Globally Responsible Leadership Initiative

The inquiry

The inquiry grew out of the emerging questions raised by both global organisations and leading business schools at the lack of preparedness of up-and-coming leaders for facing not only the shifting organisational challenges but also those of the planet. Back in 2004 there was lots of discussion around corporate citizenship and ethical business, but very little connecting ‘global’ with ‘responsible’.

The proposition was simple: get global businesses with a concern for being responsible in the face of global challenges; to partner with international business schools, which have a responsibility for educating those who will be the next generation of leaders, to work together to explore what might be done and what needs to change.

As neither a business school nor a global company, the involvement of Oasis brought a different dimension to the project. Some were unsure about having such a different contributor, but our track record working with inquiry methods; delivering innovative organisational initiatives that produced tangible results on the ground; and our own inquiry into leadership and planetary issues; showed our commitment to pursue the learning from the international initiative in our own work.

The report

Senior representatives from 21 companies, business schools and centres for leadership learning from around the world worked together for a year within an entrepreneurial approach developed by The ForeSight Group encapsulated by ‘think big, start small, act now’. The inquiry culminated in the publication of ‘Globally Responsible Leadership – A Call for Engagement’, a presentation in New York to the UN Global Compact, and an invitation to other companies and learning organisations to get involved.

Taking action and raising awareness

At the end of the inquiry the 21 organisations formed the GRLI. Its first General Assembly was held in spring 2006. Nick was invited to facilitate the GA process, which he did for over three years.

According to secretary general Anders Aspling, the GRLI’s aim is: ‘to establish the norms and expectations of business behaviour for the 21st century and ensure that the emerging generation of business leaders live by them. It is about the need to overhaul business education worldwide to provide a foundation of global responsibility in every area of learning.’

GRLI CEO Mark Drewell adds: ‘There are many organisations focused on the ideas of responsible business but to our knowledge we are the only organisation focused on the process of educating, developing and nurturing globally responsible leaders.’

Whole Person Learning

The GRLI recognised, as Oasis had done, that contemporary approaches to the preparation of leaders were inadequate for the emerging future.

Whole Person Learning became a key concept. Ways were needed to develop people so that as well as understanding the theory of global responsibility, they were able to act as globally responsible leaders in practice. Nick and Bryce, along with others in the GRLI, were passionate about approaches to learning which engaged more of the person.

‘Oasis’s contribution to making the concept of WPL both clear and full of substance, and intriguing, was key from the beginning,’ says Anders.

‘One of the most important things when you change the agenda, apart from the substance and content, is learning methodology. Pedagogy becomes key, especially if you enter into non-traditional, non-technical subjects. I was surprised how little the business schools had embraced new and relevant methodologies. It was amazing that Oasis did have a contribution on that.’

Learning for Tomorrow and the WPL workshop

Barloworld, based in South Africa and another of the founding partners, sponsored the Oasis publication Learning for Tomorrow, published in 2007 to coincide with a General Assembly in Leeds that was hosted by Oasis and Leeds Metropolitan University. Written by Bryce Taylor, this book provides essential source material on Whole Person Learning, its theory and practice. Global leaders from businesses and business schools came to Boston Spa for a WPL workshop, which brought the theoretical framework to life.

The future

Since those early days, 62 partner organisations have signed up to ‘be open to involvement’; ‘think globally and act locally’; and work together to impact on the development of leaders and leadership.

Communities of Responsible Action – localised versions of the GRLI where businesses, business schools and NGOs take on the challenge at a local level – have been set up in Brazil, Peru, the UK and France.

Future challenges include making global responsibility a foundational requirement within the ranking and accreditation systems for business schools; developing self assessment tools; sharing good practice; creating role models of business behaviour and setting the standard for the business school of the 21st century. Oasis continues to be involved at a core level, with Nick acting as Special Advisor.

Working on the edge

As the world faces the questions created by moving over an edge, in some ways Oasis has always been working on an edge or with the edge, certainly the commitment to working at the threshold of change and development is core to our endeavour.

We started out in our work in ‘managing change’ – helping people shift their perspective; then the call was to help people work with uncertainty. As the challenges continued it meant helping people come to terms with increasing complexity.

As a result we had to shift our paradigm of understanding, and, as Mario van Boeschoten pointed out, we moved into in the land of unpredictability – which required a quite different approach. We, alongside our GRLI partners, are now engaged with facing the leadership challenge of the emergence of a new world view.