Jump to
Latest Essays and social media posts
Rankings, awards, certificates - there are numerous employer labels that distinguish companies as good employers. But much of it is "good washing", as an analysis by the Research Institute for Work and Working Environments at the University of St. Gallen shows.
Is “Business Ethics” an oxymoron? No. Commercial performance and ethics are by no means incommensurable —but they ask fundamentally different questions.
After 50 years of “new work” and countless restructurings, agile transformations and yoga classes, we appear to be stuck in a hellish swamp of good intentions: better work remains squarely out of sight…
Chances are that someone has gifted you one of those multi-coloured, slogan-rich “airport” management books that often come with “washing lists” of highly critical characteristics of successful leaders....
In spite of millions of hours spent on corporate coaching in the last few decades it appears that neither the world has become much wiser, nor that our societies or organisations are flourishing more.
Latest Books
Introduction
Why now?
For decades, leaders have been trying to fix the mess they have created. Despite numerous initiatives, from Human Potential to Agility, the suffering, inequality and damaging of our planet appears to continue. We believe it is time for a new approach. The “anything goes” narrative of our postmodern world cannot be uphold. Our economy is not separate from society. Our life is not separate from work. We need to re-learn to put humanity first and craft “good organisations” that stop our suffering and enable human flourishing.
Postscript: The single purple flower superimposed on the "flower of life" is meant to symbolise how individual and collective flourishing are intertwined, and how as humans we can only truly live our individuality in a caring and compassionate togetherness. Purple is the colour of spirituality and nobility
We believe today's world is complex and defies simple answers. Unsurprisingly, recipes for improvement are often fragmented, siloed and not evidence-based. At the same time, change-ready practitioners require credible advice to reform their organisations and societal change needs a common narrative to scale. Hence, our approach is threefold: 1) We intend to enable a global community and dialogue among inspirational freethinkers, to hold and explore the critical questions of our organisations today. 2) We then will seek to harvest, integrate and crystallize the thinking into an evolving theory of "good organisations" to be validated with interested researchers. 3) Finally, we will write up what we have learned - preferably in an easily digestible format with a compelling narrative of hope. And share our inspirations in a “Salon” of humanistic leaders who are willing to make a positive difference in their organisations
What is a "Good" organisation? And what is stopping our organisations to be good in our current economic system? How do we change the context, especially if we assume that CSR (and similar initiatives) are not really working? How can organisations operationalise "goodness"? What are the most important levers, practices and initiatives to enable flourishing and foster moral and responsible acting? What are the most devastating organisational practices which should be abolished right away? How can we measure goodness? From which organisations could we learn about goodness ? What does it mean for leadership? And how can we foster a movement of change that accelerates organisational and societal transformation?
This website is intended to become a “living” hub to nurture and co-evolve our thinking - hopefully, we can bring business, psychology, sociology and philosophy a little closer, and all together make a positive difference. Please contact us, participate in our upcoming events, come to our salon, join our movement - or the many other movements we highlight on these pages. Thank you for being part of the community!
Recent Updates On Our Good Organisations Inquiry & Theory
PhD Research Projects
We are developing an index to support the measurement, comparison, development and certification of good organisations. We are inspired by initiatives like ECG and bCorp. You can read more about some comparisons of existing rankings in our blog (Economy section).
Contact: Silvio Christoffel
We are actively researching about ethical and responsible leadership development. A lot has been written about ethical leadership, but mostly the concept remains people-centric and ignores the necessity to interact with a wider social and institutional system, and to develop leadership as a systemic capacity.
Contact: Sara Fontanet
More to come soon
More to come soon
Tools for Students of Leadership
Leaders for Humanity Series
Other Conferences, Interviews and Podcasts
“The world is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil;
but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” Albert Einstein
— Free websites and CRM