Emerging Management Paradigms

This story highlights the diverging opinions on what Fair Trade is. The traditional intention of  fair trade is to allow smaller farmers access to large US and European markets that they’d normally be priced out of. Fair Trade USA, the largest fair trade certifier in the country, believes that definition should be changed to include coffee from large farms and products with only 10% fair trade ingredients, half as much as allowed in most countries.

Critics believe that this practice of extending the certificate beyond small farmers who use 20% or more fair trade ingredients dilutes the meaning of “Fair Trade” and should be considered to be the less specific “Socially Responsible Business”. Over the past decade, the concept of Fair Trade  has become increasingly confusing for consumers and highlights a critical problem around legitimizing certifications in the marketplace as consumers become more conscious of global health, social, and environmental problems.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/11/30/142935891/is-fair-trade-coffee-still-fair-if-it-comes-from-a-big-farm

Natalie

Thinking about progressive workplace, i found this article about beautiful workplaces written by Tim Brown and it is interesting how can we re-think the organization not only in terms of “hard” performance, where everything is set for efficiency.

But what happens with the aesthetics of the workplace? Can this dimension be part of the equation to find the sweet spot for the progressive workplace? I think it does. What do you think?

Happy Holidays, it was a really nice semester.

Seba

We talked a lot about how to find a management model that will allow for more work-life balance. However, what if that is not what the employees actually want? How to deal with that?

Andrew Isaacs from Haas challenged me last week on the meaning of work-life balance. And I started thinking if work-life balance is maybe a misnomer? This term tries to oppose work as not being an integral part of our life and suggests that work is something bad.
Should we rather call it work-play balance? And what if the work is actually fun (play) … Is it fine to use more than 8 hours a day doing that? If so, what about the consequences like burnout?

And of course there is a question of how much managers should be aware of these different aspects and not only look at the actual working hours that people spend at work?

It seams that not only me struggles with this question. I found a couple of articles/blogs with different ideas around how to see work-life balance:
– it is not about the work-life balance but an integrated life:
http://www.openforum.com/articles/balance-of-work-and-life-is-a-myth
– it is actually a balance of work-play-sleep that matters:
http://www.worknplay.net/work-play-and-sleep-finding-the-balance/

Leslaw

Check out Information Week’s top 15 apps for virtual collaboration. Information week points out that ‘Certainly, businesses are investigating — and investing in — tools that help employees brainstorm, locate each other, schedule meetings, and communicate via social networks’. ‘AtTask’ beats out Webex and Chatter for #1. The list has a few interesting familiar and not so familiar applications further down.

http://www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/slideshows/view/229300480/top-15-cloud-collaboration-app

Ariel

I heard about Warbly Parker through a friend who had used their services. It is a small company, started by a group of college friends, that make and sell eyewear.

Further the company incorporates shared value into its core business, donating a pair of glasses to a person in need for each pair sold. While the company has been billing itself as a “humanitarian eyewear company”, which no doubt has an appeal to the more financially sound, their glasses are also extremely affordable and fashionable and thus more accessible for a broader financial demographic.

This article talks about how Warbly Parker arrived at their business model, which was an inspired mash up of elements from Apple, Zappos, Patagonia, Nike, and Methods. Their competitive edge is afforded through their cost cutting measures go hand in hand– an online based venture, ordering from the manufacturer and selling directly to the customer, bypassing retail chains. Lenses are included with the flat rate of the glasses and shipping and returns are free.

The company really utilizes the Internet beyond is use as a transactional method. Customers can upload photos of themselves and virtually try on glasses. Or the company sends out 5 loaner pairs, and also maintains some real estate in department stores of large cities. Like Zappos, shipping is free and all eyewear may be returned.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/10/10/warby-parkers-do-good-vision-for-humanitarian-eye-wear-comes-into-focus/

– Jen W.

Crowdfunding offer a way for ‘do well, do good’ organizations to raise capital from those that they are ‘doing good’ for.  In other words, it gives them the possibility of getting a return on the shared value they produce.  The new SEC crowdfunding law should make this easier.

On the topic of technology in the workplace, heres a great example. The CEO of a tech company, Atos, found that only 10 % of email in the workplace is actually useful while the rest is spam. He decided to ban email in the company and replace it with instant messaging and collaboration software. This CEO has not sent an email in 3 years!

Article can be found at: http://news.yahoo.com/tech-firm-implements-employee-zero-email-policy-165311050.html

Naila

An article that relates to the last class discussion on sustainability, with environmental rankings of major corporations. While governments are stalling at the notion of regulating carbon foot prints, corporations are motivated to reduce waste since that entails a drastic reduction in costs. Reducing waste is done through improving operational aspects and making more efficient products. Companies across the world are coming to the conclusion that long-term sustainability is more crucial then ever before. 

“We’ve been presented with a false choice: either great economic performance or great environmental performance,” says GE’s Vachon. “But through innovation, we can solve both challenges.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/16/green-rankings-2011.html

Naila

In the below article,  Jerry Greesnfield who is the co founder of Ben and Jerry’s talks about how Ben and Jerry has been doing well by doing good

Some important points

1) Purchasing chocolate brownies from a non profit which trains and hires out of job workers

2) Ben and Jerry Foundation which donates to non profits

3) “In state” public offering in Vermont

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/11/22/3090403/ben-jerrys-co-founder-explains-how-to-do-well-by-doing-good

Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough and Michael Braungart, lays out the framework for designing a “New Industrial Revolution,” which shifts industrial design to intentional design. The cradle to cradle design philosophy was born out of a collaboration between architect, William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart, each working on solving sustainability and health challenges in their respective fields. Built on the philosophy that we must take care of ourselves by taking care of the Earth, their work focuses on unifying industry and environmentalism, historically opposed to one another, to create a world that leaves an “ecological footprint to delight in, not lament.” As leaders in their fields since the 1970’s, they have experience working on these issues since they arose, and each have lived and worked in densely-populated countries such as Japan and Germany that have more elegant and ecologically responsible solutions than the US for how to design buildings, housing, and products.

The unintended effects of the Industrial Revolution have had devastating effects on human and environmental health. With this knowledge, they argue that we are at a turning point in history where designers and businesses must make sustainability a priority. They suggest that designers can use the wisdom of nature as a template for creating products, industrial systems, and regional plans that provide an alternative to the wasteful and damaging items that currently exist. They explain that key components of a truly sustainable design are diversity, locality, using natural energy flows such as solar, wind, and water power, explain how to transition to diverse and renewable energy flows, and a willingness to work with every sector of the economy and avoid “isms” or extreme and narrow lenses to see the world through. They call the last point “eco-effectiveness” which sees commerce, committed to environmental, social, and cultural concerns, as the vehicle for change. They explain that ecology, equity, and economy, three abstract components, must be in place for this to work and consider different aspects of each fractal when designing products, buildings, and factories. When analyzing clients from each perspective, suggestions for how the other two fractals can be considered in the business plan to round out the process into a more sustainable design model. For example, if a company is solely interested in making a profit, a suggestion to balance that out by looking at the social and environmental factors such as employee wages.

They describe an “Industrial Re-Evolution” as design that is diverse and most resembles the living world. It is foundational to use natural mechanisms that work on the premise of taking but also giving back, which creates a cycle of regrowth and redistribution of resources. For example: building factories whose products nourish the ecosystem with biodegradable material and recirculate technical materials instead of dumping, burning, or burying them and creating self-regulating systems and strive to serve nature as well as our own needs.

This holistic design framework is highly adaptable and works with people and businesses where they are. There are five steps that reflect five principles guiding the process. Step 1 is to Get “free of” known culprits or harmful substances. Step 2 is to Follow informed personal preferences, such as respect, celebration, “ecological intelligence”, etc. to allow for integration between design and culture. Step 3: Creating a “passive positive” list where they take inventory of the contents of a given product and the substances it “gives off” in the course of its manufacture and use. This is the most ecologically comprehensive step as it takes into consideration not only what the end state of the product is, but what effects it has on the local and global communities. Step 4 is to activate the “positive list” of substances to be used in the design. Step 5 is to reinvent the product. Even huge, established companies like Nike and Ford were able to integrate the framework into their traditional buildings. In Ford’s case, they redesigned their manufacturing facility to not only collect storm water, clean the air, beautify the landscape, but the plan actually saved the company $35 million in what would have been costs to upgrade the pipes to satisfy the Clean Water Act.

McDonough and Braungart’s focus on tangible solutions for design that strike at the root of our sustainability problems, rather than merely treating the symptoms, is impressive. They are answering the question of how to support and perpetuate a world that both promotes human health and is full of abundance, which hopefully more designers and business leaders will be doing in years to come.

– Natalie