In starting this newsletter to explore whether sustainable business is really possible, those of you who know me might be wondering why I don't count my own business, Wholegrain Digital, as an example of a truly sustainable business. Well, I need to make a confession.
As always, Tom, you are able to articulate really clearly a tough question I have also been grappling with!
One word that I've been using is 'regenerative'. A nice definition of regenerative farming is where the soil is left in a better state (instead of depleted). So I've started using this as the word to describe the (possibility impossible) long term aspiration for my business.
I find Carol Sanford's "Four Paradigm Framework" really useful when thinking about this. She presents a journey of moving through "self interest" to "do less harm" to "do good" and then to "regenerative" paradigms. Interestingly, one difference in her framework between "regenerative" and "do good" is who defines what 'good' means - in a regenerative paradigm we view things from other's perspective (where others might be people or planet for example). EG: there is a risk that "do good" results in things like white saviour complex.
Crucially, Carol talks about these four paradigms as be additive - ie we need to have enough "self interest" to enable us to put energy into the next level and we can't jump straight to a "regenerative" mindset without also having "do less harm" and "do good" in our world view. Thus we (mentally) move up and down these four levels depending on context and our current situations.
I mention all this because, for me, it is the start of a way to handle the overwhelming impossibility of a truly sustainable (regenerative in my words) business. The long term aspiration is there - but I give myself and my business permission sometimes be ambitious about regenerative goals and sometimes make more compromises.
Anyway, thanks for (once again) sharing so openly and helping the rest of us articulate and think about these things!
Thank you for this Tom. I have constantly stated that the use of the term "sustainable" is misleading. We are all on a journey that sometimes throws up different obstacles but at the very least, we are acknowledging that it is a struggle and that we are working hard to be responsible and hopefully that will lead to becoming truly sustainable.
As always, Tom, you are able to articulate really clearly a tough question I have also been grappling with!
One word that I've been using is 'regenerative'. A nice definition of regenerative farming is where the soil is left in a better state (instead of depleted). So I've started using this as the word to describe the (possibility impossible) long term aspiration for my business.
I find Carol Sanford's "Four Paradigm Framework" really useful when thinking about this. She presents a journey of moving through "self interest" to "do less harm" to "do good" and then to "regenerative" paradigms. Interestingly, one difference in her framework between "regenerative" and "do good" is who defines what 'good' means - in a regenerative paradigm we view things from other's perspective (where others might be people or planet for example). EG: there is a risk that "do good" results in things like white saviour complex.
Crucially, Carol talks about these four paradigms as be additive - ie we need to have enough "self interest" to enable us to put energy into the next level and we can't jump straight to a "regenerative" mindset without also having "do less harm" and "do good" in our world view. Thus we (mentally) move up and down these four levels depending on context and our current situations.
I mention all this because, for me, it is the start of a way to handle the overwhelming impossibility of a truly sustainable (regenerative in my words) business. The long term aspiration is there - but I give myself and my business permission sometimes be ambitious about regenerative goals and sometimes make more compromises.
Anyway, thanks for (once again) sharing so openly and helping the rest of us articulate and think about these things!
Thank you for this Tom. I have constantly stated that the use of the term "sustainable" is misleading. We are all on a journey that sometimes throws up different obstacles but at the very least, we are acknowledging that it is a struggle and that we are working hard to be responsible and hopefully that will lead to becoming truly sustainable.