The short answer is EVERYTHING. The long answer is what this post is all about. These are three of today’s most pressing issues that are all too often discussed in a vacuum. The best progress will be made at the margins where each of these pressing issues overlap. When we begin to see them each as an integral component of global economic progress and prosperity and not discrete issues, much will be gained.
Perhaps the inclusion of 21st century business models is a surprise to many lumped in with the other two that get a lot more focus and media airtime, but please notice that I use the predication “21st century”. If we want to do something about the ramped greed and selfish strategies that exist in many of today’s firms, then it must be added to the mix. If created correctly, new and improved business models can be a large part of the solutions to climate change, global economic development, and their own perils of decreased employee morale and disgraced public opinion.
- They all require new, passionate, and innovative solutions. In fact, we must assume that the very best solutions are not yet known. Thus, the solution frameworks that are being bantered around today need to accommodate the unknown solutions of tomorrow. It’s beyond out of the box thinking and into a world without the constraints of boxes of any sort. It’s about unleashing the mass of untapped potential and productivity that lies dormant inside people and organizations around the world.
- They are each integral to the success of the others. Slowing population growth in the developing world is one of the keys to avoiding a climate catastrophe down the road. Economic development and the creation of a middle class is the most effective way to slow population growth in the developing world. Private sector ingenuity is key to new technologies that will reverse the current trajectory of climate change as well as promote economic development in the developing world.
- Alignment is key to effective solutions in each case. Businesses are learning how to align their shareholders, employees, customers, and the public in ways that will dramatically increase productivity. When transparent alignment and partnerships are created between foreign aid, domestic and foreign private investment, and public money, global economic development will become significantly more efficient and effective. Unless we properly align the big players in the world on climate change soon, it will likely suffer the same fate as the Green Revolution in Africa.
The most successful businesses models in the 21st century will be those that realize contributing to the creation of new markets is a winning long-term strategy, that focusing on something besides growth and profits is the key to engaging employees and winning the hearts of customers (yours as well as your competitors), and that how you decide to be in the world can be just as important, if not more important, than what you sell.
Too often when these topics are discussed in the media, there is too much focus (in my opinion) on the facts known today which narrows the conversation and too little focus on what we want to create. In other words, discussions and potential solutions are being filtered based on what we know how to do today and not on whether or not they fit what it is we are trying to create. All great movements start with an unadulterated view of what should be created, if anything is possible. There isn’t much humans can’t do once they set their minds to it. Some things take a few months and others a few generations. The problem is that we sometimes lack the belief that it can be done, which ends up being the biggest thing that holds us back from succeeding.
