Ashridge Centre for Business and Sustainability

Leading Organisations of Tomorrow One-Day Symposium - 14 Oct 2010, Westminster

A one-day symposium for talent management, organisational change, and learning and development professionals, asking the questions 'What will be the context facing tomorrow's leaders and organisations, and how can we help develop them to meet the challenge?'

In 2009 Ashridge published Developing the Global Leader of Tomorrow, for the United Nations and led in partnership with the Academy of Business in Society to identify the capacities required of leaders to meet the major global challenges of the 21st Century. The capabilities required were summarized under three headings: Context, Connectedness, Complexity. This year Ashridge is building on the outcomes of that report and asking how organisations that are leading their sectors in responding to the ‘triple context’ - such as HSBC, IBM, Ernst & Young, Interface and others - are developing these capacities and uncovering some highly innovative and exciting learning practices and approaches.

On October 14th 2010 we shared some early findings from this work with professionals from the fields of talent management, leadership development and organisational change and thought leaders including Will Hutton of the Work Foundation, Brian Hoskins of the Climate Change Committee, Tony Manwaring of Tomorrow's Company, David Cooperrider of Case Western Reserve University and Goran Carstedt, former President of Ikea North America. Read more about the symposium here.

Drawing on data from the UN Global Compact-Accenture 2010 CEO Study, Ashridge and EABIS have led an analysis of CEO perspectives on management education for the UN PRME. Key findings include:

• 93% of CEOs now believe sustainability will be critical to the future success of their companies.
• 88% believe educators and business schools need to develop the mindsets and skills for future leaders to address sustainability.
• They believe this is the second most important change that could be made to reach a tipping point where sustainability is embedded in the core business strategies of the majority of companies globally (of a similar order of importance as changing customer demand and the actions of the investment community and government regulation).
• 86% believe their companies should invest in enhanced training of managers to integrate sustainability.

Read the full analysis here

Three new articles from Ashridge faculty on sustainability

Three new articles from Nick Ceasar, Alexandra Stubbings, Chris Nichols and Chris Seeley have recently been published in Converse, the journal of Ashridge Consulting, giving accounts of some of Ashridge's recent work on sustainability with clients. The Converse Sustainability Supplement contains the following articles:

• From Light Bulbs to Light Bulb moments - Creating the conditions for sustainable change
• Changing Conversations in a Changing Climate - Ashridge Consulting's work with the environmental think tank The Green Alliance, supporting parliamentarians to meaningfully engage with climate change
• How to Look Deeper - An overview of a one week workshop led by Ashridge Consulting and Schumacher College exploring profound questions about business: what is it for, and how might it be re-envisioned

New Ashridge research on sustainability and organisational change

To explore the question – How do we successfully effect change towards sustainable business practice? Ashridge has launched an action research inquiry, bringing together sustainability and CSR professionals from sector-leading businesses to research effective practice within their own organisations and identify actions for achieving more ambitious and far reaching change.

Alexandra Stubbings, the inquiry's facilitator, says "taking an Action Research approach to this inquiry enables us to not only explore, in detail, the conditions that lead to successful change, but also uncovers new opportunities for experimentation and innovation. The very process of asking new questions in our organisations can prompt new thinking, and that's what successful engagement with environmental and social responsibility requires".

So far the inquiry group includes representatives from Banking, Technology, Manufacturing, FMCG, Retail and Media, as well as Ashridge itself. The group is planning to publish its initial findings towards the end of this year.

If you'd like to know more about the research or are interested in participating, contact Alexandra at alexandra.stubbings@ashridge.org.uk.