How might ‘Davos-man’ regain trust?
Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chair of WEF wrote recently about this year’s Davos theme of ‘Shaping new models for structural transformation of the global economy’. We could certainly do with some new models. So what can we learn about these new models from this year’s Edelman Trust Barometer which Richard Edelman will be presenting in...
Europe: The Crucible of Trust
Monday 23 January sees the launch of the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer – with its core message that trust in government has fallen dramatically worldwide, and that business now has the opportunity to shift from protecting its License to Operate to properly earning its License to Lead. There is a global sense of citizens rising...
Consumption for what?
Blog post also available on The Guardian Sustainable Business Blog. A recent series of blogs on this site discussed the idea that the UK might finally be starting to decouple growth from environmental destruction. Whilst this looks unlikely, my concern is that the debate is in any case missing half the story. By focusing on...
From cargo-cult to slowcialism
There was an interesting follow up last week to the UN’s research showing that UK children have the lowest levels of wellbeing in the EU. The update suggests that these low levels of wellbeing are due to unusually high materialism levels. As one of the recommendations from UNICEF was a ban on advertising to children,...
How enterprise can flourish without growth-fixation
Following on from my previous blog a number of people have asked me what a flourishing enterprise might look like in practice, how they would incorporate change into their business and get shareholder backing. In this blog I will try to answer those questions. Within the flourishing enterprise model of strategic change there are three key...
Today’s flourishing enterprises should focus on wellbeing rather than growth
When I run sessions with business executives on growth, wellbeing, and innovation, I say that people don’t have to buy my analysis of the problem to buy my ideas on the solution. That’s because I think we are now living in an era of “uneconomic growth” and we therefore have no choice but to redefine...
Citizen Capitalism and the Peaceful Revolution
The following is an extract from a talk given on Saturday 5 March in Portmeirion, Wales, at Names Not Numbers – billed as ‘a very British Davos’. The theme of the 2011 gathering was Community and Values. The most consequential outcome of the global financial crisis is now the challenge to capitalism itself.
Small society, Big Bang
As Professor Tim Jackson says in his TED talk we live in times where we “spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about.” As we have written in Citizen Renaissance, our hyper-consumerist lifestyles are fueled by unsustainable credit-bubble, debt-based growth which...
Heading Our Way: Why the Re-Alignment of Trust is Good News for The Citizen
Today’s publication of the 2011 Edelman Trust Barometer, also covered in The FT, confirms the re-alignment of Trust in the wake of the great crises of recent years.
