9

What You See Is What You Get

It’s a new day, and rush hour is underway. In cities everywhere, the expanded bikeways are bustling with riders on their morning commutes, while an increasing proportion of electric cars whizz along the freeways. Across the globe, vastly expanded and energy-efficient public transit systems that intelligently address capacity based on passenger flow are full of riders on superfast Internet connections, enjoying media, watching the news, playing games, or catching up on work. A business executive studies an energy balance report to see how much power his company’s solar panels have put back into the grid this week. A student in a prestigious international virtual university is playing a multiuser networked game that improves her leadership skills. A new grandmother makes faces at her infant grandson halfway across the world.

Drivers reenergize their electric cars and their mobile devices at small, efficient, and convenient charging spaces, while smart thermostats and energy meters silently and swiftly exchange information across the Internet of Things, winding down consumption in balance with weather and conditions as people leave—and enter—their homes and offices. A combination of intelligent-system capacity management and the discovery and increasing affordability of new sources of energy, as well as incentives for saving and trading it between people and organizations, makes electricity a more abundant resource than it has ever been before.

Fresh, healthy food is also abundant. The sun shines brightly on broad patchworks of localized urban farms conveniently positioned within city greenbelts and on reclaimed land. The harvests they produce are delivered to local markets and shops, and are augmented by fresh imports from overseas, delivered in bulk, maximizing not only the price efficiency of economies of scale, but also energy efficiency, a fact that appears in labeling so consumers can consider it as they make their choices.

Biofuels grow on reclaimed brownfields, and subarctic boreal pine forests are preserved, nurtured, and spread ever further south, to encourage their global-warming-fighting aerosols to flourish. Biodiversity of flora and the fauna they support—insects, small animals, birds—spread into cities and suburbs, in parks, in yards, on rooftops, ensuring not only a more pleasant environment for everyday life, but supporting and sustaining the planet’s overall ecosystem.

Recycling becomes more automatic, efficient, and local, returning commodity materials like paper to economically viable, inexpensive, disposable, and reusable resources.

Even recycled water becomes commonplace, with common standards of gradation known by all: water for cleaning, water for growing, water for drinking. Advances in desalination, powered by wave energy and solar energy, drive resurgent oceanfront economies, and agribusiness expands into the deserts.

Re-shored and re-localized manufacturing stimulates economic growth everywhere, minimizes fuel consumption, and puts consumer-centric design in direct proximity with manufacturing, creating a virtuous cycle of continuous product and operational improvement. Smaller-scale factories and workshops are integrated with virtualized education and wellness programs, ensuring the vitality, well-being, and subsequent productivity and loyalty of their local workforce.

Videoconferencing is portable, and it’s everywhere. Virtual presence and virtual intimacy have made collaboration across time and space nearly effortless, much less expensive, and in some cases even more effective than being together in person, because diverse teams can not only bring multiple perspectives, but multiple and simultaneous contexts to the table.

The evaporation of privacy has reversed course. Companies compete to deliver the most privacy and the greatest security as they depend ever more on constant connection to customers. Peer-to-peer networking has become ubiquitous, meaning no one ever needs to rely on solely traditional network subscriptions in order to be connected. Network operators become peer-to-peer facilitators.

As human rights spread successfully across the globe, the issue of data rights emerges as a new battleground. Data about each person is available to him or her, and companies encourage people to access and use it on their own behalf. The data-mining script has flipped—the power of big data is in the hands of individuals who choose when and where to share who they are and what their needs are, to attract companies, brands, and products that meet their needs.

Customers vote with their wallets, their purchases, and their voices on social media, sanctioning those products, services, and companies that best represent their own values, because it’s easier than ever before to understand the connection between their choices and the impact those choices have on their world. Most people buy less stuff than they once did, but invest instead in rich experiences that enhance the thrill of being alive. From restaurants to sports to learning and even investing, experiences are what people value, seek out, remember, brag about. Travel increases, but not just to relax and decompress. People increasingly travel to learn, to make new friends, to help restore communities, to give something back, to add meaning to their lives, and to gain status among their friends. This last one—status—may seem out of step with conscientiousness. But in fact it’s key to it. Adventurous, life-enhancing experiences (not unlike philanthropy) are on the rise as desirable signifiers of social status, and social status is one of the core motivations driving the Conscience Economy. Conscience, after all, is social.

Sensors on wearable smart devices continuously monitor personal biometrics, transmitting vital information directly to physicians, pharmacists, wellness coaches, nutritionists, and other health-care providers, taking strain off the system and making better health accessible to more people than ever before. Through social media, patients share experiences and advice in real time, forming larger alliances to give them health-care purchasing power and to lobby health providers for innovative and improved treatment options. Because so many health-care processes are disintermediated through mobile biosensors, a continuous stream of diagnostic information, and improved automation, doctors, nurses, and patients are able to be closer than ever before when it really matters, whether in person or through videoconferencing.

People no longer feel the need to always be plugged in, as intelligent automation makes it possible for online profiles and processes to temporarily self-manage while we disconnect. Everyday connected technology is less invasive, more glanceable, and easier to time shift. The culture places a high value on mindfulness, physical presence, and the pleasure of live experience. The new etiquette requires being physically and totally present with others in the moment. There are even establishments that prohibit connectivity and facilitate unplugging.

Elite luxury brands in fashion, automotive, food, and hospitality continue to represent the extremes of our aspirations, which now include sustainability and ethical production, fuel efficiency, and alternative energy. Sustainable and ecologically aspirational five-star resorts attract guests who enjoy the temporary and highly curated experience of living in balance with the world without any sense of compromise; rather, it feels like a luxurious and aspirational privilege. Recirculated water for endless hot showers is fresh and clean. Hydroponic food is grown so locally that it’s harvested from rooftops—it is picked off the plant and prepared before your eyes by a chef and his students who are participating in a training program that provides them with professional skills. Fashion is ethically sourced and produced, reintroducing and increasing the market value of quality and, increasingly, local craftsmanship. The most prestigious cars are more fuel efficient than ever before, combining advanced engineering with built-in intelligence. Fine wines are dry farmed and biodynamic. Cuisine is not only based on organic and local ingredients but produced as part of a nutritional or career education program, helping formerly disadvantaged people get on their feet. But aspirational and conscientious luxury extends beyond its traditional categories, encompassing bicycles, home appliances, and more.

Alternative forms of ownership, sharing, and value exchange have given rise to new and sometimes temporary currencies. Money is no longer the only way people trade. Buying is simply one way of getting something. Sharing and trading—cars, living spaces, skills—is enabled by new branded services that empower people to personalize the value they place on things and experiences.

Business ethics and conscientious operations are a purchase driver, as access to information has made citizens everywhere aware of costs they ultimately carry on behalf of business. From conflict-free sourcing to environmental restoration, ethical certification bodies are augmented by customers, citizens, and workers themselves, who can effortlessly contribute their observations and experiences of company behavior and facilities, creating real-time process and safety monitoring. Supplier codes of conduct, once difficult to enforce, become self-sustaining as information supplied by both connected sensors and human beings makes monitoring easier.

Everyday philanthropy—automatically giving to others by buying a product or subscribing to a service—has become a natural and, to some individuals, even a competitive instinct. Brands compete to integrate the sexiest and most impactful—and brag-worthy—acts of generosity into their product offerings. Meanwhile, brand activism—business using its economic leverage to influence hot public issues from human rights to health—has made the world’s leading brands into heroes of the mass movement for good.

Everyone is empowered to be both teacher and student, mentor and protégé. Mass education is a hot new form of mass media. Sharing information, advice, and learnings from personal and professional life experience is not only a popular pastime, it’s built into employee development programs, mass education, and even shopping scenarios. A customer immediately learns how others have deployed a service before she subscribes, and once she’s in, she has a range of mentors who help her get the most out of it. A young entrepreneur in Latin America can learn in real time from a successful mentor in Scandinavia. The exchange of knowledge not only produces business value for the learner, it produces social credit and status for the teacher.

In the Conscience Economy, all business activity contributes to a global, upward spiral. Contributing goodness into society is not just about reputation management, risk mitigation, or cause marketing. Contributing goodness opens up new markets for talent, innovation, and customers. It stabilizes those markets and enables them to grow. It protects and strengthens that which business requires in order to exist: people and resources. Goodness is a wellspring of profit itself.

Wanting It

The Conscience Economy is no guarantee. We have to want it, and we have to work for it. When you boil it all down, there are two ways things could go. One scenario—the one where we let things proceed without a visionary intent to steer our world toward safety—is pretty ominous. The other is enlightened and encouraging, a world we’d be proud to say we’d done our part to usher in. A world that we’d be gratified to hand to future generations.

Perception shapes reality. What is yours? Is your glass of we’re-running-out-of-water half empty? Do you see a scenario where it all goes wrong—widening gaps between rich and poor, new diseases, new conflicts, polar meltdown, and more? Or is your glass of desalinated, mineral-rich recycled water half full? Do you see increasing quality and length of life, emerging technologies and alternative energy sources, new value systems, and an unprecedented opportunity to make things better?

Concern about potentially catastrophic global outcomes has catalyzed a shift. But optimism is what will ultimately fuel the transformation of our world, and business success within it. It all starts with belief in possibility. What we see is what we’ll get.

But it will mean defying certain aspects of our nature as human beings. A close friend recently took a daylong wilderness survival course. She’s the last person I would have expected to do such a thing, as she’s more Four Seasons than four-wheel drive. But she’s also inherently curious, and although I too am unlikely to find myself lost in the woods (at least literally—metaphorically, I’m game) she eagerly shared with me one of the most surprising things she learned on her night in the wilds of Northern California’s Marin Headlands.

It’s about what you do first if you find yourself lost in the wilderness. Before you do anything else, you seek—or build—shelter, relief from the elements of cold, heat, and weather. Essentials like water and food come after—you can survive for a bit without them, but not without shelter.

This is ancient obviousness. We evolved to stay alive, and more often than not, staying alive is about putting a roof over our heads and keeping it there. It’s about going with the flow, staying aligned with values of your community. Not sticking out. Not taking risks. It perhaps goes without saying that the best course of action is to avoid getting lost in the wilderness in the first place.

But most of us also intuitively know that continual risk avoidance is not only impossible, but that it invites other dangers.

“All progress,” as the eminently PowerPointable George Bernard Shaw quote goes, “depends upon the unreasonable man”—and woman, I’d add. In other words, as a society, we need people who have resisted the impulses of millennia of evolutionary adaptation. In order for society to move forward, we need people who resist the genetically circumscribed allure of safety. “I know this,” you’re thinking, “but I just don’t want it to be me.” Yup.

What a delicious paradox: we are born to seek safety and comfort by sticking with what we know, and yet ultimately, our safety and comfort require at least some people to push beyond the boundaries of what’s safe and comfortable.

And so it’s a relief that, as with all things human, there are indeed exceptions to the keep-your-head-down norm. There are people who seem to make audacity a way of life. Adrenaline junkies and rogue traders, for example. They boldly break out of norms, make high-risk decisions on a regular basis, and swagger through newspapers and business media. But more often than not, we learn of these individuals when the consequences of their actions have caused newsworthy harm. And thus, in the news and through popular memes, we are reminded that many of these individuals put their physical well-being, their families, and entire organizations in harm’s way via their personal bias for going against the grain. The perils of derring-do are continually reinforced.

There are of course heroic exceptions too—Rosa Parks and her society-shaking bus ride come to mind. For good reason, we idolize Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs, every Nobel Prize winner. No matter what our personal belief system, every one of us either consciously or subconsciously maintains an inner hagiology, a list of iconic people who inspire us.

We especially admire those heroes who push social values and behaviors into the realm of greater fairness for all. We put them on pedestals because they are not like the rest of us. For religious people, these pioneers may even be seen as divine. It’s like we just know, deep inside, that true heroes are fundamentally different from normal people. Because in general, we human beings just aren’t designed to be risk takers.

Seismic Instability

Rarer even than an individual risk taker is an organization willing to truly lean forward into the unseeable and unknown.

Even the seemingly agile and unstoppable Silicon Valley new elite tend to focus on what they know, on the more familiar and comfortable terrain of “digital disruption.” What appears to be radical West Coast risk taking is often simply (and admirably) an operational model that follows prescribed ideologies and behavioral patterns within a highly regionalized and contextually specific culture. In the innovation centers of the world, those cities and regions with a far higher-than-average number of well-funded start-ups, it is normal to disrupt, to digitize, to virtualize, to fund, to have unwavering faith in an ever more digital tomorrow—and the wealth-generating valuation that will come with it.

But these beliefs and behaviors are not about embracing what’s difficult. The culture of innovation that thrives in Silicon Valley is about unfettered and unrealistic optimism. Because it’s common knowledge that North America’s West Coast has an unspecified but utterly inevitable date with destiny. The region’s appealing landscape of mountains and coast, and indeed the valley itself, was formed by the activity of fault lines that will ultimately do what fault lines do: shift. The most innovative business culture in the world is built on literally shaky ground.

This is no mere coincidence. The seismic instability of the West Coast, combined with its agreeable climate, has produced a live-for-today mentality, a get-it-done-now mind-set. Its relative geographic isolation from most of the population centers of the world has generated a sequestered culture of doing things differently. Into this mix, throw a cluster of intellectual powerhouse universities and the world-class engineering talent they attract, and you get world-changing, investment-attracting innovation.

The point is this: no matter how much we idolize the notion of “visionary,” of “change agent,” of “risk-taking innovator,” the simple fact is that we are not programmed to do it. And because organizations are made up of people, it’s even harder for organizations to do it.

Thankfully, although we may be stubbornly committed to comfort and security, we humans are eminently adaptable as a species. And the one instance in which human beings do tend to make dramatic changes is when we have no alternatives. When our individual survival depends on change, change is what we do. Heart attack survivors tend to willingly and immediately alter their diets. Addicts who survive their “rock bottom” event have a greater likelihood of conquering their addiction than those who know they’re addicted but haven’t experienced the full negative consequences. We’ll even change our deeply held beliefs if the circumstance is challenging enough. I know avowed atheists who’ve admitted to praying their way through a bout of particularly rough in-flight turbulence.

This ability to change in the face of drastic consequences seems less true of organizations. Even when there’s clearly no viable alternative, when the strategy is outdated, the business model defunct, and the sales trends inexorably down, most organizations still struggle to adapt.

Adapting

I worked with a company that fell into deep trouble. The firm had been the leader in the mobile technology category for so long that it had lost all organizational memory of how it got there in the first place. It had grown used to enjoying a double-digit share advantage over its closest competitor. As a long-time veteran of the organization once confided to me, “We all used to have cake and champagne every Friday to celebrate how we had beaten our sales targets.”

More than ten years of virtually unchallenged growth meant that the company had learned how to be a giant within the context of a particular global environment. It developed a culture of rigorous operational excellence, a focus on maintaining disciplined processes across the whole business. And it fostered a system of decision making based on consensus. By ensuring group input, often bottom-up, on every strategic or operational or talent management choice, it kept things stable.

In this environment, where the company was essentially a machine of operational excellence, employee satisfaction was paramount. Happy workers kept the system humming along smoothly, without tension. Consequently, employee discomfort was grounds for a tough management review. To put it simply, the way things worked was working; in most cases and for years it was working brilliantly. To disrupt the system would have created friction, slowed the production line, and clogged the sales channel. It was a massive engine churning out product and profit. For years.

And then the world changed.

The business experienced a protracted version of a heart attack and a car crash simultaneously. The catalyst: a deadly combination of an outdated software platform, new high-speed and hungry competitors in the business category, and a total redefinition of consumer expectations. It was fascinating to see the difference between the expression of individual perspectives (“We desperately need to do things differently”) and the party line on organizational behavior (“But that’s just not the way we do it here”).

There were, of course, individuals and even board-level leaders who saw potential disaster looming. But even they, with their visionary speeches and dramatic invocations for all to adapt, were not able to guide the company through the necessary transformation.

This is not because they were untalented leaders. In fact, some of the most compelling leaders I have met and worked with were part of this company. The tricky truth is that the clear signs of future profit erosion manifested themselves at a time when sales volume was still far ahead of the closest competitor. The organizational systems were still driving shareholder value, even though its efficacy was about to expire.

Point fingers if you will. But I know of no leading organization that would have done things any differently.

That’s because strong organizations have strong cultures, and strong cultures tend to prioritize their continuation, not their adaptation, even in the face of impending disaster. Without the contextual preconditions for constant learning and adaptation, and concrete reward systems in place for new ideas, almost any organization is doomed to fail in the face of dramatic business disruption.

I have often wondered whether the demise of some companies is simply an inevitable and natural occurrence in the larger scheme of things, almost like shifting weather patterns or global immigration shifts. It’s certainly painful to be part of a company lurching to keep up. It’s even more painful when things don’t work out. But once the end happens, the talent (and the patents) can move on to more fertile ground for productivity and value growth.

Still: the reason for this cautionary tale is simple. Whether part of the natural flow or not, demise can be avoided if your organization faces the music early on, and is willing to disrupt its own current success in favor of a future lifespan.

Here’s the thing: when an individual “fails” (crashes the car, crashes the marriage, has a sudden life-threatening health crisis) and survives, she is highly likely to adapt. But when an organization fails, it’s far less likely that it even can survive. And what’s more, perhaps it’s not even necessary for every organization to survive change. After all, the average lifespan of a company is approximately forty years, less than a human life. The lessons learned will leave the building with its departing talent and be applied elsewhere. A vibrant business ecosystem—and consequently a vibrant economy—is nurtured by disruptive weather patterns of growth and decline and the subsequent redistribution of skills, points of view, talent, experience.

This is not to suggest giving up on organizational change. Far from it. As individuals, as leaders, as citizens, and as family members and participants in life on earth, we have no choice but to aspire to thrive in it. In other words, we must overcome our nature. As individuals first, and then as organizations, and ultimately, as the largest organization there is: all humanity.

Adapting sucks. It’s just not fun to move away from what’s comfortable. Business is addicted to its current behavior, and why wouldn’t it be, when that behavior has been rewarding, at least for business itself. I have seen up close what happens when a society moves on, and a business is unable to cure itself of old habits and outdated assumptions, when it hangs on to those means of generating profit that it knows best, regardless of the signs of decrepitude and ill health that loom. After all, weaning a whole system off its behaviors is even harder than quitting an unhealthy behavior as an individual.

However, the call to action—the desire to make a positive difference in the world—is intensely motivating for individuals. Optimism and passion are infectious, spreading from person to person through conversations, through pride in achievements, and most potently, through the direct experience of the consequences of our actions. Change on a massive scale is far from impossible.

The inspiration to transform our assumptions and our behavior has never been more important than it is right now. We all face a significant moment in our evolution as a species and as stewards of life on earth for future generations.

If it seems utopian to imagine a culture and an economy driven by an inner sense of right and wrong, consider some very obvious examples of conscientious progress.

There was a time when there were no road signs, no international standards for how to travel. There were no speed limits (how fast could your horse go?) and there were no fines for breaking rules that put others’ lives at stake. Today, in any developed country, there are recognizable, internationally standardized rules, signs, and symbols that evolved to balance the exigencies of transport with the safety of individuals. There are slight variations between countries, but there are more or less international standards that are intended to protect everyone’s well-being.

There was a time not long ago where anyone could smoke anywhere, regardless of the impact on social health systems. It would have been hard to imagine that a movement to curtail the public use of such a profitable and addictive drug would sweep through global capitals. But the sentiment for public well-being prevailed.

There was a time when it made sense to limit knowledge and access to facts to an elite few, who would keep the information to themselves and use it to keep the social infrastructure and economic hierarchy in place. It would have been unthinkable for investors, who enjoyed the benefits of knowledge scarcity, to fund the creation of a technology that provided knowledge abundance to all. Yet it happened. Because in the emerging Culture of Conscience, everyone has the right to all knowledge.

The pace of change is neither slowing nor steadying. It’s accelerating. It’s built entirely on a shift in our beliefs—about what is important, what is fair, what is good. What we believe is who we become. And that defines—and redefines—everything we do.

This is no overstatement. We only need to look back about two decades, to the dawn of the digital revolution, to remember that a mere evolution of a far older technology—the browser-accessible Internet—thrust business into a new ecology with a new set of rules, and a new lineup of winners and losers. Google did not exist two decades ago. Social media was a seemingly utopian innovation, little more than a headline on a PowerPoint slide, just nine years ago.

From Culture to Economy

Our understanding of the dynamics of the culture we inhabit should never be taken for granted, nor should we assume things to be static and continuous. When culture changes, everything changes with it. Culture instigates economics, not vice versa.

Think about it. You and I have spent our whole lives participating in a system of value exchange that feels predetermined and entrenched. The economy is what the economy is, it would seem. But the means and ways in which trade is conducted are far more mutable than we allow ourselves to believe, even if we accept the notion academically. Money is a human invention. Value and how it is activated and exchanged is contrived. Pre-Columbian people threw tons of gold into a sacred lake; because they had so much of it, its ritual symbolic value was activated by disposing of it (in effect, a form of exchange, albeit with their gods). It was the conquering Spanish who trawled the lake and filled their coffers with their European-assigned value to the commodity. Things hold value because we collectively agree that they do, no more, no less. Value is not intrinsic. It’s manufactured. It’s belief based.

Perhaps the possibility of allowing ourselves to see the deeper truth—which is that value itself is merely born of assumptions and beliefs—is threatening because it pulls the rug out from under everything we think we know. To consider that we’ve erected a civilization on sand that is ever shifting can certainly be unnerving. That our business is ultimately reliant on relationships held together by assumptions and beliefs—which of course can change more rapidly than “hard” infrastructure—might seem like a philosophical indulgence rather than an opportunity.

But personally, I find this notion empowering, because it means we can change things for the better. It means that we can and should steer our world. A system that cannot provide for us all fairly and sustainably simply doesn’t have to hold dominion over us. And that includes business and how it’s conducted.

Culture is at the root of everything we think, say, and do—and that, by definition, includes how and what and why we buy and sell. I’m not using the word “culture” in the sense of artistic sophistication, but in the sense of a totality of commonly held beliefs, ideas, and behaviors. Our culture is, at its most basic, our way of life. And as our way of life changes, that which we value and trade changes too. It’s an easy argument to make, but the implications are significant. Because in this era of continuous instability and change, the very nature of business and capital are likely to shift as well. We’ve grown accustomed to (and perhaps fatigued by) the constant drumbeat on climate change. Less portentous, but equally serious, is the very real possibility of similarly dramatic economic change, driven by the dramatic change in values and beliefs, and the growing power of people to act on their beliefs.

Growing

There is a growing anti-growth movement. (Say that five times fast.) Growth naysayers suggest that growth in the capitalist and economic sense is not viable in the long term because our planet’s resources are limited, and is even toxic and dangerous in the short term because the quest for growth promotes ruthless exploitation of natural resources and human beings. They argue that growth as an economic engine and investor motivation is ultimately toxic and outdated, and that it’s time to abandon growth as the goal and focus on maintaining balance and equilibrium.

It’s not just a radicalized notion, either. The volume of the anti-growth conversation is cranking up, along with its mainstream legitimacy. You hear it at dinner tables, over drinks, and even, sometimes, in corporate conference rooms. It’s usually framed as a question, as in: “Is continuous growth really the answer?”

Though its intent may be honorable, I find this concept deeply troubling. To me, there aren’t many words or concepts more beautiful and more biomimicry-friendly than growth. Nurture an acorn, and it grows into an oak. Calcium helps our children grow strong. Throughout our lives, we seek to grow in experience and wisdom. Our relationships grow deeper. Our knowledge grows richer. And so on. But of course, cancer grows too. Growth can be sinister, and it can kill. So the question is, do we seek value in destructive and exploitative growth, or beneficial and healthy growth? Growth is not something to be against. Growth is something to redefine.

Take sub-Saharan Africa. What contradictions! Poverty, hunger, conflict, and corruption generate almost unimaginable suffering for many. It’s simultaneously replete with virtually untapped human talent and energy, abundant resources, and spectacular natural beauty. Not to mention a dynamic and burgeoning tech start-up scene. Africa’s got it all. And do we even need to remind ourselves that it’s our ancestral motherland? It’s easy to get romantic about the continent, and in a way that’s to its detriment. In the United States, in Europe, in many parts of the world, we sum it up, as I just did, as a cliche.

Dynamic growth in Africa actually isn’t automatically in the best interests of Africa, although it should and could be. At its worst, it sustains the status quo while extracting what’s valuable from a financially inexpensive environment and monetizes it overseas. This kind of growth—I’d call it exploitative—doesn’t incentivize the region to solve its problems, and I believe it (and every market) can and must be incentivized to solve its own problems; indeed, as long as any region full of resources remains underdeveloped, overhead stays low and foreign profit stays high. Call it an oversimplification and you might be right. But it’s the distillation of an uncomfortable truth, and you can apply the business formula in every “emerging” market. We don’t like to acknowledge the paradoxical formula of exploitation and aid because it sounds like idealistic (read: unrealistic) hippie stuff, and it all just seems too unsolvable. Meanwhile, we can assuage a bit of nagging guilt with the occasional philanthropic donation or by attending a pop music concert. And anyway, aren’t we creating jobs for those people?

But let’s take the long view. Can we even envision an Africa that is not an emerging market or a historically troubled set of societies, an Africa that has all the hallmarks of fairness, political stability, health, and knowledge? Put aside for a moment recent projections that suggest it will take more than a generation before most African children will even have a basic education. Put aside the rampant political corruption, deadly tribal conflicts, sexism, and homophobia. What if Africa were the most vibrant marketplace on the planet, a hotbed of new ideas about everything from alternative energy to sustainable agribusiness to entertainment?

Put aside your bias about whether this is realistic or not. Anything is possible. Here’s an example: When you read the word Rwanda, what do you think about? What picture comes to mind? The answer is usually: genocide and gorillas. You probably do not picture banking, or business at all. The genocide that we associate with the country ended more than twenty years ago. And today, Rwanda’s expressed goal is to become the Singapore of Africa, the most business-friendly country in the entire region. It has all but eliminated corruption, and it is attracting billions in investment. It is not a perfect place, but it is a far better place—for Rwandans. Business is the catalyst.

I have intentionally not put a time frame on our African vision, but I’m willing to bet that things will improve faster than most people expect. Lagos is already becoming a hotbed of technology entrepreneurship. (For a glance at the new Africa, just take a look at Co-Creation Hub Nigeria, among other tech incubators.) Because unlike in centuries past, Africa (and every other high-growth market) will not be doing it alone—the pressures and the opportunities of deeper engagement with the global economy will drive its progress. Already, Forbes reports that the rate of return on foreign investment in Africa is 9.3 percent, beating both developed nations’ and the world average. Indeed, there could well be a time—and who wouldn’t hope for it?—when what we used to patronizingly call the Third World and now call High-Growth Economies exceeds their, and our, most hopeful dreams. Obviously, this will be great for citizens of today’s impoverished nations. And it will also be great for business. New marketplaces for more products and services. Educated populations become new wellsprings of innovation and entrepreneurship—in health, education, finance, manufacturing, food, water desalination, forestry. I know from years of working in the mobile phone industry that when you solve a problem for people in emerging markets, you create low-cost, high-value innovation that’s useful everywhere.

For emerging markets, the journey from today’s reality to a happier and healthier scenario is a journey of growth. Growth, with the right motivations and principles in place, is great. It can and must make human lives better while enabling a thriving environment of restorable natural resources.

Optimism needs to be nurtured and managed. It requires an environment in which it is okay to be optimistic even in the face of seemingly impossible challenges. It even needs a bit of healthy magical thinking. It is rooted in faith, and it thrives on the celebration of even the most incremental of wins. Ultimately, it is up to you how you express yourself and how you lead others. If you believe in the power of the Conscience Economy to transform your business and the world for good, you have already taken the first and most crucial step of all. From here on out, it’s just another step at a time.

• Be an evangelist for the Conscience Economy. Integrate social and environmental impact into every speech and business statement you make, to employees, to the media, to industry associations. Be as transparent about shortcomings as you are about successes.
  
  
• Don’t just join one of the array of business consortiums that advocate for social and environmental sensibility, lead one of them. Or create a new and even more visionary one.
  
  
• Identify one area of the Conscience Economy where your business can truly stand out from your competition, make it your goal to excel in that area, and do it. It could be anything from sourcing strategy to production to the development of new conscientious business models.
  
  
• Establish a cross-functional strategic task force tasked with establishing a Conscience Economy vision for your company, make it accountable to senior management, and rotate your emerging talent through it.

The mass movement for good is great for people. And it’s great for resources. And that’s ultimately why the Conscience Economy is great for business.

Is there any other option?