Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference

So many of the "social responsibility" and "go green" books make it hard to see how the average guy on the street could possibly make a difference. In "Saving the World at Work" Tim brings it on home. One person can make a difference. The last chapter of "Saving the World at Work" is "If Not You, Then Who? -- It took my breath away and is a stark wake-up call to our personal responsibility. There is too much emotional impact in that story to try to quickly tell it here - and I want everyone to anticipate it as they finish reading the book. I was reduced to tears as I read it - and immediately had 4 or 5 people in my own life come to mind. I just want to thank Tim for that powerful example of how one person really can make a difference.

If you ever thought you'd need to wait for the weekend to make a difference, think again. Tim brilliantly connects the dots between saving the planet and saving the office 24/7. This message could not possibly come at a better time! Most people are starving for more meaning at work and what better way to do that than know you can change the world at the same time!

I met Tim at a recent conference and was inspired by his message that acts of individual initiative would lead companies large and small in the Responsibility Revolution. "Saving the World at Work" does a very good job of making Tim's compelling message available to everyone. In this book, he defines a business landscape where demographics, technology and world events converge into a perfect storm that is reshaping consumer values and behaviors. And, in this new order, a company's social consciousness - how they treat their employees, their communities and our planet - will play a major role in the company's success. Best of all, he shares the six laws of the Saver Soldier to help people with a passion for doing good to understand how to connect their dreams to business realities to create both social and economic value. This book is highly recommended for business leaders and anyone who wants to be one.

Why did Tim Sanders write this book? He answers that question in the first chapter: "I want to recruit you, and train you, for the Responsibility Revolution. I want to help you feel good about your company and grow more good within it. I want to help you feel more fulfilled by your job, by helping your company to see the value of giving back to the larger world." This declaration should come as no surprise to those who have read Sanders' previous books, Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends (2002) and then The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life's Dreams (2006). He really does believe that it is possible to link personal goals with business goals while adding value, do so without a great deal of funding, and thereby reduce a company's "social inefficiency." This book is best viewed as an operations manual for "infectious revolutionaries," one in which Sanders explains how to use various "business social" and assessment skills. Sanders' use of the words "revolution" and "revolutionary" are not hyperbolic. He wants to help achieve what Clayton Christensen characterizes as "movements punctuated with disruptive innovations that either create new markets or reshape existing markets." These movements will change, radically, how companies do business. That is certainly true of Aveda, IBM, Interface, Lush, Medtronic, Patagonia, SAS Institute, Timberland, and Whole Foods. These disruptive movements occur in five phases and Sanders devotes a separate chapter to each: First, a major change of circumstances that dramatically impacts how we think about the business landscape, creating in Phase Two a new set of values prior to the arrival of the innovators in Phase Three; then, "as the new values reach a tipping point of mass popularity, the fourth, and most extreme, phase of a business revolution occurs: disruption." In Leading the Revolution, Gary Hamel describes it this way: "First, the revolutionaries will take your markets and your customers. Next they'll take your best employees. Finally, they'll take your assets. The barbarians are no longer banging on the gates, they are eating off your best china." During the final phase, what Sanders calls The New Order, companies develop proficiency in service to new markets, innovators become more sophisticated, and customers become more demanding. "Eventually, surviving companies will satisfy the new market needs and the competition will then turn to who does it best." The process of natural selection continues as new "infectious revolutionaries" appear, disrupting the terms of engagement in what continues to be a Responsibility Revolution. Of special interest to me is what Sanders has to say about what he calls the "saver soldier," a highly motivated individual who leverages work as a platform to help save the world. She or he is convinced that a business can do well by doing good. Sanders examines various saver soldiers, three of whom (e.g. IBM's

Meeting and listening to Tim Sanders at an international conference made me want to read this book. When I did, two things stuck out. First is the concept of the Responsibility Revolution. Second is the concept of the Saver Soldier. As to the first, Sanders did his homework. His notion of the trend he's identified at the Responsibility Revolution is not a personal polemic based on a speaker/consultant's motivational message. He looked deep into corporate efforts, conducted independent surveys of consumers, and spent time with a number of CEOs who are balancing "doing well" with "doing good." What his research suggests is that customers want to make a difference with their buying power, and they're (we're) beginning to look at our suppliers and vendors more critically to see if they're doing the right thing for society and the planet. Those companies that pass consumer scrutiny will maintain their relevance. In other words "doing good" is replacing "being different." In Tim's words, "Good is the new Great." As to the second, the concept of the Saver Soldier is both catchy and compelling. A Saver Soldier is essentially an individual who is rightly categorized as a servant leader (to borrow Robert Greenleaf's term for it). Responsible companies, he says, are full of people who actually care about each other as well as the greater community. Tim's book is chock full of stories that could easily fit into one of those "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books, the difference being that not only are these Saver Soldiers changing lives, but making good business sense at the same time. Having worked with Toyota, a company he cites as one leading the revolution, I can attest to how correct he is -- the people there behave more like volunteers fighting for a cause than the stereotypical organizational man/woman fighting for a promotion. I won't give away the end story, but suffice it to say that it is one of the most gripping stories of life in a corporation you'll ever read. My bet is Sanders had a tough time deciding whether to use it first or last in the book. It grabs you. The book's a great read, the language is easily accessible, and it's the perfect book for the plane.