Deep Dive: In pursuit of human-centered business

Can B2B leaders venture forward, working together, to solve our biggest problems and achieve our greatest opportunities?

Frequent readers know that I often argue that as more and more business is done in the virtual world, B2B innovators have an obligation to innovate in the real world. That means doing business as humans for humans. That’s all well and good, and I seldom receive pushback. Instead, I am asked two tough questions. What exactly does it mean to do business as humans for humans? And, how do I lead my business in that direction? I found inspiration in Anthony Howard’s new book, Humanise: Why Human-Centered Leadership is the Key to the 21st Century. More on that, in context, below. For now, I will offer that writing this edition was a journey of discovery. One idea led to the next, guided by the need to answer the tough questions of what it means to do business as humans for humans. I start by wondering if B2B relationships are an untapped resource for established companies. Then, I offer a new way of doing business—for now, I call it venturing — which is about how to take risks in the pursuit of big ideas. The pursuit of big ideas requires unprecedented collaboration between companies, which in turn requires an extreme level of trust. I suggest that the pursuit of objective truth in the service of customers is the way to achieve that trust. And finally, I step back and wonder about the role of digital technologies as an enabler of human-centered business. I have come to believe that my work is about big ideas and how to do them. The pursuit of big ideas is an inherently human endeavor. Since today’s innovations are hyper-dominated by technology-centric solutions, carving out a new understanding of what it means to do business in a very human-centric way is akin to an existential imperative. This edition is a start. I ask questions, attempt to answer them, and look forward to your feedback and ideas.

Are B2B relationships an untapped resource for countering disruption?

In venture capital communities, it is often said that startups are the most capital-efficient approach for solving the world’s problems. I’m searching for research to support this assertion, but in the meantime, I have to say it offers more questions than answers. Among them, what qualifies as a startup? Why is capital utilization the measure of performance? Is this a message that venture capitalists tell themselves as a form of self-aggrandizement? I have nothing against venture funding or digital startups, but I want more. I believe that big problems are solved by big ideas and hard work, which are elements of the human condition. Capital is necessary, of course, but I’m looking for a more human-centric way of solving our biggest problems, or better, to pursue our biggest opportunities.

I found ideas, tools, inspirations, practices, examples, and questions in Anthony Howard's writing. Humanise is a guide for people that want to change the world, and it is a call for leaders to lead as humans. I dug in, wondering if I could find inspiration for B2B innovations, imagining that a business could lead as the best human leaders do. I started with the idea that for B2B companies, doing business as humans is helping the customer’s customer through collaboration, integration, and above all, commitment. I end with six words that might form a core lexicon for human-centric business, and the idea that I can carry these ideas forward in my work with individuals, companies, and associations, in the pursuit of B2B innovation and the future of distribution.

My ears perked up when I read in Humanise that “relationships are key to navigating systemic challenges.” I think it’s fair to say that established businesses face immense systemic challenges when they stare down disruption by venture-backed startups on a mission to save the world by defeating, replacing, or co-opting incumbent businesses. Established companies must also overcome the systemic challenge imposed by the established system. Industry structures, value chain roles, business practices, and customer expectations are all barriers to change. Established systems act to preserve and enshrine business as it has always been done. Predictability is necessary for planning. Originality, even if it leads to progress, is deferred.

Howard’s idea that relationships are essential for human-centric leadership caught my eye because most B2B innovators I know look to themselves to find a way through uncertainty. Strategy comes first, followed by investment in new capabilities. New products or services are invented, designed to meet customers' unmet needs. Next comes marketing and selling. Then, finally, when an innovative company decides it has a winning innovation, it seeks partnerships. Partnerships are founded on the power of business momentum. One party leads, not through ideas for the future, but through solutions that sell in the present. Working through relationships with other companies to overcome an uncertain future is anathema to sales-driven business practices.

But it is also true that partnerships are central to conducting business in the B2B sector. And, partnerships are the prism through which B2B companies manage proactive relationships with other companies. And so, when faced with a systemic challenge, it seems possible that a first principle of human-centric business might be to look to existing relationships for ideas that lead to solutions. And if existing relationships are lacking, to create new relationships. And if big ideas are needed to overcome big challenges or pursue big opportunities, big relationships—meaning ones that are robust, deep, sustained, and productive—are crucial.

Is venturing a way of doing business for established companies?

Noticing that relationships are essential for overcoming systemic challenges is important, but not enough. Arming leaders requires positing a way of doing business, one that includes relationships and other essential elements. A rethink of established principles is needed. I kicked this idea around with a few colleagues. Together, we sketched out a few hypotheses:

• Purpose. Howard explains that purpose is like what one sees in the movies when a spaceship flies toward an intergalactic docking station and is drawn in by a tractor beam. In his words, “[Purpose] is a gravitational force that draws us in.” I often assert that the ultimate purpose for B2B companies is to help customers do their work and live their lives. That’s vague, but if Howard is correct, pursuit of a purpose is what matters. By starting out to improve outcomes for customers, enabled by a strong sense of purpose, leaders will be pulled forward to find and offer innovations that matter. Movement matters. Move with purpose and customers will guide you home. (My very first Deep Dive edition reported a similar concept born of pandemic necessities.)

• Projects. For human-centric business, projects are more important than value propositions. As a famous philosopher commanded, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” A proposition is an offer for consideration. A project is a commitment to work toward a vision. By project, I mean working toward the realization of a big idea. I explain this by analogy, pointing to “the American project”—the big idea that governing requires the consent of the governed. Projects are more intentional and consequential than value propositions. Projects are a new way of doing business that commits B2B companies to achieve something worthwhile for customers, and by so doing, to break through the barriers of systemic challenges. Value propositions promise only “we’ll see” what happens. Projects promise “we will do” what matters.

• Trade. The pursuit of relationship-enabled innovations, driven by purpose and powered by projects, could easily be a cynical or manipulative business philosophy if executed narrowly and only through a sales lens. The primary goal of human-centered business cannot be selling things. Without denying the absolute requirement for businesses to earn profits, something different is needed. Trade might be a solution. Trade can be thought of as selling and buying products or services. But more broadly, trade can also mean a commercial transaction where something is exchanged for something else. In this frame, companies with relationships formed for the pursuit of big ideas might conduct business as selling and buying from each other, even if one company does more selling while the other does more buying, so long as the overall trade includes knowledge, capabilities, assets, financing, logistics, and other items of consequential value.

Looking at what I have written so far, I might be describing a traditional joint venture established between companies to pursue an agreed-upon opportunity, except that I am not advocating for the creation of a standalone business co-owned by partners. Instead, I am attempting to define a new way of doing business. This edition started with an observation about the role and worldview of venture capital. I saw shortcomings. But perhaps, I should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Venture capital is about funding big risks and achieving success through startup companies. As a verb, the word venture is commonly held to mean a daring undertaking or setting out on a risk-filled journey. Perhaps the practice of human-centric business when executed to overcome systemic challenges might be termed “venturing.”

As with all ways of doing business, venturing would be achieved through mindsets, strategies, cultures, capabilities, policies, programs, metrics, and more. Startups, capitalized by cash, have a definite way of doing business. I propose that established businesses, capitalized by humans, may consciously adopt a new way of doing business. This edition is mostly a thought experiment, but perhaps a start. Venturing could become a regular way to face systemic challenges before companies find themselves “in extremis,” a ship driver’s term that refers to a situation in which a collision is inevitable and no change of course or application of power can avoid catastrophe. Venturing might preserve the opportunity to avoid defeat in the face of system challenges, and then enable victory through game-changing innovation.

Is trust achieved through the pursuit of truth?

No great human endeavor is achieved without trust. In a previous Quick Take edition, I suggested that trust is the foundation for unbreakable bonds and the correct measure of customer loyalty. But how is trust achieved when companies collaborate for the pursuit of ideas that are both big and risky? If projects are doing something that matters, then the execution of projects must be about striving to achieve an outcome that is held to be objectively true by B2B collaborators. The pursuit of such a truth may lead to trust.

Howard writes of truth as transcendent, something that goes “beyond this place and this moment.” Truth is like gravity; it is real whether one believes it or not. What is not truth is opinion. Howard explains, “clarity about what constitutes truth is very helpful in debate, as many people confuse opinion with truth.” Digging in deeper, he offers:

We live in a relativist age in which people often argue about the meaning of truth as a way of avoiding actual truth, such as theologians who choose to enter the door marked ‘discussion about heaven’ rather than the door marked ‘heaven.’ The distraction of debate can deny us the opportunity to appreciate truth itself.

Adding truth to our exploration of human-centered business, it’s important to remember that this edition began by wondering if relationships between companies might be among the most crucial assets an established business builds on to overcome systemic challenges, also known as disruption or disintermediation. Then, I suggested that companies might act on shared purposes, executing through projects, and earning profits through trade. This requires extreme trust, especially since collaborating companies are not creating a new business to operate independently as a joint venture. Joint ventures work because the new company operates according to internal processes to achieve mission-oriented metrics without the interference of the venture partners. By contrast, a new way of doing human-centered business as venturing does not seek to minimize interference, but to optimize collaboration. Trust is not a nice-to-have. Trust is foundational.

Howard cements truth, trust, and relationships together by adding a new element as the glue for doing business as humans for humans. That element is communication, achieved through conversations:

Searching for answers to a major challenge usually starts with the idea of ‘solving a problem,’ which can result in arguments about the nature of the problem and the proposed solutions. Starting with what we have in common, our humanity, rather than the things that divide can be much more helpful. … What would happen if we shifted the conversation to a human level, starting with our shared humanity and our shared relationships? The immediate insight is that we are all on this planet together and have a responsibility to ourselves and those who come after us. The next insight is that focusing firstly on our relationships—a human-centered approach—encourages us to find points of agreement rather than disagreement, searching for understanding rather than error or dispute. People in relationships search for truth together. [Emphasis added.]

My concept of venturing mandates that collaborating companies agree that there is an objective truth to be achieved. This truth might take many forms, but I suggest that it is ultimately about what is to be gained by helping the customer’s customer, or bettering society, or strengthening an economy, or saving lives, or creating wealth, or optimizing profits(!). Progress toward an objective truth can be measured. That measurement will constitute a return on collaboration and the necessary deployment, coordination, and perhaps integration of resources and capabilities. Pursuing an objective truth, and moving ever closer to it, may create trust, launching a human-centric way of doing business as sustainable and profitable. Human-centric business requires human-centered leadership, and Howard’s insights are a pivotal frame for all B2B innovators that would seek to define the future of distribution.

What is the role of technology in human-centered business?

Humanise opens with observations on technology that might serve to wrap up this edition. Blending Howard’s insights with ideas explored in my previous newsletters, I posit that in the digital age, digital technologies have fragmented us into tribes even as we are more and more digitally connected. Without action, polarization in our society may migrate to business. Moreover, humans are overwhelmed by the pace of change and very unprepared for what lies ahead. Our work and lives are always on and never off, creating a sort of manic gridlock. As more and more of our work is done in the virtual world, B2B innovators must offer balance through human-centered innovations in the real world; the world where we all live and work. Human-centric business is not just a process shift, it requires change for transition. Howard explains that “looking at change through a human lens … reminds you that change involves people and impacts people.” Human-centered business requires human-first innovations.

Ultimately, Humanise is a call for leaders to lead as humans for humans. Howard asks a question—Who will lead us?—and then answers it: You! With human-centered leadership, we can face a future of unbounded possibility, a point with which I agree. My explorations are never driven by a doom-and-gloom worldview. Humans rise to challenge. Leadership matters. Progress happens. The pursuit of big ideas and how to do them is a very human endeavor, perhaps the most human of all.

Join our community by asking questions

Am I on the right track? Can you help put me there? As promised above, here are six words that might be the start of a new lexicon for human-centered business to overcome systemic challenges and pursue unheard of opportunities. For each term, I suggest questions that you might explore in your business, value chain, and market:

• Relationships. Look to your company’s business relationships and identify companies that might work with you to overcome systemic challenges. What are the common characteristics of those companies? Do you see gaps? What new relationships must you create?

• Purpose. If every B2B company’s highest purpose is to help customers do their work and live their lives, what is your company’s specific purpose? Does your purpose align with systemic challenges or opportunities faced by your customers, value chain, community, or market? What is the purpose of companies whose relationship might help you achieve progress? Can you imagine working together, achieving results, and being pulled forward by your success in the way that Howard’s spaceship is drawn into the intergalactic docking station?

• Projects. What is the big project that you might pursue to achieve your purpose and make progress through relationships? Does your project pass the “red face test,” meaning that you are willing to talk about it in public without embarrassment? Does your project inspire? What do your suppliers, distributors, customers, and customer’s customers think about your project? Are any B2B startups backed by venture capital pursuing your project? Should they be? Can you work with them, or must you work against them?

• Trade. What will you and your relationship-based partners sell to each other and buy from each other? Can you help your partners sell more to their customers? Beyond buying and selling, what is the essential knowledge, capabilities, resources, funding, talent, vision, strategies, and more that you may trade for mutual benefit? What economic model must you create to earn attractive profits for all?

• Truth. What objective truth are you pursuing through projects, driven by purpose, and within relationships to solve systemic challenges or strive for big, game-changing opportunities? Is your truth related to creating value for customers or your customer’s customers? Can you create value in society? Will you strengthen the economy? More down to earth, are you working to better a community, segment, or account? How about the workers of the customers you serve? Are you helping them achieve life-long wealth through their chosen skilled trade or profession?

• Trust. After answering all of the questions above, can you imagine that you will gain the trust of your partners, customers, suppliers, distributors, communities, and more? How will you measure trust? How can you start with trust, make progress, and strengthen trust over time?

I’ll stop here. I have already scheduled two conversations to apply these ideas to see if they can create something new—human-centered innovations in pursuit of big ideas. Check back frequently for progress. I will report on what I learn in future editions. As always, please share your comments, ideas, experiences, and direction below. Don’t be a stranger. Click here to schedule a call or send me a note at mark.dancer@n4bi.com