Shaping a United World by Systemic Design

Delivered on the occasion of the launch of Consulus Slovakia in Bratislava, 19th October 2019

Good evening everyone, it is with joy and honour to be with all of you to do a Nasdravje together to drink and celebrate this moment: the founding of Consulus Slovakia, led by my Brother Stano whom I am grateful to have on our global team as he will lead our projects here and also in Europe. Together with Brothers Tomas, Martin and Peter whom I am proud to serve, Consulus Slovakia is a community of like-minded business leaders and professionals ready to help leaders and companies in Europe innovate and transform with purpose. We will also involve European Consulites in our global projects. Here, I like to also thank Paolo Frizzi, who laid the foundation for our presence in Europe since 2014, without him, we would not be here. 

The spirit in this room is certainly festive but out there, in our world, tensions are rising. Many people have promised easy answers to the challenges of our times. And many of those easy answers to climate change or social inequality take a sharp form of either you are with us or against us. Such easy answers are easy to tweet, to rally but in truth, they deny the fact that the complexity of our challenges require all of us, including the people we hate. 

I was inspired as a youth by a woman leader from Italy. Her name is Chiara Lubich, winner of the Unesco peace prize for education and founder of a world-wide movement for unity called the Focolare. She dreamed of building a united world, where politicians across the divide can come together for good, where people of different classes can ignore their social status and help one another, where people of different faiths can live as one family while respecting the richness of our diversity. My colleagues and I took her dream to heart and decided to live her vision among ourselves. So in a sense, this idea of Consulus which originated in Europe has come home.

Today, we are a global consulting practice of specialists from different disciplines, languages, religious beliefs including those without, all crazy enough to believe that we can further the cause of a united world through consulting. In choosing to follow Chiara’s dream, we have attracted a global following who believe in doing the same. 

I was also fortunate enough to be born in a country that was founded on the principles of “regardless of race, language or religion” It was on this belief that my country, Singapore, was forced to seek a destiny on its own. It was a tiny island with no resources, and one of the poorest nations in the world in 1965. Despite all odds, it managed to unite a diverse people of migrants and indigenous people through systemic design to include everyone from housing to political action to become the world’s most competitive economy. I have witnessed first hand what unity can do when applied with purpose, in solving extreme economic and social problems. Imagine doing this systemically by design all over the world. 

Our world is not short of solutions. Greta Thunberg is right in asking everyone to acknowledge the science and take action. But the greatest obstacle to climate change is the incapacity for common action. This is where it gets complicated because it means making sure that those who have something to lose can gain too. And in any process of change, it is going to take an inclusive and comprehensive approach to make it work. 

So this is where we as a firm have focused our efforts. Management consulting as an industry influences public policy, business decisions for good or for evil in a massive way. The aim of Consulus is to be a systemic force for good through this category of business. 

It is why we are involved in large-scale projects in urban planning, business transformation, leadership development, digital transformation that will have a nett positive effect in shaping a better world. 

You may have heard about the Economy of communion, an idea proposed by Chiara Lubich that is now embraced by companies in 5 continents to shape a culture of giving so that no one is in need. It is our belief that to enable the realisation of the economy of communion means we need to rewrite the rules and practices of the economy in all its forms to enable sustainable inclusion and growth. 

This is why our purpose statement is also our commitment: To be the world’s most influential company in shaping a better and inclusive economic system, by helping leaders, companies and cities discover their better selves by enabling them to become the difference they are meant to be from the inside out.

But the problem with any management consulting practice is, once it grows in scale, it is less motivated to do good. Which is why we operate in a distributed system rather than a centralised one. Our world centre is in Singapore but our Chairman is currently an American, and our various heads of business are in different parts of the world: for example our lead for digital transformation is in New Zealand. Technology has enabled us to find ways to grow larger but also to stay humble in small groups and close to the people we seek to serve. 

The other thing about the consulting business is, it loses that sense of a community as it grows larger so our constant challenge is how to ensure that we are above all a family and willing to stay close to each other. So our weekly, monthly sharing sessions that take place globally, our regional and global schools, such as the one we doing these days, are a very important part of our attempt to always remain true to our calling of shaping a united world, but first starting with ourselves. 

To ensure that we are motivated for the right reasons, we constantly look at our revenue model to ensure that we are still able to serve the smallest enterprises while serving the richest by being able to give heavily discounted fees to the enterprises in need. We believe that this constant practice of ensuring that we have the right motivations will enable us to counsel the rich or powerful so that they too can gain when they make a difference. 

This year we celebrated our 15th anniversary and I have learned something about the people we serve in 15 countries from the Americas to Asia. You may have heard “I think therefore I am” I believe humanity’s best interests lies in recognising the need for each other, that is when our best ideas emerge. In so many innovation and design thinking sessions that we conduct, the best ideas come from moments where people feel welcomed to share ideas and feel compelled to give in order to contribute to that greater good. So a better way to improve the state of our world is how to nurture that “we think therefore we are” 

If there is an enduring legacy that we at Consulus can ever strive to is how have we helped cities, enterprises and leaders think deeper through discovering the richness of each other, enabling them to realise the difference they are meant to be to move the world forward. I hope to do this with each one of you, starting from here in Bratislava to every city in Europe and to the world. 

Thank you