The fourth element has to do with the activities, the processes, the routines that any organization creates and develops in order to function. And in particular, they are oriented to implement the strategic decisions so that in turn the purpose of the organization will be realized in due course. Now, the question is how would we expect a sustainable enterprise to organize its activities? Well, there are a number of possibilities, of course, but given the purpose and given the governance and strategy that we described before, we would expect a much more open way to engage the stakeholders. First of all in sensing, in understanding what type of activities are necessary, what are the issues that need to be tackled, also in developing alternative ways in thinking about better ways to tackle those issues, testing, eventually, and learning on how to constantly improve those activities so that the capabilities of the organization will constantly improve and, of course, the success of the enterprise will be enhanced. The fifth element has to do with capabilities. Capabilities are essentially the key building blocks of success in any organization. Obviously, the stronger are the capabilities for operating the various activities, the better, the higher the chance of success for any organization. But more importantly, there are specific types of capabilities that have to do with changing the way things are done in enterprises, or learning how to do things better and better, and also capabilities related to developing better relationships with other organizations. These more sophisticated types of capabilities are actually the litmus tests, the way in which we can actually determine the capacity of a sustainable organization to involve stakeholders. And that is, in a way, the most interesting and concrete aspect that one could identify. Essentially, what I have in mind is, let’s go and see how an organization has actually completed a major change effort or a structuring effort or acquisition or any other major strategic move, to what extent, in order to decide and implement those moves, has the organization learned how to involve stakeholders, and more importantly, how to involve them in understanding what worked or what didn’t work in that strategic move, and therefore become better and better at designing, deciding and implementing the big strategic change initiatives. Then, of course, we need to consider the people element. Needless to say, employees hold the key to any successful enterprise, whether it's sustainable or not. The fundamental role that they play is connected to the various forms of investment, in fact, that they make. Not only do they invest their own time and effort, but they invest their capabilities, their skills, they invest their relationships, the capacity and the willingness that they have to come up with new ideas and engage other people internally and external to the organization to make sure those ideas translate into successful projects. Now, how do we expect a sustainable organization to operate so that the people element is central, really becomes central beyond the rhetoric that every organization obviously would have? Well, in my view, the key aspect here is to understand the mindset that individuals have. How do they think about the role of the organization, the purpose, and the strategy? How do they think about their own role within the purpose and the strategy of the organization? Are they clear about the importance of involving stakeholders? More importantly, are they clear about the impact, not only the economic but also the social and environmental impact of their decisions? And second, how does the organization try to support, nurture this mindset, the stakeholder orientation, this sustainable mindset? What type of processes and programs, initiatives, training, engagement? There are a number of forms of support to help individuals, members of the organization, to develop that sustainability-oriented mindset that we're looking for in order to tell a sustainable organization from all the others. The seventh and final element of the organization has to do with shared values and the culture of the enterprise. Now, we know that individuals have their own values, their own ways to prioritize things for themselves, for their own life. But the organization in and of itself can be characterized by different ways to think about what really matters to the community. And that is, for example, the difference between thinking about creating common value rather than self-interest, thinking about creating value long-term rather than the immediate type of value. One could consider the disposition, the collective disposition, to cooperate rather than compete. There are a number of these traits that would be characterizing a sustainable enterprise. And they are particularly important, not only as foundational traits for those companies that are lucky enough to be born that way, but more importantly, actually, as traits that any organization could develop, in which case, of course, we would look for concrete efforts, concrete initiatives to support the slow but comprehensive evolution of shared values and organizational culture to develop those sustainability-oriented kind of traits. And that essentially completes the set of elements that we would look for in order to identify a sustainable organization. And at the same time those are the elements that any organization could consider in the moment that they want to visualize what type of sustainable equivalent of their own company, their own organization, they could aim to create. That would be obviously the first step towards the development of an organizational change and development strategy that we will discuss in the rest of the course.
