses and leaders to turn information from a complex web of stakeholders into strategic business decisions.
The insight sprung from having had the chance to move between spaces that are most often light years apart — from brothels to boardrooms, from malaria clinics to management teams. All of these spaces are inhabited by humans, connected in humanity, and herein lies the opportunity for businesses to transcend.
Inter Business supports a new understanding of business — as a vehicle to create value in relationship to the stakeholders. All stakeholders. It turns the old fashioned moneymaking machine into a platform for development, progress and change, for which the moneymaking is just one of many important cogs in the machinery. This change is already underway and the ones who are able to make this shift, to acquire this new set of skills that are needed, will be the ones leading us into the future.
So when Caroline Casey, at the launch of Inter Business Index, said to me: “You have picked a mission that will be extremely di cult, with major structures that will need to shift. You are calling for a huge change here. You are truly one of the crazy ones!” I felt the first bang of fear, that best fear, yirah.
Here is this woman who lived her life blissfully unaware that she was blind until she was fourteen, worked as a global management consultant before she resigned and rode an elephant through India, then started a global movement to change the fundamental structures in the private sector so that people with disabilities could have a natural place there. And she’s calling me crazy!
My way to yirah went through conversations in garbage dumpsites and discussions in boardrooms to a moment of clarity in a Technical university. My hope for you who are about to meet Srey, the Cambodian girl, is that she can guide you on your own path to yirah.
This text is the introduction of Srey — Tales of Urban Girlhood, a book on empathic meetings all the way out into the outer rims of the value chain.
- Published by Dokument Press
- Texts & Insights by Johanna Hallin, that is me, and Evelina Fredriksson
- Photography by Sotarn
- Design by Pondus
I am an explorer of the future of corporate governance, working towards a world of integrated, interconnected innovators.
Come say hello on LinkedIn.
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