With the publication of my new book, Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner, I’ve posted a survey at www.SavetheWorldBook.com to help you determine whether you work for an enterprise that is helping forge a sustainable future or one that is trapped in the dying ideas of business-as-usual.  Who we work for is important.  If we want to change our future we must lead.  There is plenty to be hopeful about, and I want to get a pulse on your experience of the employer you work for or the organization you lead.

Recently I was doing leadership training for the Gap at their San Francisco headquarters.  I like the people at Gap a lot.  They understand how their huge global business can be a force for good, and they are serious about using their economic clout, market reach and worldwide workforce to create a better future than the self-consuming dinosaur business model we’ve trapped ourselves into.

It’s true; we live in a time when confidence in business leadership is at an all time low.  Just look at these statistics:

• 94% of the public does not trust business to regulate itself (AccountAbility).
• 86% view business as negatively impacting the public good (Harris Poll/Business Week).
• 76% of employees have observed illegal or unethical conduct by their employer in the past 12 months! (Harris Poll/Business Week)
• 98% of the public don’t believe CEOs are very trustworthy (NY Times).

This is sad. What’s really sad is that most of us would nod our head in agreement with these polls.  Business is the most powerful institutional force in the world, and the world doesn’t trust it.  That’s because human history has proven it’s not smart to trust that someone else’s self-interest will benefit you in the long run.  The Great Recession has just made that crystal clear.  But there is good news.  It’s that the world has changed.  Citizen consumers and citizen employers have awakened to the fact that we must create a new sustainable future.  One that works for our children.  All our children.  Perhaps nowhere is this more clear than in the market place which is changing at a breathtaking pace.

As more and more consumers and employees have demanded greener, healthier products responsibly made, the number, choices, and quality of these products has skyrocketed.  For instance, every major auto manufacturer is now engineering hybrid models that will be sold in every country in the next few years.  China has adapted tougher auto emissions and mileage standards than we have.  But for some companies like Gap, it’s more than just making t-shirts out of recycled plastic or organic fibers.  Increasingly it’s about human sustainability.

For instance, in Gap factories in developing nations they’ve instituted a personal and professional development program called P.A.C.E.  It’s designed to help under educated young seamstresses strengthen their literacy, their health, their life skills and business acumen.  Gap’s corporate social responsibility is investing in poor women because they are society builders.  And Gap is not alone.  In company after company I visit I see a roaring torrent of programs to enable employees to volunteer for their favorite cause, to raise their business standards on environmental impacts, and to promote health and human rights.

But wait, you say.  Isn’t all this just a little “greenwashing” and image polishing?  After all, it’s corporations that tare down the old-growth rain forests, over-fish our oceans, pollute our air, water and earth, and strip-mine our world from its natural resources.  Exactly.  All of that is true.  But it’s also true that global corporations and fast acting enterprises are the institutions most able to drive fast positive change.  They operate across boarders without political inhibitions.  They must respond in real time to consumer and employee attitudes.  Corporations are self-interested, but consumers determine where that self-interest leads them.  As long as we escalate our insistence on sustainable, responsible products and processes we will get more of them.

And now there is something turbo-charging demand for business responsibility.  It’s a new generation of employees.  The flood of 20 to 30-year old practical idealists who believe we can reshape our businesses into a force of progress and sustainability is raising the tide of positive change.  The energy of sustainability and social good is contagious, and I am seeing an epidemic of virtue take over business-as-usual.

This is not my imagination.  As Gen X independent thinking pragmatists take over more leadership roles, they are more connected to sustainable innovation, cutting bureaucracy and re-inventing our future.  And the new workforce of Gen Y and Millennials (those 16-30) are focused on re-making business into institutions of global sustainability.  What makes this new generation of leaders so potent is their number (126 million—far larger than the 75 million boomers) and their newly developed social technology which is driving change, informing attitudes and creating new business models faster than at any time in history.

I am hopeful this is happening in the nick of time.  We have ignored our problems for too long.  We’ve let what were little brushfires turn into a raging wildfire threatening our heath, our environments, our peace and every other important asset to our quality of life.

What’s the best thing we can do?

Participate in the business revolution!  I am seeing global companies life Gap, Nike, FedEx, and Johnson & Johnson transform themselves at a breathtaking rate.  No, it’s not perfect.  It will take years.  But the speed of change is accelerating.  Just 5 years ago sustainability and corporate social responsibility was something tree huggers and hippies whined about.  Today it is driving corporate strategy.  It’s time to turn up the volume of our demands for business to use their power and innovation to create sustainable value.  It’s time for us, no matter where we work, to transform our daily jobs into a global force for change.  We are the leaders of the sustainability revolution.  You and me.

So who do you work for?  Please take this short 5-minute survey and find out.  It’s a way to amplify your voice by helping us build a database to influence leaders.

And one more thing.  What do you think?  Do you have positive stories of companies, non-profits or individuals transforming the future?  Do you have personal aspirations to do so?  Tell us about them!

Today the Grameen Foundation supports over 200 micro-finance institutions operating around the world from Asia to Africa, China to the Middle East. There are now over 150 million families benefiting from micro-investment capital. The power of this business model is that it is a business. Interest is charged to support the micro banks so that they can loan more money and keep it in an endless virtuous cycle of reinvestment. Today the Grameen Foundation is operating with the wisdom of a global social enterprise by helping create software and other technology solutions to help microfinance banks operate with high efficiency. They are also creating micro-franchises so that village entrepreneurs can establish solar-powered villages while reducing the need for diesel and kerosene. They’re helping women become village eyeglass dispensers so that people over 40 can read on their cell phones and of course they have brought cell phone technology to tens of millions of people in the developing world. For the first time in history we can actually imagine a world without poverty driven by the values of self-reliance. After doing this for 30 years we now know that women are the world’s best poverty fighters because they reinvest in their children and their communities.

Today the Grameen Foundation is seeking to establish a constant and reliable source of donor income. They are asking us to contribute $27 a month every month, a little less than a dollar a day. What they hope to do with this sustainable flow of money is build a worldwide system that provides capital, education, access to basic health care, technology and leadership development to help the poorest of the poor lift themselves to a life of dignity. Their vision is a poverty free world.

I have adopted the Grameen Foundation as my central cause because I have never seen so much sustainable good achieved by integrating the best of business practices and the highest moral vision that human beings can aspire to. So I invite you to consider becoming part of this great movement to end poverty. Go to the Grameen Foundation and join up. I already have.

This is difficult.

That’s because we believe that what we know is reality.  But reality is a tricky beast.  The problem is that reality has at least two dimensions.  The facts of a situation represent the content of reality while the meaning of those facts is the context.    Our sense of meaning is driven by our values.  And for our values to be useful in making decisions they must be held in hierarchy.  Simply put, some values are more important than other values.  Values tell us what to do with facts.  That’s why it’s so important not to let others define our values or confuse us as to what’s most important.  Because, if we let them, they will create a closed bubble for us.  And in the bubble of their emotional logic their conclusions will make total sense.  Soon we’ll be interpreting all facts through the false reasoning of the bubble like clones in a frightened world.  This is not just a theory.  People who call President Obama a Nazi or a socialist and people who label conservatives as hillbillies and hate-mongers make the same error.  They are trying to recruit followers through fear.  This is very dangerous.  It’s what happened when Hitler hypnotized Germany.

When the courageous Christian pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was struggling to find ways to rid his beloved Germany of Hitler, he wrote a series of essays that point out the folly of being seduced by those who appeal to our fear and pride, and pointed out that followers become spellbound by slogans and repeated assertions that gradually become “facts” to morally passive followers.  As simplistic slogans are spread by an over-active media, a moral flu has the power to inflict a whole society. When our prejudices are enthroned in a twisted emotional logic that our self-interest is the premier virtue, facts and evidence that contradict our opinions are simply disbelieved and dismissed.  As a successful business owner recently said to me, “I know what I believe is true, so why should I listen to anything that would make me question my convictions?”  Why, indeed.

What Bonhoeffer, who was executed by Nazis three weeks before Hitler’s suicide in 1945, pleads for is for us to “take a stand.”  His call is to stand for love.  He called on Christians to save Jews because the great work of moral humans is to bring relief to all who suffer. He challenges us to consider “the outcasts, the suspects, the powerless, the oppressed…with new eyes of generosity, humanity, justice and mercy”.

In my view the greatest act of humanity is to relieve today’s suffering and build self-reliance so that all people can lift themselves to a decent, hope-filled life.  My work with the Grameen Foundation, who empower the poorest of the world’s poor to lift themselves by providing access to microloans so they can become self-sustaining entrepreneurs, convinces me that the vast majority of humanity has the will, talent and ingenuity to live a responsible life.  They just need the tools to get started.

To return to the beginning, I am saddened that demagogues in our nation can rally millions with fear-based messages with the primal message, “Every man for himself.”  I also worry that public spending that weakens our self-reliance and creates institutional dependencies is old failure path. The people I most respect are those who hold strong beliefs, recognize that evil is real, exercise timeless values and continue to have an open mind.  Above all, they refuse to be driven by fear, pride or intolerance.

For me there is a higher center that calls for civic engagement in the common good, the restraint of greed, and the promotion of self-reliance.  It is time to take a stand.   A time to stand for our highest values.  This is not time for fear and divisiveness.  It’s time for creative idealism and a fiercely open mind.  These issues are great questions of our day.  (For a view on my suggestion on healthcare that attempts to blend personal responsibility with citizen lead social responsibility, see my other posts: Outraged at the Politics of Healthcare and Will Marre’s Radical Solution to Health Care.)

So what do you think?  Am I missing the point?  What do you believe are the answers to our challenges?

We should teach our children what it takes to win. Participation is simply not enough. People have no idea how great they can become. Recent research shows that most people plateau after 50 attempts of doing anything: 50 attempts at learning a dance, 50 attempts at painting a picture, or 50 attempts at trying to serve a volleyball. At 50 there is some mental trigger where most of us think, “well that’s about as good as we’re ever going to get.” But, great people continue to learn, to get feedback, and to diligently practice after the 50 times plateau. How good can we be? We have no idea, but we have to come at life with the idea that we’re good enough to be extraordinary at what we are passionate about, because WE ARE!

• 2000 employee community leaders who organize company-sponsored service events and act as ambassadors for their work in the company and the community.
• In 2008 alone they donated $10.3 million in employee-driven community investment.
• Their Money for Time program provides a $150 grant to nonprofits for every 15 hours of employee volunteer time.
• Their Take Five program offers exempt corporate employees five hours of paid time off to volunteer each month, or 60 hours per year.
• In Action Days are events organized by employees of Gap Inc. brands to provide local volunteer opportunities. Thousands of employees have participated, dedicating hundreds of hours to a wide variety of projects.
• Team Grants support employee team projects. When at least three store employees spend 25 hours volunteering with a nonprofit that supports underserved youth or women, Gap Inc. provides a $250 grant to that organization. Each store receives an annual grant budget based on store volume. Since the program began in 2006, it has grown significantly, increasing from 220 team projects in 2007 to 723 in 2008.

Will Marre, leadership expert, is a huge proponent of employee involvement in CSR initiatives. In “Personal Social Responsibility Drives Employees to More Deeply Commit to Their Organization’s Success” he cites research that reveals that 93 percent of American employees say it is important for their companies to provide them with opportunities to become involved in social issues, and 72 percent want their employers to do more to support a cause or social issue. Marre believes that the best way to engage employees and create deep loyalty is to provide them with opportunities to make a difference in their community. He calls this Personal Social Responsibility.

Gap Inc. is a great example of Personal Social Responsibility. On their website it states, “We see a direct connection between our employees’ volunteerism and their commitment to Gap Inc. Engaged employees deliver strong business results, which is good for the community and our company. In a 2007 employee survey, nearly all respondents said it is important for them to work for a company that invests in the community. Studies also show that when a person is emotionally connected to a cause, giving is related to positive emotions and personal happiness. The bottom line: volunteering makes people happy, and happy people make better employees.”

Personal Social Responsibility is indeed becoming the new trend of CSR. As Marre states, “In the real world organizations are finding success by transforming a paternalistic paradigm of CSR into a launch pad for inspired employees to “save the world” right where they are.”

1. What problem are you willing to solve?
2. How will you know when it’s solved?
3. What would you do if you had 10 years to make your difference?
4. What is your promise; your commitment to each stakeholder?
5. What is your unique Factor; What do you do that is different?
6. What proof do you have that your unique factor works?
7. How much money and what resources do you need to succeed over the next 10 years?
8. What are you willing to do and not do to achieve your mission?
9. What’s your new vision story of success?
10.What’s the most important thing for you to accomplish in the next 90 days to ensure your success?

What I find is that non-profits that can answer these questions know what they’re doing. Non-profits who can’t are still hacking at the leaves while the roots of evil grow deeper.