Collaboration is essential for the survival of modern businesses. As Tony Bacigalupo, cofounder and Mayor of coworking space New Work City, argues, o
ur society has a dysfunctional relationship with business. The people who lead companies that acknowledge this fact - and take a more collaborative approach - will reap the benefits. Maybe it was that century of industrial-era emphasis on efficiency, or the consumerist culture that came along with it, or something else entirely. But somehow, we ended up thinking that a successful business is something that makes money regardless of external effects, positive or negative, to society. In fact, business tends to see the two forces as opposition. An organization’s doing good? It must be a non-profit, right? A company makes tons of money? It must be screwing people over somehow, right? Today, we live in a world where "business as usual" means that companies and the people who work for them are at odds with each other, fighting for attention, buy in, and collaboration from their team members. To most people in this world, their job is a sacrifice of time, energy, creativity, and control. To make matters worse, there's war on a second front, as companies struggle and scramble to acquire and retain customers at all costs. Especially with the globally connected, digital lives that we live, we're being sold to at every turn. Every company is selling something bigger, brighter, faster, cooler, than their competition. The result is a culture that reduces customers to little more than ears, eyes, and a wallet full of credit cards. The architects of the systems for capitalism that we use today intended to build something that rewarded businesses when they rendered a service that was worth being rewarded for– money for goods and services. Simple. But no system we've ever designed as humans is perfect. Money on its own, and other forms of "compensation", is a one dimensional, incomplete, and arguably poor way to measure value. While you can make money by rendering a valued service that people will pay for, it's dangerously easy to make money by doing things that are, even to the casual observer, more harmful than good. Worst of all, the incentives of money clouds judgment, increase the rate of risky decision making against the best interests of their employees and customers. I don't believe that money is evil. Money is empowering. I run a for-profit business because when we generate profit doing good things, we get to use that profit to do more good, so long as we stay aligned with the best interests of our team members and customers. But money as a lone motivator does create systemic negative results. To quote a visionary educator who knows a thing or two about broken systems, Science Leadership Academy Principal Chris Lehmann says often "If you put a good person in a bad system, the system wins far too often." - Chris Lehmann To put it in another context, the medical field teaches the fundamental principal of Primum non nocere. Translated from Latin, the instruction is "First, do no harm." Consider the painful irony of how "business as usual" has corrupted healthcare, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
Doing Well by Doing Good
How do we go about improving a system that is so deeply entrenched in every facet of society? I believe we have a chance to make some progress and there's prior art for this kind of change. In one example, it turns out that the system that industrial empires are built upon doesn't work so well in a world of finite resources. At scale, as resources become scarce, costs rise and the laws of economics take over. In practice, it was economics (not planetary friendliness) that drove some of the earliest large-scale enterprises to adopt recycling as a standard best practice. From a purely economic perspective, at scale it made more sense to recycle something than it did to make a new thing from scratch. So something like sustainable manufacturing, which might have been considered previously by a company to be prohibitively expensive, suddenly becomes good business. Once a few big players show the value and innovate for their own benefit, other large companies will start to adopt, and a virtuous cycle begins. But most importantly, the interests of businesses come into alignment with the interests of society at large rather than the two being at war. This simple example is just one way of looking at a complex problem, but it serves to illustrate my point. Innovative businesses are (re)discovering that it's actually harder and more costly in the long run to be at war with its employees and customers.
Innovative businesses are more collaborative, internally and externally, and as a result create thick value for the world – a combination of financial profit PLUS positive impact.
Working for these kinds of businesses, and building these kinds of businesses, creates a system where "business as usual" allows people make money by contributing to something that they care about.
Do you want to feel good about your work?
In building New Work City, a coworking space, I learned a lot about how hard it is to build something that people care about enough to help make it happen and to help make it sustainable. But I also learned how easy it can be once you get a couple of things right.
When I made it my job to do something that other people believed in, I had no trouble finding help - my customers became my allies instead of my adversaries.
I had no trouble finding customers - in fact they seemed to find me, almost like moths to a porch light. I had no trouble spreading the word - every newspaper and blogger that I talked to wanted to write a story. Every customer wanted to tell their friends. Through all of this, I learned that this kind of participation can't be forced. It's earned through communication and sustained by trust.
For companies who are used to steamrolling their way to outcomes, this is a pretty unusual way to approach a business. And unfortunately for them, it shows, from the challenges in recruiting and retaining talent to the wasteful spending on acquiring new customers just to stay alive. Innovation and collaboration cannot happen in a company that operates this way. "Business as usual" focuses on connecting with customers and employees who fully expect they’re being lied to at all times. "Business as usual" must constantly find new ways to convince people that the company knows best, and that the company has what they need and want next.This war for buy-in and participation between the business and the humans it relies on most is artificial, invented by the broken system.
We can fix this together...
Over the last 5 years, I've learned a lot about how to build and lead an organization that works by injecting humanity back into business equations. I've had to learn some lessons the hard way, but remain convinced that I'm much better off driving my own business in this direction and helping others who want to end the war with their customers and work together as collaborators. Tony Bacigalupo and his partners Alex Hillman and Adam Teterus of Indy Hall teach an online Masterclass for community building with the goal of teaching people the core principles behind how we manage our organizations to world-bettering outcomes. They are launching a Business of Community Tour, which will bring this class to several international locations. More information: http://tour.businessofcommunity.comGuest post written by Tony Bacigalupo.
Tony has been helping people build better communities in NYC and around the world since 2007. His best known work is as cofounder and Mayor of New Work City, which grew out of the NYC's earliest coworking gatherings. He teaches people how to lead better communities with the Community Builder Masterclass, and is on the Board of Directors of the NY Tech Meetup, the world's largest Meetup group. photo credit: Alan Hudson Photography via photopincc