What do you mean by "Good" Fortune?

It refers to making money by doing good.  Good Fortune is generated when capitalism and business create profitable products and services that are socially responsible and environmentally sustainable in a physically and psychologically healthy workplace.

Is it anything more than Corporate Social Responsibility or Business Social Responsibility?

Yes, it is far more.  Corporate Social Responsibility is only the first “baby” step.  It’s a kind of “minimize environmental harm” ethic.   But Good Fortune challenges leaders to go to a new level of leadership thinking.  It asks leaders to create high-growth profit strategies by solving the environmental and social problems that threaten our future.  To make money by saving the future.

Do you have any examples?

Yes, many, large and small.

Honda Motor Companies is a leader in new solar “thinfilm” technology, which promises to bring the cost of solar energy to a price per kilowatt hour similar to coal.  G.E.’s latest wind turbines are one of their fastest and most profitable businesses.   This is sustainable capitalism in action, and it’s happening everywhere.  There is a lot of money to be made going beyond Corporate Social Responsibility to sustainable business solutions. 

Does it go beyond the environment and global warming?

Yes, it must.  Global warming is only one potential environmental threat.  There are many other issues impacting the environment as well as community and civic vitality such as global health, global poverty, education, and violence.  All of these areas have scores of challenges begging for sustainable solutions.

So what are some other examples of Good Fortune in action?

There are so many.  Clifbar, a fast growing privately held socially strategic business, does a great job of reducing costs by minimizing packaging, selecting dependable, close vendors in its organic supply chain and then uses its authentic mission of sustainable business to build brand loyalty.  But it goes further.  Its products are increasingly being aimed at health issues such as reducing obesity in youth.  Thus its product becomes part of the solution to pressing social and health issues people care about.  It opens our markets and creates economic sustainability, thus going way beyond corporate responsibility to socially strategic enterprise.

And the list grows daily.  One small company, Mama Melluce’s, makes nut snacks.  It offers customer and employee microloans to extremely poor Islamist Indonesians who process cashews.  Their new economic opportunities make them less attracted to becoming jahadists and more interested in being part of a socially sustainable supply chain to a thriving U.S. company.  Good Fortune is making money on the loans and the nuts while lifting people out of grinding poverty.  It’s a sustainable virtuous cycle.

Can this apply to any business?

Yes, really any enterprise, for-profit or not-for-profit.  It’s a whole new framework of thinking.  Industrial capitalism of the 20th century was a blunt instrument for wealth control.  It extracted value from resources, created value from invention and labor, and then very efficiently created consumer economies principally in Europe, Japan, and the U.S.  But with world population growing to 10 billion in the next few decades, industrial capitalism is unsustainable.  The symptoms of its lack of sustainability will be recession, resource wars (hot or cold), terrorism, and environmental destruction.  So what’s needed is a bigger more complete system of capitalism.  It’s more than sustainable or socially responsible; it’s socially strategic.  It seeks more than doing no harm; it seeks to heal, to restore, to create a robust world that offers future generations the greatest chance for an enriching life.  And anyone can join in, wherever they are.  Any job, any business and non-profit, any government agency can all transform their strategies to create the Greatest Total Value with zero waste.  Most of all, anyone can make an impact that matters.  All it takes is a new way of thinking about opportunity and leadership.

What is your goal?

I believe the way up is the only way out.  By “up” I mean socially strategic leadership is a bigger way of thinking than our current thought-systems.  It’s not harder to think this way; it’s actually more fun, more rewarding, and far more interesting. Right now there is tremendous worldwide energy for sustainable enterprise.  Literally ten’s of thousands of entrepreneur, business, and non-profit leaders are establishing new socially strategic strategies to solve our most pressing problems at their root.  But the problem is there is no education on how to systematically think in a socially strategic context.  So we’ve created Citizen One whose motto is “Make Your Difference that is The Difference.”  Citizen One is an educational initiative that begins with an on-line, fully accredited high school and college course in Socially Strategic Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship.  We also have live events, and a TV series in planning stages.  The TV series is about how citizens are taking the future into their own hands.  Finally, we are in the first stages of planning for a fully accredited, tuition free university.  It will be online and onsite and have its own basketball team.  I am not kidding.

Tell us, what's the importance of education?

If we are going to create a sustainable future that offers everyone a real chance for a decent life, we need to democratize quality education.  This needs to be more than basic literacy or how to use a computer.  Citizens of the 21st century need to be able to lead their lives, their communities, and their enterprises in a away that improves their real standard of life while nurturing environmental vitality and bringing dignity and opportunity to every human being.  This is not overly idealistic.  It is not a resource problem; it’s a challenge of will.  And the answer to the challenge begins with education, specifically leadership education.

How can others get involved?

We need sponsors for our initiatives.  It’s a great branding opportunity for companies who want to go beyond social responsibility to socially strategic enterprise.  We also love to give speeches to both receptive and skeptical audiences.  On a selective basis we also provide consulting to organizations that want to transform their business models toward a “Good Fortune” strategy.

But the main thing is to become a socially strategic leader right where you stand.  Stand for something that matters.  Click to contact us.