I think we're all aware that the world today is full of problems. We've been hearing them today and yesterday and every day for decades. Serious problems, big problems, pressing problems. Poor nutrition, access to water, climate change, deforestation, lack of skills, insecurity, not enough food, not enough healthcare, pollution. There's problem after problem, and I think what really separates this time from any time I can remember in my brief time on Earth is the awareness of these problems. We're all very aware.
Mislim kako smo svi svjesni kako je današnji svijet pun problema. Stalno slušamo o njima jučer i danas i već desetljećima svakoga dana. To su ozbiljni, veliki problemi koji nas pritišću. Loša ishrana, pristup vodi, klimatske promjene, odšumljavanje, nedostatak vještina, nesigurnost, nestašica hrane, loše zdravstveno osiguranje, onečišćenje. Samo problem za problemom, i mislim kako je ono što ovaj period razlikuje od bilo kojeg drugog perioda kojeg se mogu sjetiti tijekom svog kratkog vijeka na Zemlji, jest svjesnost o ovim problemima. Svi smo ih jako svjesni.
Why are we having so much trouble dealing with these problems? That's the question I've been struggling with, coming from my very different perspective. I'm not a social problem guy. I'm a guy that works with business, helps business make money. God forbid. So why are we having so many problems with these social problems, and really is there any role for business, and if so, what is that role? I think that in order to address that question, we have to step back and think about how we've understood and pondered both the problems and the solutions to these great social challenges that we face.
Zašto onda imamo toliko poteškoća u rješavanju tih problema? To je pitanje s kojim se borim, gledano iz moje, bitno drugačije perspektive. Ja nisam netko tko se zamara društvenim problemima. Ja sam čovjek koji radi s privredom, koji pomaže poduzećima da zarade. Bože sačuvaj. Dakle zašto se onda toliko mučimo s tim društvenim problemima, i postoji li u toj borbi uloga za poduzeća, i ako postoji, koja je to uloga? Kako bismo se pozabavili ovim pitanjem, moramo se vratiti korak unazad i razmisliti o tome kako smo shvatili i doživjeli i probleme i rješenja tih veliki društvenih izazova s kojima se suočavamo.
Now, I think many have seen business as the problem, or at least one of the problems, in many of the social challenges we face. You know, think of the fast food industry, the drug industry, the banking industry. You know, this is a low point in the respect for business. Business is not seen as the solution. It's seen as the problem now, for most people. And rightly so, in many cases. There's a lot of bad actors out there that have done the wrong thing, that actually have made the problem worse. So this perspective is perhaps justified.
Vjerujem da su mnogi gledali na poslovni svijet kao na problem, ili u najmanju ruku kao jedan od problema, među mnogim društvenim izazovima s kojima se suočavamo. Razmislite o industriji brze hrane, industriji lijekova, bankarskoj industriji. Znate, ovo je najniža točka poštivanja poslovnog svijeta. Na njega se ne gleda kao na rješenje. Na njega većina ljudi gleda kao na problem. I s punim pravom, u mnogim slučajevima. Puno je loših igrača na tržištu koji su radili pogrešne stvari, koji su probleme učinili još gorim. Tako da je ovakvo viđenje stvari možda i opravdano.
How have we tended to see the solutions to these social problems, these many issues that we face in society? Well, we've tended to see the solutions in terms of NGOs, in terms of government, in terms of philanthropy. Indeed, the kind of unique organizational entity of this age is this tremendous rise of NGOs and social organizations. This is a unique, new organizational form that we've seen grown up. Enormous innovation, enormous energy, enormous talent now has been mobilized through this structure to try to deal with all of these challenges. And many of us here are deeply involved in that.
A što vidimo kao rješenje ovih društvenih problema, tih brojnih problema s kojima se suočavamo u društvu? Pa, rješenja smo uglavnom vidjeli u vidu neprofitnih organizacija, u vidu vladinih organizacija, u vidu filantropije. I zaista, ono što je obilježilo jedinstvene organizacijske entitete ovog doba jest nevjerojatan rast neprofitnih organizacija i društvenih organizacija. To je jedinstveno, nove organizacijske forme koje su sazrele pred našim očima. Ogromne inovacije, ogromna energija, ogroman talent koji je sada mobiliziran kroz ovakve strukture kako bi se pokušao nositi s ovim problemima. I mnogi od nas su duboko uključeni u sve to.
I'm a business school professor, but I've actually founded, I think, now, four nonprofits. Whenever I got interested and became aware of a societal problem, that was what I did, form a nonprofit. That was the way we've thought about how to deal with these issues. Even a business school professor has thought about it that way.
Ja sam profesor na poslovnoj školi, ali do sada sam osnovao, mislim, četiri neprofitne organizacije. Kada god bih se zainteresirao i postao svjestan nekog društvenog problema, to je ono što sam učinio. Pokrenuo neprofitnu organizaciju. To je bio način koji smo osmislili kako bismo se nosili s tim problemima. Čak je i profesor poslovne škole razmišljao na taj način.
But I think at this moment, we've been at this for quite a while. We've been aware of these problems for decades. We have decades of experience with our NGOs and with our government entities, and there's an awkward reality. The awkward reality is we're not making fast enough progress. We're not winning. These problems still seem very daunting and very intractable, and any solutions we're achieving are small solutions. We're making incremental progress.
Ali u ovom trenutku mislim da se dovoljno dugo bavimo time. Svjesni smo tih problema desetljećima. Imamo desetljeća iskustva s našim neprofitnim i vladinim organizacijama, a stvarnost je nezgrapna. Ta nezgrapna stvarnost je da ne napredujemo dovoljno brzo. Ne pobjeđujemo. Ti problemi i dalje djeluju vrlo zastrašujuće i jako tvrdoglavo, a sva rješenja koja postižemo su relativno beznačajna. Mi napredujemo, ali inkrementalno.
What's the fundamental problem we have in dealing with these social problems? If we cut all the complexity away, we have the problem of scale. We can't scale. We can make progress. We can show benefits. We can show results. We can make things better. We're helping. We're doing better. We're doing good. We can't scale. We can't make a large-scale impact on these problems. Why is that? Because we don't have the resources. And that's really clear now. And that's clearer now than it's been for decades. There's simply not enough money to deal with any of these problems at scale using the current model. There's not enough tax revenue, there's not enough philanthropic donations, to deal with these problems the way we're dealing with them now. We've got to confront that reality. And the scarcity of resources for dealing with these problems is only growing, certainly in the advanced world today, with all the fiscal problems we face.
Koji je ključni problem koji nam smeta u rješavanju ovih društvenih problema? Ako uklonimo svu složenost, imamo problem dosega. Ne možemo dosegnuti. Možemo napredovati. Možemo pokazati koristi. Možemo pokazati rezultate. Možemo unaprijediti stvari. Mi pomažemo. Mi radimo bolje. Mi radimo dobro. Ali nemamo doseg. Nismo u stanju dovoljno snažno utjecati na ove probleme. A zašto je tako? Zato jer nemamo resurse. I to je sada stvarno jasno. I jasnije je sada nego što je bilo desetljećima unazad. Jednostavno nemamo dovoljno novca kako bismo se borili s bilo kojim od tih problema koristeći sadašnji model. Nema dovoljno poreznih prihoda, nema dovoljno filantropskih donacija, kako bismo se nosili s tim problemima na način kako to radimo sada. Moramo se suočiti s tom realnošću. A oskudnost resursa za rješavanje ovih problema samo raste, posebno u naprednom svijetu danas, sa svim fiskalnim problemima s kojima smo suočeni.
So if it's fundamentally a resource problem, where are the resources in society? How are those resources really created, the resources we're going to need to deal with all these societal challenges? Well there, I think the answer is very clear: They're in business. All wealth is actually created by business. Business creates wealth when it meets needs at a profit. That's how all wealth is created. It's meeting needs at a profit that leads to taxes and that leads to incomes and that leads to charitable donations. That's where all the resources come from. Only business can actually create resources. Other institutions can utilize them to do important work, but only business can create them. And business creates them when it's able to meet a need at a profit. The resources are overwhelmingly generated by business. The question then is, how do we tap into this? How do we tap into this? Business generates those resources when it makes a profit. That profit is that small difference between the price and the cost it takes to produce whatever solution business has created to whatever problem they're trying to solve. But that profit is the magic. Why? Because that profit allows whatever solution we've created to be infinitely scalable. Because if we can make a profit, we can do it for 10, 100, a million, 100 million, a billion. The solution becomes self-sustaining. That's what business does when it makes a profit.
Dakle, fundamentalno problem je u sredstvima, a gdje su resursi u društvu? Kako se ti resursi zapravo stvaraju, sredstva potrebna kako bismo se nosili sa svim tim društvenim izazovima? Mislim da je ovdje odgovor prilično jasan: ona su u poslovnom svijetu. U stvari svo bogatstvo se kreira u privredi. Poslovni svijet stvara bogatstvo kada odgovara na potrebe stvarajući profit. Tako se stvara svo bogatstvo. Zarada na zadovoljavanju potreba vodi porezima a to vodi ka prihodima što vodi dobrovoljnim donacijama. Od tuda dolaze svi izvori sredstava. Samo privreda može stvoriti resurse. Druge institucije ih mogu upotrijebiti kako bi odradile nešto važno, ali ih samo privreda može stvoriti. A poduzeća ih stvaraju kada su sposobna profitirati od zadovoljavanja potreba. Izvori sredstava se u velikoj mjeri generiraju od poduzeća. Onda je pitanje: kako to možemo iskoristiti? Kako to iskoristiti? Poslovni svijet stvara te resurse kada zarađuje. Taj profit je ona mala razlika između cijene i troškova proizvodnje nekog rješenja koje je poduzeće smislilo kako bi rješilo neki problem. Ali u profitu je magičnost. Zašto? Zato što nam taj profit omogućava da nam rješenje koje smo osmislili bude dostižno zauvijek. Jer ako možemo stvoriti profit, možemo to napraviti 10, 100, milijun 100 milijuna, milijardu puta. Rješenje postaje samo-održivo. To je ono što poduzeća rade, kada stvaraju profit.
Now what does this all have to do with social problems? Well, one line of thinking is, let's take this profit and redeploy it into social problems. Business should give more. Business should be more responsible. And that's been the path that we've been on in business. But again, this path that we've been on is not getting us where we need to go.
Na koji je način ovo povezano s društvenim problemima? Pa jedan način promišljanja je da uzmemo taj profit i usmjerimo ga ka društvenim problemima. Poduzeća bi trebala dati više. Poduzeća bi trebala biti odgovornija. I to je put kojim idemo u poslovnom svijetu. Ali opet, taj put kojim se krećemo ne vodi nas tamo gdje trebamo otići.
Now, I started out as a strategy professor, and I'm still a strategy professor. I'm proud of that. But I've also, over the years, worked more and more on social issues. I've worked on healthcare, the environment, economic development, reducing poverty, and as I worked more and more in the social field, I started seeing something that had a profound impact on me and my whole life, in a way.
Započeo sam kao profesor poslovne strategije, i dalje sam profesor poslovne strategije. Ponosan sam na to. Ali sam se tijekom godina, sve više bavio društvenim pitanjima. Radio sam na problemima zdravstva, okoliša, ekonomskog razvoja, smanjenja siromaštva, i što sam više radio na društvenom polju, počeo sam shvaćati nešto što je imalo dubok utjecaj na mene i na moj cijeli život, na neki način.
The conventional wisdom in economics and the view in business has historically been that actually, there's a tradeoff between social performance and economic performance. The conventional wisdom has been that business actually makes a profit by causing a social problem. The classic example is pollution. If business pollutes, it makes more money than if it tried to reduce that pollution. Reducing pollution is expensive, therefore businesses don't want to do it. It's profitable to have an unsafe working environment. It's too expensive to have a safe working environment, therefore business makes more money if they don't have a safe working environment. That's been the conventional wisdom. A lot of companies have fallen into that conventional wisdom. They resisted environmental improvement. They resisted workplace improvement. That thinking has led to, I think, much of the behavior that we have come to criticize in business, that I come to criticize in business.
Konvencionalna mudrost u ekonomiji i poslovnoj ekonomiji, kroz povijest, zasnivala se na shvaćanju kako postoji razmjena između društvene i ekonomske izvedbe. Konvencionalna mudrost je da poduzeća stvaraju profit stvarajući društvene probleme. Klasičan primjer je zagađenje. Ako poduzeće zagađuje, ono zarađuje više nego kada bi pokušala smanjiti zagađenje. Smanjenje zagađenja je skupo, i zato poduzeća ne žele to raditi. Profitabilno je imati nesigurnu radnu okolinu. Preskupo je imati sigurnu radnu okolinu, pa poduzeća zarade više ako nemaju sigurnu radnu okolinu. To je konvencionalna mudrost. I mnoga poduzeća su se uklopila u taj kalup. Opirala su se poboljšanju zaštite životne sredine. Opirala su se poboljšanju uvjeta za rad. Takvo razmišljanje je dovelo, mislim, do većine ponašajnih obrazaca koje kritiziramo u poslovnom svijetu, koje ja kritiziram u poslovnom svijetu.
But the more deeply I got into all these social issues, one after another, and actually, the more I tried to address them myself, personally, in a few cases, through nonprofits that I was involved with, the more I found actually that the reality is the opposite. Business does not profit from causing social problems, actually not in any fundamental sense. That's a very simplistic view. The deeper we get into these issues, the more we start to understand that actually business profits from solving from social problems. That's where the real profit comes. Let's take pollution. We've learned today that actually reducing pollution and emissions is generating profit. It saves money. It makes the business more productive and efficient. It doesn't waste resources. Having a safer working environment actually, and avoiding accidents, it makes the business more profitable, because it's a sign of good processes. Accidents are expensive and costly. Issue by issue by issue, we start to learn that actually there's no trade-off between social progress and economic efficiency in any fundamental sense. Another issue is health. I mean, what we've found is actually health of employees is something that business should treasure, because that health allows those employees to be more productive and come to work and not be absent. The deeper work, the new work, the new thinking on the interface between business and social problems is actually showing that there's a fundamental, deep synergy, particularly if you're not thinking in the very short run. In the very short run, you can sometimes fool yourself into thinking that there's fundamentally opposing goals, but in the long run, ultimately, we're learning in field after field that this is simply not true.
Ali što sam se više upuštao u sva ta društvena pitanja, jedno za drugim, i što sam ih više pokušavao rješiti, osobno, u nekoliko slučajeva, kroz neprofitne organizacije u koje sam bio uključen, sve sam više shvaćao kako je stvarna situacija suprotna. Poduzeća ne profitiraju od izazivanja duštvenih problema, bar ne u nekom fundamentalnom smislu. To je prilično pojednostavljen pogled. Što dublje ulazimo u te probleme sve više počinjemo shvaćati kako poduzeća zapravo zarađuju rješavajući društvene probleme. Od tuda dolazi stvaran profit. Uzmimo onečišćenja. Danas smo naučili kako smanjenje zagađenja i emisije plinova generira profit. Štedi novac. Čini poslovni svijet produktivnijim i učinkovitijim. Ne troši bespotrebno resurse. A sigurnije radno okruženje, i izbjegavanje nezgoda, čini poduzeća profitabilnijima, jer predstavljaju znak dobrih procesa. Nezgode su skupe i koštaju. Gledajući problem po problem počinjemo shvaćati kako zapravo nema razmjene između društvenog napretka i ekonomske učinkovitosti u nekom bazičnom smislu. Još jedan problem je zdravstvo. Ono što smo otkrili jest da je zdravlje radnika zapravo ono što bi poduzeća trebala cijeniti, jer zdravlje omogućava tim radnicima da budu produktivniji i dolaze na posao a ne da su odsutni. Dublji rad, novi posao, novo razmišljanje o odnosu privrede i društvenih problema zapravo pokazuje kako postoji bitna duboka sinergija, pogotovo ako ne razmišljate jako kratkoročno. Razmišljajući kratkoročno ponekad možete prevariti sami sebe i pomisliti kako postoje upravo suprotni ciljevi, ali dugoročno, na kraju shvaćamo, promatrajući različita polja kako to jednostavno nije istina.
So how could we tap into the power of business to address the fundamental problems that we face? Imagine if we could do that, because if we could do it, we could scale. We could tap into this enormous resource pool and this organizational capacity.
Pa kako onda iskoristiti moć privrede kako bismo se pozabavili bitnim problemima s kojima smo suočeni? Zamislite da možemo to napraviti, jer kad bismo to mogli imali bismo doseg. Mogli bismo iskoristiti ovaj ogromni izvor resursa i organizacijsku sposobnost.
And guess what? That's happening now, finally, partly because of people like you who have raised these issues now for year after year and decade after decade. We see organizations like Dow Chemical leading the revolution away from trans fat and saturated fat with innovative new products. This is an example of Jain Irrigation. This is a company that's brought drip irrigation technology to thousands and millions of farmers, reducing substantially the use of water. We see companies like the Brazilian forestry company Fibria that's figured out how to avoid tearing down old growth forest and using eucalyptus and getting much more yield per hectare of pulp and making much more paper than you could make by cutting down those old trees. You see companies like Cisco that are training so far four million people in I.T. skills to actually, yes, be responsible, but help expand the opportunity to disseminate I.T. technology and grow the whole business. There's a fundamental opportunity for business today to impact and address these social problems, and this opportunity is the largest business opportunity we see in business.
I znate što? To se konačno i događa djelom zbog ljudi poput vas koji su ukazivali na ove probleme godinu za godinom i desetljeće za desetljećem. Sada vidimo kako organizacije poput Dow Chemical-a vode revoluciju protiv polinezasićenih masti i zasićenih masti kroz inovativne nove proizvode. Ovo je primjer poduzeća Jain Irrigation. To je poduzeće koje je sustav navodnjavanja 'kap po kap' približilo tisućama i milijunima poljoprivrednika, značajno smanjujući uporabu vode. Vidimo organizacije poput brazilske šumarske kompanije Fibria koja je osmislila način da izbjegne krčenje starih šuma i koristeći eukaliptus dobije mnogo veći prinos celuloze po hektaru i proizvodi bitno više papira nego što se proizvede sječom starih stabala. Vidite i kompanije kao što je Cisco, koji je do sada podučio 4 milijuna ljudi informatičkim vještinama, kako su zaista odgovorni, ali ujedno proširuju poslovnu priliku kroz diseminaciju IT tehnologije i samim time im raste poslovni model. Poduzeća danas imaju jedinstvenu priliku da se bave i utječu na ove društvene probleme, i ta prilika je najveća poslovna prilika koju vidimo u poslovnom svijetu.
And the question is, how can we get business thinking to adapt this issue of shared value? This is what I call shared value: addressing a social issue with a business model. That's shared value. Shared value is capitalism, but it's a higher kind of capitalism. It's capitalism as it was ultimately meant to be, meeting important needs, not incrementally competing for trivial differences in product attributes and market share. Shared value is when we can create social value and economic value simultaneously. It's finding those opportunities that will unleash the greatest possibility we have to actually address these social problems because we can scale. We can address shared value at multiple levels. It's real. It's happening.
I pitanje je, kako možemo navesti poduzeća da razmisle o stvaranju te zajedničke vrijednosti? Ovo ja nazivam zajedničkom vrijednošću: baviti se društvenim problemom po poslovnom modelu. To je zajednička vrijednost. Zajednička vrijednost je kapitalizam ali uzvišeniji vid kapitalizma. To je kapitalizam kakav bi u stvari trebao biti, prepoznavnje važnih potreba, a ne inkrementalno natjecanje za trivijalne razlike u karakteristikama proizvoda i tržišni udio. Zajednička vrijednost je ono kada možete istovremeno stvoriti društvenu i ekonomsku vrijednost. Pronalaženje takvih prilika će osloboditi najveću mogućnost koju imamo da se zapravo bavimo tim društvenim problemima, jer ćemo imati doseg. Zajedničkoj vrijednosti možemo pristupiti na više razina. Ona je stvarna. Ona se događa.
But in order to get this solution working, we have to now change how business sees itself, and this is thankfully underway. Businesses got trapped into the conventional wisdom that they shouldn't worry about social problems, that this was sort of something on the side, that somebody else was doing it. We're now seeing companies embrace this idea. But we also have to recognize business is not going to do this as effectively as if we have NGOs and government working in partnership with business. The new NGOs that are really moving the needle are the ones that have found these partnerships, that have found these ways to collaborate. The governments that are making the most progress are the governments that have found ways to enable shared value in business rather than see government as the only player that has to call the shots. And government has many ways in which it could impact the willingness and the ability of companies to compete in this way.
Ali, kako bi ovo rješenje proradilo, moramo promijeniti način na koji poduzeća vide same sebe, a to se, na sreću, već događa. Poduzeća su uhvaćena u zamku uvriježene mudrosti da ne trebaju brinuti o društvenim problemima, da je to nešto nebitno čime se bavi netko drugi. Sada možemo vidjeti kako poduzeća prihvaćaju tu ideju. Ali moramo biti svjesni toga da poduzeća neće to raditi toliko djelotvorno kao neprofitne i javne organizacije u partnerstvu s poduzećima. Nove neprofitne organizacije koje zaista rade posao su one koje su stupile u takva partnerstva, one koje su našle načine da surađuju. Vlade koje najviše napreduju su one koje su pronašle načine za osiguranje zajedničke vrijednosti u privredi, umjesto da se na njih gleda kao na jedinog igrača koji mora djelovati. A javne organizacije imaju jako puno načina putem kojih mogu utjecati na spremnost i sposobnost kompanija da se natječu na ovaj način.
I think if we can get business seeing itself differently, and if we can get others seeing business differently, we can change the world. I know it. I'm seeing it. I'm feeling it. Young people, I think, my Harvard Business School students, are getting it. If we can break down this sort of divide, this unease, this tension, this sense that we're not fundamentally collaborating here in driving these social problems, we can break this down, and we finally, I think, can have solutions.
Mislim da možemo postići da se poslovni svijet vidi na drugačiji način, i ako možemo potaknuti druge da gledaju na poduzeća na drugačiji način, možemo promijeniti svijet. Znam to. Ja to vidim. Ja to osjećam. Mladi ljudi, mislim, moji studenti poslovne škole Harvard, to shvaćaju. Ako se možemo uzdići iznad te podjele, te nelagode, te tenzije, tog osećaja da u biti ne surađujemo ovdje u rješavanju tih društvenih problema, tada možemo to savladati, i možemo konačno, mislim, imati rješenje.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)