Foreword
In the marketplace for business ideas, every few years an idea goes viral and shifts how people think and act in business settings. These ideas have included quality, strategy (called strategery by one American leader), vision/mission/values and globalisation. Recently, pressures for social responsibility have led many in business to seriously consider the concept of sustainability. As with other viral ideas, the concept starts simple and then becomes increasingly broad and complex. Business sustainability started with a need for businesses to participate in managing their social responsibility, primarily their carbon footprint. As the idea has evolved, it has broadened to a concern for the triple bottom line of people, prosperity and planet.
When the ideas spin out of control and risk becoming meaningless because they are so pervasive that they mean everything to everyone, it is very important to recalibrate the premise behind an idea. Rowley, Saha and Ang in this book take stock of the multiple dimensions of business sustainability and synthesise how this broadening idea may be focused and useful.
One of the strengths of this book is not only capturing the essence of sustainability, but also demonstrating how it applies in an exciting and rapidly emerging economy – Singapore. Anyone who has visited Singapore recognises the vitality and energy of this diverse and growing city state. The city state is characterised by political stability (the popularised don’t chew gum legacy symbolises control and safety), modern skyscrapers (a trade centre bridging East and West), diversity (one Christmas holiday we noticed the Buddhists playing Christmas carols), and a stylish economy (my wife and I recently counted about 40 per cent jewellery stores in one of their new malls – in America 40 per cent of mall space is probably food). Yet behind this modern miracle are rich traditions and real disciplines.
Political and business leaders in Singapore recognise that human capital is their primary asset, so they invest heavily in it. Parents work to educate their children. Leaders invest in their employees. Government establishes knowledge centres and universities in leadership and talent. People treat other people with enormous respect. Social differences are accepted and respected. My visits to Singapore have established not only professional colleagues but personal friends.
And, Singapore business works. It balances the vision for a future with enormous attention to detail. One quick example: almost anyone who travels often can quickly appreciate why the Singapore airport (Changi Airport Group) has dominated airport awards for the last decade. Even casual passengers know that the airport works, with an emphasis on efficiency, service, and responsiveness. Behind this success is a management team enormously committed to the detail. They recently recognised that the bathroom cleanliness might shape the image of the overall airport experience, so they put in passenger triggered electronic monitors that would signal untidy bathrooms and assigned a rapid response team to clean these targeted restrooms. This attention to detail ties to their vision for the overall airport.
So, into this remarkable setting, Rowley, Saha and Ang synthesise what defines business sustainability. Their historical overview of sustainability offers context for the idea. Their research into a mix of small to large Singaporean companies helps demonstrate how leaders think about sustainability. Their conclusions help codify how future leaders might increase sustainability in their organisations. One of their interesting findings is that the largest reason for lack of sustainability is leadership (80 per cent) so their book should … and does … inform leaders on how they can increase sustainability.
When I read their interviews, I was struck by how business sustainability requires the management of a number of paradoxes:
Inside and outside: sustainability started with attention to the carbon footprint and social responsibility but has shifted to people and organisation actions inside a company that reinforce external sustainability;
Big and small: sometimes leaders look for large and dramatic sustainability actions, but they need to be complemented with lots of little successes that lead to success;
Old and new: modern technology and other actions encourage sustainability, but many of the tried and true efforts of relationships and personal touch are still essential;
Stable and changing: while sustainability should become a stable pattern within a company, the rapid pace of change requires adjustment and learning in the short term;
Confident and humble: leaders who build sustainability have confidence because they are doing the right thing right, but they are also humble enough to learn and listen to others;
Hard and soft: sustainability shows up in the hard measures of business success, and also in the softer emotions of business passion;
Past and future: by definition sustainable companies have a long legacy and history, but they constantly plan for the future.
As the authors note, these paradoxes need to be attended to as leaders build the quilt of sustainability. By so doing, these leaders attend to multiple stakeholders; they enact a balanced scorecard; and they accomplish the triple bottom line.
I recommend this book to political leaders who are charged with regulatory policies to build country sustainability, to business leaders who will see the connection between sustainability investments and investor confidence, to HR professionals who build organisation infrastructure to sustain success, and to organisation scholars who seek to understand and study how organisations evolve and respond to modern settings.
My colleague Norm Smallwood and I are working on how to build leadership sustainability. This work has already informed our thinking. My thanks to the authors for their insights and diligence.