Recording of the sessions available on our YouTube channel:
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The International University of Catalonia (UIC Barcelona) and the DPMC Foundation have held the 9th Symposium of the Chair in Management by Missions and Corporate Purpose of UIC Barcelona, under the title Human Flourishing through Purpose. The meeting, held at the Botín Foundation, aimed to create a space for joint reflection on something that has been talked about for some time: purpose.
“There is an increasing effort by institutions and companies to connect the corporate purpose with the social development and personal purpose of their teams,” explained the organizers, who gave way at the meeting to interventions by different speakers, who shared their reflections on what it means and what it means to work from the personal purpose aligned with the corporate purpose.
Jorge Barranco, vice-president of Iberia Aliaxis, believes that “working from purpose is translating, little by little, more and more, into better business results”, but in his opinion, in Spain, university-business collaboration still has a lot of room for improvement. For Barranco, the university could improve its availability to serve the market to create more sustainable solutions, but to do so, “the university must challenge the status quo of the company, and vice versa,” he said.
Barranco continued his speech by explaining what Human Flourishing means to him, which is to feel fulfilled, with a place in the world, with a reason that will allow us to leave a legacy. For this, in his opinion, it is necessary to work on self-knowledge and self-esteem, because human flourishing gives meaning to life. “And to this flourishing, universities, administrations and companies can and must help,” he concluded.
Lasse Wrennmark, founding partner of Compannions for Leadership, believes that after the period of hyperglobalization that has just ended, we are in the midst of a transition to a new system, in which wisdom and purpose are what will enable us to create solutions that allow us to move forward. According to Wrennmark, in a context of ‘permacrisis’, which is the one we live in, many companies talk about taking care of their people, but it remains just words, as it is still something that does not manifest itself in organizations. “People hear it, but they don’t internalize it,” he explained.
The solution, for Wrennmark, is to put our purpose at the center of the eye of the hurricane, surrounded by turbulence. “A good leader has to be clear about his or her purpose in decision making, as well as have the ability to understand context and complexity, and make decisions quickly and together,” he explained. Thus, according to Wrennmark, the wisdom-leadership framework can be created to access internal wisdom and enrich it with external wisdom, “creating a collective wisdom, in short”.
Next, Carlos Rey, founder of DPMC and co-director of the chair at UIC Barcelona, spoke about what a sustainable purpose is. “A sustainable purpose is one that connects head, heart and hands,” he explained, emphasizing that “when faced with different logics, a sustainable purpose helps us to balance and integrate, to harmonize these different logics, making reality, empathy and vision compatible.
Human progress: blinkered or opportunity?
The question of whether human progress is a mirage or an opportunity was the starting point for a round table discussion with the participation of Pedro Javier Armentia, president of Creas; Andrea Sánchez Elía, corporate director of Sustainability at Grupo IF; Elvira Arango, corporate director of Leadership and Culture at MAPFRE; Marta Lozano, director of Global Marketing at Castrol, and Miquel Bastons, co-director of the UIC Barcelona Chair, who moderated the debate.
During the round table, there was a debate on what the objective of the company is. “Is it just to make money?” the question was asked. Socially that is the conception, according to Bastons, “so, for many, that shared purpose is an illusion,” he pointed out, putting on the table his position that this question should be answered by entrepreneurs, not academics.
Thus, for all the participants at the table, companies should be interested and involved in human flouirishing, not only in CSR or the SDGs. “We must move from the idea of CSR, solidarity or philanthropy to the idea of sustainability, understood in a broader sense,” said Andrea Sánchez Elía.
Thus, the goal of making their teams flourish should not be seen as “just another burden”, but as an opportunity.
“And making them flourish is closely related to caring,” said Elvira Arango, for whom the first challenge of a leader is to know how to care for his or her teams. Along the same lines, Marta Lozano said she was in favor of “that very thing, to make grow, in my case, relying on digital and sustainability”. For his part, Pedro Javier Armentia explained his commitment to integrating the vision of two apparently disparate worlds, investments and solutions to society’s problems. “An investment can have an impact on building a better world,” he said. For Armentia, a company can make money by doing things that make social sense, which also gives it a competitive advantage.
Another of the conclusions reached in the debate was that the leader must be a lever in the transformation processes. For the participants, “these transformation processes are ordered on the basis of technology, processes, organization, people and purpose, when the order should be the reverse”. They also emphasized that when someone works with purpose, it has an impact on performance, climate and happiness.
After the lunch break, Pablo Cardona, dean of the Faculty of Business and Communication of the UNIR, reviewed the concept of human flourishing throughout history, since it began to be talked about centuries ago, until the Harvard project on this concept started in 2017. Likewise, through a practical case, the attendees were able to see in a tangible way how the analysis and actions around this development of people in the framework of the company can be.
After Cardona, attendees were able to enjoy a workshop-experience around the idea of love in the company, by Mayte Márquez, director of DPMC Consultancy.
And finally, Pablo Parra, CEO of Vemare, encouraged everyone to “infect each other, leaving the backpack so that everything can flourish”. For Parra, “in order to love, you have to know, so you have to look for deep conversations”.