Adding value: the case for better business: putting legacy at the heart of commercial strategy makes everyone a winner

Abstract

Purpose

The success of both London 2012 and Fifteen Cornwall suggest that a focus on legacy can help a company achieve more that is both sustainable and profitable. The idea of putting legacy at the heart of business strategy has also been boosted by recognition that short‐term, profit‐only attitudes have just taken us to the edge of the economic abyss.

Design/methodology/approach

Recently The London Times covered the launch of a new management development initiative whose central idea could help redefine business strategies in the twenty‐first century. “Legacy Together” enables business managers to work with and learn from commercially successful social enterprises, and some of the world's most influential business organisations are looking at it closely. But what exactly is “legacy”, and how can it make a business more successful?

Findings

London 2012 suggests that legacy is an idea whose time has come and that, for the world beating businesses of the future, success could be measured on a “triple bottom line”: profit, social progress, environmental benefit. Business leaders today have more power than ever to create positive, sustainable change, not just in their own organizations, but in society. If the greatest legacy of the London Olympics is to make us as leaders recognize this, then 2012 truly will have been the greatest show on earth.

Originality/value

Legacy Together concentrates on the collaborative skills needed to achieve outstanding results. To succeed your people need to be able to innovate, and increasingly innovation – which by definition means doing something new – requires collaboration. If you want your people to learn how to collaborate and innovate, they will need to know how to engage with what really matters to them and their collaborators. They will also need to know how to share this with others. Business leaders will need to define what they want their people's “every day legacy” to be.

Citation

McDermott, I. (2010), "Adding value: the case for better business: putting legacy at the heart of commercial strategy makes everyone a winner", Strategic Direction, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 3-5. https://doi.org/10.1108/02580541011016420