A Wonderfully Busy Week for CESR
Just two days after organizing and leading the discussion for CESR’s Conscious Capitalism Conference, CESR Instructor David Payne brought together impact business thought leaders from the industries of solar energy, social impact education, healthcare systems, and magazine publishing for the 3rd annual SRE Impact Business Panel.
The panel is a yearly event hosted primarily for MBA students interested in socially responsible enterprise to answer the question: How can business be to harnessed to create positive social and environmental change? Students in attendance were graced by the presence of Cesar Gonzales, CEO of StartingBloc; Rachel Mountin, sustainability manager at DaVita; Blake Jones, Co-Founder & President of Namaste Solar; and Meghan French Dunbar, Co-Founder of Conscious Company Magazine, each an expert in their own corner of the growing impact business landscape.
The panel answered a number of questions individually and as a group. Here is a sampling of some of the most salient questions and answers:
What does it take to become an impact business person?
“We’re living in a fundamentally different era than our parents did… we are, as humans, learning to do more with less… The skills that we need for the future are relatively clear… empathy, a willingness to not know the answer, competence, and courage.” – Caesar Gonzales
Are there any interesting or compelling trends you see happening?
“All of the systems and boundaries that are currently in existence have been built by people who are no smarter than you and I… A lot of people want to point at things that are shaking up the status quo and tell you it’s not going to work… build something that you believe in. When the going gets tough, you’ll stick to your guns” – Meghan French Dunbar
What are some skills that you can acquire as a student that can make you better business people in this space?
The panel answered this question in aggregate. Rachel Mountin specifically emphasized the importance of using data and deriving a story from it to prove your points and receive support. Also noted was being knowledgeable of your own leadership skills and how that translates to coping with stress and working with others. Blake Jones mentioned frank, open, and honest communication as a key source of Namaste’s business success, employing a democratic and transparent workspace.
Where do you see the limits of business in terms of impact? And the necessity of policy to be part of that?
Government policy was noted as a significant driver and constraint to impact businesses. Policy can be in place that props up the industries that an innovative business would disrupt, or it can be the thing that allows innovation to prosper – for instance, Blake noted that “solar lives on incentives and subsidies.”
The wide-ranging panel discussion, prompted by questions from Dave and MBA students, was a rich sharing of experiential knowledge from four experts in their fields. Perhaps Dave summed it up best though, “a lot of this ‘impact business’ is just ‘business’… we’re starting to see a shift into this mode of business being restorative, and developing cultures that are restorative for people to work in” – David Payne.