WEBVTT
00:03.938 --> 00:16.582
[SPEAKER_00]: what happens when doing the right thing actually makes it harder to succeed because that's a contradiction at the heart of modern business and it's why so many companies even the ones with the best intentions struggled to follow through.
00:17.302 --> 00:21.764
[SPEAKER_00]: On as shouldn't be this hard we talked to business leaders to see the ability professionals
00:22.251 --> 00:31.737
[SPEAKER_00]: in social impact on entrepreneurs, working at the intersection of purpose and performance, exploring why that gap exists and what it actually takes to close it.
00:31.997 --> 00:43.044
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this episode, we continue our conversation with Jeffrey Hollander, founder of seventh generation, NYU Stern professor and author of his latest book, Built for a Better World.
00:43.545 --> 00:48.508
[SPEAKER_00]: To go deeper into what really gets in the way, when businesses try to do the right things.
00:49.380 --> 00:53.784
[SPEAKER_02]: Business is not only the solution, but it's a huge part of the problem.
00:55.706 --> 01:02.552
[SPEAKER_02]: Much of that is driven by the fact that the biggest money that's going into our political system comes from business.
01:03.053 --> 01:13.943
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you have that difficult conversation, so it is empowering constructive dialogue that moves both people ahead rather than leaves one or both people behind?
01:14.841 --> 01:16.542
[SPEAKER_02]: But that doesn't happen by itself.
01:16.603 --> 01:24.529
[SPEAKER_02]: It happens because you bring someone in, who has the knowledge to do that, and teaches the staff how to make that happen.
01:25.210 --> 01:30.374
[SPEAKER_02]: Even one of the things that we discovered was the power of storytelling.
01:31.455 --> 01:36.640
[SPEAKER_02]: We decided that the most important people who could talk about our company were our employees.
01:37.558 --> 01:41.460
[SPEAKER_02]: But most of them didn't know how to give an elevator picture about what they were doing.
01:42.180 --> 01:52.905
[SPEAKER_02]: So we brought someone in to teach everyone in the company how to be better story-dellers, so they could spread the word more effectively about what we were doing because it was hard to do on their own.
01:53.764 --> 02:00.066
[SPEAKER_00]: If the challenge were just internal, leadership, culture, communication, this would be fixable.
02:00.667 --> 02:03.928
[SPEAKER_00]: But as Jeffrey points out, that's not where most businesses break.
02:04.448 --> 02:08.990
[SPEAKER_00]: They break when those values confront the realities of the system they're operating inside.
02:09.530 --> 02:12.612
[SPEAKER_00]: because success and business is in shape and isolation.
02:13.232 --> 02:17.595
[SPEAKER_00]: It's shaped by incentives, markets, by what gets rewarded and what doesn't.
02:18.376 --> 02:24.880
[SPEAKER_00]: And when those forces are misaligned with their values, doing the right thing doesn't just become difficult, it becomes a risk.
02:25.820 --> 02:28.862
[SPEAKER_02]: The first decade of business was horrible.
02:28.882 --> 02:30.143
[SPEAKER_02]: We lost lots of money.
02:30.203 --> 02:31.844
[SPEAKER_02]: We were growing very slowly.
02:33.165 --> 02:37.447
[SPEAKER_02]: And it really took a few things happening all the same time.
02:38.885 --> 02:42.186
[SPEAKER_02]: we did in some of which were in the external environment.
02:42.546 --> 02:43.967
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll give you a couple of examples.
02:44.167 --> 02:54.391
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing we did was change our focus from products for a healthy planet to safer for you and the environment.
02:55.332 --> 03:06.776
[SPEAKER_02]: And the safer for you part really expanded our market because we discovered that people are much more motivated to do something that's better for their health than they are to save trees
03:09.362 --> 03:17.830
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that happened was the natural food movement and whole foods, all of a sudden there was this incredible interest in eating better.
03:18.911 --> 03:29.721
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were able to tad along with that and say it's not just what you put in your body but it's what you put on your body and what you put around your body that matters.
03:30.402 --> 03:33.825
[SPEAKER_02]: And being sold in every whole food store across the country,
03:34.376 --> 03:39.717
[SPEAKER_02]: Reconforce the idea that we were fundamentally part of this health and wellness movement.
03:40.537 --> 03:42.618
[SPEAKER_02]: So those two things were critical.
03:43.198 --> 03:47.339
[SPEAKER_00]: What's striking in that story is that it wasn't about what they did internally.
03:47.479 --> 03:50.420
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about timing, about tapping into something bigger.
03:50.880 --> 03:53.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Because businesses don't scale impact on their own.
03:54.060 --> 03:57.361
[SPEAKER_00]: They scale when they move with momentum and align with movements.
03:57.861 --> 04:00.882
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens when you try to take that momentum and formalize it?
04:01.353 --> 04:06.035
[SPEAKER_00]: to build it into governance, into accountability, and to how a business actually operates.
04:06.715 --> 04:09.076
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where movements like the B-Court movement come in.
04:09.497 --> 04:11.598
[SPEAKER_00]: But even that hasn't fully closed the gap.
04:12.018 --> 04:26.164
[SPEAKER_01]: If we take the fact that we had an emerging business community that was more focused on using the power of governance and businesses of force for good, what's your take on the B-Court movement?
04:26.224 --> 04:27.925
[SPEAKER_02]: And a huge supporter of B-Court.
04:31.103 --> 04:54.132
[SPEAKER_02]: 10 or 20 companies to ever become a B-Corp, and I tell businesses today, if they want people to think that they're responsible and sustainable, there's no reason for them not to be a B-Corp, because that's the only system of evaluation that gives a consumer or a stakeholder certainty that a company is doing what it says it does.
04:55.092 --> 05:00.895
[SPEAKER_02]: We haven't sort of reached a tipping point and it's very, very hard to get the largest companies to become peak course.
05:00.915 --> 05:08.058
[SPEAKER_02]: There's only a few of them, like Natura and Denon, that are big companies who will become peak corpse.
05:08.098 --> 05:22.644
[SPEAKER_02]: And really, for the movement to reach the potential that it needs to reach, we need to have not just small and medium sized companies, but big companies joining this movement, being transparent.
05:23.055 --> 05:25.217
[SPEAKER_02]: be committed to more than just making money.
05:26.077 --> 05:34.123
[SPEAKER_02]: The challenge is that many companies don't understand what the business case for doing this is.
05:35.004 --> 05:42.630
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't connect the fact that by being a B-Corp, they're actually able to hire better talent than they would otherwise be able to hire.
05:43.350 --> 05:49.675
[SPEAKER_02]: That their turnover rate is going to be lower than it would otherwise be saving them tons of money unrecruited.
05:50.933 --> 05:56.839
[SPEAKER_02]: The business case is just not well-made and you need to be able to make that business case.
05:56.859 --> 06:06.608
[SPEAKER_02]: You need to understand it again from a system's perspective, not just are we saving water, we saving energy, are we doing things that everybody knows about.
06:07.549 --> 06:11.653
[SPEAKER_02]: There's an abundant research, something like diversity and inclusion.
06:11.973 --> 06:14.516
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a huge business case for diversity.
06:15.977 --> 06:28.380
[SPEAKER_02]: Credits Swiss did a evaluation of about 2,000 companies, and they found that just putting one woman on the board significantly increases the profitability of the business.
06:29.160 --> 06:36.641
[SPEAKER_02]: We need those kinds of facts and statistics to support the decisions that you're going to make when you're more responsible.
06:37.201 --> 06:40.262
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't have them, it's hard to continue.
06:40.762 --> 06:41.422
[SPEAKER_01]: What would be your
06:45.847 --> 06:56.511
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, in big organizations, trying to figure the right way to do things, trying to connect the right, doing the right thing to do and the right things and maybe falling between the gaps.
06:56.691 --> 07:14.357
[SPEAKER_02]: Well not to be self-serving, but the book that I just wrote built for a better world is everything I've learned, the mistakes I've made, the things I figured out, and it's basically a guide for how to move forward to get ourselves headed in the right direction.
07:15.409 --> 07:16.750
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's no one thing.
07:16.770 --> 07:17.851
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the challenge.
07:17.871 --> 07:20.933
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no magic bullet that is going to solve the problem.
07:21.794 --> 07:25.857
[SPEAKER_02]: So at the end of the book, I basically put forth 18 things.
07:25.877 --> 07:36.866
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a lot that are the most important things you can do that make sure your business is playing the positive role in society and the environment.
07:37.486 --> 07:43.992
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, and I hope that if people follow that guidance, we'll get headed in a better direction than we are today.
07:45.037 --> 07:59.128
[SPEAKER_01]: out of those 18 is the what are they want or two that you think are particularly important or all the one or two that you just feel instinctively or intuitively have the power and the hootspower to make a big difference.
07:59.708 --> 08:12.738
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you're not humble and if you're not very committed to being aware of how much you don't know and how much you need to learn and not obsessed with how smart and effective and successful
08:14.272 --> 08:21.014
[SPEAKER_02]: This work will not be good for you because it takes very, very humble people to do this kind of work.
08:21.695 --> 08:27.036
[SPEAKER_02]: And often people that are very successful and that are risen to the top of their corporation.
08:27.757 --> 08:30.858
[SPEAKER_02]: Think they're much better and much smarter than they really are.
08:31.918 --> 08:37.640
[SPEAKER_02]: And we learned in seven generations that there's something to be learned from every single person to the company.
08:38.340 --> 08:42.622
[SPEAKER_02]: The smartest people are not the ones who are getting paid the most money in many cases.
08:44.472 --> 08:50.253
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that we've discovered that's really critical is what we call radical transparency.
08:51.173 --> 08:58.415
[SPEAKER_02]: Without being able to share your mistakes, the things you've done wrong, the things that you should be doing better.
08:59.135 --> 09:03.156
[SPEAKER_02]: No one really has a realistic picture of what you're doing in the role that you're playing.
09:03.976 --> 09:08.597
[SPEAKER_02]: Companies are scared if not terrified of radical transparency.
09:09.127 --> 09:12.390
[SPEAKER_02]: because they're addicted to telling people how wonderful they are.
09:13.211 --> 09:16.214
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the problem isn't that doing the right thing as hard.
09:16.875 --> 09:21.220
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's that we've built businesses we're doing the wrong thing is still easier.
09:22.000 --> 09:26.045
[SPEAKER_00]: And until we start building businesses differently, we'll keep getting the same results.
09:26.605 --> 09:46.432
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the gap that we're focused on closing at grounded, and if you're trying to figure out how to do that inside your own organization, to move from intention to execution, and build for what comes next, you can explore how we work at grounded.world, and be sure to stay grounded with us wherever you listen to your podcast at it shouldn't be this hard.
00:03.938 --> 00:16.582
[SPEAKER_00]: what happens when doing the right thing actually makes it harder to succeed because that's a contradiction at the heart of modern business and it's why so many companies even the ones with the best intentions struggled to follow through.
00:17.302 --> 00:21.764
[SPEAKER_00]: On as shouldn't be this hard we talked to business leaders to see the ability professionals
00:22.251 --> 00:31.737
[SPEAKER_00]: in social impact on entrepreneurs, working at the intersection of purpose and performance, exploring why that gap exists and what it actually takes to close it.
00:31.997 --> 00:43.044
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this episode, we continue our conversation with Jeffrey Hollander, founder of seventh generation, NYU Stern professor and author of his latest book, Built for a Better World.
00:43.545 --> 00:48.508
[SPEAKER_00]: To go deeper into what really gets in the way, when businesses try to do the right things.
00:49.380 --> 00:53.784
[SPEAKER_02]: Business is not only the solution, but it's a huge part of the problem.
00:55.706 --> 01:02.552
[SPEAKER_02]: Much of that is driven by the fact that the biggest money that's going into our political system comes from business.
01:03.053 --> 01:13.943
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you have that difficult conversation, so it is empowering constructive dialogue that moves both people ahead rather than leaves one or both people behind?
01:14.841 --> 01:16.542
[SPEAKER_02]: But that doesn't happen by itself.
01:16.603 --> 01:24.529
[SPEAKER_02]: It happens because you bring someone in, who has the knowledge to do that, and teaches the staff how to make that happen.
01:25.210 --> 01:30.374
[SPEAKER_02]: Even one of the things that we discovered was the power of storytelling.
01:31.455 --> 01:36.640
[SPEAKER_02]: We decided that the most important people who could talk about our company were our employees.
01:37.558 --> 01:41.460
[SPEAKER_02]: But most of them didn't know how to give an elevator picture about what they were doing.
01:42.180 --> 01:52.905
[SPEAKER_02]: So we brought someone in to teach everyone in the company how to be better story-dellers, so they could spread the word more effectively about what we were doing because it was hard to do on their own.
01:53.764 --> 02:00.066
[SPEAKER_00]: If the challenge were just internal, leadership, culture, communication, this would be fixable.
02:00.667 --> 02:03.928
[SPEAKER_00]: But as Jeffrey points out, that's not where most businesses break.
02:04.448 --> 02:08.990
[SPEAKER_00]: They break when those values confront the realities of the system they're operating inside.
02:09.530 --> 02:12.612
[SPEAKER_00]: because success and business is in shape and isolation.
02:13.232 --> 02:17.595
[SPEAKER_00]: It's shaped by incentives, markets, by what gets rewarded and what doesn't.
02:18.376 --> 02:24.880
[SPEAKER_00]: And when those forces are misaligned with their values, doing the right thing doesn't just become difficult, it becomes a risk.
02:25.820 --> 02:28.862
[SPEAKER_02]: The first decade of business was horrible.
02:28.882 --> 02:30.143
[SPEAKER_02]: We lost lots of money.
02:30.203 --> 02:31.844
[SPEAKER_02]: We were growing very slowly.
02:33.165 --> 02:37.447
[SPEAKER_02]: And it really took a few things happening all the same time.
02:38.885 --> 02:42.186
[SPEAKER_02]: we did in some of which were in the external environment.
02:42.546 --> 02:43.967
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'll give you a couple of examples.
02:44.167 --> 02:54.391
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing we did was change our focus from products for a healthy planet to safer for you and the environment.
02:55.332 --> 03:06.776
[SPEAKER_02]: And the safer for you part really expanded our market because we discovered that people are much more motivated to do something that's better for their health than they are to save trees
03:09.362 --> 03:17.830
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that happened was the natural food movement and whole foods, all of a sudden there was this incredible interest in eating better.
03:18.911 --> 03:29.721
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were able to tad along with that and say it's not just what you put in your body but it's what you put on your body and what you put around your body that matters.
03:30.402 --> 03:33.825
[SPEAKER_02]: And being sold in every whole food store across the country,
03:34.376 --> 03:39.717
[SPEAKER_02]: Reconforce the idea that we were fundamentally part of this health and wellness movement.
03:40.537 --> 03:42.618
[SPEAKER_02]: So those two things were critical.
03:43.198 --> 03:47.339
[SPEAKER_00]: What's striking in that story is that it wasn't about what they did internally.
03:47.479 --> 03:50.420
[SPEAKER_00]: It was about timing, about tapping into something bigger.
03:50.880 --> 03:53.700
[SPEAKER_00]: Because businesses don't scale impact on their own.
03:54.060 --> 03:57.361
[SPEAKER_00]: They scale when they move with momentum and align with movements.
03:57.861 --> 04:00.882
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens when you try to take that momentum and formalize it?
04:01.353 --> 04:06.035
[SPEAKER_00]: to build it into governance, into accountability, and to how a business actually operates.
04:06.715 --> 04:09.076
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where movements like the B-Court movement come in.
04:09.497 --> 04:11.598
[SPEAKER_00]: But even that hasn't fully closed the gap.
04:12.018 --> 04:26.164
[SPEAKER_01]: If we take the fact that we had an emerging business community that was more focused on using the power of governance and businesses of force for good, what's your take on the B-Court movement?
04:26.224 --> 04:27.925
[SPEAKER_02]: And a huge supporter of B-Court.
04:31.103 --> 04:54.132
[SPEAKER_02]: 10 or 20 companies to ever become a B-Corp, and I tell businesses today, if they want people to think that they're responsible and sustainable, there's no reason for them not to be a B-Corp, because that's the only system of evaluation that gives a consumer or a stakeholder certainty that a company is doing what it says it does.
04:55.092 --> 05:00.895
[SPEAKER_02]: We haven't sort of reached a tipping point and it's very, very hard to get the largest companies to become peak course.
05:00.915 --> 05:08.058
[SPEAKER_02]: There's only a few of them, like Natura and Denon, that are big companies who will become peak corpse.
05:08.098 --> 05:22.644
[SPEAKER_02]: And really, for the movement to reach the potential that it needs to reach, we need to have not just small and medium sized companies, but big companies joining this movement, being transparent.
05:23.055 --> 05:25.217
[SPEAKER_02]: be committed to more than just making money.
05:26.077 --> 05:34.123
[SPEAKER_02]: The challenge is that many companies don't understand what the business case for doing this is.
05:35.004 --> 05:42.630
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't connect the fact that by being a B-Corp, they're actually able to hire better talent than they would otherwise be able to hire.
05:43.350 --> 05:49.675
[SPEAKER_02]: That their turnover rate is going to be lower than it would otherwise be saving them tons of money unrecruited.
05:50.933 --> 05:56.839
[SPEAKER_02]: The business case is just not well-made and you need to be able to make that business case.
05:56.859 --> 06:06.608
[SPEAKER_02]: You need to understand it again from a system's perspective, not just are we saving water, we saving energy, are we doing things that everybody knows about.
06:07.549 --> 06:11.653
[SPEAKER_02]: There's an abundant research, something like diversity and inclusion.
06:11.973 --> 06:14.516
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a huge business case for diversity.
06:15.977 --> 06:28.380
[SPEAKER_02]: Credits Swiss did a evaluation of about 2,000 companies, and they found that just putting one woman on the board significantly increases the profitability of the business.
06:29.160 --> 06:36.641
[SPEAKER_02]: We need those kinds of facts and statistics to support the decisions that you're going to make when you're more responsible.
06:37.201 --> 06:40.262
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you don't have them, it's hard to continue.
06:40.762 --> 06:41.422
[SPEAKER_01]: What would be your
06:45.847 --> 06:56.511
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, in big organizations, trying to figure the right way to do things, trying to connect the right, doing the right thing to do and the right things and maybe falling between the gaps.
06:56.691 --> 07:14.357
[SPEAKER_02]: Well not to be self-serving, but the book that I just wrote built for a better world is everything I've learned, the mistakes I've made, the things I figured out, and it's basically a guide for how to move forward to get ourselves headed in the right direction.
07:15.409 --> 07:16.750
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's no one thing.
07:16.770 --> 07:17.851
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, that's the challenge.
07:17.871 --> 07:20.933
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no magic bullet that is going to solve the problem.
07:21.794 --> 07:25.857
[SPEAKER_02]: So at the end of the book, I basically put forth 18 things.
07:25.877 --> 07:36.866
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a lot that are the most important things you can do that make sure your business is playing the positive role in society and the environment.
07:37.486 --> 07:43.992
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think, and I hope that if people follow that guidance, we'll get headed in a better direction than we are today.
07:45.037 --> 07:59.128
[SPEAKER_01]: out of those 18 is the what are they want or two that you think are particularly important or all the one or two that you just feel instinctively or intuitively have the power and the hootspower to make a big difference.
07:59.708 --> 08:12.738
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you're not humble and if you're not very committed to being aware of how much you don't know and how much you need to learn and not obsessed with how smart and effective and successful
08:14.272 --> 08:21.014
[SPEAKER_02]: This work will not be good for you because it takes very, very humble people to do this kind of work.
08:21.695 --> 08:27.036
[SPEAKER_02]: And often people that are very successful and that are risen to the top of their corporation.
08:27.757 --> 08:30.858
[SPEAKER_02]: Think they're much better and much smarter than they really are.
08:31.918 --> 08:37.640
[SPEAKER_02]: And we learned in seven generations that there's something to be learned from every single person to the company.
08:38.340 --> 08:42.622
[SPEAKER_02]: The smartest people are not the ones who are getting paid the most money in many cases.
08:44.472 --> 08:50.253
[SPEAKER_02]: The other thing that we've discovered that's really critical is what we call radical transparency.
08:51.173 --> 08:58.415
[SPEAKER_02]: Without being able to share your mistakes, the things you've done wrong, the things that you should be doing better.
08:59.135 --> 09:03.156
[SPEAKER_02]: No one really has a realistic picture of what you're doing in the role that you're playing.
09:03.976 --> 09:08.597
[SPEAKER_02]: Companies are scared if not terrified of radical transparency.
09:09.127 --> 09:12.390
[SPEAKER_02]: because they're addicted to telling people how wonderful they are.
09:13.211 --> 09:16.214
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe the problem isn't that doing the right thing as hard.
09:16.875 --> 09:21.220
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's that we've built businesses we're doing the wrong thing is still easier.
09:22.000 --> 09:26.045
[SPEAKER_00]: And until we start building businesses differently, we'll keep getting the same results.
09:26.605 --> 09:46.432
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the gap that we're focused on closing at grounded, and if you're trying to figure out how to do that inside your own organization, to move from intention to execution, and build for what comes next, you can explore how we work at grounded.world, and be sure to stay grounded with us wherever you listen to your podcast at it shouldn't be this hard.
