Comments on: To Be Sustainable Organizations Must Balance Empathy and Power

By: Our simply

Our simply — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 06:38:53 +0000

we should expect more Patagonias and Threadless’s if we believe that long-term objectives will become more and more important for customers and employees alike.

By: hostedtel

hostedtel — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:37:15 +0000

Why do you liken oil company to a business on the basis of the slave? Work for oil company people of nslavedin some way?

By: NinaSimosko.com » Blog Archive » Striking the Right Balance

NinaSimosko.com » Blog Archive » Striking the Right Balance — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:48:54 +0000

[...] it must be properly balanced with power in order for long-lasting, sustainability to be achieved. Karl Long wrote a wonderful piece discussing this balance. Leaders must find a way to appeal to those that they lead and simultaneously command the respect [...]

By: Karl Long

Karl Long — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:12:34 +0000

@stephan that is certainly the way I see it, in the future I can only conceive of organizations that operate in the world in sustainable ways, that are actually stewards of the technology and power that they have.

By: Stephan

Stephan — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:05:53 +0000

Karl, great post! I would be interested to read more about your thoughts on how this balance would look like? Surely differentiated by organizations, but might there be trends?

As you rightly point out in your comment to my post (http://sustainableteams.org/2009/04/13/balancing-empathy-and-power/) you get long-term if you reward long-term.

Empathy being the better tool to deal with “long-term” (do you agree?), we should expect more Patagonias and Threadless’s if we believe that long-term objectives will become more and more important for customers and employees alike.

By: Balancing Empathy and Power « Sustainable Teams: Connecting Voices of Change

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:30:53 +0000

[...] via To Be Sustainable Organizations Must Balance Empathy and Power. [...]

By: Karl Long

Karl Long — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:24:35 +0000

@Rotkapchen exactly, organizations that don’t understand responsibility over the very long term are playing the wrong game IMHO. True responsibility is often not understood by organizations which is why the flame out when they only measure growth. Wall st, ponzie schemes, Enron etc. are just cancer, uncontrolled growth without understanding their impact on the ecosystem they are part of.

By: Rotkapchen

Rotkapchen — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:05:00 +0000

Barbara: “New” is a focus where you assume far less ‘constraints’ in your designs. “Existing” requires that you honor a LOT of stuff already in place. The latter is far more difficult. As such, Pine has outrightly indicated that he does not consider the latter to even be part of his definition. I consider that a rather ‘convenient’ distinction.

Phil: I think what Karl is rightfully bringing out here is the inherent tenancies of companies. Let me just say, after being at this for 3 decades the ‘idealism’ we believe to be possible in terms of companies is HIGHLY dependent on a LOT of variables that are often in conflict with one another within organizations. Wal-Mart is a classic example of these dichotomies. This is a symptom of the cost of ‘good’ vs. the pressures of ‘competition’ (where someone is willing to beat you at the market by shortcutting good behaviors and threaten the very essence of your survival).

In the end, survival is required.

By: Phil Buckley

Phil Buckley — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:53:56 +0000

When you say, “have proportionally more ability to ‘influence behavior’ through power than with empathy” – it doesn’t make sense to me. If you are a powerful company, especially a worldwide company, don’t you have the ability to influence behavior either way?

The other logic problem I have is when you say, “limiting another entities self determination”. No company or individual can limit MY self-determination, only I can. I can choose to let others make me feel as if I’m limited, but really, then it is me limiting myself.

By: Karl Long

Karl Long — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:18:24 +0000

@phil & @Jonathan ahh, maybe you misinterpreted my diagrams. Neither walmart, enron, or the oil companies have ‘negative’ empathy, they just have proportionally more ability to ‘influence behavior’ through power than with empathy. The only example I gave of negative empathy, ie. the empathy bar falls below the x-axis, is slavery.

Believe it or not i’m not saying that walmart, enron, or even wall st are bad businesses, they are, by our definition very good businesses. The problem in my mind is that any strategy to sustain self determination is based upon limiting another entities self determination it is not sustainable.