The impacts of our businesses are often greater than the sum of our intentions. At a time when expectations of businesses are evolving, the HOW of business is more important than ever. In these episodes, Host Lauren Sinreich talks with business leaders about methodologies that uncover power dynamics, new ways of identifying effective metrics, creating the conditions for achieving more rather than just doing more, the most critical skills organizations need moving forward, how values are now a competitive advantage, and a range of other topics that guide entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs as we create the world around us through our businesses.
Greater Than
Claim This Podcastby Lauren Sinreich, Whole Innovation & Design
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10 episodes
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Podcast Overview
The impacts of our businesses are often greater than the sum of our intentions. At a time when expectations of businesses are evolving, the HOW of business is more important than ever. In these episodes, Host Lauren Sinreich talks with business leaders about methodologies that uncover power dynamics, new ways of identifying effective metrics, creating the conditions for achieving more rather than just doing more, the most critical skills organizations need moving forward, how values are now a competitive advantage, and a range of other topics that guide entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs as we create the world around us through our businesses.
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Publishing Since
8/5/2020
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Recent Episodes
April 23, 2021
10 Jennifer Brandel on Engagement as a Business Model, the Importance of Process Over Product, and Alternatives to the Unicorn Model of Business
Jennifer Brandel is Co-founder of Hearken, a people powered process and technology that enables organizations to better engage and collaborate with their stakeholders, as well as the Co-Founder of Zebras Unite, a network creating a more ethical, inclusive and collaborative ecosystem for mission-based startups. For her work in journalism and entrepreneurship, Jen won the prize for “Best Bootstrap Company” at SXSW and won the News Media Alliance Accelerator Prize. She received the Media Changemaker Prize by the Center for Collaborative Journalism, was named one of 30 World-Changing Women in Conscious Business, is a Columbia Sulzberger Fellow, an RSA Fellow, AND a member of the Guild of Future Architects and the National Civic Collaboratory. Jenn and I talk about building a values-based business, why process should come before product, alternatives to the unicorn model, so much more: How combining the philosophical underpinnings of business and working with the Bahai faith taught her an effective way to impact journalism and plant the seed for starting Hearken How changing the process of reporting fundamentally changed the dynamics and results of the newsroom Why and how Hearken preserved optionality as it has grown over the past five years, and the options that are opened by maintaining sole ownership The zebra company as her response to her disillusion with the silicon valley model and exponential growth and monopoly market Why engagement is a strategic business model, and how Hearken is thinking about a more relational engagement model that expands possibilities for peoples lives How Hearken approaches helping companies transform, and why they focus both on what is being left behind and what is newly being built How Hearken designed a system with different moments of feedback loops at major decision making moments and how they deliberately think about the dynamics they create for 1:1 and 1-to-many interactions References and resources: Zebras Unite You are more powerful than you think: A Citizen's Guide to Making Change Happen by Eric Liu Community Centered Journalism: Engaging People, Exploring Solutions, and Building Trust by Andrea Wenzel Design Justice Network Select highlights: "Just by tweaking the process of how news stories got made, we ended up creating a different sounding and differently consequential journalism. Other newsrooms started asking us about it, and I knew I would regret not trying to help others make it work, because I do think it is universally applicable process that makes the world a little bit better." "I feel like what we're trying to do is maintain the mission, and the money follows if you center the public. But the operations and the way the operating systems of news rooms have been set up is completely counter to this, so the work of doing this change while it might sound so simple on the surface is surprisingly more challenging because of the way they're optimized for speed, efficiency and distribution, not for listening, relevance and trust. So, there are a lot of changes that need to happen inside an organization first on a mental paradigm level, and then a workflow and tooling and schedule and business level. This tiny idea ends up changing a lot." "I ran into the tension of what seemed like the Silicon Valley pattern recognition and it felt inherently impossible to build the kind of company I wanted to in that value system in place and that structure. If I want to build a company that lasts a long time and has these kinds of structures, why am I focusing all my time on making a small group of people very wealthy who aren't who I'm trying to serve with this work? I was always pushing back on the 10x unicorn model, but I didn't have the language for what I wanted instead. "That was a tension that was hard, just the tradeoffs along the way of trying to find aligned financing and again hearing people say 'We'd invest in you if you only tweaked it this way or that way,' knowing that t
January 14, 2021
09 Dave Inder Comar on Corporate Culture and Law as a Creative Force
Dave Inder Comar is an attorney and Founder of law practices Comar Mollé and Just Atonement. He has an amazing ability to humanize law, approaching it with creativity and empathy to make policy something people can use that helps them navigate the changes organizations face today. He’s a bold leader, having led a case against George W Bush Administration for illegal acts of aggression in the Iraq War, getting so far as the 9th circuit where it was acquitted due to the immunity provided to high ranking officials by federal law. In this episode we talk about law in business and the workplace, and how it can be a creative, generative function for businesses: The dual-entity structure of his practices and how it enables him to be flexible and creative in his practice. How a social science background has helped him break the mold of law firms and humanize law. Why process is an important complement to making policies and laws work for people and organizations, and how meeting human needs can avoid unnecessary legal risk and costs. Why compliance and the culture and processes around it are critical for business success, retaining institutional knowledge. How and why companies need to implement policies that address the changes we’re seeing from compliance to the move to remote work and online infrastructure. Inder’s thoughts about the role of the Chief Ethics Officer. Why he recommends clients struggling to retain employees and clients should re-manifest with values into a more values-explicit and innovative company Whythe most rewarding parts of being a lawyer is the human impact. References and resources: Comar Mollé Just Atonement Tao Te Ching Select highlights: “We’ve tried to create a nurturing space where lawyers who share those values can come and have an economic foundation and have some economic security from the practice, but we also want to give people freedom to do the things that they wanted to do… I think that’s something that not a lot of firms can not say, and so as a result, we’re able to attract some really awesome lawyers.” “We’ve created at the firm our own ecosystem where we’re cultivating those values. And those values start to emerge in the lawyers themselves. So that is a really important product of the firm itself, that type of professional development is something I’m most proud of.” “Culture is the river, and the rules and regulations are the dam. You can impose some structure, but the culture is the river, and ultimately a good lawyer will know how to inspect the culture and come up with a set of documents that people can actually use and will be incorporated into the company’s culture.” “A lot of times people just want to be heard. A lot of people get a lawyer because they haven’t felt heard. And so if you provide a mechanism where people can feel heard, you might be able to resolve it before it gets miscommunicated and misconstrued in different ways.” “I think compliance is evolving. That would have been a surprise to me years ago to predict that. I think there is an understanding that there has to be some dignity at work.” ” I think that’s something every company should do and it starts from the board all the way down, and that’s create a culture of compliance.” “Like everything in life, there’s a psychological bias that it isn’t a problem until something terrible happens. As lawyers we can see the things down the road that are coming… I do think lawyers can have a lot of value in terms of compliance, and also creating the culture of compliance where any person can feel comfortable saying I dont actually know if this is compliant with our internal policies.” “People should feel safe at work. And if the workplace doesn’t feel safe, that’s a terrible indictment of the company.” “The ultimate value should be, in my view, creating a place for human dignity to thrive.”
December 3, 2020
08 Emily Schildt on creating an innovative business model based in an understanding of the customer
Emily Schildt is the founder of Pop Up Grocer, a traveling pop up grocery store that lies at the intersection of exhibit, retail store and grocer. She's also a brand communications and marketing consultant, and previously was the director of digital engagement at Chobani in its early days. Recognized as an innovator in the retail space, AdWeek named Pop Up Grocer "Best Pop-Up" in its first annual retail awards . In this episode we talk about: How her experience as a brand communications and marketing consultant informed her strategy for Pop Up Grocer, and why she forewent market research and created a brand that was what she wanted to see in the world. How she created an experiential company at the intersection of exhibit, retail and grocer with a business model that aligns more with being a media company than a retail company. Why it's critical to educate and communicate thoroughly when doing something very different and innovative. The challenges and complexity introduced by looking for traditional marketing metrics when moving commerce into experience that is both geographically specific and online, and how Emily differentiates indicators of performance from sales. Why its companies' responsibilities to support causes in line with their values or the times and how there are many ways of doing that beyond just monetary support. Why curation and trust is important in the attention economy. References and resources: Pop Up Grocer Company of One by Paul Jarvis Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together by Pamela Slimm The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson Table Manners with Jessie Ware Select highlights: "Especially when you think about the current time we are living in and how that might affect peoples shopping habits, I think they definitely want to make decisions that are grounded in values and missions and interests and activism of the company, so that's something we certainly think about in our product selection." "You dont know from a tomato jam on shelf that it's black owned, or that its growing its tomatoes through specific harvesting; it's up to us to relay that story and ensure the person visiting our space understands the reasoning behind our selection. Also, that's what distinguishes us in this discovery space from a traditional grocery store or retail space, is that generally speaking you dont have an opportunity to get a sense of that contextual information." "I think in terms of sustainability, I think people care about that and want to care about that, but they care about other things first: what something says about them and their own identity. To have something be cool first and foremost and then if it just happens to house all these things that are sustainable, for example, it benefits everyone, because I think its a much stronger motivator than just wanting to do better for yourself or the environment." "I felt every food company when approaching how to create its brand was hanging its hat on the fact that they source their ingredients responsibly and they're 100% clean and non-GMO. Those are stock standard things that people expect. What else is interesting about you? I approach our brand in the same way." "If you sell things that's a total bonus, but what we're offering you is exposure and visibility. And just like any form of advertisement, newsletter podcast influencer, access to our audience of early adopters and other influential people comes at a cost. And its a pretty insignificant cost." (Of the PUG business proposition and market value) "In the forming of my career and me as a professional woman, I learned at Chobani for example, that giving back should just be ingrained in your business model... I think its the responsibility of businesses. When I was developing our business model, that was a part from day one." (On the move to e-commerce) "If everything wasn't happening as it is, I think we probably would have waited longer, and it would be much m
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