Balancing Revolution and Reform: The Key to Sustainable Business Transition in the 21st Century

Entrepreneurship is revolutionary.?

Entrepreneurs break new ground, push boundaries, and overturn traditional models, offering products and services that disrupt established industries. They bring forth revolutionary ideas, defying the status quo, and create new paradigms.?

The motto 'move fast and break things', made famous by Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, encapsulates the entrepreneurial spirit perfectly.

I know first hand how exhilarating, transformative and exciting this ‘creative destruction’ can be.?

• I’ve seen my father disrupt the facilities management industry to create a global brand recognised across the world.
• I’ve had the opportunity to fund amazing projects across the world working to change their local economic system.?

But it also carries a risk - the potential to alienate large swaths of the population.

As fast and furious as I want the world to change, I know that sustainable change thrives at a gentler pace. It operates on the principle of trust, which is cultivated over time through consistency and understanding.?

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together - African Proverb.

We can’t get trapped in debates of having a revolution or nothing at all.??

Fast-moving entrepreneurship might change the world in the blink of an eye, but without the foundation of trust and inclusion, such change risks becoming transient or superficial.?

While prolonged discourse and debates without any tangible action equally erodes trust. I am advocating for a middle ground. One where ground-breaking innovation can be balanced alongside the human need for stability and certainty.

A key consideration is the delicate balance between revolutionary approaches - the radical transformation of systems, processes, or products - and reformative methods - incremental changes within existing frameworks.

Entrepreneurs need to embrace both the radical overhaul that sets them apart, and the gradual, reformative changes that assure their ventures resonate with the market and local communities.?

They must tread the tightrope between dynamism and stability, fusing their revolutionary fervor with an equal measure of pragmatic reform.

Navigating this delicate balance is no easy feat, but it is the bedrock of sustainable business transition in the 21st century. It's the art of being a game-changer, without leaving the game behind.

It’s been done before. Some of the best innovations came from evolution, not revolution.?

The ‘revolutionary’ idea of the iPhone was really the natural evolution of existing technology. Touch technology, Wifi, and GPS. All of which came from innovations originally developed by the US government. The world was already familiar with using all these technologies.

Apple just brought everything together in a unique and seamless design.

The transformation of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and its World Chambers Federation

A couple of weeks ago I attended the World Chambers Congress in Geneva, Switzerland.?

At the beginning of the conference I received a text from an old colleague that reminded me that we were at the World Chambers Congress in Doha in 2013 ten years ago.?

That 2013 Congress stood out in my mind in stark contrast to the one I have just attended.?

In 2013, the Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce was a French man Gerard Worms who came from the central powers of Paris. Now in 2023 we have the dynamic Maria Fernanda Garza Merodio, the first female President of the ICC who comes from the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector in Mexico.?

Overnight I read that the ICC has just appointed five new leaders to their Executive Board. Three of these being women, two of these being from Africa (Nigeria and DRC). With 48% women representation on their Board it is their most gender diverse to date.

In 2013 we were only just starting to talk about gender inclusion.

But in 2023 we are now living it.?

And it doesn’t stop there. In addition to the International Chamber of Commerce Board the ICC World Chambers Federation Council is now the most diverse in history. Both these representative bodies are starting to look like the constituencies they serve, with the ICC currently having 70% of its members from the Global South.?

In 2013 the discussions were largely around the traditional business arena’s of trade, trade facilitation and business matching. In 2023 these important areas are still discussed however they are infused and complemented with the important topics of our time including sustainability, inclusive entrepreneurship and strengthening multilateralism.?

The ICC and its World Chambers Federation have done the two things well:

1. They have managed reform from within, making the governance and membership more inclusive while still ‘sticking to their knitting’ around the issues of arbitration, trade, finance and business networking.?
2. At the same time they have been revolutionary in many ways in embracing and promoting the role of business in addressing issues of climate change and inclusive business practices.?

In doing so they are not only maintaining certainty and stability through building upon its identity as the largest business association globally, but they are also attracting new members from women-led enterprises, from gay and lesbian enterprises (LGBTQ+), and from entrepreneurs across the Global South.?

I felt this myself. The diversity of representation and discussion was so clear to see at the 2023 Congress in Geneva.?

Looking around the room, it was clear that the ICC was building a future-ready Chamber of Commerce. This is not because they look and feel like a modern business association, but because they have internalised a strong culture of reform and revolution that is much needed in this rapidly changing world.

ICC serves a model for change. They were able to evolve steadily from within (reform) while embracing business imperatives from without (revolution).?

In conclusion:?

Revolutions are sexy, and sometimes needed.

But reforms are practical, and allow time for ideas to be spread.

The secret to successful entrepreneurship lies not in the choice between revolution and reform, but in the harmonious blend of both. The world needs entrepreneurs who can navigate this delicate balance, fostering sustainable change that thrives at the speed of trust.

We need to have the courage to push for a revolution, but the patience to know when to gently pull people along. And the wisdom to know the difference between.?

Till next time,?

Peter.?

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