Dr. Steve Kempster is a Professor of Leadership Learning and Development at Lancaster University. He is a prolific scholar and a systems thinker. His latest book, Good Dividends: Responsible Leadership of Business Purpose "explores how five dividends (based on five capitals) can be developed through attention to a sixth dividend (and sixth capital) – the dividend from our planet and communities."
Dr. Kemspter's Books
Quotes from This Episode
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
What Steve Listens to While He's Writing All These Books and Articles!
Dr. Steve Kempster is a Professor of Leadership Learning and Development at Lancaster University. He is a prolific scholar and a systems thinker. His latest book, Good Dividends: Responsible Leadership of Business Purpose "explores how five dividends (based on five capitals) can be developed through attention to a sixth dividend (and sixth capital) – the dividend from our planet and communities."
Dr. Kemspter's Books
Quotes from This Episode
Resources Mentioned in this Episode
What Steve Listens to While He's Writing All These Books and Articles!
My guest today is Steve kempster. And Steve is at the University of Lancaster. And he is a professor of leadership learning and development, which I think Steve is the coolest title of any guest that I've had on the podcast so far. Thank you so much, Steve, for being with us today. I really appreciate it. When I think of you, I think of three things I think of laughter. I think of positivity. And then you are a madman. When it comes to publishing. I looked at your page at the university and gosh, since 2002, you have been publishing like a maniac like a madman, you are just prolific my friend. So I am so excited. I have two things that I want to jump into. And I know you have some things that you want to discuss today as well. I would love to talk about responsible leadership. And I would love to talk about this notion of of "leadership for what." Ronggio I had him on the podcast a few episodes back and he had mentioned that they'd written an edited about you know "What's wrong with leadership?" And I know that you are a co author on the final article in that text, "leadership for what?" And so I'd love to have a conversation about those two things. But laughter positivity and just a madman. Do those three words? Are those phrases resonate for you? Is that true?
Steve Kempster :I think there's an essence in that. I think certainly the the laughter and the humor. I think too often we take ourselves too seriously, don't we? And I, and all the times I've had with you have been spectacularly amusing and funny. And occasionally, we've cut to the chase and got some good thoughts out.
Scott Allen :True.
Steve Kempster :But I think both of those topics that would be great to talk about certainly the leadership for water and connection to responsible leadership are heavy topics and as much as the banter and the humor is good. There's a time for the serious and I think if you want me to and I wish to get right into that space, that would be wonderful.
Scott Allen :That would be wonderful.
Steve Kempster :Okay, thank you i into that now, would that be helpful and just just, by the way, it's very kind of you invite me onto your podcast stream. The people who have gone before me, I've had to listen because I know I had to I had to scribble down here. What are the key? What if I, what do I listen to music wise and what have I downloaded? Just those phrases? And I'm not sure I understand some of those phrases. So I've got my house is in readiness when we get to the end. But I was listening to Susan Murphy and Ron's one and that's not to say the others aren't spectacular. It's just I know Susan and Ron very well, and I wanted to hear what they had to say. It was fantastic. So thank you for inviting me now. responsible leadership. I know Ron plugged his books, I'll plug a few books if that's good with you. I edited a book with Brigid Carroll called Responsible Leadership: Realism and Romanticism.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :A couple of years back now. And what we wanted to do there was get into the space of seeking to shift leadership attention away from the endless, almost entrails, exploration of authenticity or traits or transformation... all good stuff or very important stuff. Many of your listeners are thinking, oh my goodness, what's this nutter from the North of England saying? It's all very important. But frankly, it's not as important as answering the question leadership for what?
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :And I'll get to that. So what we were looking at responsible leadership was taking a lead from Thomas Maak and Nicola Pless who wrote a great book in 2006 on called Responsible Leadership, strangely enough They laid out an argument of trying to shift the focus of attention from leader follower to leader stakeholders. So if you imagine Scott, instead of an endless conversation that's around leader and followers and I've just got a paper, two papers now out on in search of followers, and here's the thing slightly distraction here Scott, if you go and ask managers in the workplace point to the leaders you follow, they can't. They do not follow as in a follower in an organizational context. So, we keep talking about leader and follower, but frankly in organizational world, followers just do not exist. No one aspires to becoming a follower. Distraction, but instead of endlessly thinking about leader follower, what they said was think about leader/stakeholders. What would that relationship then offer and you start moving attention towards purpose, towards meaningful work, towards aspects that are deeply significant to people. The reason why in a sense we're on this earth is we are proceeding somewhere we're pursuing something, or as Aristotle called it Telos, there's a quest, there's a journey we follow. And so much of our organizational lives are filled up in meaningless work. Now, what we do know, is where organizations have strong meaning and a clear palpable sense of purpose they outperform the market. So with these threads in mind, we said so, Responsible Leadership, a focus on stakeholders, creating value for stakeholders, shareholders, employees, communities, partners, if you can create value for all those people, would we change the world? And so the book title Realism and Romanticism sort of captures that sense and different papers in there, we're seeing what's possible, what's doable. And then we follow that on, myself and Thomas Maak with Ken Perry. You remembered well, for many years back. And what we did was write a book called was given good dividends, responsible leadership and business purpose.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :And you'll be very kind and gracious. And let me talk about that further on to this call. Because it's quite core to my argument. But in a sense, what you're saying is, "if we train up lots of people to be really, really good at leading, what is it that they're going to pursue? What are they going to achieve? Why are they doing what they do? And for whom, hence the stakeholder point, for whom are they doing all this?" nd where are they doing it? What's the sense of place and connection to place and purpose? And so that book comes together to say, what happens if we can change the way businesses think about leadership, think about business, think about value, think about capitalism, and set about pursuing a very, very different journey.
Scott Allen :Hmm. We'll talk a little bit more about stakeholders. What is it? Talk about that shift of focusing on followers to focusing on stakeholders? How are you thinking about that? Because it's very intriguing.
Steve Kempster :So stakeholder is someone that you have a relationship with stakeholders, someone that you would engage with, in terms of value generating, so the responsible leadership orientation is about value generating, but most examinations of stakeholders the MBA students get involved with is the minimalizing, the pain, the hurt, the damage, that stakeholders could do on your business responsible, flips that completely on its head, and says, "if you were to think about what value stakeholders need or wish, or desire, what can you bring? How can you enhance stakeholder value?" So the immediate answer is if a one of the stakeholders shareholders, a business would maximize the capital's increase its dividends for the shareholders, we get that that's just a normal part of the global life. So what would happen if you also sought to maximize the value to communities? Are they conflictual or are they complimentary? And so responsible leadership, starts putting forward the theoretical view that their complimentary. Empirical data shows you, they are highly complementary. The good dividends argument lays out a model about how we could operationalize that complementarity. But here's the thing. Here is the important thing, is that even though the data shows us that when you link purpose, meaningful work, adding value to communities, positive social Impact, and you see profitability go up, and there's loads of data that shows you that. In the boardroom, they will still not switch the capitalistic model away from neo-liberal self-centered to enlightened self interest towards that balance of capital as positive social impact with value generation, they won't switch. So the issue then becomes, how do we make that switch occur? And that's right at the core of the work I've been doing for the last five years. How do we, how do we bring that switch about? And, sadly, the necessity is to get people into the space of moral outrage.
Scott Allen :How you're speaking about this, Steve, have you ever heard of the book or read, Firms of Endearment?
Steve Kempster :I've heard of it. I've not read it.
Scott Allen :It's a great It's a great read if you have an opportunity. And that's the closest that and it wasn't through this lens I didn't read it was more of a sustainability lens, the "people, planet, profit" as a simplistic way of saying it. But these were firms, they looked at firms that were more invested in their people more invested in their communities more invested in sustainability. This would be a company like Patagonia, for instance, where they essentially all of their Black Friday, in the United States for Thanksgiving, all their Black Friday proceeds go to go to the environment. And so they're giving back to their communities into the globe. What are some firms? Are there some organizations in the UK or abroad that you've come across that are close in modeling some of what you're discussing? Have you come across anyone?
Steve Kempster :Yep. The leading one in the UK is Unilever. I don't know how familiar you are with Unilever, huge company, global company, but it's registered at the London Stock Exchange. It's in the FTSE 100. And so Unilever's model is in a sense, what we've replicated in our argument around good dividends, responsible leadership. So what Unilever has shown, and Paul Polman, CEO up till about a year ago, made this point is that their purpose is to pursue maximization of profit in tandem with positive social impact. They actually it's, it's on their website. It's explicit as that. And in an argument back to us in a shareholders meeting, where they were saying you're, in a sense, the fiduciary duty, you're not maximizing the service to the shareholder. He argued, if you look at the shareholder return, what we're doing through positive social impact, is we have increased the brand values, we've increased our brand equity.
Scott Allen :Yes,
Steve Kempster :we have, as a consequence increase shareholder returns double that of the footsie 100 over the same 10 year period. So he could he could palpably argue that by pursuing positive social impact, having the absolute clarity of purpose, they were not only increasing shareholder return, they're creating enormous positive social impact loads of stats that they provide on their website called the Sustainable Living Planet. Quite wonderful to read about their reach. So if you just take this as a point, and I'm going to exaggerate this point a little bit, Scott.
Scott Allen :Sure, sure.
Steve Kempster :But one of their objectives to which they are seeking to measure is to reach a billion people. So that's not a million, a billion people reach a billion customers to enhance they're lives. And they're seeking to measure that. And they're talking about millions of transformed lives in their supply chain that they measure, all around the world. Do they have a problem recruiting and retaining people? Their attrition levels are really low their recruitment come way over, graduate entry is astonishingly high. So they're getting the best of the talent, and they're holding on to that talent. And I can give you more and more. So Unilever is a fantastic example, where there's the complementarity of positive value with social impact.
Scott Allen :What would what's also fun about that, that example is they would be the equivalent in some ways of Procter and Gamble in the United States, correct?
Steve Kempster :Yeah
Scott Allen :They're not they're not developing products that you would necessarily associate with some of that work. But that's how they see themselves. That's what their mission is, that's what they're committed to. And by the way, way, we also make soap and other products that help, you know, enhance your lives.
Steve Kempster :Exactly. Yeah. So related point, I did a talk at a conference. It was a very large charity in England called Age Concern. And they asked me to talk at the conference because it was inviting a whole range of business partners at this conference, so there's about 70-80 businesses there, that they'd invited on the basis that they wanted those businesses to join with them to support the charity Age Concern, looking after elderly people and their lifestyles, dementia and all those associated aspects. And before I did the talk, I made this point to them and they were happy for me to make it out, which was, what the businesses there should not do is just think about how we can just gift some money to Age Concern. "Thank you for inviting us very kind, we feel slightly guilty that we haven't gifted some money. So to quench our guilt, here's a little bit of cash that will send your way good luck with it." And I said, That's completely the wrong argument. What I'm going to say to people hear today is it's not what you can do for Age Concern. What you should consider very closely is how, by engaging with Age Concern, can you enhance your business value? Because that way, you have medium to long term, very developmental partnerships of reciprocal value development. So when I went, if I go back to that original argument of responsible leadership in a focus, a shift to leader stakeholders, through the maximization of value for stakeholders, what I'm saying is don't just philanthropically gift money, consider who are the most appropriate partners in terms of positive social impact that would maximize business value, then you have a long lasting relationship where both parties will do extremely well.
Scott Allen :Yeah.
Steve Kempster :So anyway, that was the thrust of the talk.
Scott Allen :Well, and the key word there, I think, is relationship, right? It's a relationship. It's mutually beneficial. It's, it's, it's lasting, it's sustainable. It's not a one time gift that the two parties then move along their own ways.
Steve Kempster :And in that relationship, you're seeking to understand where value is enhanced by both parties. So you need to get right into what my ops people would call Value Stream Mapping. So we do all these sets of activities to generate value. It's part of our business model. Tell me about your business model, say to a charity, "tell me about your business model." Now how do we overall app, where do we overlap? How by engaging with you will improve? I employee dividends? Will they feel that they're fully engaged and we're doing purposeful work? How will it improve our brands and our reputation in the world beyond? How will it, enable us to enhance innovation inside a business? Those are the sort of very purposeful conversations that need to happen, to create positive social impact. that's appropriate leadership. That's what is beginning to answer that question, "Leadership for What?"
Scott Allen :Let's talk more about that. Steve. Leadership for what I'll never forget, we were at an ILA conference. And I was telling you about the collegiate leadership competition. We were We were just beginning that whole process. And I think we're having a couple drinks and you tell you you looked at me and you said but "Scott, leadership for what?", I said, "I don't know Steve, it just leadership!" and you said, "but for what!" I said, "I don't know!" So, when I think of you, I also think of those words leadership for what so I'm really excited for this, this conversation because you know what, it's four years later, the collegiate leadership competition has done well. But we are actively in the process of having to completely re engineer that whole experience as we've moved on to more digital online platform from face-to-face in the coming year. And it's been a wonder... your voice was in my head as we were shifting gears. And we've now identified, we think these are going to be three priorities for us. It's going to be diversity, equity and inclusion, sustainability, and health and wellness. And in this new format, at least how we're thinking of it. now, the students will actually engage in projects, action learning projects, where they actually make a difference in their communities. And so I think we're getting closer to, "for what?" But you can tell me if that's the case.
Steve Kempster :Yeah, you're nudging towards it. I remember that conference well. I remember you slapping down your, your credit card ordering. I don't know how many rounds of drinks for us all. It was absolutely spectacular. You're great, gent! But seriously the work you do around deliberate practice is quite fantastic, mate. It is a significant contribution to the development of the field. And you're well recognized for that and so well done. On the Leadership for What, back to my point even when the boardroom know that profitability and purpose are deeply complimentary to each other to enhance the bottom line, they still don't do it. It then begs the question, what it is that you are seeking to do in your leadership positions? Are you...are you...if you are only interested in maximizing the shareholder return? Are you actually maximizing the shareholder return by forsaking the development of purpose. So you could be under serving your shareholders by ignoring this purpose question, first of all,
Scott Allen :Yes.
Steve Kempster :Second point is that you will get so much more about out from your most expensive asset, people. Where there is meaningful, purposeful work. So where leadership begins to think, in terms of maximizing its assets, if that's the role of leadership, is maximize its assets, then purpose, positive social impact is absolutely foursquare on that area. Because it enhances people's sense of meaning, purpose, loyalty. They want to work for a firm that has high reputation, and so on and so forth. So you'll get more out of your most expensive asset.
Scott Allen :Yes.
Steve Kempster :So that's big and this is both some questions. I'm still playing within the capitalist frame here, Scott. Yep. And it says it's a bit like Judo use the strength of your opposition against itself. You can use capitalism to change capitalism, you, but the biggest way forward for capitalism to change is leadership. It's the most powerful mechanism on the planet, for social change. For good or for ill, there isn't anything more powerful than leadership with the power it wields. And when we talk about power, think about CEOs of our corporates. So I'm just gonna play you with this idea. So the notion of entities, a country as an entity, and there are 195, I think countries in the world. A corporation is an entity. So see them then both corporations and countries entities in the top 200 entities of the world, over 150 are corporations.
Scott Allen :Wow.
Steve Kempster :if you then extrapolate that to 2000 entities or 10,000 entities or a million entities, it is corporations, it is business that dominate that area. So when we think about, and you could get me going on this, but we could be here for quite a few hours on the grand challenges that face humanity. Have you heard of the doomsday clock?
Scott Allen :I have heard of the doomsday clock. Yes, they didn't they just set it forward a little bit further. Was that accurate?
Steve Kempster :They did they set it forward in January? And I think we've got something like, Is it 30 seconds now?
Scott Allen :Explain it to listeners if you would.
Steve Kempster :So the doomsday clock was set at the end of the Second World War, beginning of the Cold War.And it was just it. It seeks to gather data around the world, geopolitical threats, and bound them up in a clock so if it was five past one, the world is beautifully safe. If it's five to twelve....dig a hole in the garden prepare. We are really now I think it's about 30 seconds away from midnight. With the threats around the world, those have moved from being geopolitical, to Grand Challenges climatic. Many listeners will know lots about this, perhaps more than me. But just for instance, half the plant species of the planet are likely to be extinct by 2050.
Scott Allen :Okay
Steve Kempster :Most coral reefs will have disappeared by 2050. We've got more people displaced migrating around the planet now than there's ever been, at any time, human dominance of the world. There's more people in slavery now than it's ever been at any time on the planet. We've got aspects of the oceans now that the acidification goes back something like 150 million years never been as high. We've already expect two degrees centigrade, climates to increase by. That's gonna lead to half a meter rise in seawater.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :Most of the cities that have the major cities around the world that front the oceans will be evaporate, asked to move somewhere else. Most of Bangladesh 160 million population will have had to be moved. Hmm. By the turn of this century, it's predicted that we're probably looking at three degrees centigrade increase, which means most of the united states don't if you know that country, it's a little bit of land that's off the British Isles. United States India, Middle East, China have all been displaced and they're moving...those populations are moving.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :So the predictions are horrendous for humanity. And this is known, it should be known, you know this. The predictions are astonishingly bad. I could go on and on and on. So, how do we address that? This comes back to the leadership for how do we address that? Do we expect government to have deep pockets and make changes? Probably not. Do they have the will to do such deeply politically damaging processes when they're endlessly being reelected? No, they don't.
Scott Allen :Mm hmm.
Steve Kempster :What they can do set enabling structures. For other entities. It is corporates, it is businesses that actually have the resources, but also they have the discretion CEO, like Paul Polman at Unilever can make a decision to increase his shareholder return by improving the lives of 1 billion people on the planet.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :Put it through a board argues the case action takes place.
Scott Allen :Yes.
Steve Kempster :It is corporates that have the scope to rescue humanity. And it is the leadership desire and hunger to make that happen. is I think the key question, the key challenge for us, and I think the Leadership Studies community has been poor in recognizing the role of leadership in trying to tackle this problem.
Scott Allen :Well, this is incredible Steve, you have me You have my mind swirling so I'm going to see if I can pull a couple things out of that swirl. I loved the the the Judo you know it was it using the energy of the other?Right?
Steve Kempster :Stretch to the opposition against itself.
Scott Allen :Yes, exactly. And so how do we help? How do we help corporations thrive in a in a better way than they are now to your point. How do we help them thrive, and in the process, help help the planet. And this notion of stakeholders as well. I want to go back to stakeholders and followers. So how you're thinking about it, followers are just one other, or employees are just one other stakeholder in this whole conversation, but we need to not just be focusing on leaders and followers. We need to be focusing on all of these stakeholders, followers are one of which, one part of the equation, or employees or that that... and if we look at them as stakeholders, we are probably going to treat that relationship very differently, then just, you know, a cog in the wheel or just an employee that we're trying to eke as much out of as possible. Is that accurate?
Steve Kempster :That's right. You're absolutely right. And there is change about to happen and we need this change. And this sounds a very weird thing that you could you begin to gather, I think Scott is begin together, I've lost my marbles, or you're beginning to gather, maybe that's a British phrase "losing your marbles," or that you're beginning to see that I've had to embrace an interdisciplinary understanding of operations management of finance, CSR innovation, HRM, which I was familiar with, of course, before that. But a whole range of subjects to get to great to answer this leadership for what question, you have to take an interdisciplinary view. So to make a point, in the finance area, there is a there's a US government group I don't know what you'd call it in us. That's exploring potentially changing how the balance sheet balances.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :Beginning to consider intangible assets mainly because most of what creates the market cap that we're buying the shares at most ow, the majority are intangible assets, while the balance sheet captures the tangible. So we are misreading what we're buying because we don't understand intangible assets. The biggest intangible... was to big intangible assets. I feel like in class here, Scott, what are the biggest tangible assets a businesses has got?
Scott Allen :Yes, sir.
Steve Kempster :Don't you give me this pause, and I'll look it up and then edit it back, give me the answer! Now one of the two biggest intangible assets for companies?
Scott Allen :Oh, man, you're you are uh, you are treating me like I'm in class right now!
Steve Kempster :You got see his face. Everybody he's in meltdown here.
Scott Allen :It's summertime, Steve! You're making me think.
Steve Kempster :Let me help you.
Scott Allen :Yes, sir.
Steve Kempster :Reputation, okay, somewhere between a 30 to 40% of the value, I know this well, I study our FTSE 100 because I study it 30 to 40% of the value of the shares is reputational value, reputational capital. Imagine that 30 to 40%. And the other one is people,
Scott Allen :Human resources
Steve Kempster :The tangible asset of all that human capital all lying there either purposefully engaged, high ingenuity, high energy, creativity, innovation, quality, customer service excellence, all beavering away to produce maximum customer value, business value, shareholder value. Or they're sitting around wondering and waiting for the manager, the next leader to come along and tell us what to do.
Scott Allen :Yes,
Steve Kempster :So there are two extremes. But if, where leadership needs to go and it will go as soon as human capital goes onto the balance sheet and as soon as reputational capital goes on the balance sheet and we are not far away from it, we will see a revolution in leadership because people, the KPIs of leaders, will now be judged on "have you enhanced human capital of the team you look after?"
Scott Allen :Yeah
Steve Kempster :As a result of your yearly performance, "Is our human capital on the balance sheet, increased or decreased now if it's decreased? What are you doing?" Why are we taking some of your bonus or salary away from you because you've reduced the value of the business by your leadership activities. And you can see it just imagine Scott, how the forensic examination then of everyday leadership practice back or deliberate practice, the sand pits the need to find a practice field because people will be crying out now because their bonuses are hanging by a thread because we've lost two people over this year we've lost that capital, it's gone. People are disillusioned. We're not seeing innovation and creativity, which is part of the human capital. And people will be examining this and saying, "you're just not a good leader. You're not maximizing human capital. Get out."
Scott Allen :Yeah
Steve Kempster :Get somebody in here can maximize human capital. So the world is going to change the world will change when those mechanisms of the balance sheet and sense of good colleague of mine, Anthony Hesketh, he wrote a chapter...and did I mention that Good Dividends book? Anyway, he wrote a chapter in that book. And he said, we may be getting close to the balance sheet not balancing. Posing that rather reflective question. What happens when the balance sheet doesn't balance?
Scott Allen :Yeah
Steve Kempster :Because tangibles are no longer the dominant game in town and intangibles are taking over the world. Now. The notion of purpose, connects to this intangible asset. And the argument we make it the Good Dividends book is that how do you maximize your positive social impact development, what we call planet and community dividend, that it creates value back into the rest of the business. And therefore, we hope that in the future, organizations will pursue how they become very savvy measuring their investment in positive social impact in terms of its return dividend, back into the business. I promised never to mention that book again for the rest of this podcast.
Scott Allen :I'll put it in the show notes so people can link to it. But it's a great way to think about...I mean it...Again, it feels like focusing on returns is an important piece of the conversation, of course, and there's value there. But I think too many leaders become myopic, and that becomes the only thing we're focused on, or boards become myopic, and that's the only thing we're focused on. And to your point, it's in many cases, not sustainable. If you look at some of the numbers around Gallup, and I'll put some of these articles in the show notes as well. But if you look at some of their research about engagement, it's really it's really sad. If you look at if you look at at least the corporate America, the engagement levels are horrific and scary. And so I think you're exactly right. Broadening out and focusing on multiple stakeholders. It's just good business.
Steve Kempster :It is.
Scott Allen :Firms of Endearment that I forget that the companies that they highlighted, but I'll put it in the show notes as well. And those those companies were, were not myopic. They were focused on some of what you're speaking to. And their their results were wonderful. Now, of course, it's always dangerous to name names, right? If you go back to Built to Last or Good to Great. But these organizations were doing very, very well, outperforming on any number of different metrics. So I love how you're thinking, what as you've spoken with people in the corporate community, how are they receiving your message? I imagine academics, fairly quickly can get behind what you're saying. Is that an accurate assumption?
Steve Kempster :Uh, you really beautifully summarized the territory but in the wrong way. It's the opposite academics. Oh, this doesn't work because they're particular experts in their little discipline, as opposed to seeing an interdisciplinary argument. They'll give me two reasons. Why that wouldn't work?
Scott Allen :Okay.
Steve Kempster :Well, when I take it to the corporate world, which is where most of my time is what they start skeptical because they've heard all this so many times. It's another CSR, beat that drum, "what are you going to do for society?" And so my opening line, and I use it using the Sustainable Development Goals, the SDG. And I give an example there's I gave a talk and this chap called Luke Freeman. He runs his own business, 50 million turnover, but Sterling must be $70 million dollar business turnover. And so he runs this business and he was at a talk I was doing and he came up to me and said, Now this has become my opening line. And he said, "Steve, I've got this argument, right? You're saying about a good dividend. It's not what I should do for the Sustainable Development Goals or what my business should do for the SDGs," I mean, he said he went on then say, "I've heard this so many times, where people wagging their finger at us saying 'your responsibility is to society, and you've got to do more,'" the weight of responsibility these people have is enormous in itself and just another finger wagging, it doesn't help anything. And he says, "so what I've got from your conversation, so it's not what my business should do for the SDGs. It's how by engaging with the SDGs can that enhance value of my business."
Scott Allen :Yes.
Steve Kempster :So I opened with that line to move the skepticism of the corporate world that they've heard it all before and understand to a very different space, which is capitalism, working with capitalism, as we said earlier, it's how can I maximize, hence using deliberately the words good dividends.
Scott Allen :Yes
Steve Kempster :Using a language that they value, because they've got a fishery duty, a legal duty to maximize shareholder returns, I can't get into philanthropic gifting, unless I've got a business case that this adds value to them....so let's unpack, a business model that shows the relationship, the complementarity of positive social impact, with shareholder return. And once I've framed it in that way, and it's taken a journey of about a year and a half, I think to get it better, then when I started for sure, people do buy it. And I've got a group I've got a series of different programs, we're now doing a new UK for the government to see if we can roll this out once called Made Smarter. It's in digitalization space and productivity, but we've wrapped the good dividends model around it all. And another one's called Business Basics, and we've got another cohort elsewhere. So we've got now quite a growing constituent of businesses who are realizing or pursuing the realization of good dividends, and what they're actually doing is pursuing the realization of purpose. And in my experience, out of all of this, the most difficult part of business leadership is getting their heads around purpose.
Scott Allen :Wow. Say more about that. say more about that. And then we're going to wind down. We've been going for about 40 minutes, Steve. But But talk about purpose if you would, and, what you're seeing, because you communicated it beautifully with Unilever. Correct?
Steve Kempster :Yeah. Well, that's kind of you. So that's exactly what you know, Uniliver got. Absolutely explicit purpose. Yes, but he takes a journey. I wrote a paper back in 2011 with Brad Jackson and Merv Conroy leadership has purpose. And what we were doing was seeking to foreground purpose because it hadn't been then I had much attention in the story world, the leadership field. And with our earlier research that formed the paper we discovered that leaders struggled to articulate what it might be other than increasing shareholder return. And that isn't purpose. That's not a societal purpose, not not a worthy purpose, doesn't galvanize people to jump out of bed and get excited. But it does if maybe you're the shareholder and you're getting the benefit from it, but most people it doesn't. And also, what we discovered was leaders deeply struggle to be able to not just articulate what it might be, but communicate it to a bunch of people who've never heard this sort of thing before. And they're thinking why have we got a nutter explaining a sort of Martin Luther King moment? "I have a dream one day, I can see our business being able to save lives of many, many other thousands of people." It's just a weird concept of a conversation. So they don't know what it is. They struggle to better articulate it. And then the flip side of that, the followers do not expect it, they're not demanding it, it's not part of everyday work is to have meaningful activity here or clear sense of purpose and how we enhance society. We just come to work, you tell us what to do, and we go home, and we live our purposeful lives elsewhere. And we give of our best to our communities and our charities outside the business, because that's the deal.
Scott Allen :Yeah.
Steve Kempster :And so because it's not demanded, they're not doing it and because they feel deeply uncomfortable, they never got into the space of exploring how to do this. And so the most difficult part I have found in developing, responsible leadership and the pursuit of purpose and meaningful work is how to develop a toolset that allows leaders to start thinking that through.
Scott Allen :Yes.
Steve Kempster :In big part, I'm beginning because of the sheer weight of that difficulty, I'm beginning to think shift my attention away, not away from responsible leadership, it's the undergirding of all. It's the foundation, but beginning to offer the notion of purpose led leadership.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :Because it's that significant is that great difficulty to get into that space. So what does purpose lead lead should look like? And that's, that's probably my next five years work before I pick up my P45 we get P45. And then lay you off here we got a P45. Four, which means leave our premises never darkened or never return. What do you have in the state instead of a P45?
Scott Allen :They won't say that to you though! They'll they'll be inviting you back because of the world renowned work that you've done.
Steve Kempster :You're very kind and generous. Anyway, five years more work around that space. And hopefully will will will make a difference that's a grievous. It's about how many now? There must be about 13 nervous around in the good dividends group and there's five, six universities around the world working on this, which all coverton behind closed doors, but we're all beavering away. They're all part of the book. Did I mention the book? I didn't mention that you got to get me out to my downloads and books and ask me.
Scott Allen :Oh, that's great. Well, okay, so we are at that spot. Steve, thank you for the conversation. I think you've broadened all of our perspectives, and I have a lot to reflect on. That's for sure. And as you know, we always kind of close out. I was gonna switch it up on you. I'm wondering if I can do that. The first 10 or 12 episodes, I asked the same questions and I'd like to switch that up. Are you game for me switching it up? It they're, they're easy questions to answer.
Steve Kempster :I'm good. Okay. You go for it...although I've got my nicely prepared list here.
Scott Allen :Okay. Well, you You can weave them and you could weave them in if you want to. So what is the leadership book or book that you've applied to the context of leadership that has transformed how you think about the topic? Most?
Steve Kempster :Good question. I would say two books. Both very readable. One may be very obvious, Responsible Leadership by Thomas Maak, and Nicola Pless back in 2006. That got me deeply into this space. Second, that I think is the best written leadership text is the Brad Jackson, Ken Perry, "A Short Fairly Interesting, Fairly Cheaply Priced" book, because it's two offers great scholars who write without being censored, not worrying, no one, not someone looking over their shoulder, and they express their opinions are so knowledgeable, so widely read, and they synthesize the field and it's very engaging and powerful. But it's a book that's placed out there for readership across MBAs, undergrads, practitioners to be able to do that, and be scholary and reach out. Absolute fantastic
Scott Allen :It's an accomplishment, that's for sure. How about how about a couple articles that is true that have transformed how you think about this topic of leadership?
Steve Kempster :I was struck deeply struck by an article. Now the author's escaped me. One of them sounds like an American gopher back in the 70s, Trevino, Trevino and Brown and what they did was looked at and this struck again back in about 10 days 10 years ago, decade ago. And I was sort of thinking and it's all fermenting around my head about this stuff and that we must do something and, and the moral outrage issue. And it's an they demonstrated wonderful bit of research, how the most prevalent ethical leadership role models are in your very earliest years of supervisory. And as you proceed through an organization, increasingly higher levels, you have the absence of ethical role models.
Scott Allen :Hmm
Steve Kempster :And that just struck me as something going on the socialization that moves us from being very moral, bring a clear sense of moral impulse to becoming morally disengaged, and morally numb, as we travel journeys and organizations and so I've read a whole set of other related work around that. But just that, that fired me into my goodness, and there's a chap called Archie Carroll. Big Huge in business ethics made the point that most management is amoral. So it's not immoral. I you know, the difference between right and wrong is no when you choose to do wrong and moral being, you know, the right wrong and you choose to do right a morals ethics has got nothing to do with business.
Scott Allen :Hmm.
Steve Kempster :And when you think about purpose, worthy purpose, the notion of Telos is deeply rooted to Aristotle's work on virtue ethics. So to me, an organization that actually is amoral, that ethics has got nothing to do with business, is, is such a scary, scary thought.
Scott Allen :Yes, yes. Here's perhaps the most important question, what should people listen to? What musical artists should they listen to? while they're consuming these articles? Assuming they like to listen to music when they read? What would you suggest what must go with...
Steve Kempster :Okay, so I've as you know, well that's why you set me up here. So I am a bit of a prog person, progressive music, progressive rock, and I have gone back and gone back a long way. And there's a lovely set of podcasts, and podcasts whether they are called on on YouTube when people collate all their music there was it goes out podcast...
Scott Allen :I don't know say more about what it is.
Steve Kempster :Okay. And so I would recommend so less about I mean, I haven't looked all sorts of recent I've gone back to caravan and all sorts of stuff like that, but go to ProgDoc. ProDoc. Okay. They say he always signs off this chap, whoever's putting it together "all for one, and one for the vine." Where's that from? Scott? "All for one, and one for the vine."
Scott Allen :I don't know that one.
Steve Kempster :Genesis Wind & Wuthering
Scott Allen :Ah
Steve Kempster :because you started when we started, folks, if anybody's still listening, it's probably nobody now it's still just it's just you and I again, it was lik that at the pub!
Scott Allen :we will get the statistics. We'll get the we'll know where they dropped off though!
Steve Kempster :Yeah, okay. Okay, don't tell me. And so before we started this whole talk, folks listening in, he was playing Suppers Ready just for me, so when I clocked out I didn't know how to get in. First of all, he's not admitting this YouTube gracious, so I wasted 5-10 minutes trying to get to this point. Anyway, when I burst in on Scott he was playing Suppers Ready, which is my all time favorite song, so prog rock, and it has this collection endless and I keep hearing you scribbling down all that and "I've never heard of that band this is fantastic" and so on and so forth. So go to prog rock - all for one, and one for the vine.
Scott Allen :Okay, wonderful. Steve Kempster laughs laughter positivity, prolific madman when it comes to the work that you're doing. But But your work is exemplifies exactly what it is you're studying. It's purpose driven. And we can tell that you have an incredible passion for that work. And thank you for doing that work. And I can, I'm excited to continue to consume and to learn from how you're thinking about some of these critical topics. And I love the framing of, of leader/follower to leader/stakeholders. I have a lot to think about. So thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it
Steve Kempster :Your very welcome, Welcome, what we sign off, we need to flip this around? Because we're all talking about flipping the classroom and all that, whatever that means. And who's going to do you on deliberate practice? Because that's outstanding work. And we need a podcast on it.
Scott Allen :Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. You know, K. Anders Ericsson just passed away, unfortunately...
Steve Kempster :Yeah, I saw that.
Scott Allen :Yeah. Yeah, he did. He did incredible work, incredible work. And it's been fun to experiment with and explore. That's for sure.
Steve Kempster :It's been a great time chatting. You must stay well, and you and your family, keep safe. And we'll get through this crazy times.
Scott Allen :And I'll be thinking about you and your family as well, sir. Take care, be well.
Steve Kempster :cheers.