Radical Resilience: Overcoming Obstacles to Corporate Change

Fighting for change from inside an organization’s existing power structures can be both more challenging and more rewarding than external action. What can we learn from the full spectrum of experience, from failure, uncertainty, and success? And what can changemakers do when the system fights back?

This week, we highlight these issues and showcase?Nancy McGaw’s new interview series based on her book,?Making Work Matter , with concrete advice from seasoned corporate innovators. Let’s dig in!

Spotlight:?Insights on Social Intrapreneurship from John Thompson, H&R Block

Are you looking for ways to make meaningful change in your organization but encountering resistance? In?this interview ,?Nancy McGaw ?kicks off a new series with and for corporate innovators. The goal of “Conversations with Intrapreneurs” is to share insights designed to help others overcome obstacles and lead change.?

Here’s Nancy’s intro: “In the first installment of the series, I spoke with John Thompson , an?Aspen First Mover Fellow ?since 2011 and VP of Financial Services at H&R Block, to learn how John is connecting his purpose to his current work. I also invited his advice for those who want to be changemakers in the companies but are facing challenges in these disruptive times when companies are pulling back, reducing costs and staff, and seem to be more resistant to social innovation.”

And as John says, “What I have learned over many years is that there really aren’t that many changemakers in companies. These people are hard to find and unique, and it is actually a power in and of itself to be one who has innovative ideas?– even though it doesn’t always feel that way.”

News Roundup

1. OpenAI Dissolves Superalignment AI Safety Team ?(CNBC: Hayden Field) “Over the past few months my team has been sailing against the wind.” What determines whether employees tack into that wind or jump ship?
2. Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe ?(ProPublica: Sharon Lerner)?This story played out decades ago. What, if anything, would be different for this employee today?
3. A Corporate Law Scholar Chimed In on Elon Musk’s Pay Vote. It Cost Him His Job. ?(WSJ: Ben Foldy)?Is transparency on conflicts like this one enough to support those speaking out??(gift link)
4. Exxon Feels the Heat as More Investors Assail Its Climate Conduct ?(Bloomberg: Tim Quinson, Kevin Crowley)?How should activists proceed when they come up against what’s characterized as?“a decades-long strategy of climate denial, disinformation and delay”??(gift link;?also listen to?The Coordinated Attack on Shareholder Activism )
5. Business Education Is Broken ?(Harvard Business Publishing Education: Andrew J. Hoffman)?“The era of strict adherence to shareholder primacy is coming to an end.”?As the world begins to ask new questions about the purpose of business, how can business schools prepare students to join the debate?

Also on Our Radar

What else caught our attention this week?

• Paying for Restoring Trust at Boeing
• Some good news!?An $11 Billion Passive Fund Upends ESG Dogma and Trounces Peers
• Looking for great summer reads (and views)? Bill Gates has you covered .

One for the Road

Thanks for reading, forwarding and following. Onward!

— The Business & Society Program