Profit and Wealth Also Depends on Systemic Literacy

Fives ways forward to gain the systemic edge in this economy

When you think about it, the fundamental purpose of most businesses has long been to generate profit and create wealth for their stakeholders. Over time, the methods used to achieve that purpose have evolved, particularly as technological innovation has progressed, financial engineering has become more sophisticated, and social relations transformed.

For more than a century, business advantage largely came from scale and efficiency, the idea that producing more, faster, and cheaper was the dominant approach within the corporate world to deliver a competitive edge and shareholder value. Many still operate on this basis. Pursuing scale and efficiency remain fundamental for competition, but these alone seem no longer sufficient for stellar success. However, for various reasons, not least the social side effects and public pushbacks that these strategies have experienced, those levers increasingly seem to be reaching their limits.

For most businesses, the external environment today looks a lot different from what it was just twenty years ago, when many of today’s leaders and managers first entered the workforce.