Protect & Build Better

We've been dealt a crisis and an opportunity. The crisis is something we tragically see all around us, with its clear impact on health, lives and livelihoods.

But we also have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rethink business, and figure out how we can create successful commercial models that serve a bigger, more human and more conscious purpose.

"Protect and Build Better" is a framework for maximising the probability of survival through the crisis and recession, while at the same time building a forward-looking, profitable and purpose-led organisation. Here are its high level principles and the story that shaped it. The story where we nearly lost our company coming out of the crisis.

Bite size reflections on leading through this crisis

We donated 16% of our time to charities in 2020

Purpose can be a real facilitator for growth and profitability. And in turn, growth increases your ability to make impact, while profitability allows the business to serve at a higher level. It's a wonderfully virtuous cycle when you get it right. A beautiful case study of this is Hyphen8, a Salesforce ... Read More

Don’t build a mansion on cardboard foundations

I'm stunned sometimes by how often the basics get overlooked and then bite your business in the most painful way. Founders are often visionaries. We have a dream of what we want to build. We have strategies. Purpose. Missions. Challenge is that the business needs to be continually fuelled while ... Read More

“How do you drive the endless supply of money that is business into doing good?” – Neal Gandhi of The Panoply

This episode of #TheKarmicCapitalist podcast is so back-to-back full of real life, practical lessons that it was nigh-on impossible to fit it into our standard time limit. But that's no surprise. Neal Gandhi and his team have taken The Panoply from a standing start to a publicly listed, £1/4 of ... Read More

The power of values for simplifying

Clear Values Simplify. Company values should do 3 things. Align: clear expectations make decisions easier and more delegatable; Attract: aligned customers, team members and investors; Inspire: creates a platform and belief for positive change. A while back, I was talking to a client about the role of values for his ... Read More

The best companies are communities

With all the talk of servant leadership, we forget the need for servant followership. And that all of that service is to the community. Companies that create the most good run like well functioning communities. And thriving communities work because the collective interest of *all* (aka purpose), is more important ... Read More

Would you give your shares away? It’s about more than karma

Ben Brabyn's had a fascinating career across multiple touchpoints with entrepreneurship. He's ... set up and sold his own company; represented entrepreneurs for global investment at the DTI; headed Level39, London's biggest fintech entrepreneurship hub; created a company to connect entrepreneurs to people who wouldn't typically inhabit that world. This ... Read More

BHAG? Remove half a billion tons of carbon emissions every year

Jan Rippingale's ambitions were never small. At an early age, Jan was looking first to be an astronaut. On the way to president. Ironically, working with John Glenn turned her ambitions away from this, and more towards using technology to create impact. Her chosen area of impact is to reduce ... Read More

Heading back to the business of business is business

Is the business of business just business? And if so, how far does "business" go? Are benefits business? Internal committees? I've always been a fan of the ethos of Basecamp. I love how they simplify. I really like their readiness to do the things that make sense, rather than the ... Read More

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