The business case for generosity – and why business leaders need to give back

Being generous is not about internally calculating how you might get the money and time back – nor is it about whether employees deserve generosity. It’s about giving abundantly in holidays, bonuses and pay, says Paul Hargreaves

One of the key takeaways from COP26 was that businesses and governments need to be demonstrating more generosity to avert any further disasters on this planet.

It’s clear that we need to see more generosity, especially in the West. For example, if Western leaders had acted with more generosity and paid for the rest of the world to be vaccinated, it would have reduced future covid variations and would benefit everyone in the world. The same is true with businesses.  Those that are generous to their people, their supply chains and the planet will be better and more successful businesses in the medium to long term.

Capitalism has developed through taking as much as we can from ‘natural resources’ and ‘human resources’ to make more profit, but it’s not a zero-sum game and we can both give away more and receive more in terms of profits and growth. Entrepreneurs and business leaders have been incentivised by taking, using, and extracting more and more, and they are never satisfied with enough.

If we are ever to fight climate change, we need to change the idea that resources are ours to take, and that individualism is better than community.

Lagom

One of the ways we can move away from this kind of extractive capitalism which hurts many while benefitting the few is learning ‘enough’; something the Swedes call ‘Lagom’.

Lagom comes from the Swedish ‘Laget om’, meaning ‘around the team’. The legend says that a group of people passed around a horn of mead, and everyone had to take the right amount, so there was enough to go around.

It’s a concept we desperately need in today’s world and gives a sense of egalitarianism and fairness. The top 10% of the world has hogged well over 90% of the world’s resources, despite the fact there is enough to go around, and businesses have propagated this inequality.

Learning what is ‘enough’ as business leaders allows us to be content without ridiculous director’s salaries and encourages generosity towards those who work for us.

Companies full of generous leaders and people who are treated fairly will make the successful businesses of the future. Consider how generous your business is, how generous you are, and where you might be able to be better.

Building generosity into your business

Leaders need to ensure that generosity and compassion is built into the workplace. Our company tries to make sure every meeting and activity has a ‘people’ and ‘planet’ element. We include both in our company goals and aims each year to try and ensure we hit our people and planet goals as a company. Everyone also has social and environmental targets to reach which make up 40% of their KPIs.

We introduced a ‘compulsory’ volunteering scheme (although it’s something that everyone is usually very willing to do), and each employee is given a KPI of 12 hours volunteer work, paid for by the company. It can either be carried out as a block of time or as a couple of hours every month, but they are paid their normal wages, and we plan to increase the hours next year. Although some individuals will do more than this, the scheme means that wide participation in volunteer community work is an integral part of the company.

Being generous is not about internally calculating how you might get the money and time back – nor is it about whether employees deserve generosity. It’s about giving abundantly in holidays, bonuses and pay.

Generosity is contagious and most human beings will reciprocate if they are shown generosity. Very occasionally some people might take advantage, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be generous. It just means the circle of generosity is temporarily broken – and reverting to miserliness is certainly not the answer. As we understand generosity, we know we will always receive back when we are generous, and nowhere is this truer than the workplace.

Most cultures contain stories that encourage us to be generous because those who give back generously will receive back more abundantly. However, it’s often a challenge for us to let go and trust enough to give freely to others without expecting anything in return. Too often our generosity is transactional or contractual – which isn’t true generosity.