[Music]
what apana do today is tell you a
contemporary Aesop’s fable it’s a story
about how business can thrive if it
reaches beyond its own narrow interests
now as I’m sure many of you know
Aesop’s fables often involve pairs of
animals you’ve got the hare and the
tortoise the dog and the Fox the
servants and the Eagle and my story is
about the bees and the wasps and to
explain what I’m going to describe as
the bee business model and the wasp
business model and because this is a
contemporary Aesop’s fable I’m going to
draw in a bit of current science let’s
begin once upon a time the ancestor of
the modern bee was a species of wasp
that hunted in flowers now many of you
probably know the way that wasps make a
living is they find prey insects they
sting them which paralyzes them they
then carry them alive back to their
young they dissect them and they feed
them to their young now that’s how
social wasps do it solitary wasps don’t
take out they eat in what they do is
they find the prey insects they sting
them they lay their eggs in them and the
young eat their way out now I’m sorry to
sorry to share such gruesome details but
I want to say this is not a particularly
ethically attractive way to make a
living
I call it exploitative think of it in
pie graph terms somebody else has baked
and lovely fat juicy pie then along come
the wasps and they’ve taken their cut so
that’s the exploitative model now you
remember I said that the particular
ancestors of our bees were wasps that
hunted in flowers so when they brought
their prey insects home they would have
been coated in protein-rich pollen and
if there was a wise goddess of evolution
athena let’s say she might have looked
at this and thought my that pollen is
super rich in amino acids and it’s so
easy to catch and so eighty million
years before ellen degeneres before
natalie portman and others made it
fashionable our bees became vegans
but they didn’t stop there now the face
of the bees in the face of the flowers
were inextricably linked and you’ve got
this boomerang effect going along and
suddenly the bees started doing
everything to help the flowers so the
bees developed what’s called scope as
big hairy back so they could carry more
pollen and actually pollen baskets so
they could carry even more they
developed a communication system which
is mind boggling if you think about the
traffic going into a current airport and
the way that air traffic control works
now imagine doing that and a bee colony
where you would have seen the famous
waggle dancers where they tell the other
bees where the flowers are but did you
know that an average bee colony will
visit two million flowers every day
using this hugely efficient model of
communication and consider this a single
bee all day will only visit one species
of flowers and why is that well if they
turn up at a rose it’s no good than
being covered in marigold pollen and so
you can see through this that the bees
are really behaving in a way that I call
generative and what I mean by generative
is not just generous or not just
generating growth but they’re looking
after future generations next year’s
flowers are being looked after by these
bees and those flowers are going to look
after next year’s bees so that’s the
generative model and back at that pie
graph what the bees are doing is they’re
growing the whole value of the pie and
I’ll call this the generative model now
that’s my theory and every time you see
a business I see one of these two models
I see some businesses behaving
generatively developing what Michael
Porter the business guru called shared
value in that they’re working to
maximize financial value but also social
value in everything they do
and they’re behaving generatively and
you see many other businesses that
behaving just like the wasps somebody
else makes a big fat pie and they’re
very cleverly working out an angle to
take cuts so that’s the theory but no
theory of human society could ever be
all that interesting until we get down
to a scandal name-calling and gossip so
let’s talk about bankers why why is it
that some industries banking for example
arts
so I’m popular in the public perception
it’s not just recently but for hundreds
thousands of years people doing what
bankers do has been criticized and the
criticism is along the lines that I’ve
been describing people say well somebody
else worked incredibly hard to save that
money to grow that business and then
bankers are just turning up and they’re
taking her cards
it looks unfair the pharmaceutical
industry gets criticized a lot and most
medicines in the world are discovered in
universities in science parks but then
the pharma companies snap up the Payson
and then they’re criticized for
exploiting those patients corporate
lawyers tabloid journalists whenever you
find an unpopular industry usually the
accusation is that they’re just being a
bit waspish so this raises some
questions so one question is I work in a
waspish industry now I say this with
deference to the place where I am Cal
States what do I do in a waspish
industry do I adopt a hornet strategy do
I do I become a super boss to compete
with the other wasps do or could I
actually take a bee line now another
industry that had been hugely criticized
over over many years and decades was the
beauty industry but then along came and
these from Gordon Roddick’s Body Shop
and as many of you will know they
brought a whole environmental
sensibility they brought social
campaigning and a wonderful spirit and a
really different refreshing approach and
much more of a generative approach as
I’ll describe and there was one feature
of that that I think is under-recognized
that’s really important to understanding
what really makes a generative business
tick so I once asked Anita Roddick what
her business model was and she told me
we put the money into the product and
not the packaging so not only were they
not exploiting rainforests they’re not
exploiting gender stereotypes they’re
not exploiting animals but they weren’t
exploiting their customers because when
you go to a shop and you buy a beauty
product you expect it to make you
beautiful and you don’t expect most of
the money to have gone on marketing and
packaging and other things you want what
you got from the body shop which is
something that looked and felt and smelt
and worked wonderfully for the money
he’d paid for it because all the money
had gone into that and that’s absolutely
key thing about being a generative
business is it’s not about
sustainability departments is not about
charity all of that stuff
but you won’t be truly generative until
you look at the core of what you do and
you make that ethical and if that’s
serving people everything else can flow
from there so what if you work in an
industry which perhaps is just because
of what it does inclines to be
generative like let’s say the pensions
industry they’re looking after people’s
long-term future there’s a company I
know in Europe called legal and general
and they are the biggest investor of
that type in pension funds and they’re
one of the ten biggest in the world and
they sat down years ago and they talked
about their purpose and they said what
are we here to do and what they agreed
is really simple we’re here to provide a
better world to retire into that’s what
people give us our care and money and
then they can expect to have a good life
at retirement so wouldn’t it make sense
if the the billions that we invest those
investments also created a world which
was better to retire into and so they
pursued just that and for instance they
committed 15 billion to affordable
housing affordable housing is a great
long-term investment it’s very stable
assets it’s very good financial
investment it’s very good for the towns
and the societies we live in that people
have affordable housing and it makes a
nicer world to retire into and on top of
that they actually invested in urban
regeneration and again urban
regeneration makes a much nicer town to
retire into and if you think about it
cleverly it actually makes those houses
all around the town that they’ve
invested in worth more and this is how I
think really excellent generative
companies work is that rather like the
bees they really fine-tune and fine-tune
and look at it as a system to produce
the maximum value the maximum financial
value but also social value from what
they do and that kind of system thinking
I think it’s really easy to talk about
this kind of theory when you talk about
companies that are blooming and thriving
you look at the googles of this world
and you expect them to be generous you
expectance have lovely workplaces and
great social programs and so forth the
Facebook’s and so forth but what if
you’re a company that’s really
struggling could this kind of generative
approach really turn things around well
I want to talk to you about McDonald’s
now McDonald’s in this country has been
having a really hard time a report last
year in The Wall Street Journal said
that for
two-five u.s. Millennials have never
even tasted a Big Mac and everyone
tastes one and if you look at the
criticize the criticism they’ve been
getting you look at films like supersize
me you know films like Food Inc you can
sort of see why but it doesn’t have to
be that way I want to talk to you about
McDonald’s in the UK and I let me tell
you it’s a whole different story so
McDonald’s in the UK is recognized for
investing in sustainable sourcing
free-range eggs recycling they’ve won
awards for this kind of thing are they
partner with NGOs on reforestation
they’ve won an award literally called
best place to work and they have
excellent staff practices and in fact in
my country after the British government
McDonald’s is the second biggest
educator in terms of helping their staff
get qualifications they put healthy
items on their menu years and years ago
McDonald’s salad that’s a thing and
they’ve been really promoting them their
cafes are you know attractive and modern
and stylish and accessible and they’ve
really got with digital so the question
is how have they been doing well let me
tell you the McDonald’s in the UK has
enjoyed 41 consecutive quarters of
growth are they perfect no they wouldn’t
claim to be perfect but they have shown
how if you take this generative approach
to the heart of your business and you
really move with the times and you’re
moving with issues like sustainability
and health you can actually make
progress so what can all of us do well
as citizens and consumers we’ve really
got to help this and we’ve really got to
demand this and it’s our voices and our
pressure and our purchasing and things
like that which have been enabling the
good companies to really pursue this and
to be more generative and also which
punishes the companies that we choose
not to buy from so we can all take a
responsibility next time you walk into a
store it’s so easy to buy a Fairtrade
packet of coffee or in other ways reward
these kind of generative models but some
of you here will be either running
businesses working in businesses
studying MBAs and going to run
businesses and you know what can we do
that the business community and I think
the first thing is unlike the wasps we
just got to look beyond our next meal
and we got to look beyond the next court
as results and it just starts with a
really simple step which is a
willingness to evolve and if you’re
willing to evolve all this other
wonderful stuff can happen and the
direction of that evolution really what
the bees developed was a model which was
flower friendly business has to develop
a model which is human friendly such a
simple step take care of your people
take care of your customers take care of
your communities but beyond that look
those really big human needs things
worth solving what do we need in the
world we need financial services
companies that are growing economic
security we need food companies that are
addressing issues like gut health and
immunity we need health that we need
sports companies the making exercise
accessible to everybody we need media
companies that are not spreading fear
and distrust for actually enlightening
and empowering and we need technology
companies also that are empowering and
not overwhelming and distracting really
sustaining life and I mentioned all
those examples because I know companies
that are doing each one of those things
as their model and business is really
starting to move in this direction and
so I think we can start to look forward
to a time when I was first going to the
workplace I think myself and most of my
peers would look at business and we sort
of thought it was a bit waspish you know
it’s selfish it’s looking after its own
interests and I think this now starting
to appreciate just what a big role
business can play business after all
with all its be like industry its
momentum its resources its capsule its
innovation business can start to help us
build a better world and wouldn’t that
be the bee’s knees thank you
you
what apana do today is tell you a
contemporary Aesop’s fable it’s a story
about how business can thrive if it
reaches beyond its own narrow interests
now as I’m sure many of you know
Aesop’s fables often involve pairs of
animals you’ve got the hare and the
tortoise the dog and the Fox the
servants and the Eagle and my story is
about the bees and the wasps and to
explain what I’m going to describe as
the bee business model and the wasp
business model and because this is a
contemporary Aesop’s fable I’m going to
draw in a bit of current science let’s
begin once upon a time the ancestor of
the modern bee was a species of wasp
that hunted in flowers now many of you
probably know the way that wasps make a
living is they find prey insects they
sting them which paralyzes them they
then carry them alive back to their
young they dissect them and they feed
them to their young now that’s how
social wasps do it solitary wasps don’t
take out they eat in what they do is
they find the prey insects they sting
them they lay their eggs in them and the
young eat their way out now I’m sorry to
sorry to share such gruesome details but
I want to say this is not a particularly
ethically attractive way to make a
living
I call it exploitative think of it in
pie graph terms somebody else has baked
and lovely fat juicy pie then along come
the wasps and they’ve taken their cut so
that’s the exploitative model now you
remember I said that the particular
ancestors of our bees were wasps that
hunted in flowers so when they brought
their prey insects home they would have
been coated in protein-rich pollen and
if there was a wise goddess of evolution
athena let’s say she might have looked
at this and thought my that pollen is
super rich in amino acids and it’s so
easy to catch and so eighty million
years before ellen degeneres before
natalie portman and others made it
fashionable our bees became vegans
but they didn’t stop there now the face
of the bees in the face of the flowers
were inextricably linked and you’ve got
this boomerang effect going along and
suddenly the bees started doing
everything to help the flowers so the
bees developed what’s called scope as
big hairy back so they could carry more
pollen and actually pollen baskets so
they could carry even more they
developed a communication system which
is mind boggling if you think about the
traffic going into a current airport and
the way that air traffic control works
now imagine doing that and a bee colony
where you would have seen the famous
waggle dancers where they tell the other
bees where the flowers are but did you
know that an average bee colony will
visit two million flowers every day
using this hugely efficient model of
communication and consider this a single
bee all day will only visit one species
of flowers and why is that well if they
turn up at a rose it’s no good than
being covered in marigold pollen and so
you can see through this that the bees
are really behaving in a way that I call
generative and what I mean by generative
is not just generous or not just
generating growth but they’re looking
after future generations next year’s
flowers are being looked after by these
bees and those flowers are going to look
after next year’s bees so that’s the
generative model and back at that pie
graph what the bees are doing is they’re
growing the whole value of the pie and
I’ll call this the generative model now
that’s my theory and every time you see
a business I see one of these two models
I see some businesses behaving
generatively developing what Michael
Porter the business guru called shared
value in that they’re working to
maximize financial value but also social
value in everything they do
and they’re behaving generatively and
you see many other businesses that
behaving just like the wasps somebody
else makes a big fat pie and they’re
very cleverly working out an angle to
take cuts so that’s the theory but no
theory of human society could ever be
all that interesting until we get down
to a scandal name-calling and gossip so
let’s talk about bankers why why is it
that some industries banking for example
arts
so I’m popular in the public perception
it’s not just recently but for hundreds
thousands of years people doing what
bankers do has been criticized and the
criticism is along the lines that I’ve
been describing people say well somebody
else worked incredibly hard to save that
money to grow that business and then
bankers are just turning up and they’re
taking her cards
it looks unfair the pharmaceutical
industry gets criticized a lot and most
medicines in the world are discovered in
universities in science parks but then
the pharma companies snap up the Payson
and then they’re criticized for
exploiting those patients corporate
lawyers tabloid journalists whenever you
find an unpopular industry usually the
accusation is that they’re just being a
bit waspish so this raises some
questions so one question is I work in a
waspish industry now I say this with
deference to the place where I am Cal
States what do I do in a waspish
industry do I adopt a hornet strategy do
I do I become a super boss to compete
with the other wasps do or could I
actually take a bee line now another
industry that had been hugely criticized
over over many years and decades was the
beauty industry but then along came and
these from Gordon Roddick’s Body Shop
and as many of you will know they
brought a whole environmental
sensibility they brought social
campaigning and a wonderful spirit and a
really different refreshing approach and
much more of a generative approach as
I’ll describe and there was one feature
of that that I think is under-recognized
that’s really important to understanding
what really makes a generative business
tick so I once asked Anita Roddick what
her business model was and she told me
we put the money into the product and
not the packaging so not only were they
not exploiting rainforests they’re not
exploiting gender stereotypes they’re
not exploiting animals but they weren’t
exploiting their customers because when
you go to a shop and you buy a beauty
product you expect it to make you
beautiful and you don’t expect most of
the money to have gone on marketing and
packaging and other things you want what
you got from the body shop which is
something that looked and felt and smelt
and worked wonderfully for the money
he’d paid for it because all the money
had gone into that and that’s absolutely
key thing about being a generative
business is it’s not about
sustainability departments is not about
charity all of that stuff
but you won’t be truly generative until
you look at the core of what you do and
you make that ethical and if that’s
serving people everything else can flow
from there so what if you work in an
industry which perhaps is just because
of what it does inclines to be
generative like let’s say the pensions
industry they’re looking after people’s
long-term future there’s a company I
know in Europe called legal and general
and they are the biggest investor of
that type in pension funds and they’re
one of the ten biggest in the world and
they sat down years ago and they talked
about their purpose and they said what
are we here to do and what they agreed
is really simple we’re here to provide a
better world to retire into that’s what
people give us our care and money and
then they can expect to have a good life
at retirement so wouldn’t it make sense
if the the billions that we invest those
investments also created a world which
was better to retire into and so they
pursued just that and for instance they
committed 15 billion to affordable
housing affordable housing is a great
long-term investment it’s very stable
assets it’s very good financial
investment it’s very good for the towns
and the societies we live in that people
have affordable housing and it makes a
nicer world to retire into and on top of
that they actually invested in urban
regeneration and again urban
regeneration makes a much nicer town to
retire into and if you think about it
cleverly it actually makes those houses
all around the town that they’ve
invested in worth more and this is how I
think really excellent generative
companies work is that rather like the
bees they really fine-tune and fine-tune
and look at it as a system to produce
the maximum value the maximum financial
value but also social value from what
they do and that kind of system thinking
I think it’s really easy to talk about
this kind of theory when you talk about
companies that are blooming and thriving
you look at the googles of this world
and you expect them to be generous you
expectance have lovely workplaces and
great social programs and so forth the
Facebook’s and so forth but what if
you’re a company that’s really
struggling could this kind of generative
approach really turn things around well
I want to talk to you about McDonald’s
now McDonald’s in this country has been
having a really hard time a report last
year in The Wall Street Journal said
that for
two-five u.s. Millennials have never
even tasted a Big Mac and everyone
tastes one and if you look at the
criticize the criticism they’ve been
getting you look at films like supersize
me you know films like Food Inc you can
sort of see why but it doesn’t have to
be that way I want to talk to you about
McDonald’s in the UK and I let me tell
you it’s a whole different story so
McDonald’s in the UK is recognized for
investing in sustainable sourcing
free-range eggs recycling they’ve won
awards for this kind of thing are they
partner with NGOs on reforestation
they’ve won an award literally called
best place to work and they have
excellent staff practices and in fact in
my country after the British government
McDonald’s is the second biggest
educator in terms of helping their staff
get qualifications they put healthy
items on their menu years and years ago
McDonald’s salad that’s a thing and
they’ve been really promoting them their
cafes are you know attractive and modern
and stylish and accessible and they’ve
really got with digital so the question
is how have they been doing well let me
tell you the McDonald’s in the UK has
enjoyed 41 consecutive quarters of
growth are they perfect no they wouldn’t
claim to be perfect but they have shown
how if you take this generative approach
to the heart of your business and you
really move with the times and you’re
moving with issues like sustainability
and health you can actually make
progress so what can all of us do well
as citizens and consumers we’ve really
got to help this and we’ve really got to
demand this and it’s our voices and our
pressure and our purchasing and things
like that which have been enabling the
good companies to really pursue this and
to be more generative and also which
punishes the companies that we choose
not to buy from so we can all take a
responsibility next time you walk into a
store it’s so easy to buy a Fairtrade
packet of coffee or in other ways reward
these kind of generative models but some
of you here will be either running
businesses working in businesses
studying MBAs and going to run
businesses and you know what can we do
that the business community and I think
the first thing is unlike the wasps we
just got to look beyond our next meal
and we got to look beyond the next court
as results and it just starts with a
really simple step which is a
willingness to evolve and if you’re
willing to evolve all this other
wonderful stuff can happen and the
direction of that evolution really what
the bees developed was a model which was
flower friendly business has to develop
a model which is human friendly such a
simple step take care of your people
take care of your customers take care of
your communities but beyond that look
those really big human needs things
worth solving what do we need in the
world we need financial services
companies that are growing economic
security we need food companies that are
addressing issues like gut health and
immunity we need health that we need
sports companies the making exercise
accessible to everybody we need media
companies that are not spreading fear
and distrust for actually enlightening
and empowering and we need technology
companies also that are empowering and
not overwhelming and distracting really
sustaining life and I mentioned all
those examples because I know companies
that are doing each one of those things
as their model and business is really
starting to move in this direction and
so I think we can start to look forward
to a time when I was first going to the
workplace I think myself and most of my
peers would look at business and we sort
of thought it was a bit waspish you know
it’s selfish it’s looking after its own
interests and I think this now starting
to appreciate just what a big role
business can play business after all
with all its be like industry its
momentum its resources its capsule its
innovation business can start to help us
build a better world and wouldn’t that
be the bee’s knees thank you
you
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