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.
Verujem da smo svi svesni da je današnji svet pun problema. Stalno slušamo o tim problemima i juče i danas i svakoga dana, već decenijama. To su ozbiljni, krupni problemi koji nas pritiskaju. Loša ishrana, dostupnost vode klimatske promene, krčenje šuma, nestručnost, nesigurnost, nestašica hrane, loše zdravstveno osiguranje, zagađenje. Samo problem za problemom, i mislim da je ono što ovaj period razlikuje od bilo kog drugog perioda kojeg sam uspeo da zapamtim tokom svog kratkog veka na Zemlji, jeste svest o ovim problemima. Mi smo svi veoma svesni.
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 nam je onda toliko teško da rešimo ove probleme? To je pitanje sa kojim se borim, gledano iz moje veoma drugačije perspektive. Ja nisam neko ko se zamara društvenim problemima. Ja sam poslovan čovek, koji pomaže firmama da zarade. Bože sačuvaj. Zašto se onda toliko patimo sa ovim društvenim problemima, i postoji li u toj borbi uloga za biznis, i ako postoji, kakva je ta uloga? Da bismo se pozabavili ovim pitanjem, mislim da treba da se vratimo korak unazad i razmislimo na koji način smo shvatali i poimali probleme i rešenja ovih velikih društvenih izazova sa 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.
Verujem da su mnogi na biznis gledali kao na problem ili barem jedan od problema u ovim društvenim izazovima. Setite se samo industrije brze hrane, lekova, pomislite na banke. Znate, ovo je krajnji minimum poštovanja biznisa. Na biznis se ne gleda kao na rešenje. Većina ljudi ga danas vidi kao problem. I oni su u pravu, u većini slučajeva. Mnogo je negativnih činilaca koji su načinili neke pogrešene korake, i tako zapravo doprineli pogoršanju problema. 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 šta smo videli kao rešenja ovih društvenih problema, tog mnoštva problema sa kojima se suočavamo u društvu? Pa, rešenja smo uglavnom videli u nevladinim organizacijama, u vladama, u filantropiji. I zaista, ono što je obeležilo sposobnost organizovanja u grupe u ovom dobu je ogroman porast važnosti nevladinih organizacija i društvenih organizacija. Ovo je jedinstven, novi oblik udruživanja koji je sazreo pred našim očima. Neverovatne inovacije, ogromna energija, i ogroman talenat upošljeni su kroz ovakve strukture kako bi probali da se izbore sa ovim problemima. I mnogi od nas su duboko u tom svetu.
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 u poslovnoj školi, ali do sada sam osnovao, mislim, četiri neprofitne organizacije. Kada god bih se zainteresovao i postao svestan nekog društvenog problema, ja bih osnovao jednu neprofitnu organizaciju. To je način koji smo smislili kako bismo se izborili sa ovim problemima. Čak je i jedan 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 mislim da se sada već dosta dugo bavimo ovime. Decenijama smo svesni ovih problema. Imamo višedecenijsko iskustvo sa NVO i vladinim telima, a stvarnost je neprijatna. Ta neprijatna stvarnost ogleda se u tome da ne napredujemo dovoljno brzo. Ne pobeđujemo. Ovi problemi deluju veoma zastrašujuće i veoma neumoljivo, a rešenja koja mi postižemo su samo mala rešenja. Mi napredujemo, ali malim koracima.
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 glavni problem koji nam smeta u rešavanju ovih društvenih problema? Ako uklonimo svu kompleksnost, imamo problem dometa. Nemamo domet. Možemo da napredujemo. Možemo da ukazujemo na dobrobiti. Možemo da pokažemo rezultate. Možemo da poboljšavamo stvari. Pomažemo. Ide nam sve bolje. Dobri smo. Nemamo domet. Nismo u stanju da utičemo na ove probleme na višem nivou. A zašto je to tako? Zato što nemamo sredstva. I to je sada postalo veoma jasno. Jasnije je sada nego što je bilo decenijama unazad. Jednostavno, nema dovoljno novca da bismo se izborili sa ovim problemima na tom nivou, koristeći postojeći model. Nema dovoljno prihoda od poreza, nema dovoljno donacija od filantropa, da bismo rešili ove probleme na način na koji ih rešavamo sad. Moramo da se suočimo sa tim činjenicama. A nedostatak tih sredstava koja nam trebaju za rešavanje problema, postaje sve veći, u današnjem naprednom svetu, sa svim fiskalnim problemima koji nas muče.
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, u suštini, problem je u sredstvima, gde su sredstva u društvu? Kako se izvori sredstava zapravo stvaraju. ti izvori sredstava koji će nam trebati da bismo se izborili sa svim tim društvenim izazovima? Pa, mislim da je odgovor veoma jednostavan: izvori sredstava su u biznisu. Sav novac zapravo stvaraju firme. Firma stvara bogatstvo kada izlazi u susret potrebama i na tome zarađuje. Tako se stvara svo bogatstvo. Zarada na zadovoljavanju potreba vodi ka porezima, porezi vode do prihoda, koji vode do dobrovoljnih donacija. Odatle dolaze svi izvori sredstava. Samo firme mogu da stvore ove izvore. Druge institucije mogu da ih upotrebe kako bi uradile nešto važno, ali samo firme mogu da ih stvore. A firme ih stvaraju kada mogu da zarade od zadovoljavanja potreba. Izvori sredstava se u ogromnoj meri stvaraju u firmama. Pitanje je: kako da se to iskoristimo? Kako da se to iskoristimo? Firme stvaraju sredstva samo kada zarađuju. Zarada je ona mala razlika između cene i troškova proizvodnje nekog rešenja koje je firma smislila kako bi rešila neki probelm. Ali u zaradi je magija. Zašto? Zato što nam ta zarada omogućava da nam rešenje koje smo smislili bude dostižno zauvek. Jer, ako možemo da zaradimo, uradićemo to za 10, 100, milion, 100 miliona, milijardu. Rešenje postaje samoodrživo. To firme rade kada zarađuju.
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.
A kakve ovo ima veze sa društvenim problemima? Pa jedan način razmišljanja je: "Hajde da uzmemo ovu zaradu i usmerimo je ka društvenim problemima." Firme bi trebalo da daju više. Firme bi trebalo da budu odgovornije. I to je put kojim idemo u biznisu. Ali taj put kojim se krećemo nas ne vodi tamo kuda treba da odemo.
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.
Ja sam počeo kao profesor poslovnih strategija, i dalje sam profesor poslovnih strategija. I ponosim se time. Ali sam se tokom godina sve više bavio društvenim pitanjima. Radio sam na problemima zdravstva, životne sredine, privrednog razvoja, smanjenja siromaštva... i kako sam sve više radio na društvenom planu, počeo sam da uviđam nešto što je imalo dubok uticaj na mene i ceo moj 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.
Konvencijalna mudrost ekonomije i biznisa, kroz istoriju, zasnivali su se na shvatanju da postoji suprotnost između društvenog i ekonomskog nastupa. Uvreženo shvatanje bilo je da firma zapravo zarađuje stvarajući društvene probleme. Zagađenje je klasičan primer. Ako firma zagađuje, ona zarađuje više nego kada bi pokušala da umanji zagađenje. Smanjenje zagađenja je skupo, pa firme ne žele to da rade. Više se zaradi na nebezbednom radnom okruženju. Bezbedno radno okruženje je previše skupo, pa firme zarade više ako nemaju bezbedno radno okruženje. To je bilo uvreženo shvatanje. I mnoge kompanije su se uklopile u taj kalup. Opirale su se poboljšanju zaštite životne sredine. Kao i poboljšanju uslova za rad. Mislim da je takvo razmišljanje u mnogome doprinelo ponašanju u biznisu koje kritikujemo, koje i ja kritikujem.
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 ova društvena pitanja, jedno za drugim, i što sam više pokušavao da ih rešim, lično, u nekoliko slučajeva, kroz neprofitne organizacije sa kojima sam radio, više sam shvatao da je stvarna situcija zapravo suprotna. Firme ne zarađuju od izazivanja društvenih problema, bar ne u nekom fundamentalnom smislu. To je veoma pojednostavljeno viđenje stvari. Što se više upuštamo u probleme počinjemo da shvatamo da firme zapravo zarađuju od rešavanja društvenih problema. Tu dolazi do prave zarade. Hajde da se vratimo na zagađenje. Danas smo naučili da smanjenje zagađenja i emisije gasova zapravo stvara zaradu. Štedi novac. Čini firmu produktivnijom i efikasnijom. Ne traći sirovine. A bezbednije radno okruženje, i izbegavanje nezgoda, čine firmu profitabilnijom jer predstavljaju znak dobrog napretka. Nezgode su skupe. Posmatrajući problem po problem počinjemo da shvatamo da zapravo nema suprotnosti između društvenog napretka i ekonomske efikasnosti. Ne u nekom fundamentalnom smislu. Još jedan problem je zdravstvo. Ono što smo otkrili jeste da je zdravlje radnika zapravo ono što bi firme trebalo da cene, jer zdravlje omogućava tim radnicima da budu produktivniji i dolaze na posao, a ne da budu odsutni. Novi poslovi, novo razmišljanje o odnosu biznisa i društvenih problema zapravo pokazuje da postoji bitna duboka sinergija, pogotovo ako ne razmišljate preterano kratkoročno. Razmišljajući kratkoročno možete prevariti sami sebe i pomisliti da postoje upravo suprotni ciljevi, ali dugoročno, na kraju shvatamo, posmatrajući različita polja, da 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 da iskoristimo moć biznisa da bismo se pozabavili bitnim problemima sa kojima se suočavamo? Zamislite da možemo to da uradimo, jer kad bismo to mogli imali bismo domet. Mogli bismo da iskoristimo ovaj ogromni izvor sredstava i organizacioni kapacitet.
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 šta? To se sada konačno i dešava, delom zbog ljudi poput vas koji su ukazivali na ove probleme godinama i decenijama. Sada vidimo kako organizacije poput "Dow Chemical" vode revoluciju protiv trans masti i zasićenih masti, svojim inovativnim novim proizvodima. Ovo je primer firme 'Jain Irrigation'. To je firma koja je sistem navodnjavanja 'kap po kap' približila hiljadama i milionima poljoprivrednika, smanjujući tako upotrebu vode. Vidimo kompanije poput brazilske šumarske kompanije 'Fibiria' koja je našla način da izbegne krčenje starih šuma i koristi eukaliptus i tako dobija mnogo veći prinos celuloze po hektaru i proizvodi mnogo više papira nego što se proizvede sečom starih stabala. Vidite i kompanije kao što je 'Cisco', koji je do sada naučio 4 miliona ljudi informatičkim veštinama, kako su zaista odgovorne ali pomažu u rasprostranjivanju informatičkih tehnologija i proširuju svoj biznis. Firme danas imaju jedinstvenu priliku da se bave i utiču na ove društvene probleme, i ta prilika je najveća poslovna prilika koja postoji u biznisu.
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 da navedemo firme da razmisle o prilagođavanju ove zajedničke vrednosti? Ovo ja zovem zajedničkom vrednošću: baviti se društvenim problemom po poslovnom modelu. To je zajednička vrednost. Zajednička vrednost je kapitalizam, ali uzvišeniji vid kapitalizma. To je kapitalizam kakav bi na vrhuncu i trebalo da bude, izlaženje u susret važnim potrebama, a ne samo takmičenje u trivijalnim razlikama u atributima proizvoda i udelu na tržištu. Zajednička vrednost je ono kada možete istovremeno da stvorite društvenu i ekonomsku vrednost. Pronalaženje ovakvih prilika će osloboditi najveću mogućnost koju imamo da se zapravo bavimo ovim društvenim problemima, jer ćemo imati domet. Zajedničkoj vrednosti možemo pristupiti na više nivoa. 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 rešenje proradilo, moramo da promenimo način na koji firme vide same sebe, a to se, na sreću, već događa. Firme su upale u zamku uvreženog shvatanja da ne treba da brinu o društvenim problemima, da je to nešto nebitno čime se bavi neko drugi. Sada možemo da vidimo da kompanije prihvataju ovu ideju. Ali moramo biti svesni toga da firme neće ovo raditi sa toliko učinka kao kada NVO i vlada rade u partnerstvu sa firmama. Nove NVO koje zaista 'rade posao' su one koje su stupile u ovakva partnerstva, one koje su našle načine da sarađuju. Vlade koje najviše napreduju su one koje su našle načina da podrže zajedničku vrednost u firmama, koje neće gledati vlade samo kao igrača koji pomera sve figure. A vlada može na mnoštvo načina da utiče na spremnost i sposobnost kompanija da se nadmeću 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.
Ako učinimo da biznis samog sebe vidi drugačije, i ako navedemo druge da ga posmatraju drugačije, možemo da promenimo svet. Ja to znam. Vidim. Osećam to. Verujem da mladi ljudi, moji studenti sa Harvarda, shvataju to. Ako možemo da prevaziđemo ovu podelu, ovu nelagodu, tenziju ovaj osećaj da ne sarađujemo u bitnijoj meri u rešavanju ovih društvenih problema, tada možemo da prelomimo, i verujem da tada konačno možemo doći do rešenja.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)