Deciding from our air-conditioned offices

This Saturday, I had the pleasure to take part at TEDxSP, an independently organised TED event. From 07h30 to 20h00, more than 30 people passed their message to a super qualified 700 people audience.

Right in the beginning, journalist Denis Burgierman sad something somehow obvious, but that touched me importantly. He said: “We have the bad habit of solving problems in an air-conditioned room and imposing the solution to others. The problems are not theoretical, they are on the streets. And they can only be successfully addressed if the people affected by them are involved.”

The point of Denis’ lecture was that Brazil is rich in many things, especially in problems. As weird as it sounds at first, for him the abundant interesting problems is one of our biggest assets, because they channel creative people’s passion and efforts, generating a very attractive and flourishing environment. Therefore, specific problems are solved, more people engage in solving more complex problems and we can form a bank of creative solutions adapted to our times, which can be replicated in other places.

When working for big organisations, we often feel contributing for building large scale solutions to important issues, such as poverty, shortage of opportunities, low quality education and, in my case, pathways for bringing sustainability into the management of different organisations. However, commonly we do such from our acclimatised offices, based on cold data and on what we think we know about the problem.

Well, turns out it could be better to be “less efficient”, do less stuff, so we can free our agendas to interact with the ones directly involved in the situation. This way, we can build stronger solutions, help forming a community in the process and individually learn.

I am certain we become better people in the proportion we learn to respect other points of views and stories. And we can only learn that lesson by wholeheartedly engaging with others.

So, why is it we don’t do it?

The power of organised individuals

What can a person do to change businesses? Carrotmob brings one alternative. Check it out!

Carrotmob Makes It Rain from carrotmob on Vimeo.

Getting unstuck

This lecture by MIT professor Rebecca Henderson is one of the coolest on organisational behaviour and performance management I've seen. Enjoy it!

Free market & global issues

My experience has shown that the free market - powerful and useful as it is - could treat problems such as global poverty and environmental degradation if only it weren't too concerned in accomplishing the financial goals of its richest shareholders.

Extracted from the book Creating a world without poverty, by Mohammad Yunus

Interviewing Jacqueline Novogratz

Jacqueline Novogratz began her career as an international banker but soon, aspiring to change the world, joined a nonprofit women’s microfinance group that dispatched her to Africa.

Currently, she is the CEO of Acumen Fund, a nonprofit venture capital firm she founded in 2001 to invest in sustainable businesses that bring health care, safe water, alternative energy, and housing to the developing world’s low-income people.

She is at the moment launching the book The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World.

On an interview for the McKinsey Quarterly, she said:

"The next ten years are about developing talent, developing the stories that inspire and influence a generation, that we could do things differently in the world and that we don't need just to be sitting within the market place or just within traditional philanthropy or charity, but that there's real room for reinventing an economy that is global but is also more imaginative, creative and most importantly inclusive."

US$ 500,000 pay limit for top executives

The Obama administration is expected to impose a cap of $500,000 for top executives at companies that receive large amounts of money from the Treasury Department.

"That is pretty draconian — $500,000 is not a lot of money, particularly if there is no bonus," said James F. Reda, founder and managing director of James F. Reda & Associates, a compensation consulting firm. He said such limits will make it hard for the companies to recruit and keep executives, most of whom could earn more money at other firms.

Mr. Obama said Tuesday "if the taxpayers are helping you, then you have certain responsibilities to not be living high on the hog."

In 2007, Vikram Pandit of Citigroup made $3.1 million; Kenneth D. Lewis of Bank of America received over $20 million; and Rick Wagoner of General Motors made $14.4 million.

Hopefully, we may start discussing some ethical aspects around abusive salaries:
- short term shareholder pressure
- concept of success
- motivation for working
- social (in)equality
- gap between rich and poor
- environmental impacts of unnecessary buying
- etc

What do you think?

Maybe wanna sponsor an executive?

New Your Times' article here.

Systemic reform is the only course for ‘decimated’ investors

Great article! It appropriately questions what we currently understand as sustainable investment.


Author: Sarah Stranahan
Published on January 25th, 2009
http://www.responsible-investor.com/home/article/if_not_now/P0/

"At a recent conference in New York, I was asked to speak about the Needmor Fund’s 20 years of experience as a mission investor. I wrote a paper comparing Needmor’s returns to the returns of a traditional foundation, which was founded by the same family, uses the same investment consultant and has a very similar investment strategy. In the end, I decided not to read my prepared paper. The reason had nothing to do with my conclusions: Needmor in fact outperformed the traditional fund by 4.5% last year, but by only 0.4% over the last five years. My careful analysis revealed the majority of this short-term outperformance was caused by the quality bent of Needmor’s screened equity managers, which basically supports the conclusion that ESG screens are a proxy for good management. This quality bent functions like a hedge, so that one consistent result of Needmor’s mission investing has been to reduce portfolio volatility. No, the reason I decided not to read my paper was that I was embarrassed by its irrelevance. At the conference, I listened to my peers make the case that social (or sustainable or ESG) investing is competitive with the dominant markets and it made me wonder.

Why are we trying to prove that we are as good as the dominant markets? The dominant markets have failed dismally. Needmor did 4.5% better. So what? We still lost 25% of our endowment. We failed in our fiduciary duty and disappointed our grantees and our staff because we had faith in the dominant markets. A generation lost their retirement security, millions lost their jobs and their homes, and the next generation is foregoing or deferring higher education. And we did 4.5% better. Yippee. The word decimated is a Latin military term used to describe an army that has lost 10% of its soldiers. We were all decimated. Why are we talking about a fraction of a point of performance difference within a failed paradigm? That’s rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. We need to be talking about systemic reform. Let’s look at the paradigm that failed. It can be summarized as: “Unregulated markets are the most efficient allocators of capital and pricers of risk and they will result in the greatest and most sustainable global economic growth.” This was not just a financial paradigm. It underpinned the dominant theories of global development and political progress.

Unregulated markets were supposed to lift the world’s population out of poverty, and this, in turn, was supposed to lead to education, empowerment, and engagement in the political process, which would lead to, “ta da!”, democracy. This entire set of paradigms has failed. Unregulated markets have not only destroyed $12 trillion worth of savings, but they have destabilized emerging economies, erased 10 years of development and created uncertainty, chaos and corruption. They failed utterly, and in the nick of time. The only thing worse than the collapse of the markets would have been their continued success. We all know that maximizing global economic growth is disastrously unsustainable. We were on the brink of resource scarcity in oil, water, rice, wheat, corn and copper when the wheels fell off the car. If they had not fallen off, we would have driven over the cliff. Now at least we are crawling, not speeding, toward environmental disaster. And the dominant paradigm has been discredited. We should celebrate. Pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get to work. The problem is, we don’t have a nice, shiny, broadly accepted, politically feasible, researched and tested, safe new paradigm to pop in like a fluorescent light bulb. I wonder where we will find one? Who will stay up all night for six weeks straight to save us? If we leave the re-regulation of the financial and economic systems to the same people who became tremendously wealthy and powerful by dismantling the old regulations, they will design a system that preserves their tremendous wealth and power. They will spend trillions of dollars of our money putting the wheels back on the car and then they will drive it over the cliff. We can’t allow this to happen. We have to develop a financial system that is safe, secure and rewards equitable and sustainable economic behavior. We can draw on the ideas of the New Deal and Keynes, but there are new wrinkles of difficulty and complexity that have to be addressed: globalisation, extreme inequality, resource scarcity and global warming. I cannot tell you what the solutions are; but I do know that if we succeed we will build a financial system that rewards long-term thinking, internalizes externalities, reduces speculation, rewards sustainability and increases social equity. In other words, we will build a financial system that rewards investors like us.

We need new analysis and new ideas. And we also need to subject these ideas to rigorous critical review. We already know that the unintended consequences of well meaning reform can be disastrous. It was, after all, activist institutional investors who advocated for stock options tied to quarterly returns in order to align management interests with shareholder interests. The lesson is to be careful what you ask for: you just might get it. But ideas alone are not enough. To succeed we will need to build the political power to move a reform agenda that supports equitable and sustainable markets. We will need to hash out our differences, prioritise our agenda, and organise and educate an informed engaged constituency.

We will need to amass more power than the Wall Street lobby. To succeed we’ll need good ideas and good organising. We are all worried about our clients’ portfolios. No one is paying us to research financial market regulation, engage in public advocacy, or organise a coalition. But no one is going to do this for us. There are many ways to contribute to this collective effort. One is the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets at www.sustainablefinancialmarkets.net. Another, that I am involved in, is a coalition of organisations including The Social Investment Forum and the Community Development Finance Institution Coalition called The New Economy Roundtable.

Our purpose is: “To shift the dynamics of public discourse and public policy in the wake of the global economic crisis to highlight structures and solutions that support equitable and sustainable economies.” I hope you will join one of these efforts. Our experience at Needmor is that ordinary people become transformative leaders when they assume personal responsibility for the systemic problems that affect their communities."


Sarah Stranahan is chair of the Needmor Fund, a Toledo, Ohio-based fund that supports community investing.

Diffusion of Innovations

Have you ever felt your organisation doesn't see some obvious trends?

Do you think changes take a lot longer than they could / should?


Everett M. Rogers, pioneer of Diffusion of Innovations theory, author of the second-most-cited book in the social sciences, concluded in 1962:

adopters of any new innovation or idea can be categorized as

innovators - 2.5%
early adopters - 13.5%
early majority - 34%
late majority - 34%
laggards - 16%


Good news is: by the time you conquer 1/3 of the early majority it's virtually impossible to stop the wave of change.

Global Entrepreneurship Week

The biggest entrepreneurship movement in the world is on: the Global Entrepreneurship Week!

On November 17th-23rd, various organisations and individuals are promoting activities and putting their ideas into practice, creating a movement to promote ideas, creativity, businesses and the entrepreneurial experience. In Brazil, 500.000 participants, 9.000 organisations and 5.000 activities are expected to happen.

Wanna see videos, list the activity you are promoting or know more about the Global Entrepreneurship Week? Check the Brazilian Entrepreneurship Week website here.

Banco Real is the Sustainable Bank of the Year

Banco Real triumphs in Financial Times Sustainable Banking Awards

Banco Real has been named as ‘Sustainable Bank of the Year’ at the prestigious Financial Times Sustainable Banking Awards. In a double coup, the Brazilian bank also took out the ‘Sustainable Emerging Markets Bank of the Year’.

Now in their third year, the Awards were created by the Financial Times in association with the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. They recognise banks and other financial institutions that have shown leadership and innovation in integrating social, environmental and corporate governance considerations into their operations. The Awards are one of the most important recognitions of sustainable activities in the financial world.

Banco Real was selected from a record 182 entries from 129 institutions across 54 countries and this was the first time the top prize in the global contest has gone to an emerging markets bank. The judges said the bank had pioneered sustainable banking in South America, putting social and environmental issues at the centre of all its business activities and involving its 32,000 staff in the strategy.

"Sustainability is in its DNA," the judges said. "Banco Real has a radical vision for sustainability in Latin America: it believes a bank is only as sound as the society that surrounds it."

More information on the Awards and the judge’s comments can be found on the Financial Times website.

Grupo Corpo

Grupo Corpo is one of the best contemporary dance groups in Brazil. They do about 80 shows a year, travel all around the world, launch a new fantastic spectacle every couple of years and do unbelievable things with their bodies. Tonight, I had the opportunity to talk to Paulo Pederneiras, the production director and one of the founders of the group.

History
Started 33 years ago in the house of the founders, who convinced their parents to move out. Contributions for the first big success came from famous and unknown artists.

Principles
- one interferes and helps in everyone else's work
- doors are always open. In fact, there are no doors
- transparency and honesty
- commitment to do arts (and not with any particular cause)
- hard work
- great freedom AND responsibility

Evolution
After a big success, a need for self assurance and various experiments, an identity started to emerge.

Keeping humility
- "I don't know anything about contemporary arts. But I pay a lot of attention"
- "Our goal can't be success, because it attracts dishonesty"
- "I depend on other people's skills 100% of the time"

Plans
- "It doesn't matter much what has happened in the past, but what's in front of us"
- "I'd like Grupo Corpo to be something I don't know exactly what it is. I guess a space where everything is allowed"
- and asked about succession, Paulo said: "I don't intend to pass away any time soon..."

Let my People go Surfing

I've started to read the book Let my People go Surfing, written by Yvon Chouinard. Yvon is a climber, surfer, kayaker, skier and the founder of Patagonia, a company created to provide gear for nature related sports, which has been maintaining a few interesting principles since its foundation in the 70s:

- work has to be enjoyable on a daily basis
- one dresses as it pleases him/her
- colleagues are all friends
- everybody should have flextime to surf the waves when they are good, of ski the powder after a big storm, or stay home and take care of a sick child - the distinction between work, play and family should be blurred
- be aware of one's impact and reduce the environmental damage

This is how Yvon starts its book.

"I've been a businessman for almost fifty years. It's as difficult for me to say those words as it is for someone to admit being an alcoholic or a lawyer. I've never respected the profession. It's business that has to take the majority of the blame for being the enemy of nature, for destroying native cultures, for taking from the poor and giving to the rich, and for poisoning the earth with the effluent from its factories.

Yet business can produce food, cure disease, control population, employ people, and generally enrich our lives. And it can do these things and make a profit without losing its soul."

Brazilian Attractions

In the exact week Brazil is celebrating the Standard & Poor's raise of debt rating to investment grade, which can potentially open the floodgate for foreign investors - particularly big endowments, pension funds, and insurance companies that are restricted from buying risky debts - I came across an article talking about another of the Brazilian attractions: the Brazilians.

Two hundred years ago, José Bonifácio in his "Living Thinking" expressed the following about the citizens from my country:

"Brazilians are enthusiastic about beautiful ideals
They love freedom and suffer very little whenever they lose privileges they once had
Obedient to those who are fair, the enemies of arbitrary actions, they would rather be robbed than despised
Ignorant due to a lack of instruction, but talented by nature
With a brilliant imagination, they are therefore the lovers of novelties that promise perfection and nobility
Generous, but braggers
Capable of great actions, as long as they do no require a long attention span or constant monotonous work
Passionate about sex, climate, life and education
They take on a lot, but finish little..."

Recently, a research carried out for the National Tourism Company (Embratur) confirmed the uniqueness and attractiveness of our people. When foreign tourists come to Brazil for the first time, their main motivations are the beaches (31%), the climate (20%) and the scenic beauty (16%). When they leave, asked about what they liked best, some of the most common answers are the tropical climate (19%), the scenic beauty (22%) and the beaches, sun & sea (28%). However, the absolute leader wasn't showing in the expectations' list: 52% of the interviewed will miss the Brazilian people the most.

Wanna come along?

Perceiving leadership in practice

One of the reasons why I always worked for entrepreneurial and small organisations was because I never believed a big company - with its uncountable processes, hierarchical levels and selfish motivations - could truly engage the individuals to do something bigger than themselves, driven by values and ideals.

Luckily, I was proved wrong. I've been working for ABN AMRO for the last 2 months and, although I keep various critical opinions against the way banks operate and the impact they generate, I've been experiencing an environment of smart, idealistic and hands-on people, who talk and act about systems thinking and sustainability, backed by the president of the company.

The president in this case is Fabio Barbosa. He led the merging of Banco Real and ABN AMRO years ago and was confirmed this week as the president of the Santander Group in Brazil. The unprecedented decision of keeping the leader of an acquired company has a lot to do with Fabio's impressive style of leadership, which is extremely visionary (he was the starter and is the main representative of the sustainability initiative), focused on relationships and, as a result, very effective (the bank's results grew 45% last year). The unanimous positive opinion about him from employees, shareholders and society is almost freaky.

Wanna know why? Below you can read a part of the message he wrote to the employees about being the new president of Santander Group in Brazil (free translation) and will understand his coherent, engaging approach.

"I want to use this moment and thank you for the support that I have received during all these years. To quote Isaac Newton, 'if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants'. More than 32,000 [employees]...
[...] It is also good to see the recognition of our proposal to work with transparency and respect, driven by values, focusing on the customer and building a positive internal atmosphere. Or, as we say, a proposal win-win-win.
It's going to be cool (it has been and... is being)! Let's go!"

One of the many immediate comments from the employees said:

"Congratulations! This is nothing more than the fair recognition of serious work.

Wish you lots of success in this new challenge and be sure you can count on us to build a better bank for a better society."

Google's 9 principles for innovation

Google's VP of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer shares the rules that gives the search company its innovative edge.

* 1. INNOVATION, NOT INSTANT PERFECTION

"'The Googly thing is to launch it early on Google Labs and then iterate, learning what the market wants--and making it great.' The beauty of experimenting in this way is that you never get too far from what the market wants. The market pulls you back."

* 2. IDEAS COME FROM EVERYWHERE

"We have this great internal list where people post new ideas and everyone can go on and see them. It's like a voting pool where you can say how good or bad you think an idea is. Those comments lead to new ideas."

* 3. A LICENSE TO PURSUE YOUR DREAMS

"Since around 2000, we let engineers spend 20% of their time working on whatever they want, and we trust that they'll build interesting things."

* 4. MORPH PROJECTS DON'T KILL THEM

"Any project that is good enough to make it to Labs probably has a kernel of something interesting in there somewhere, even if the market doesn't respond to it. It's our job to take the product and morph it into something that the market needs."

* 5. SHARE AS MUCH INFORMATION AS YOU CAN

"Every Monday, all the employees write an email that has five to seven bullet points on what you did the previous week. Being a search company, we take all the emails and make a giant Web page and index them. If you're wondering, 'Who's working on maps?' you can find out. It allows us to share what we know across the whole company, and it reduces duplication."

* 6. USERS, USERS, USERS

"We believe that if we focus on the users, the money will come."

* 7. DATA IS APOLITICAL

"We think of design as a science. It doesn't matter who is the favorite or how much you like this aesthetic versus that aesthetic. It all comes down to data. Run a 1% test [on 1% of the audience] and whichever design does best against the user-happiness metrics over a two-week period is the one we launch."

* 8. CREATIVITY LOVES CONSTRAINTS

"This is one of my favorites. [...] engineers thrive on constraints."

* 9. YOU'RE BRILLIANT? WE'RE HIRING

If you were paid, you can’t complain!

Last weekend, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art – MCA in Sydney, to check the Latin American temporary exhibition. Amongst lots of amazing stuff reflecting the culture, strong sentiments and socio-political tensions in the region, one piece called me my attention. A Spanish artist, realising how little Mexican workers earned, paid 465 of them to crowd up an art gallery room and spend the day there. Unfamiliar with the environment, the workers first felt confused, but got increasingly comfortable in the place. The underlining message was: if you were paid to do something, you’re not supposed to discuss or complain – you were paid how much you’re worth for your time and that's it.

Seems an exaggeration?

During this week, I’ve been taking part on corporate workshops, facilitated by the consultancy I work for. Unfortunately, the Spanish artist was not amplifying the problem. Amongst almost 30 very smart people in the room, I couldn’t see one single individual with a strong purpose to be there. Conversations floated around processes, competitors, profitability and I’m pretty confident I wasn’t the only one bored. Can individuals change the whole idea of a corporation existence? Can the companies create systems which inspire people to give their bests for something worthwhile? The only thing clear to me at this point is that selling biscuits and poker machines doesn’t stimulate the best in people. (Once I read a very wise phrase, with which I couldn't agree more: money doesn't inspire the best people nor the best in people.)

But, in the end of the day, all of us were getting paid to be there. So perhaps we can’t complain...

Global Compact volunteer collaborative initiative

The Global Compact (world's largest voluntary Corporate Citizenship initiative, led by the United Nations) is calling volunteers to review more than 2,000 Communication on Progress Reports (COPs), submitted by its signers from all across the world.

I started doing my part reviewing my first COP this morning. It's really cool to get know what companies are doing, while contributing to an important global initiative.

If you're interested, click here to learn more and join.

Exciting times!

Last week was my best at work since I arrived. 3 full days of workshops with clients, quite a lot of thinking, good conversation with the directors and interesting perspectives for the next month. Unfortunately I cannot reveal details about the projects and findings about the clients (confidentiality).

Exciting times!

Getting to know Brazilians by the way they shop

Today I was reading the McKinsey Quarterly Review and saw an article about how big retailers can serve Brazil's mass-market shoppers. I guess I could see some characteristics of the people between the lines. Check it out:

1) Brazilians are very warm

Compared with similar shoppers in China, India, and Russia, twice as many Brazilians have stopped going to a store as a result of poor service. Since shopping trips are the only opportunities that many consumers have to be served, they value customer service highly. Shoppers expect the human touch that they find at their neighborhood stores, where salespeople greet them warmly by name and extend credit without collateral or other formalities.

2) Brazilians have a strong sense of community and value the cozyness of their neighbourhood relations

On average, Brazil's mass-market consumers shop once a day. They shop frequently because they worry about freshness, income rarely arrives in the form of a regular paycheck, storage space is limited, and bargains appear and vanish daily. Since almost 70 percent of shoppers travel by foot, shopping is much easier when stores are nearby. As one Brazilian shopper explained, "Doce Lar [a neighborhood store] is about one kilometer [ 0.62 miles] from here, and it takes me about ten minutes to walk. Carrefour is five kilometers—it takes me about 50 minutes, which is too far. I cannot get back carrying my bags."

Even including the few households that own cars, nearly 80 percent of Brazilians traveled less than 15 minutes on their most recent shopping trip—about one kilometer by foot or five kilometers by car. These habits mean that a retailer can hope to attract households only within a radius of two or so kilometers (applying a weighted average). Even in an urban area as densely populated as São Paulo, that makes it challenging to attract the volume that big-box formats need to be successful.

3) Brazilians dream with a better future

Brazil’s shoppers express a preference for smaller, more convenient stores. Yet upward of 70 percent of all survey respondents (and the vast majority of focus group participants) also express a seemingly conflicting desire: to choose from a full range of products, including high-end ones, whether or not they intend to purchase those products.

In focus groups shoppers provided several explanations for this preference: the opportunity to treat themselves every now and then, a need to see a well-known branded product and use it as a reference price for the products that they would actually purchase, or the desire to impress neighbors—say, by purchasing Coca-Cola for a party instead of the local brand they drink every day. As one shopper explained, "I like to see the 25 reais brand of shampoo, not because I will buy it, but to dream a little." The challenge for retailers is to give mass-market shoppers a sense of choice, knowing that they often have no intention of purchasing the highest-end products and that the supply chain and inventory challenges associated with SKU proliferation can make it harder to serve the mass market economically.
What do you think?

Compliments at work

A good think also happened last year was the evaluation made with my boss. Although I don't really feel I'm doing a fantastic job, the evaluation was extremely positive, the company is very happy and even invited me to stay longer. They are particularly happy with the ability to see and proactively solve problems, do admin work and easily shift to strategic jobs. Good stuff!

First days of work

On August 2nd (the second day I was in Sydney) I started working. The company I work for is called Real World Marketing (www.realworldmarketing.com.au) and is a start-up marketing consultancy, focused on innovation and category management, and with a strong implementation proposition.

Besides me, there are 5 other people in the team: 2 from England, 1 from Australia, 1 from New Zealand and 1 from the Philippines, this last leaving in some days. We are located in Colman Brunton's building (a big Australian research company), which brings us some comforts and more friends.

So far, everything is being good. I'm having transition with the previous intern, all the managers took some time to welcome me and have an informal conversation, and the manager director said the job is flexible and can evolve according to my competences and wishes.

Isn't that cool?