The ROI of Sustainability with Jim Hanna
Making Waves On Purpose
has held corporate sustainability roles with Xanterra and Starbucks and is currently at Microsoft and working with . He is a great guy with a ton of useful insights. However, one area that he focuses on relentlessly is making the business case. While for many, that is a complex process, he nails it with simple questions: What keeps your leaders up at night, and what are they incentivized on? If you can find a way to connect sustainability to those things, you are 90% of the way there. Great conversation. Please like and subscribe!
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The Edges of Sustainability Jeff Senne and Jill Dumain in Conversation
Making Waves On Purpose
56% of people beleive that capitalism does more harm than good. 70% of Americans would not help a neighbor of a different political party. What is the role of business in an increasingly polarized world? Climate, DEI, and nature are critically important issues, but so too are the institutions that support human flourishing and getting those right, and given the trusted role business has, it needs to become more comfortable in helping advance pluralism, shared value and values, advancing integrity and a balanced multi-purpose capitalism that seeks to serve shareholders, the state and...
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The Role of Interpreter with Lena Pripp-Kovac
Making Waves On Purpose
A rich discussion with Lena Pripp-Kovac, former Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) for Ikea. I love the idea she presents of the CSO as an interpreter. Lena said, “During my journey in sustainability, it has become clear that one of the key roles in leading change is that of being an interpreter. I am fortunate and thankful for the many amazing people who have shared their experiences to better understand challenges from different perspectives. While translators focus on creating understanding between languages, the interpreter focuses on insight into contextual meaning,...
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Motivating Change With Gabriel Grant
Making Waves On Purpose
Gabriel Grant is someone whose work you should know about. Over the past fifteen years, he has provided coaching and training for more than one thousand purpose-led leaders and world-class change agents, including founders and board members, and c-suite executives and directors from more than 150 major brands. I am fascinated by his thinking on what makes companies tick, especially his ideas around "The Self-determined Organization—Toward a Humanistic Theory of the Firm," which is a book he is working on. I think the idea of applying individual flourishing to organizations is...
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In Conversation With Jill Dumain of Fractal CSOs
Making Waves On Purpose
In conversation with Jill Dumain of Fractal CSOs. Jill offers this: What a fun opportunity to look back on some of the many experiences that I have had that led me to this place. So many people to thank who have mentored and partnered with me with some of the craziest of ideas. But now I can see how all the individual experiences add up to this new position. I feel as though I am in a good position to give back and help others avoid so many of the holes that I stepped in the last 35 years! Hope you enjoy the conversation and follow us at FractalCSOs for more! ...
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Introducing Fractal CSOs
Making Waves On Purpose
In this episode of Making Waves on Purpose, I am in conversation with Jill Dumain, Lena Pripp Kovac, Chad Dorgan and Jim Hanna, all partners, together with me, Jeff Senne, in Fractal CSOs. Fractal CSOs is a network of practitioners that coach companies and organizations of all shapes and sizes across various industries to move forward faster and stay on the path, whether you’re just getting started in your sustainability journey or are already well on your way. While no one has seen it all, with over 150 years in the space, we have seen a lot. This is the first of six...
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Purpose as a lever of change with Bradon Peele
Making Waves On Purpose
One of the hats I wear is as the volunteer Team Guardian for Global Purpose Leaders (GPL). This is a close-knit group of purpose practitioners that work on individual, organizational and societal change. In this podcast, I speak with Brandon Peele. Brandon has been a driving force in GPL for years and in the purpose space even longer. He has a deep understanding of the space, its practice and its promise. This is a must-listen for those who work to find purpose, make their businesses sustainable or are just curious about purpose. This is one for a quiet walk with the dog or with a...
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Celebrating Small Wins with Kyle Santos
Making Waves On Purpose
Kyle Santos joined me in a great conversation on various issues and a focus on something that we in the corporate responsibility space often get wrong - celebrating small wins. Hi rightly points out that given the gravity of what we seek to address, climate change, inequality, ecosystem restoration...small steps often feel not worth celebrating. This is likely to get worse as a result of the ESG backlash and companies going quiet on their progress. We also touched on measuring versus doing, interesting tensions in the space, and much more. I am so grateful to Kyle and all my other...
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The Action of ESG with Grady Lee
Making Waves On Purpose
I have been super busy with clients and travel, so my podcast frequency has suffered. But I am picking up steam again, and this is an excellent conversation with Grady Lee. Grady is the Co-Founder of Give to Get, which engages companies in bringing their purpose to life, and Social Marks, which works to create definitions around action-based metrics on the social side of ESG. His focus is on actions, strategies, and decisions that help move the company ahead in its effort to drive impact and live its purpose. He works to gather and organize data help to orient leaders on where they are...
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Choose meaning over pleasure with Sharoni Rosenberg
Making Waves On Purpose
In this my first podcast of the year, I am in conversation with Sharoni Rosenberg. Sharoni is a leader, maybe “the leader” in the purpose space in Chile. She and I met when we both worked at PwC, and she ran PwC Chile’s purpose and ESG work. She is a courageous leader, passionate about personal and organizational purpose and committed to advancing the role of business in society. Last year, I was a guest speaker at one of her events in Santiago, Chile, and was so impressed with her program and how Chile had changed since I lived there nearly 20 years ago. It is thanks to people like...
info_outlineThis podcast is the first episode of season two of Making Waves on Purpose. In it, Jennifer Davis, of the Jennifer Davis Media Group, turns the tables and leads the two of us in conversation. It was a fabulous and fun conversation and outlines much of the thinking I will flesh out in season two.
I am so grateful to all the guests who joined season one:
Georg Kell
Lane Jost
Celina Gorre
Craig Beatty
Dylan Siegler
Josh Henretig
Rafael Velasquez Garcia
Dawnita Wilson
Gib Hedstrom
Zeev Klein
Bea Boccalandro
Mandar Apte
Neil Edwards
Bree Fram
Erika McMullen
Nandika Magdavgar
Olivia Albrecht
Jared Chung
And to all who listened!
It has been a great experience, and I have experimented with some different approaches and lots of varied topics, but all centered around the emerging role of business in the world. I can think of no more important issue, yet I worry about the overall effort. Far too many of these efforts are performative. And too few companies see this for what it needs to be: transformational. Societal issues and purpose, most of the time, remain bumper stickers rather than boardroom issues. However, that is changing, and the question is how can we ensure that these efforts develop innovation in ideas and approaches rather than compliance-based risk avoidance with some employee engagement on the side? To do so, the effort to redefine the role of business in society must be aligned with the emerging roles of government, civil society and individuals, or we create a dog’s breakfast of change. Lots more to say on this, but let’s save it for season two.
On deck, in the coming weeks, we have:
Andrew Winston
Greg Unruh
Lisa Hrabluk
P.S. If you like what you hear, and I hope you do, please subscribe. I am not hoping to monetize this effort, but it does help to show potential guests that people are listening. Many thanks!