Lessons - How To Run An Ethical Business | Tina Berger - F500 Digital Transformation Advisor

In this lessons episode, discover a model for a systemic reset that challenges entrenched business norms, learn why embracing uncertainty, and an inspired vision is essential for change. Understand how deep-listing balances efficiency with connection and explore how aligning individual and collective needs sparks innovative solutions. What's the model for what what so you advocate for systemic reset of a system that's entrenched? It's not easy, right? So let's look at let's look at the model is the model somewhere else in the world for how we should do business how we should collaborate that we should refer to engineer? I I so love the question because it's a it's a it's a delicious question because it's the as somebody who works with change I know that people don't like to let go of things that they love or that they're comfortable or that they know without having the next thing to grasp on to and say this is a better way and I also am aware that that we don't know the answer yet I'm not pointing at a different system and saying we should adopt that system and part of the challenge is that's what we want it's that we want a certainty about the future that's not really possible so we keep grasping for that and asking for that and say I'm not letting go of this until you show me and we're going to hold on to this with all of its destructive um you know damaging impacts until someone delivers us the actual better solution well I could come up with a better solution probably but would it be a better solution for long is it the better solution no I I believe that what what we need is a driving vision which is not a goal that's different from a goal even if you stick it's it's much easier to talk about these things if we look at the individual level because everything that's true about the individual experiences also true about the the collective so if I if I say oh you know how we ask people that are just coming out of of high school what they want to do for their career and then we make them choose and then they go to school and then they study that thing and then they get in that career and they go oh I didn't want to do this this is not what I want well this happens to people that are not just in school this happens with people's careers in general is like there's something we like about that so we say that's the goal and maybe it's a five year thing and we start driving that direction and we get a lot of flags along the way that this isn't really quite it there's something I like about that but I this was my goal so I have to drive here um instead of taking the hints along the way and going well was it about that I want to be in service this way I have a gift to bring this way this is me but this part's not me so much you know I've done that in my life many times where because that's what I learned to do to be successful was to get your goal and grind that out and then I get there and I go I don't want to do this you know for this is it and I've had so many conversations with senior leaders and executives inside of corporations and they say yeah you know I'm here this is what I spent my last 15 years trying to dig go and is this all there is this is it was just not and it's like we're not good at inspired vision and and and and inspired business you know inspiration comes from being still then going what serves and what serves what I think serves right now is not a bad question to start with what are we trying to serve what are we in service to by saying every year these large global corporations need to be another four or five percent bigger on the bottom line well we're in service to at this point it's right it's so you set you first of all you nailed it like the individual you look at the individual situation and then you just extrapolate that and that's the collective situation so you see you know the individual has the goals and the KPIs and the in the organization and those goals and KPIs are aligned with the organizations goals and KPIs which are usually to the shareholder right to the to the stakeholder and and that's that's and and even if the company's private the end goal is to you know exit and to a higher valuation or you know have a positive ROI for the investors until the IPO so it's always about the shareholder or the stakeholder that's what drives everything right now that's possible I mean but but from from for privately held company if you look at like a Patagonia like where that's owned I can't remember the guy's name but that one dude and he gets to say whatever he wants to say you know he'll he'll he'll he'll get big you know pages uh front pages on the New New York Times or whatever saying what he wants to say about indigenous rights or what he wants to say about gay and trans rights or whatever he wants to say about what the government should or shouldn't be doing and uh and I've had people say well how come they can do it and I'm like no that's not a publicly traded company it's a private privately held company and publicly traded companies in my view I don't see anybody really owning um the decisions made by those corporations because uh senior leader uh CEO says I'm doing what the investment behavior of the market tells me it wants which is to grow this bottom line to grow the profit line that's it and the reason I know that is because that's the only thing that consistently drives investors to buy this stock and it's fair enough that's true but I think people are unconscious in in general public is unconscious about our investment behavior um and how it drives those decisions so we don't think of ourselves as owning those decisions just because we own stock but when we sit down at the end of the year uh and either decide or by ourselves or with our advisors what are we going to invest in next year the question is well what's what's going up it's not what does that company do do I really feel aligned to it um and even my spirit yeah it's what's going to make me the most money so I can get out of this misery faster this this misery my investment it's a good self perpetuating prophecy almost it's totally like that it's completely like that and so it's kind of a crazy it's kind of it's a certain kind of crazy um and you know and I feel like the work that I'm doing right now the work that I'm getting to do right now to come back to the question of of what do we do different because I didn't really answer that I do believe we have to learn how to engage with each other in different ways I do believe that uh so if I say there's a bias towards the assertive in our culture and that's basically this logical rational um this need to to plan things this need to have everything be predictable these are at least this need to build things uh and grow things and this need to uh get your point into the room and to win at something these are not terrible instincts these are not terrible um this is not a terrible aspect of being a human that we want to be known for what we do that we want to be heard when we speak that we want to plan things and be able to have some predictability in life that we care about our individual needs and the needs of our particular families uh that we're interested in those things uh that we really want to move in the world and and and and feel the earth under our feet and get things done but they're out of balance with the whole other aspect of who we are as humans so the other aspect is really listening deeply so that we can hear from other people that have different lived experiences different gifts different capabilities and different perspectives on the same challenges and problems and that's really like deeply listening not like how we typically listen where we're rehearsing what we're going to say next while the person speaking is really taking that person in fully um learning how to allow space for spontaneity instead of having everything be planned out and being and this push for uh this constant push for action and this constant push for um efficiency takes all of the space out it takes all of the space for breathing out of our systems and so there's no space for spontaneity there's no space for the emotional understanding that you need to get things to be different taking into account the emotional impacts uh and really holding what are what are what are what are what is the what is what are our systems perpetuating in the world are we really fully aware like emotionally of the pain that that's causing because we are not just individual we're also fully connected with everything on this planet there's no way to separate us out completely because we're living both of those things both yes we having an individual experience but we're also impacted by knowing and you can see it in our like I can see it on my kids and they're they're part of why I speak about the things that I do but um they know who makes their smart devices and they know the situations those people are living in I didn't grow up knowing that uh it's painful for them to know that so I'm not surprised by the fact that so many young people don't want to plug in and continue to do what I grew up doing you know so we have to hold the emotional also at the same time as the intellectual it's not just a matter of putting money in the bank it's at what cost and you know what does it mean that we're doing that and and also this this uh this focus on structure overflow and this lack of space for just being being and um and being in a receptive quiet mode is one of the ways you know that we become receptive so we have to figure out how to do these as individuals first and how to acknowledge and make space for them and when we do this in a group when we learn how to do these things individually and we bring them to a group different things happen and much more creative much more inspiring much more integrative much better solutions are possible when we can do that because we can bring at that point the full value of the gifts in the rim in a way we can't do it if we are doing what we call collaboration which is eight people sitting around a table advocating for the thing that they already knew they wanted to happen when they showed up thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to watch the full episode see you in the next one