Celebrating mothers around the world

It’s the week after Mother’s Day, and this day was a good one for me this year. I spent the day with my own mother, my mother-in-law and my oldest daughter, and received warm greetings from two other continents.  My youngest daughter sent a photo and text from Italy and my exchange “son” sent a Facebook® greeting from his university in China. I certainly felt like a “Global Mama”.

I smile when I say that, because I know a number of “Global Mamas” and am always so amazed and impressed with them. They have nurtured families, organizations and ideas— sometimes all at the same time.

Since I’m playing on their name, I want to point out an exemplary organization, Women in Progress (WIP) with the brand name Global Mamas for goods produced by small women-owned businesses in Ghana.  For them, it’s all about helping women attain economic independence.  I’m a customer and fan, and I’ve had the good fortune to meet one of the co-founders, Renae Adam. She and her partner, Kristin Johnson, established the organization in 2002.

It’s brilliant to see businesses established to give people the world over an opportunity to improve their lives. There are other examples of exemplary women leaders in this space; women of whom it is my honor to have met, known, or worked alongside:

• Jacqueline Novogratz , founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, who envisions a “world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprise, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas.” You’ve probably heard of her; she was on the cover of Forbes last year when Acumen celebrated its 10 year anniversary. The model works, and Jacqueline and her team are some of the people who are proving it.
• Deirdre White, CEO of CDC Development Solutions, a non-profit, international organization focused on economic development and growth. By leveraging public, private and volunteer resources, they strengthen small and medium enterprises, as well as the institutions, governments and industries that drive economic growth in emerging markets. At Dow Corning, we know them best through our collaborative work in International Corporate Volunteerism.  However, their work in supply chain development and “Stability and Economic Recovery” is also of high interest. I especially appreciate their stated belief: “Many conflicts can be prevented by developing healthy economies and spreading the benefits of prosperity.”
• Marie Eckstein, former Dow Corning vice president, is a current member of the Advisory Board for Harpswell Foundation and in the process of founding the organization, Red Dirt Road. Marie is a chemical engineer by training, an international business executive by experience, and the mother of three grown sons. She laughs and sometimes wonders how she became involved in the fashion industry as she “mothers” a new network of female social entrepreneurs and mentors university women in Cambodia.

This list is just the beginning. There are many other women I could highlight, including a number of brilliant women it’s been my honor to work with over the last two decades or so, including  Stephanie Burns, Mary Lou Benecke, Linda Kennan, Margery Kraus, Jan Hausrath—all of whom are mothers (and some, grandmothers)—forging new ideas, new strategies and new businesses, making the world a better place for all of us.

The last person I’d like to mention, however, is someone who has been an inspiration since the very beginning: my own mother, Dorothy Wonacott.

I am the oldest of four children. When I was six years old, my Dad arrived home from his medical practice, sharing with my mother he heard of a high school exchange student from Germany in need of a home for a year and wanted to invite her to join our family. My Mom agreed, and with a first grader, two preschoolers, and another baby on the way, my parents opened their home to the first of more than a dozen students they would host through various exchange programs over the next two decades. My parents welcomed students from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America—opening the world to me.  If you ask me, she is one of the original “Global Mamas.”

Top Five Sustainable Business Authors

This morning I picked up a book recommendation on Twitter for the newly published Jugaad Innovation by Navi Radjou, Jaideep Prabhu, Simone Ahuja and Kevin Roberts. Doing so has caused me to reflect upon and share with you my top five recommended reads for sustainable business, written by a few of my favorite authors.

1. Stuart Hart, Ph.D. 
Capitalism at the Crossroads
I have yet to find another person who has done quite the job Stuart has, knitting all of the sustainability hyperbole together and actually making it actionable. In my opinion, this should be required reading for anyone seriously interested in making practical and lasting changes, and not just pontificating about the need to do just that.

 A related book, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid by C.K. Prahalad, is a great eye-opener, too. However, Dr. Hart’s book takes similar sustainability themes and greatly expands upon them. “People, Planet, Profit (or Prosperity)” is very helpful shorthand for the triple bottom line, but falls short of guidance when trying to operationalize it.

Dr. Hart’s four-box “Sustainable Value Framework” does provide that guidance; especially for manufacturers.  The book helps readers quickly consider the forces inside and outside an organization and their impact on business today and in the future. The framework is a framework which enables assessment in four areas of sustainability to ensure a holistic view:

• Reducing the organization’s  environmental “footprint”
• Engaging all stakeholders
• Innovating or developing future products & services through a “green leap”
• Going beyond current markets and expanding to consider Base of the Pyramid

2. Jim Collins
Good to Great, How the Mighty Fall, Great by Choice (with Morton Hansen), Built to Last (with Jerry Porras)
Well researched, well written, and extremely practical, these books provide the framework for a roadmap to greatness—as well as the pitfalls (literally). I especially love the “hedgehog” principle he outlines in Good to Great which is as relevant to individuals as it is to organizations. He asks readers to answer these three questions, choosing life’s work at the intersection:

• What are you or can you be “best in the world” (and consider the relevant domain)?
• What of those talents is something the world/market values enough to compensate you (your “economic engine”)?
• What are you passionate about?  (This last question is the key!)

3. Clayton Christensen
The Innovator’s Dilemma, The Innovator’s Solution, Seeing What’s Next, Disrupting Class
I read The Innovator’s Dilemma as part of a grad school course at Case Western Reserve University and practically hyperventilated over the case of disruptive innovation in the steel industry. There was a lot of potential comparison with another specialty material (silicone!). But, thanks in part to the insight through this type of research, and a lot of hard work, Dow Corning actually became one of Christensen’s “right way” examples in his sequel with our XIAMETER® brand, which celebrates its 10^th birthday this year. The overriding theme in The Innovator’s Dilemma is not to push the top end of a market already served—or maybe over-served—but to find the opportunity where needs are not being met, and find a simple, “good enough” solution to meet those needs, and then “sail” up-market. Seeds of the “base of the pyramid” were planted with this work, I believe.

4. Eliyahu Goldratt
It’s Not Luck, The Goal, Critical Chain
Did you ever think there would be compelling business novels?  Turns out there are! My favorite is It’s Not Luck, although The Goal usually gets top bill. I appreciate the way the protagonist in this book continues to find the key to value by continuously reframing the business model to meet the needs of customers, rather than focusing on “product to sell”.

5. Ray C. Anderson
Tales of a Radical Industrialist  
This book is even better on audio, because Ray, who passed away last year, reads it. He’s a great storyteller, and the book is his story and the story of the company he founded, Interface. Even in Ray’s absence, Interface continues to climb the mountain of sustainability.  It is truly one of the great inspirations and proof points for a multi-national, manufacturing and increasingly sustainable business. In addition to the story, Ray himself was equally inspirational. Below is a an excerpt from his book:

I went to the tall bank of windows that grace my big corner office.  I could see Stone Mountain on the horizon, rising out of the brown crud of Atlanta’s summertime air.  Hawken’s¹ words haunted me as I thought about our factories, the smokestacks, the discharge pipes, the receiving docks stacked with raw materials made from oil, and the truckloads of scrap heading for the landfill, where they’d sit for something like the next twenty thousand years.  I stood indicted as a plunderer, a destroyer of the earth, a thief, stealing my own grandchildren’s future.  And I thought, ‘My God, someday what I do here will be illegal.  Someday they’ll send people like me to jail….And then…I found something I wasn’t expecting.  According to Hawken, not only was business and industry the principal instrument of global destruction, it was also the only institution large enough, wealth enough, and pervasive and powerful enough to lead humankind out of the mess we were making.  Not government…Not religious institutions…Not colleges and universities….Hawken’s answer was business and industry.  Companies like mine. People like me.

Now that I have shared a piece of my bookshelf with you, I’m eager to add a few from your collection, too. Please feel free to share your recommendations below.

¹ Refers to Paul Hawken, author of Ecology of Commerce

Letter to a graduate

“Pomp and Circumstance,” the traditional march for the graduates, always brings a lump to my throat, especially when one near and dear to me is capped and gowned. I’m experiencing the start of a particularly rich season of culminations and commencements this year. Watching them all march in—so young, so smart, so promising, so young (did I already say that?)—I want to say to them:  “This is not the time of your life to play it safe. Take a chance!  Play to your strengths and use those talents in which we’ve invested (heavily). It’s your turn now to change the world.”

All of these thoughts echoing in my head remind me of a letter I wrote to another graduate, which I share with all of you today (with his permission).

It’s the Sunday of your graduation party; one week exactly to the day you crossed the stadium lawn to receive your diploma with many honors. It has been my privilege and delight to watch you grow into the fine young man you have become.

There are many memories I could share today, but I choose instead to focus on the future, since you are “commencing”—or beginning—your adult life. I am happier than you can know that someone with your intelligence and values has chosen a career in business. Never for one minute think that you cannot make a better world through that portal. For too long, people—especially young people—have assumed that you can “make the world a better place” only through service in non-profit enterprises. That is certainly an honorable way to do it, but it’s not the only way.

In fact, as my own career nears the three decade mark, it has become clearer and clearer to me that there are three main components of society, which must interact together in order to serve the people of this world, sustainably: civil society (or non-profits), government and business. Only business has the capital and the wherewithal, however, to sustain not only itself, but the other two as well. As you begin your studies at the University of Michigan, I urge you to become mindful of this exciting and pioneering aspect of business—one that deliberately seeks to serve all people with businesses which are mutually valuable, and considerate of future generations as much as your own.

I hope you’ll seek out courses with people like Ted London, and if you ever get the chance to hear Stuart Hart lecture or lead a discussion, you’ll be first in line. Net Impact is a wonderful organization for students, which will give you an unparalleled look into the ability of business to profoundly serve people, honorably and profitably. I hope you’ll set aside a little of this contribution to your future educational expenses, in order to become a member.

With the intelligence of an honors student, the determination and strength of a varsity athlete, the harmony of a musician, and the spirit of a child of God, you are well equipped to do great things—not perfect–but great. We can’t wait to see what happens next.

With best wishes for a bright and shining future to all students “commencing” in this spring season of graduation (and especially Lillian, Matthew, Alison, Olivia, and Austin): play to your strengths; do good!

Honoring Earth Day with fieldtrips for kids, grownups

I remember the original Earth Day in 1970.  I remember a lot of classroom discussions about erosion and pollution and then a fieldtrip with my classmates from Lakeland Elementary School to plant white pine seedlings in northern Michigan.

If you’ve ever been to Northern Michigan, you know that the earth doesn’t actually need help planting pine trees, but the forests there were still recovering from the initial mowing during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We were happy to help.

Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin championed the first “Earth Day”, although there appear to be a number of people who can take credit for conceiving the original idea. It was organized by a “Wunderkind” from the same state, Denis Hayes. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Denis briefly last year during a trip I took to Ujire, India to prepare for our second Citizen Service Corps, and in particular to work with the social enterprise, SELCO. Anand Narayan, the head of SELCO’s incubation lab, invited us to a ceremony in which SELCO opened the Solar Energy Center, a solar charging and clean water demonstration center conveniently located to serve and educate pilgrims on their way to the Dharmasthala Temple.

Working with Anand and SELCO—even for a day or a month— is instructive and if we walked away with nothing else from our experience it is this: “Go and see.” The solutions we conceive of in isolation of experience are not the ones people find most valuable. This is something of which I’ve written often, but in honor of Earth Day, I wanted to emphasize the importance of “Fieldtrips for Adults” and thank Stuart Hart, Ph.D., for giving us the business case to do just that. 

Dr. Hart is the S.E. Johnson Chair for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University, founder of Enterprise for a Sustainable World, and author of Capitalism at the Crossroads. The book is on my list of “must reads” for any business, technology or engineering student interested in sustainable business, or just sustainability, in general. 

In the chapter of “Re-embedding Innovation Strategy,” Dr. Hart recommends this important step to a sustainable portfolio:

“Unleashing the potential of embedded innovation thus requires a shift in mentality among a collation of key actors within the firm—those that can make or break the initiative. And as we have seen, the best way to change people’s minds is for them to have first-hand experience on the ground.”

Thank you Stuart, for the connections you make in the world of commerce to reconnect us with the source of prosperity. Thank you, Denis, for inspiring a generation through your consistent effort, brilliant work and gracious presence. Happy Earth Day everyone!

Bonus: The following are two blog posts I thought beautifully captured the spirit of Earth Day for your reading pleasure:

• Tom Cook’s thoughtful, spiritual reflections on Earth Day, “An Earth Day Sermon”
• Emily Levine’s irreverent, but equally thoughtful reflections on Earth Day, “Earth Gets Her Groove Back…I Wish”

Keeping my promises – A trip back to Ujire, India

After participating in the Dow Corning Citizen Service Corps program last fall, the last words I posted on the blog after my return were so meaningful: “Is it the end? No, it’s the beginning of something new…  I would like to stay in contact with SIRI and follow their progress, I would like to keep in touch with the friends I met in Ujire and around, and I definitely would like to go back in India in the future.” I kept my promises and traveled to Ujire, India on a personal trip with my husband, Julien only a few months later.  

We travelled for three weeks in the South of India with our backpacks and Julien’s mountain bike.  What an adventure! We started from Mumbai and ended in Allepey, Kerala. One of the takeaways from this trip was understanding that the culture, ways of life, standards of living and needs of the people living in India are different and vary from region to region. 

In Ujire, we spent time with Ajith (our local contact from CDC Development Solutions) and his family. We visited SIRI, an organization that provides a program centered on the economic empowerment of women through micro-enterprise. We worked with the organization during the Dow Corning Citizen Service Corps program last fall, and we worked on a personal project to help children living in the area. 

At SIRI, it was great to see everyone and to notice several improvements further to our consultancy project last fall. For example, they hired a new fashion designer, which was one of the actions suggested. I was so glad to hear the R&D manager at SIRI, Manjula, share with my husband the positive impact our Dow Corning team had on the SIRI organization.  

With Ajith’s help, we organized a charity project for kids around Ujire. I had collected money from colleagues at Dow Corning before leaving and we used that money to buy clothes, school bags, scholar material, soaps and chairs for kids of three different schools and a nursery. We bought the school bags and clothes at SIRI. It was not easy to organize in three days, but we managed to help a total of 200 children. What a great achievement thanks to Ajith and to the generosity of my colleagues!

In French, we say “never two without three”, so I am sure I will go back to India again. My participation in the Dow Corning Citizen Service Corps had such an impact on me and changed my vision of life. It sparked enthusiasm in continuing to volunteer and continue looking for other opportunities to participate in community activities and make a difference in the lives of people around the world.  

Read more posts from Anne-Lise or view her profile.