morning to talk to you about getting
things wrong now is anyone here who
enjoys getting things wrong I can just
about see we’ve got one in the front
thank you oh we’ve got another one
brilliant
bye anything’s wrong not all the time of
course but I really love going in the
wrong direction finding wrong solutions
and even being told that I’m wrong this
talk is not all about me this talk is
about business and it’s why I believe
that there’s never been a more important
moment in history for businesses to
start thinking wrong taking different
directions and finding new solutions so
let me give you a bit of context so I
work in an area of corporate
responsibility and that means that we
help companies to try and balance their
profit with their impact on society in
the environment so imagine me I go into
the boardrooms across India and I speak
to Indian companies and I say to them
hey know what I think you should think
of it less about profit and as soon as I
say that the majority of people kind of
go well yeah that doesn’t sound quite
right so for me to even work in this
line of business for me to work in
corporate responsibility I have to
really accept from the beginning that a
lot of people think what I’m saying is
wrong and this is never more obvious to
me than when I speak to NBA’s investors
some corporate executives who invariably
tell me something like this line which I
have heard a million times this is from
Milton Friedman a very famous economist
and he said the one and only social
responsibility of business is to
increase its profits so ok I get that so
what he’s saying is if a business does
what it does really really well and
makes money then everything else is
gonna take care of itself
right ok but what’s interesting is this
has been what people have been saying
since the 1970s Milton Friedman said
this in the 70s now I know none of you
can remember maybe a couple of people
can remember the 70s but not most of you
can
I can’t even before my time it’s a
really long time ago and let’s just
think seriously since the 1970s the
world has been changing at a rate we
have never experienced before global
population is more than doubled we have
so much technology in our hands that we
couldn’t have even envisage din the
1970s in the palm of our hands and what
that means is that all these issues that
seem very far away but in that time that
you would read in the newspaper in
National Geographic
we are talking about them all the time
things like the refugee crisis like
black lives matter like poverty all
these issues are now in our hands and
what is all that technology is also
enabling us to do is have everyday
revolutions across borders all over the
world so we’re able to connect we’re
able to sign petitions about Delhi’s
pollution we’re even able to complain
about Maggie we’re all able to get
involved with the the Syrian refugees
with garment workers in Bangladesh
experts from the UN think that the
biggest threat to human life on the
planet right now is not terrorism it’s
not war it’s not disease but it’s
climate change we didn’t even have the
phrase climate change back then even
more important than that companies these
days we don’t even think about this but
companies today is a bigger and more
important than some nations and
government I think you probably know
warm up big US brand with straws all
over the world walmart has 2.2 million
employees that’s about the size of Qatar
if you take the dependence of those
employees that’s all the put their
families all the people who depend on
directly on Walmart for their livelihood
so you’ve got about 8 million people
that’s the size of Hong Kong nearly the
size of Switzerland directly dependent
on Walmart and into that all of their
suppliers around the world and all the
people who work for their suppliers and
all of their dependents and suddenly
you’ve got this huge number of people
much bigger than a country who are
dependent or Walmart and they’re
absolutely not the only one economic
help is about the size of oh man
amazon has as many users as the
population of Brazil Vodafone has as
many subscribers as everyone in the USA
and Nestle trades in a hundred and
ninety six countries which if you know
how many countries are in the world
that’s every country as all the
countries Nestle is in so I think about
this and I think about the world that we
live in and I think about how important
these companies are and then I think
about this statement that their only
responsibility is to increase their
profits and I thought that is crazy that
doesn’t make sense to me anymore and the
longer that companies believe that this
is the correct way to behave
the more they are jeopardizing all of
our futures every single day so if this
has been considered the correct way to
do business
I think it’s about time we start to get
things wrong I think we need to start
differently I think differently and
start finding solutions that start to
balance out the needs of the world with
the needs of business and the great news
for companies is that you don’t have to
choose between profit society and
environment you can prioritize all three
at the same time it’s called the triple
bottom line so what I want to show you
very quickly is a few examples of how
that’s absolutely possible so don’t
shake your heads yet this is Unilever
this is pullman paul pullman is the CEO
of Unilever globally on his very first
day in the job he declared that Unilever
is no longer going to post quarterly
profit statements now if you know
businesses post quarterly profit
statements to keep their shareholders
happy and one of the biggest jobs of a
CEO is to keep shareholders happy but
his belief is that if he’s focusing on
shareholders and he’s focusing on
quarterly profit then he can’t build a
sustainable business for the future that
thinks about the environment and society
so he went out there to the market then
he said this and everyone said he was
crazy is that that’s a terrible decision
that’s wrong you can’t do it and you
know what happened much nothing nothing
went wrong nothing crashed but continue
to post great results there 2015 results
were ahead of the market and actually
their share price stabilized so by going
completely against the grain by kind of
just thinking wrong and saying you know
what I’m gonna try something different
he’s managed not only to make the
company more financially resilient but
he’s also made it one of the most
sustainable and responsible companies in
the world
this is Shah he exports this is someone
I’ve worked with for many years they’re
an amazing company and they like to
think wrong every now and again as well
so they are a garment exporter India’s
largest ready-made garment exporter and
they sell clothes to retailers all over
the world now in this business if you
know anything about manufacturing one of
the most important things that you need
to be aware of is keeping your costs as
low as possible it’s high volume low
value and you have to get those margins
and that’s why you often see that
garment manufacturers garment factories
have a lot of them exploitation you’ll
have heard of sweatshops that’s because
they’re squeezing squeezing squeezing
squeezing to the point where it’s just
irresponsible shahi said no we don’t
want to do that forget it
we don’t want to stick to that rule
we’re gonna spend more money so what
they embarked on was training their
workers in all kinds of social skills so
in self-confidence financial awareness
health nutrition all the things that are
going to make their unskilled labor
unskilled women laborers and become
truly empowered women and what they
found was it obviously cost them a lot
of money this stuff doesn’t come for
free but what they found was for every
in fact not they found in fact what an
Yale University found when they did a
study on this was that for every dollar
shahi spent on social empowerment they
made four dollars twenty back on returns
for the business from productivity
better leadership higher retention so
what they actually did was say we don’t
believe in the rules of the game we’re
going to throw them out the window and
they’re making more money and they’ve
got socially empowered workers at the
same time
okay last example my favorite this is
one of my favorite brands in the world
you might not have heard of Patagonia
don’t if you have there are an outdoor
clothing and equipment company from the
USA they have stores all over the US now
on Black Friday not sure do you know
Black Friday it’s in the u.s. it’s the
big issue
moon day of the year it’s when all money
gets spent in the US so a couple of
years ago I’m Black Friday passive
Connor you put this ad out it says don’t
buy this jacket and it’s not even a joke
next to it if you can see they’ve got
their initiative which is about reduce
repair reuse and recycle and then what
they were saying to consumers was you
know what every time we buy clothes we
don’t need we’re just killing the
environment the waste is outrageous so
don’t buy a jacket you don’t need bring
your old jacket in and we’ll fix it for
you right now across the u.s. you can
take your old clothes back to Patagonia
and they will pre fix them all up good
as new and tell you please don’t buy a
new one now of course this initiative
for them was to try and get a
sustainability message out to consumers
to say we care about the environment
associate you the result on their
business was that in the same year the
12 months following this advert their
revenues went up by almost a third so
not quite what they were aiming for but
another example of how any marketing
person would not be very happy to see
this ad come across their desk
it just sounds wrong but sometimes by
going wrong by taking a risk by feeling
some some new directions out you can
realize you can realize the ambition of
balancing your profit society and
environment and that’s kind of what I
wanted to that’s what I want to leave
you with today that I believe that this
possible I believe that there are
companies out there who are able to do
this and more importantly the companies
that are not able to think like this to
go wrong to think differently I’m gonna
increasingly find themselves left behind
by more resilient more adaptable and
more contemporary business models so you
guys you’re about to go out into the
world and I’ve been on campus since
yesterday I’ve had the pleasure of
meeting some of your amazing fellow
students you guys are capable of
anything you’re going to be the leaders
of this country and that means you’re
going to be the leaders of the world and
when you go out there believe me there
gonna be a lot of people who tell you
the correct way to do things they’re
going to tell you know
this is how we’ve always done it these
are the rules of the game this is how
business works
and what I want you to do and it had the
strength to question everything there
will be people who tell you that your
ideas about the world that your ideas
about how we need to think about society
in the environment are wrong and that’s
the moment I want you to throw
convention out the window and go for it
just go for it
think about wrong ideas I want you to
fall in love with the possibility of
getting things wrong because if we think
we know what’s right if we think we know
the correct way to do things we just
keep doing it the same way because
that’s how we’ve always done it if we
start being unafraid of trying new
things and getting things wrong then I
really believe that you guys taking this
with you will be the generation that
changes our world forever and for the better