Perspectives on Social and Sustainable Business

At uni we recently had a lecture  on social and sustainable business given by Paul Sternberg. The angle of the course was really interesting. In the past I looked at the social business phenomenom from a rather legal as well as economic perspective and in how far this concept differs from existing organisations such as charities or traditional business.

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Social Business in the Light of Income Generation (Source: Author’s own)

Paul Sternberg placed the term of social and sustainable business differently, by making no differentiation between the underlying revenue model, financial dependency or legal structure. In his lecture it was more general about the aspects of well-being, values and what drives employees. These factors are crucial to business success and I like the notion of paying more attention to these things with a view to make business more social engaging and ultimately more sustainable. Empathy is the key word. As this short Royal School of Arts (RSA) video nicely explains, to emphasise is to civilise.

Now for business, empathy means a lot! Imagine Human Resource (HR) Departments of large organisations were better trained in empathic selection of staff. Imagine they were able to pick modest and maybe even introvert people and put them into leading positions, instead of oxbridge alpha-males who are good at selling themselves but will jump off with their golden parachute after they have ruined the business. Even if this is exaggerated a bit, in my experience smaller organisations are better in doing exactly this and therefore they are more likely to hire the right people for their business, because they try harder to understand the perspective and needs of their applicants. I am quite sceptical that assessment centers and interrogation of applicants, as often the case, can deliver the same results to larger organisations.

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