As any of my clients and peers know, I LOVE a good reflection moment and if I had to name anything as an addiction, it would be my obsession with growth and transformation. Call me crazy, but that’s where the rubber meets the road.
Followers, hashtags and clickbait aside, many of us are looking for answers and are more compelled to be spending time building a library of knowledge and skills, now more than ever.
Facts.
These days, the more I share with people most physically proximate to me about creative facilitation, sustainability in action and how to build towards servant leadership in business, the more I realize that what makes sense to me, may be new news to someone else. Even though I had some wild spurts in my 20’s, I was more likely to be spotted at City Council meetings and drafting neighborhood action plans because I saw what was coming and got prepared. Enter scene, hump day highlights.
Back in 2015, I was working with some of the most amazing and forward-thinking minds in my city (Asheville, NC at the time) and although many of us were artists, creatives, designers, entrepreneurs and project managers, we saw a missing link between…
business + community,
community + sustainability and
sustainability + accountability
…we needed metrics to get people to care about their impact on the environment, the impact on the community and somehow making that more important than driving up their profits. Blending the worlds of business, community and sustainability was the true ROI and way to make sure our community was not run over by franchises + could create jobs + bring the environmentalists, DEIB consultants, creatives, engineers, business owners and government officials all together at the same table. We made it happen. And the tangible results are seen in the Asheville of today, still.
https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2015/01/26/good-business-means-business-good/22377365/
Takeaways?
– Social movements are not always just about protest. Social movements can happen in business, and are. Check out B Lab and #Bthechange Movement
– To get sh*t done, we must start with synergistic gatherings of a diverse skill set, a shared vision, clear strategy, a good whiteboard and some snacks.
– Separating business and people rendered our communities vulnerable and it’s not just up to the nonprofits to address. Let’s stop personifying business and see where we need to pivot to take care of our people and make THAT the legacy. Also, profits follow values so the money will still be made.
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash