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The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success
"When most people think of corporate responsibility, they are focusing on a business's effect on and relationship to stakeholders. A Responsible Business sees stakeholders as full partners and meaningful instruments for the evolution of healthier communities and more successful businesses."
&; from the Introduction The Responsible Business offers a new and strategic approach to doing business that holistically integrates responsibility into all aspects of an organization, allowing for returns at every level, business and social. This book goes beyond the often well intentioned but limited attempts at sustainability to present a framework that allows organizations to bring responsibility into everything they do and re-imagine success. From innovation, product development, and production processes to business management, strategic planning, and shareholder development, the author shows how being a Responsible Business is a practical skill that can be applied day-to-day at every level of the business. No longer just the role of a department or the job of CSR professionals, successful responsibility and business efforts start at the business level, are then taken to the corporate level, and are finally applied throughout the organization. The Responsible Business outlines a framework for building a responsibility and consciousness infrastructure that applies a living systems view to the business and inspires all of its stakeholders, including shareholders. Throughout the book, illustrated by examples from technology to manufacturing, large and small, public and private, Sanford demonstrates how to make responsibility integral to all aspects of a business as an engine for innovation, profitability, and purpose. Praise for The Responsible Business "This is a very significant book. It makes it clear that businesses have a single boss with five interrelated aspects. The stories are among the crispest, most evocative case histories I have seen. The book is for any corporate leader trying to do the impossible: create a business that recreates the world."
&; Art Kleiner, editor-in-chief, strategy + business, and author, The Age of Heretics "Carol Sanford offers us a proven, practical, and systems-based approach that integrates five stakeholder groups into a business system working as an integral whole. Essential reading for leaders wanting a system framework for sustainability and business success!"
&; Otto Scharmer, MIT Sloan senior lecturer; author, Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges; and coauthor, Presence " The Responsible Business challenges many assumptions corporate leaders, investment advisors, and sustainability experts have long taken for granted. It provides a road map that can help innovative businesses think about how to be truly transformational."
&; Sam Ford, Fast Company expert blogger and director, Peppercom "The powerful concepts in The Responsible Business have changed the process of sustainable development and how communities truly thrive. Indeed, these proven approaches will be the roadmap to truly achieve the deepest level of living communities."
&; Bill Reed, founding member of LEED System and coauthor, The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building "Critical for re-imagining the future of business. Rarely a day goes by that I do not call on this way of thinking and looking at the world. It is useful for taking on the big business decisions that so many of us face every day."
&; Chad Holliday, chairman, Bank of America
&; from the Introduction The Responsible Business offers a new and strategic approach to doing business that holistically integrates responsibility into all aspects of an organization, allowing for returns at every level, business and social. This book goes beyond the often well intentioned but limited attempts at sustainability to present a framework that allows organizations to bring responsibility into everything they do and re-imagine success. From innovation, product development, and production processes to business management, strategic planning, and shareholder development, the author shows how being a Responsible Business is a practical skill that can be applied day-to-day at every level of the business. No longer just the role of a department or the job of CSR professionals, successful responsibility and business efforts start at the business level, are then taken to the corporate level, and are finally applied throughout the organization. The Responsible Business outlines a framework for building a responsibility and consciousness infrastructure that applies a living systems view to the business and inspires all of its stakeholders, including shareholders. Throughout the book, illustrated by examples from technology to manufacturing, large and small, public and private, Sanford demonstrates how to make responsibility integral to all aspects of a business as an engine for innovation, profitability, and purpose. Praise for The Responsible Business "This is a very significant book. It makes it clear that businesses have a single boss with five interrelated aspects. The stories are among the crispest, most evocative case histories I have seen. The book is for any corporate leader trying to do the impossible: create a business that recreates the world."
&; Art Kleiner, editor-in-chief, strategy + business, and author, The Age of Heretics "Carol Sanford offers us a proven, practical, and systems-based approach that integrates five stakeholder groups into a business system working as an integral whole. Essential reading for leaders wanting a system framework for sustainability and business success!"
&; Otto Scharmer, MIT Sloan senior lecturer; author, Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges; and coauthor, Presence " The Responsible Business challenges many assumptions corporate leaders, investment advisors, and sustainability experts have long taken for granted. It provides a road map that can help innovative businesses think about how to be truly transformational."
&; Sam Ford, Fast Company expert blogger and director, Peppercom "The powerful concepts in The Responsible Business have changed the process of sustainable development and how communities truly thrive. Indeed, these proven approaches will be the roadmap to truly achieve the deepest level of living communities."
&; Bill Reed, founding member of LEED System and coauthor, The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building "Critical for re-imagining the future of business. Rarely a day goes by that I do not call on this way of thinking and looking at the world. It is useful for taking on the big business decisions that so many of us face every day."
&; Chad Holliday, chairman, Bank of America
310 pages, Hardcover
First published February 9, 2011
14 people are currently reading
191 people want to read
About the author
Carol Sanford
12 books55 followersCarol is recognized as a Global Thought Leader by Conscious Company Media & Athena Awards for Mentoring and Community Service to small businesses. A Senior Fellow of Social Innovation, Babson College; CEO, The Regenerative Paradigm Institute, Educator and Social Change designer for people in change agents roles, organizational leaders who aspire to make a difference, business and organizational teams pursuing non-displaceability. Author of seven award-winning, best-selling books, including The Regenerative Life: Transform Any Organization, Our Society, Your Destiny, No More Feedback, The Regenerative Business (Google VP, Michiel Bakker, foreword.) All seven books are built around case stories of specific transformations in people, businesses, communities, and regions. Exec Producer, The Regenerative Business Summit and Producer & Narrator of, Business Second Opinion Podcast..
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
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January 22, 2021The Responsible Business is the ideal that businesses would measure themselves by how their "actions positively affect the society we live in and the planet we live on..." We should be shouting the premise from the rooftops: "By definition, therefore, a corporate or business entity is responsible to more than just itself. It exists in a larger whole... and it is responsible to the whole of which it is a part." The question is not how to do less harm but how to do more good, as noted by a Seventh Generation Executive.
The book posits a responsible business pentad of customers, co-creators, earth, community, and investors. This pentad, wholly caring and being infinitely connected to all of these elements, is the solution. For communities, it says "By unleashing the creativity, self-organization, and self-accountability of its co-creators, businesses can tap precisely into the local intelligence needed to adapt to local circumstances." - Which I read as more work, more invasion into personal life, and the same compensation? These risks were not as apparent in 2011 at the time of writing, but there are many ways these suggestions could be interpreted and done poorly. So it all makes me nervous.
I really admire the lengths Carol Sanford goes to explain concepts, including acknowledging that this book is more at a higher level and giving a link to a more personal individual contributor level document.
I went back and forth between feeling the advice was too directional to manifest easily, and feeling that, yes, some of these directions are highly practical task-level guidance.
Nevertheless, there have been advancements in stakeholder thinking and a more modern take would emphasize more the importance of communities over customers and service over profit. The book stops short of questioning profit motives and profit structures. Much of the book focuses on customers first, rather than communities. The full definition in the book is: "The Responsible Business Always asks, "How can our actions positively affect the society we live in and the planet we live on while *creating a great market?*" " Therefore, it's the same triple bottom line.
The book posits a responsible business pentad of customers, co-creators, earth, community, and investors. This pentad, wholly caring and being infinitely connected to all of these elements, is the solution. For communities, it says "By unleashing the creativity, self-organization, and self-accountability of its co-creators, businesses can tap precisely into the local intelligence needed to adapt to local circumstances." - Which I read as more work, more invasion into personal life, and the same compensation? These risks were not as apparent in 2011 at the time of writing, but there are many ways these suggestions could be interpreted and done poorly. So it all makes me nervous.
I really admire the lengths Carol Sanford goes to explain concepts, including acknowledging that this book is more at a higher level and giving a link to a more personal individual contributor level document.
I went back and forth between feeling the advice was too directional to manifest easily, and feeling that, yes, some of these directions are highly practical task-level guidance.
Nevertheless, there have been advancements in stakeholder thinking and a more modern take would emphasize more the importance of communities over customers and service over profit. The book stops short of questioning profit motives and profit structures. Much of the book focuses on customers first, rather than communities. The full definition in the book is: "The Responsible Business Always asks, "How can our actions positively affect the society we live in and the planet we live on while *creating a great market?*" " Therefore, it's the same triple bottom line.
February 29, 2012
While there are many frameworks that outline the systems for analyzing sustainability in companies there are few that deal with the inner and outer transformation required in those that will lead these companies toward a more sustainable future. This book outlines how leaders need to see their purpose for being in business with new eyes and gives plenty of detail and cases for how this can be done.
The author's more than thirty years of experience working with large companies around the world provides this book with important cases that help the reader see how this has impacted organizations in different industries, cultures and economic situations.
I've treated this book almost like a text book - highlighted, tabbed and with corners folded over. This is a tremendous resource for leaders of all ages who seek to develop their own way of thinking about business, leadership and, as Carol says, the regenerative power of responsible business!
Thank you for writing this important book!
The author's more than thirty years of experience working with large companies around the world provides this book with important cases that help the reader see how this has impacted organizations in different industries, cultures and economic situations.
I've treated this book almost like a text book - highlighted, tabbed and with corners folded over. This is a tremendous resource for leaders of all ages who seek to develop their own way of thinking about business, leadership and, as Carol says, the regenerative power of responsible business!
Thank you for writing this important book!
January 20, 2016
If you aren't yet familiar with Carol Sanford's work, read this. It's a terrific book filled with insights about creating a successful, sustainable (in the full sense of the word) business by understanding and working with its major stakeholders in an integrated way.
November 13, 2012
Loved it. Should read again some day.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews