How to thrive in the new Kindness Economy

What have many businesses done since the Pandemic to thrive compared to those who went under? According to high profile UK entrepreneur Mary Portas in her recent book?Rebuild, the answer lies in those who have stepped up into what she has dubbed the Kindness Economy.

Its key principles are People. Planet. Profit.

In that order.

YES! Profit, create, build, and succeed just not at the expense of the world and humanity. All of our future success is built on inter-connectedness, values, community, and creativity. Based on the extensive research done by London Business School professors and UN consultants Lynda Gratton and Andrew J. Scott in?The 100-Year Life, this is no passing trend. Our future success depends on us becoming ever more adaptable to change, more resourceful, and more creative as technology will only speed up change and make many vocations expendable. Many more pioneers are on the way. Why not you?

1.?“The business advantage will lie with organizations who have compassion and empathy at their core.”

This is not just about ethics.?“The cigarette has no status anymore. And the same thing is happening with the ‘more! more! more! economy.”?Uncontrolled consumerism has been killing our planet. 20 percent of the world’s population are responsible for the consumption of 80 percent of its resources.

?2. Your business will resonate better when it has a broader community vision.

?The narcissist generation focused on individualist ambition is waning in appeal.?“Community and connections: they are both an engine for your business and a measure of its true meaningful value.”

?“An Edelman Trust survey spanning eight countries inc. the US and UK found that 80 per cent of people want brands to solve societal problems.”

The best brands are the ones who make people feel that they are part of something larger.

This is Portas’ expertise. She runs a creative company that turns businesses into brands, places, spaces people want in their lives. She has clients ranging from Mercedes to (UK supermarket giant) Sainsbury’s.?

I saw Scottish entrepreneur James Watt speak eleven years ago in London when he was raising money for his Aberdeen based micro-brewery, BrewDog. It has gone onto be enormously successful with pubs nationwide. He truly puts his money where his mouth is and it ends up also being good for business: “It’s okay if the business fails; it’s not okay if the planet fails.”

?Unilever, one of the largest companies on the FTSE 100 has an initiative to spend 2 billion euros annually with suppliers owned and managed by under-represented groups and net zero carbon emissions by 2030 for its operations.

Patagonia donates ALL its revenue to environmental causes on Black Friday. It is a $1 billion company founded by Yvon Chouinard out of his love of climbing: “At the end of the year, we measure success by how much good we’ve done and what impact we’re having on society, not by profit. Honestly, if you ask me how much money we’ve made in the last year, I would have to look it up. I know that we are extremely profitable.”

3. In the 1980’s every brand wanted to be ‘iconic’. Now they want to be loved.

?“If your business is just about making money it’s hollow and people are far more engaged with business which have social purpose.”?- James Timpson, CEO, Timpson

Mark Constantine, CEO and co-founder of British cosmetics retailer Lush concurs that: “The weird thing is that in business, what we learned in school pretty much works, doesn’t it? Try not to copy anyone, try to be quite nice to each other, try to get along.”?

4.?“Every pound (dollar) we spend – and make – really is a vote for how we want to live.”

Create a ripple effect personally and with your business. Use your humanity – your ability to reflect, adapt and empathize - so you start to question how you consume and buy and how you do business. What world do you want to leave for your children and grandchildren?

And avoid being righteous by criticizing those attempting to make changes imperfectly.

5. Creativity is now the most important business attribute

To thrive in future, you need to stay curious and keep sharpening your creativity. Because technology gets smarter and smarter, Jack Ma, co-founder of the Alibaba Group, one of the world’s most successful businesses, told the World Economic Forum in 2018 that creativity was now the most important attribute for the future. He argued that?“education should prioritize the skills of creativity, humanity, wisdom and ‘being human’ in an age of artificial intelligence.”

Find new ways to do things and find inspiration wherever you can. “When our jobs empower us to be ourselves, to bring all the kindness, compassion and empathy that we manifest in our daily lives, then creative instinct has the oxygen it needs to flourish.”

This is a rare time in human history when we can make “deep change”. It’s a time to innovate and create. Covid taught us how adaptable we are.

Mary Portas exhorts us to embrace the Kindness Economy because it is “a considerate, generous, respectful, humane way of behaving. Kindness isn’t soft. It is powerful.” And profitable.

?To kinder businesses!

Matt

Copyright Matt Anderson, 2023