Decade of Courage

With crises looming and intersecting all around us, we stand on the precipice of the real change we can make.

As our guest Stu Hart, co-founder of the Sustainable Innovation MBA, says “When things are up in the air and you enter a period of discontinuity, that’s when there's real opportunity. So, this is a time that we all have to seize that opportunity.”

We couldn’t agree more.

There are positive signs all around us of the momentum in the private sector to embed long-term purpose in companies to serve all stakeholders instead of just driving short-term returns for shareholders. But, we need to get strategic about the leverage points that will tip the scale and move the business community from rhetoric to action.

First, Hart gives us an empowering history lesson that helps us identify the places where we must push for change. We can do so by reconstructing our socially constructed financial system, transforming business schools, embedding purpose in big companies, and partnering with government to co-create sustainable prosperity.

Then, Lorna Davis, former CEO of the $6 billion company Danone North America, shares the journey that Danone took under her leadership in 2017 to become the biggest B. Corp in the world.

Finally, MaryAnne Howland, Founder of the Global Diversity Leadership Exchange, shares the public policies that businesses must push for with their lobbying power to serve the collective good.
 
This episode is jam-packed with interesting, inspiring and thought-provoking information. Be sure to listen through the credits for an important update from Decade of Courage about our plans for next steps.

Visit www.decadeofcourage.com for more resources about the people, policies, histories, and businesses mentioned in this podcast.

If we want to unite movements and build a new vision for our society—and the economy that enables it—we have to understand that, according to our guest Dr. Andre Perry from the Brookings Institution, current events are reflecting the very soul of our country. We must have the courage to look into the mirror to see the long and unquestionable history of inequality and racism built into our system’s very architecture.

Glossing over these realities will not get us to something better. We cannot skip over the step of reckoning with our past—and the ways in which this past still haunts us today. This process of reflection is, in fact, the necessary precursor to a brighter future.

While we long for some solid ground—some certainty—if we can muster the courage to open our eyes wide and look into that mirror, we will see not only an ugly past and present of racist policies, but also the beautiful potential for a functioning Democracy, an accessible American Dream, and a more perfect union. What we will also see is hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of civic siblings, with their eyes wide open, embodying the collective courage to dream of and work towards enduring equity.

This is the family we all need to lean into right now. Liberty and justice for all—this is the vision we need to be marching towards.

And thanks to Randy Strickland from Cornerstone Capital, you’ll leave this episode with tangible steps you can take today—right now—to start walking this path.

Learn more by subscribing to our Courage Collective e-letter at www.decadeofcourage.com.

Our guests Hunter Lovins from Natural Capitalism Solutions and Amanda Janoo from the Wellbeing Economy Alliance help us to expose the gap… more like a chasm, really… between the bedtime story of our economy (Freedom! Perfect markets! A magical balancing act aggregating to the greater good for all!) and the reality of neoliberal economic theory taken to the extreme (Inequality! Climate change! Pandemic!).

What's more, they give us the beginnings of a road map for transforming our economy, and capitalism as we know it, to be in service of the long-term well-being of our ecosystems & communities.

Guest appearance by Ruchi Nadkarni, alum of the Sustainable Innovation MBA at the University of Vermont.

Learn more and subscribe to our Courage Collective e-letter at www.decadeofcourage.com

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With Courage,
Dana Gulley

We have just ten years to reach the climate goals set out by the Paris Agreement and the UN’s global Sustainable Development Goals… and we’re way behind. 

But there’s good news. There’s more momentum in the private sector than ever to make business a force for good.

For too long, outdated corporate capitalism and neoliberal economics have been exacerbating the big problems in our communities and across society. Leadership from the business community could make a big difference. 

But will that difference be big enough? The pandemic and Black Lives Matter uprisings have illuminated the urgent need for transformative change now.

I’m Dana Gulley, host of a new podcast, Decade of Courage.