Book Quotations – From “Beyond Reasonable Greed”

Beyond Reasonable Greed

Book Title: Beyond Reasonable Greed: Why Sustainable Business is a Much Better Idea!

Authors: Wayne Visser and Clem Sunter

Publication details: Tafelberg Human & Rousseau, 2002

For more information: See the Book Profile

Quotations

1. Magic is the revelation that results from a profound change in perception or understanding

2. Bad magic has moved many companies into a state that is beyond reasonable greed

3. The board of directors have become a group privileged people driven by unreasonable greed & feathering their own nests

4. Corporate governance is sometimes not worth the (shredded) paper it is written on

5. If the people implementing corporate governance do not have their hearts in the right place, it becomes a charade

6. We must constantly shapeshift, liberating ourselves from the old form that defined and constrained us in the past

7. Shapeshifting means morphing into a completely new being, with new characteristics & potential for the future

8. Sustainability is a new way of perceiving business – its purpose, its methods & its impacts

9. For companies that can adapt & respond to sustainability, there are new markets to capture & profits to be made

10. For companies that are ill-prepared, sustainability is going to become a financial burden, even a threat to survival

11. In order to make real progress towards sustainability, companies must first admit that we face a serious global crisis

12. The fact of the matter is that our lifestyles, our products & our business processes are unsustainable

13. We need companies that have the foresight & courage to be part of the solution, rather than remain the problem

14. Being in business today is a lot like falling down a rabbit hole to Wonderland – a chaotic & confusing place to be

15. The demigod once known as the shareholder has mutated into the multiheaded beast called the stakeholder

16. Introspective accounting has been turned inside-out & become accountability to the big wide world out there

17. Suddenly, the formerly mute public citizen has an amplified voice through technology-enabled networking

18. Today, the bark of a small NGO watchdog can echo and resonate around the world

19. Amidst whirlwind changes, many companies operate on high alert, in a permanent state of emergency response

20. Our corporate culture is saturated with military jargon, with strategies, tactics, competition, targeting & launching

21. Businesses struggle to distinguish between short-term storms and the long-term trend of a climate that’s changing

22. When business fails to distinguish the long-term effect of gradual changes, it displays classic boiled frog syndrome

23. There are many threats that could boil the corporate toads, from creeping income inequality to climate change

24. Most companies are already in hot water – perhaps mistaking the cooking pot for a jacuzzi?

25. The rules of the game are changing in radical ways that will make cherished business thinking & practices obselete

26. The best chance for companies to survive change is to develop a better understanding of how evolution itself works

27. Remember that evolution also happens in great leaps of sudden transformation, so-called discontinuities

28. Mathematicians know well that dynamic systems often go non-linear after a specific tipping point is reached

29. Change is often like an epidemic – it starts slowly, but when it reaches the steep part of the S-curve, watch out!

30. In change, the tipping point is always a relatively small number, substantially less than the expected 50 percent

31. The universe & society as a rational, mechanical construct is giving way to a new, creative, holistic understanding

32. Sustainability stands on the brink of transforming the underlying business model of the past few hundred years

33. Holism is a fundamental tendency in nature & society to form wholes of every-greater synergy

34. The relationship between things – be they objects, people or systems – is as important as the things themselves

35. The greatest creativity – in nature, huamns, organisations & society – happens when different fields overlap

36. Some strategies of global business are like selfish cancer cells taking over – and ultimately killing – their host body

37. The current model driving business has outlived its usefulness

38. The symbols of success so beloved by CEOs, the financial media & market analysts alike are beginning to look empty

39. Business already faces clear and present dangers in the economic, social and environmental spheres

40. No society can function fairly or effectively if every individual is blindly pursuing his or her self-interest

41. Each time the world changes, humanity is forced to let go of some of its most cherished beliefs

42. As a global society, we desperately need to create a new mythology to guide & inspire our collective psyche

43. We are living through a time of profound change & no more so than in the business arena

44. The old ways of the past are no longer appropriate for a postindustrial, sustainability-driven society

45. Sustainability is not only a new scientific concept, it is an entirely new busienss philosophy based on a new mythology

46. Sustainability requires that business thinks differently about its role in society and how it goes about what it does

47. For business to survive & thrive in an age of sustainability, it must rethink its identity, its underlying nature

48. At the moment, the majority of businesses embody the characteristics of a lion – an impressive predator

49. The future calls for different strengths in business, such as those of the mighty elephant – a wise leader

50. Faced with the changes & challenges ahead, the skill of shapeshifting is going to be indispensable to companies

51. The world is changing so fast that only a company with the adaptability and resourcefulness of a fox will survive

52. Sustainability only works when it is a passionately embraced philosophy that infuses every business level and action

53. There is nothing small about multinationals – the critical thing is what they do with their immense size and power

54. As military jargon crept into the boardroom – strategy, tactics, targeting – so did the persona of the predator

55. Companies regularly shrug off their social & environmental impacts in the pursuit of economic growth & profits

56. Business has become used to viewing its economic contribution as a justifiable end in its own right

57. Companies, and their government regulators, seem unable or unwilling to say no to harmful economic growth

58. The biggest myths of our time – which pervade business – are that growth is always good and bigger is always better

59. In contrast to trickle-down economics, in most companies, the benefits always seem to trickle upwards

60. Prevailing economic incentives make it almost impossible to not to choose profits over people & the planet

61. Nature’s underlying characteristic is one of interdependent relationships & symbiotic co-operation

62. Competition in nature only takes place within a broader context of co-operation

63. In a sustainability era, a company’s success will depend on cultivating multi-stakeholder, win-win relationships

64. Cowboy companies believe there are no restrictions on growth, resource consumption or waste generation

65. The world has become a smaller, fuller place, in which the corporate cowboy lifestyle is no longer appropriate

66. Are we ready to accept that the common good is not being served by today’s predatory business model?

67. For companies that wish to endure – to be literally sustainable – adaptation is the key

68. Most companies have a very poor radar system for detecting & responding to threats that build slowly over time

69. Forget quarterly; companies are going to need to learn what it means to survive epochs & symbolic ice ages

70. Sustainable companies survive & thrive by their capacity to identify, nurture & sustain cooperative relationships

71. Like Dumbo, sustainable companies need to believe they can fly against the odds & in the face of public perception

72. In business, we are short-sighted slaves to this year’s calendar, next quarter’s performance & this week’s diary

73. Business & economic growth will always be dumb – rather than smart – until it mimics the intelligence of ecosystems

74. Sustainability extends accountability to stakeholders; so sustainable companies choose to engage constructively

75. Unsustainable companies waste time, energy & money trying to manipulate or fight their stakeholders

76. Sustainability raises the bar of legislation; so sustainable companies proactively anticipate the rising tide

77. Unsustainable companies will increasingly incur fines, penalties & clean-up costs & be targeted for litigation

78. As the rules of trade shift, sustainable companies will increasingly refuse to trade with predatory companies

79. In the future, access to finance by unsustainable companies will become more difficult and expensive

80. Avoiding the costs of social and environmental impacts will make sustainable companies more profitable in future

81. The switch to a sustainable economy is creating new market opportunities that smart companies are investing in

82. Unsustainable companies will increasingly fail the corporate governance acid test applied by investors

83. Government policies must make companies reap the full cost of the social & environmental impacts they sow

84. Unsustainable companies must expect to suffer consumer boycotts, civil lawsuits & disruptive NGO activism

85. In the high stakes game of public reputation, sustainable companies are more likely to attract loyal support

86. Only when sustainability is an investment criteria will sustainable companies will reap fair financial rewards

87. Values are exactly what they say they are – a reflection of the things we value

88. Companies’ values are made visible by their actions, not their words or spin doctor’s marketing material

89. Profit maximisation is often anti-competitive, driving companies towards market domination & monopolistic control

90. Companies have adopted the predator persona so completely that hunting & killing in the market feels natural

91. Businesses are not genetically programmed to be predators & neither are the people that work for them

92. Why do we teach our kids to be caring at home & then teach our executives to be ruthless in the workplace?