Isn’t it enough to keep people employed and earn a profit?
The short answer is yes CSR matters and no it isn’t enought to just employ people and earn a profit; and it never really has been otherwise. The truth is that now there is more transparency (like it or not) around what companies and business owners are doing. And there is obviously much discontent over the widening gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” or, if you will, between the 1% and the 99% to use the now quite ubiquitous rallying cry of the Occupy Wall Street Crowd.
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Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, Ethical Corporation, Growing Edge, Leadership, Management
What is an entrepreneur?
Harvard Business School defined entreprenuer this way: “Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.”- Howard Stevenson
I was reminded of this several times this past month. First, over on LinkedIn, one of the groups I frequent posted this great article from Inc. Magazine. It’s an interesting read.
Entrepreneurship is creating something out of nothing. And of course there has to be a fair amount of leadership quality in the entrepreneur, at least in the beginning. Besides this article, I was reminded of the “entrepreneurship puzzle” as I worked with a colleague on his business idea presentation for his peer advisory board. That, in turn reminded me of the success gained by one of my UCI mentees in starting his own business. These two gentlemen are very different in training and background. Yet they both have the desire and the drive to build their own businesses – “without regard to resources currently controlled.”
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Entrepreneur, Howard Stevenson, Leadership, Management
A colleague mentioned that he was not able to meet with me over the weekend. He was attending a “Wisdom Weekend” course and would be tied up. Really? Wisdom in only one weekend? I chuckled and made some comment about how he’d be really scary if he had any more wisdom and wondered if he was teaching the course. But of course, this conversation started me down yet another rabbit hole of inquiry. What is wisdom?
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Leadership, Learning, Risk, Wisdom
It’s a problem. Perhaps you were “slow” to adopt to technology. Maybe you really don’t understand this stuff on the internet, e-mail, web sites, Blogs, Facebook and now Google +. Somehow though, because of business or your kids pushing you to join Facebook, you are “hooked.” It’s worse than you think. You now have an obligation to learn how to at least be safe without being paranoid.
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Leadership, Learning, M86 Labs, Malicious Programs, Malware, Scams, Spam, Technology
I’ll show you a DEAD Neanderthal. Our brains are evolving quickly and not quickly enough. We no longer have to worry about deciding quickly between saber-toothed tiger and hunger or choose between the “four F’s” (Flight, Fight, Food and, uh . . . Mate). But our brains are still more comfortable deciding quickly and with having certainty rather than uncertainty. And therein lies a challenge for all of us.
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Brain Bugs, Brain Evolution, Growing Edges
I was speaking with a client yesterday and of course things turned to business. He offered that things were actually starting to “loosen up” for him and that his customers were actually starting to invest again. How that investment is going was of interest. His customers aren’t hiring full time employees. They are investing in productivity and cost reduction projects.
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Business, Management, Markets, Sales
The sun makes my point. What point? I have been known to make the statement that “the universe is indifferent and knowable.” I usually am prompted to make that little observation when someone is complaining about how things aren’t “fair,” or how they have been “mistreated.” Generally, I shrub, make my statement and suggest that the only way to get out of their situation might be to learn what they need to learn and take action, because the universe doesn’t give a hoot about whether you survive or die. It just doesn’t care!
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heat, Leadership, life on earth, Management, Sun
I’ve posted several times on the Fundamental Organizing Principles (FOPs), values and how we develop a personal and corporate culture around them. I also suggested that we need to try and discover where we are in relationship to the corporate culture and “mind the gap,” so to speak. Well, I got called out on this one!
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FOP, Growing Edges, Introspection, Personal
It seems that manufactoring in the U.S.A. may not be such a bad thing after all. The Economist, Moving back to America, pulled together some interesting data that indicates all countries may well be looking to build factories to meet market demands, not to re-import “back home.”
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Economist, Leadership, Made in USA, Management, Manufacturing, offshoring
In a previous post, I laid out the basic model for understanding the deep underlying knowledge that drives our lives which I’ve called our “Fundamental Organizing Principles.” These FOPs form the foundation for not only what we hold to be true, but also how we see the world around us and interpret what we think we see. Recent work in the area of understanding the human brain and outlined in several books reviewed on this site (Brain Rules and The Believing Brain) give credence to the proposed model.
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fundamental organizing principles, Leadership, Management, Shaping the Corporate Culture
