Which Way to a Brighter Future: Competition or Collaboration?

Partnerships and collaboration are enabling leaders and innovators to adapt to a world in flux. A collaborative mindset can open the door to a diversity of ideas, opinions, and resources, exactly what’s needed for some of our biggest challenges. What does it take to unleash more collaboration to meet the demands of the moment?

This week, we look at examples of those who are driving change, adjusting to new demands, and finding new answers to some of our most pressing questions.

Spotlight: Aligning Strategy and Sustainability

The darkest hours of the pandemic offer a hopeful lesson for leaders tackling challenges like climate change: rapid innovation can be possible through partnership. How common are such partnerships, and what will it take for them to rise to the scale of today’s numerous global challenges?

To answer this question, the?Aspen Institute’s?Business & Society Program?and the?Brunswick Strategy Group?convened “Leaning into Partnership at a Time of Change” on April 16th in New York City.?

This essay discusses the lessons from that gathering, and spotlights two voices on the leading edge of business today who weighed in on this issue: Rob Coviello, Chief Sustainability Officer at Bunge, and Harvard Business School’s Linda Hill.

News Roundup

1. Microsoft’s OpenAI Partnership Was Born From Google Envy?(Engadget: Will Shanklin) As developing technology brings new competitive pressures, how did this company find ways to bolster its position?
2. Eight Newspapers Sue OpenAI, Microsoft for Copyright Infringement?(NPR: Bobby Allyn) And how are other companies coming together to push back against some of the negative impacts of AI?
3. Powering Sustainability Through Partnerships?(INSEAD Knowledge:?L. Felipe Monteiro)?As corporations aim to look “beyond a self-sufficient approach and be much more collaborative in devising ways to meet their sustainability objectives,” how can impact-oriented entrepreneurs work to build partnerships??Also see what Cross-Sector Collaborations Can Learn From Lean Startup Methodology?(Stanford Social Innovation Review:?Vanessa Laird, Kathy Quick, J. Myles Shaver).
4. International Workers’ Day: 3 Ways Trade Unions Are Driving Social Progress?(World Economic Forum: Giannis Moschos) How are workers coming together to push for social progress, sustainability, and workers’ rights? Also see?We Need More Worker Voice When Implementing AI?(New America: Julian Lutz).
5. Can a New Initiative Actually Make Americans Happier??(Fast Company: Joe Berkowitz)?Can these two leaders build a bipartisan effort to improve people’s lives?

Also on Our Radar

What else caught our attention this week?

1. When AI hallucinations?really matter.
2. It’s time for brands to reclaim?bipartisan causes like democracy.
3. Forget trolley problems. How do people really think about?real-world morality and decision-making??

One for the Road

We’d love to hear your ideas, and thanks for reading, forwarding and following. Until next week!

— The Business & Society Program