What if the decisions you make today create ripples far beyond your business?

Some leadership conversations are worth revisiting.

In this re-released episode of The Connected Leadership Podcast by Zentano, Dave speaks with Camilla Barnes, founder of Better Business, Better World, about what it really means to lead a business with purpose.

This isn't a conversation about choosing purpose instead of profit.

It's about understanding how purpose, people and profit can work together to create healthier businesses and a wider positive impact.

Camilla shares her fascinating leadership journey and explores:

• Why businesses can be a genuine force for good
• Why leaders need to think in systems rather than silos
• Why curiosity can be more powerful than having all the answers
• How involving people can create stronger purpose and better decisions
• What regenerative leadership asks us to rethink about the way we lead

One of the messages that really stands out is that we don't need to get everything right before we start. Progress matters more than perfection.

• If you're thinking about the impact your organisation has on its people, its community and the wider world, this is a conversation worth revisiting.

Welcome to Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others, a podcast about inspiring leadership. We hope to bring you grounded wisdom, stories from real leaders and leave you feeling inspired. Let's dive in.

So, welcome to Unleash youh Impact, Unlock Others. This is a Voices of Leadership episode today, and what I want to talk about today is a bit of hope, a bit of optimism.

If we think about the geopolitical world we're living in now, I do worry sometimes that some of the leadership is serving the needs of the few and I would like it to serve the needs of the many.

So when we look at what we can do in business, I believe, and my guest today believes, that good leaders running great companies can put out positive ripples into the world.

So today I'm joined by the wonderful Camilla Barnes and we're going to talk about how we can explore businesses being a force for good in the world, where they align purpose, people and profit.

Now, Camilla shares a personal leadership journey that she's had and unpacks the philosophy behind her company, Better Business, Better World, highlighting how leaders can create purposeful, sustainable, human centered and commercially successful organizations. So, Camilla, welcome to the podcast.

Hi. Lovely to be here.

So you're somewhere different to me today. So you, are you in Gloucestershire today? I'm in Worcestershire today. Where are you today?

Yes, I'm in Stroud in Gloucestershire.

Lovely part of the world.

Yes. Well, it's not as sunny as it has been, but I'm hoping that will come back at the weekend.

Well, given I said today was, I want to give people a bit of hope, to coin a phrase. The wonderful Simon Sinek, who I really like listening to, has a podcast called A Bit of Optimism.

I'd like today to give somebody a little bit of optimism, a bit of hope, a bit of sunshine in their life by some of the things we're going to talk about. I know, I know you and I are very aligned in some of our thinking in terms of how businesses can be a force for good.

But before we get into some of the detail around that, people may not know who you are, what your business is about.

So can you sort of just tell us a little bit about your early life, your influences and how that led you into a career path that brought you to where you are today in this purpose led approach to running businesses?

Yeah, absolutely. So now I am supporting businesses to become B Corp certified. And where did that start?

So, you know, originally a linguist, that came from my parents having a place in the south of Spain to reduce kind of summer holiday costs. But as a result, it kind of gave me a second home in a different culture. And that is definitely part of my origin story. It's a rural part of Spain.

There were no cars, people were still farming with mules.

And I spent a lot of my childhood in the fields, plowing the fields with the mules and collecting almonds, which was such a different setting to England at the time. So I think that influenced me a lot in both sides of my passions, my languages and sustainability.

So, yeah, I went down the language route first, but then I met some people on a language course in France during my A levels from Latin America, and they invited me to visit them.

So that was my first experience of Latin America and just after my A levels and I saw this huge kind of difference between the rich and the poor there. And that got me thinking, why is it like this? Because it's not as obvious in England.

And so I studied Latin American development to get to the bottom of it and learned a lot more about the politics and the social policies and the environmental kind of background of Latin America. And that really kind of opened my eyes to different parts of the world and how it's developed.

And then I was working in Mexico for four years after that at a sustainable development NGO in a biosphere reserve.

So it was really on the ground, seeing a lot of sustainable development stuff like regenerative agriculture and reforestation and environmental education in schools.

And then when I came back to the UK after that, I really wanted to carry on working in sustainability and I ended up working at Innovate uk, which is a government body that funds technological innovation. But what I loved about it is that they are often funding solutions to social and environmental challenges.

It's a real hidden gem in the uk, I think, so that when I heard about B Corp, it was just the perfect marriage of kind of sustainability and business, both of kind of my areas of my background. And I thought, yes, this is what will help systemic change.

I think the business sector has a lot of influence and if we can make them, help them be a force for good, I'd like to be part of that.

Yeah, I think.

And Richard and I often talk about, when we're talking to leaders and helping leaders develop about what are the positive ripples that you create inside your business and into the community beyond.

Because I'm sure you believe, I definitely believe the more of us that put positive ripples into the world, the better the place of the world would be. Sometimes we do things that are well intended but don't create the ripple that we want to create.

So we, you know, when we put things out into the ecosystem, which is our business or the world we operate in, we can't always predict what that's going to do. But the intention has got to be positive. The intention has to be, let's serve the needs of the many.

Although I'm interested in some amazing experience, I'd love to talk to you about those experiences for the next hour, but I guess there's some really interesting things there.

What were the key things that you've learned from all those experiences that you've had that's come to your realization early on that business as usual wasn't serving the majority of the people on the planet?

I, I mean, I think in, in, in Mexico, I saw kind of the more extreme end of consumerism, which had kind of the influence from the state, the states and the lack of care for resources and waste. And that really saddened me. And fortunately, at the same time that I moved to Mexico, it was getting better in the uk.

So when I was coming back to visit, I would see, oh, all of a sudden the supermarkets aren't giving out plastic bags anymore. Oh, all of a sudden the recycling is being done better by the council.

And so that, yeah, those two juxtapositions kind of made me think, well, there's just so much more we need to do here.

And it is often the businesses and how they decide to run their business that creates this waste or is not, you know, they're not treating staff brilliantly.

And also working at a charity made me realize I'm not sure that they are going to make the necessary change to the world, that sector, you know, the not for profit, because we were often receiving grants from corporate partners. And that made me think, well, that's where the power is. They're the ones that are, they have the money, they have the influence.

So if they can embed their goodwill a bit better into the business, maybe we can see more positive impact than just corporate giving.

Yeah. How do you balance then?

Because I'm sure, like me, you look at some of the things that go on in the business world and the political world and you know, we can get very frustrated by some of that because a, we haven't got a lot of control over it or influence over it. It's just happening around us and that can cause a lot of frustration.

I'm sure many people get frustrated, but we need to balance that with some hope that actually we, we can find a better way. So how do you balance that kind of Sense of frustration, which I'm sure you feel, but also the sense of hope.

And be useful to unpack how you see that, because I'm sure a lot of people hopefully listen to this, will want less of the frustration and more of the hope.

Yeah, I've always focused on the solution to problems rather than the problem because I just get overwhelmed if I focus too much on their problems and the challenges too much. So that's why I loved Innovate uk and that's why I love B Corp, because they are providing solutions to challenges.

And that has really helped me stay positive about everything, seeing all of the solutions that the UK government are funding. And I love how B Corp is providing this framework that is really an accessible way for businesses to transform into more responsible businesses.

So for me, I always just focus on what's in my control and I help my clients think the same. What's within your control? Where can you influence?

So start internally first, look at your own processes and what you can improve and then start having conversations with your sphere of influence.

So even if you're a small player compared to your suppliers, you can still create those conversations and start having conversations about positive change. You can influence your workers very much.

Every worker at a business, if you're leading with by good example, they will go and you know, that ripple effect will go into each of those members of staff's family and then you know your customers as well by, say, you know, being a good business, your customers will, will enjoy that and they will also, you know, start buying from other good businesses. So I very much focus on what you can do within your sphere of influence.

Yeah, I totally agree and I think that you're right. Probably too many people do stress and worry about stuff that they can't control or even influence.

And actually it's just, wait, I understand why it happens, but it's wasted energy. And actually, if we can, if we can, we've all got, we've all got limited stores of energy.

If we can put that energy to the stuff that you're talking about, that's going to have a much better effect, isn't it? I think you made a good point about, you know, using all of the people in your business.

Well, I spoke to Ann Herrmann recently from Herman International about the whole concept of whole brain thinking and how you can use that as a tool to really do of the things we're talking about. She made the point quite clearly that leadership where we are right now is not about this one person at the top of the organization.

Who's got all the answers to all the problems. It's about using all the thinking resources you've got of your whole team in the business.

And a leader job is to leverage that, not not to be the one who's got all the answers. And I think we need to do more of that because as you said, there's a lot of really good people out there with some probably really good ideas.

They just need to be heard and we need to somehow leverage that inside our businesses, don't we?

Absolutely. It's about. So a B Corp is really about empowering your workforce a lot more, so giving them a voice around decisions that affect them.

So, yeah, it really encourages leadership to create those opportunities for workers to have that voice and empower them to make the decisions that they're best to make. That might be having a worker committee around B Corp issues, so there's someone from each department.

So they are talking about issues that affect them. The benefits, the learning and development, the health and well being, what the product is actually doing.

Having workers discuss that in a non hierarchical way is a great way to empower your workers and get the best out of them. And then that's also brilliant for engagement because they feel like voices being heard and they're part of the business's journey.

I think the businesses that see most turnover is those where they don't show that they value their staff and therefore they don't feel that they're part of that business's purpose.

But when you do the opposite and really involve workers in the purpose of the business, you see a huge increase in retention because people feel part of the family. Yeah.

It's interesting. I'm thinking some of the work that I've done over the last few years about helping SMEs put some structure around how they grow their businesses.

And a lot of them, they kind of sometimes have a vision statement or a mission statement. They might have some core values, they might not.

But actually in terms of using them in the right way, I bet if I went into some of those businesses, said, what's your purpose as a business? I wouldn't get a common answer. I might not get an answer at all. Yeah, you know, what are your core values?

How do they actually play out in everyday life? Again, I probably would. I would get very mixed responses, if any at all. So I think you're dead right.

I think I love that vision, that actually the way forward is there are in most businesses a lot of really good people who need a voice, they want a voice. They've probably got an awful lot to offer, but actually they're just not being heard and not for whatever reason. There isn't a mechanism.

And I love that thing about, did you call it the committee where you've got somebody from every department. I mean, I love that idea. Just getting together and talking about how can we make this business better.

So somebody listening to this who isn't a B Corps, who may have heard of it, but doesn't really know much about what being a B core is. Can you just give me a few minutes on why should. Why should any business be a B core?

What's the benefits, apart from what you've already explained of going down that route?

Yeah, of course. So it is a third party holistic certification that verifies you are socially and environmentally responsible business.

So it is, it's really brilliant for attracting and retaining talent because it encourages businesses to look after their staff financially, health and well being, learning and development, but also leading by example and being a purpose led business that someone wants to work for.

We've seen that B Corps actually perform better financially as well because they are clear about their purpose and therefore that helps with customer loyalty and gaining more customers, whether that's business to consumer or business to business.

It has been great for innovation because it's encouraging businesses to look at their business model and if the business model can solve a particular social or environmental challenge, it's a really brilliant improvement framework.

So, you know, the first time you go for it is really getting your baseline and then the process encourages continuous improvement and you have to show that you are making improvements each time you recertify and the community around it is probably the biggest differentiator compared to other certifications. So compared to the ISOs or things like that.

B Corp doesn't just want to be a certification, it wants to create a movement, move away from unfair capitalism to a fairer capitalist system. And they're doing that by creating communities.

So in the uk we're lucky we've got what they call B locals in most areas of the country, which is basically where a network of the B Corps that get together and they are always sharing best practice on what they can do to be better and learning and working on shared initiatives. So yeah, there are lots of benefits.

Often you see money savings because it encourages you to reduce your consumption of natural resources in your business. And obviously great you can get great PR around it because you're doing something positive with your business. So those are some of the top ones.

The be local. I really like that Idea because you and I met at a Circle to a Success event in Cheltenham.

Now Circle to Success are an organization that operate in our part of the world.

Suzanne and Angela, who run that shout out to them, they're really great at bringing people like you and I together and talking about common issues, aren't they?

And sharing best practice, which is, which is a really important thing for businesses to get out of their own business and look at what other people are doing. So I've always liked being belonging to Circle to Success and that's where we met and that's where we started talking.

But this, the Be Local sounds like a similar type of thing where you meet up with like minded people, you can talk about the challenges that you've all got. Share Best Practice.

So if someone's listening to this thinking, well, I'm not a B corps, but I, I'd like to know more and maybe a B Local meeting is where I could probably start that journey. How would they find out more about their local groups?

So the B Locals are open to any business interested in social and environmental best practice.

So you know, the Circle to Success looks at all business topics, whereas the B Locals are specifically focusing on social and environmental responsibility.

So that might be sustainable packaging or we did something on social mobility, how you can use your business to, to bring in people from underrepresented groups. We've done something on kind of digital sustainability. So it's always kind of the sharing of social environmental topics.

But essentially if you go yes, on the B Lab website, it has links to all of the BE Locals and you can find one in your area and sign up and get involved. There are often kind of quarterly networking which we call B Socials.

We do quarterly best practice webinars and then we're doing some site visits as well.

So recently we went to Print Waste in Cheltenham, which is a waste management company and we just geeked out on looking at how waste is sorted and what happens with waste and that was just fascinating. I think everyone should go and visit a waste management plant at one point in their life.

I was reflecting when you were talking about the work that is being funded through Innovate uk, because I suspect there's a lot of good things happening that are being funded that nobody really knows anything about unless you're involved in that world. We don't see some of the positive stuff that people are trying to do and it. So I agree with you.

I think if we can get out into some of these businesses and go and see what these businesses are doing we can start to learn, actually there is some hope here. There is some really good stuff going on and there's some businesses that are really trying to make our lives better.

We just don't know what's going on, do we? Unless we get out there.

Yeah. And the government is funding it.

You know, I was there for nearly 10 years, all different political parties, but you know, we continue to receive money to fund technological innovation to solve social environmental challenges. So every political party has valued that and they want the UK to be leaders in this space.

So I would encourage anyone to Google innovate UK success stories and see some of the fantastic projects because there are all sorts of exciting things being funded.

Yeah, it sounds fantastic actually. And I think, yeah, for me I'd love to know more about some of that stuff myself. So let's talk about your company. Better business, better world.

What does that mean in practice? Where did that come from? And more importantly, why does the work that you do matter more than it ever has done?

So it came, I think I chose the name. I like the fact that it does what it says on the tin.

For me, after working in charity sector and then government sector, I feel that business can make the biggest change because they have more independence really and control of their own sphere of influence. So for me I feel like if we can change businesses, we can create a better world. So that's kind of the origin of the story, the name.

And I just love waking up every day and helping businesses find practical ways to continuously improve. So I'm also very sympathetic to businesses challenges. I don't like to be idealistic when I approach business.

I like to sit, you know, ask them where their challenges are and what and then, you know, look for practical ways that we can make improvements in that area and you know, just be consistent and persistent for positive impact really, you know, to chip away at things, make step by step changes.

And I like to work with businesses over the long term because we just go deeper and deeper on issues, you know, so we might start with suppliers, say, we might start by screening them to at least find out what each of these their suppliers are doing and then we can start creating a supplier workshops where we start talking to them face to face about these issues and then just keep going deeper and say, right, what can we do about this? Okay, so this whole sector is struggling, say if we're trying to switch to electric vehicles, but the costs are too high.

Okay, so let's talk to another company that's making that easier and just keeping on going deeper. But it's always about chipping away step by step.

But the first thing is getting started and just saying, yes, we want to be a more responsible business, get started and see and see where we go.

But who would be your typical clients for your business? Is it the SME marketplace? Where do you target yourself to give you the help that you give?

I love working with high environmental impact businesses that are at the start of their sustainability journey. Because I love. That's where I see the biggest transformation and that's what I'm here for, really.

You know, there are startups who were created to solve a social environmental challenge. I really want to help the businesses who have been around for decades.

They may be family run heritage, lots of long heritage, but they, you know, they often have been great with people.

They often, you know, looked after their staff well and they're brilliant at customer service, but maybe they have not focused on what they can do to reduce their environmental impact. And so, yeah, they're the kind of businesses that I love working with.

I think similar to us, we form sort of longer term relationships with the clients that we work for. We're not trying to do transactional stuff, we're trying to help businesses with transformational change.

And I think that it's quite intrinsically motivating for Rich and I, I'm sure you probably find it the same way because you can actually see the work that you're doing playing out over time, can't you? Which is great.

Yeah.

So in terms of the leaders of these businesses, so I think obviously we are a leadership business. This is a leadership podcast. So let's talk about how leadership needs to work inside a B corp. Yeah.

What worries me a lot at the moment is you see a lot of people that are burnt out, distracted, and there's a lot of problems in the workplace and some of that is with some of the senior leaders as well as the everybody else, how do we sort of, how does that play out with this need to move towards a world of sustainability and well being? Because I think there's a disconnect at the moment, isn't there? And how do we, how do we reconnect that? I think is, is the question I'm asking.

Yeah.

Well, I've come across this notion of regenerative leadership recently and it is very much about not just delegating, but empowering your staff to do what they're good at. So as a leader, you're not responsible for everything, you're responsible for keeping an eye on everything.

But if you have Built a great team who are all very capable.

What you need to do is really empower them to make the decisions in their area and therefore, you know, the expert in each of the area will be, you know, be making those decisions. I think that's the best thing a leader can do is to empower their staff to be more autonomous over the decisions in their area of the business.

And as a leader, you should just be providing a great vision of where the business wants to get to the purpose.

Always have that front of mind, the purpose of the business and then allowing each person in the business to get on and do it the best way they see fit and obviously stepping in if things go wrong. But I think this, this, you know, empowering everyone is, is the best way forward.

Yeah, I totally agree.

Actually, I want to thank, I want to thank you for sort of flagging up this whole concept of regenerative leadership because I, until I spoke to you, I hadn't heard of that term before and I, I went out and did a bit of research. I, I'm actually halfway through a book on the topic by a guy called Charles Hutchings and lady called Laura Storm. And it's a really interesting book.

Yeah, they do.

And as I started reading the book, what it, I mean, gave me a bit of comfort that actually what they're talking about is everything that sits behind what Rich and I have done with our connected leadership approach to how we run our businesses. So there's definitely some aligned thinking with us to what they're talking about.

And particularly I think in the early part of the book they were talking about the disconnections that we need to now reconnect. So I'm talking about things like disconnection between human beings and nature, which is what the sustainability thing is all about.

The disconnection between how we look at our businesses from a very left brained type of focus versus a right brain focus, because there is a difference. So there's a number of different disconnections that they're talking about in the book.

And I'm thinking, yeah, these are actually fundamentally important because our businesses are not like machines, are they?

We can't think of our businesses too mechanistically because there isn't a predictable outcome every time there's not a button we can press and something obvious happens at the other end. It sometimes works like that. But our businesses are ecosystems and often it's unpredictable. So we do things, well, intention things.

And you wonder why. Well, that outcome wasn't the one I was expecting, but that's what it's like to work inside a system. And not all of our business are systems.

The world is a system.

Yeah, exactly.

So that systems thinking approach I think is really important. I'm guessing that's where B Corp is coming from, isn't it? Think of your business as an ecosystem.

Yeah, it's very much about looking after all stakeholders in your ecosystem, not just shareholders. I think the premise of just shareholder profits being the only focus of a business has what's got us into this situation.

Because if you only think about the numbers, you will make people and the environment suffer somehow because you're just thinking about increasing profits all the time. Whereas if you are thinking about people, planet profit as equals, then you make very different decisions.

Yeah, absolutely. So you talked earlier on, said, I'm a very practical person, I like to find practical solutions for my clients. So let's talk practical.

So if you're a leader here, listening to this and thinking, yeah, I agree with what these guys are saying, I would like to sort of lead in that way. What are some of the practical day to day things they can start to do?

Obviously a B core certification and exploring whether that might be right for them is one thing, but in sort of everyday practical things that leaders can start to do. What would your advice be?

I would say start with your people, start talking, asking them what is important to them, start asking them how well they think the business is doing in terms of looking after people and planet.

So yeah, obviously start with your workers, but also your suppliers and your customers because they will all have had different experiences of the business. And until you start hearing what's going out on in the field, I think you're in a bit of an, you know, an echo chamber as a leader.

So definitely start asking, talking to people, finding out what's going on on the ground. If you, you know, that would be step one and then, and then you'll find out what the challenges are.

So then you, then you could start looking at each of those challenges one by one. What can we do about that? A great example is when I joined Innovate uk. My first job was to publish the funded project list on the website.

But it wasn't a smooth system. So then I went back one step, spoke to the person the step before me and she said, oh, this is happening, but then this is really difficult.

So then I went a step back and spoke to the next person in the line of what was going on and I went all the way back to the origin of the project problem and then I got all of those people in a room and said, and that was the first time all of those people of that process had been in a room together. And I said, we are all part of this process. I'm at the end of the process. But I can see that there are real issues along the whole chain.

And they were like, wow, I hadn't even spoken to X in real life about. I just received the information, did something with it and blah, blah, blah. And I've been getting frustrated with X, Y and Z on my own.

No one actually thought to go and get all the people of the chain together and talk about the system in one room. And once we did that, we created a brilliantly streamlined system.

We all knew each other, we all knew who was doing what and then we knew who to talk to when an issue came up. And that was an incredibly satisfying thing to do. But often that doesn't happen in a business.

You're just kind of in your little bit of the system and you just tend to stay in it. But once you start thinking about it as a system, I think things seem to flow better.

Yeah, that's really interesting. It's a really good example.

I can think of one as well, where we were working with a company with a group of senior leaders, top end almost of the business, not quite the exec team, but just below the exec team. Well, I made the mistake in one of the early sessions we had with them of calling them a team of senior leaders.

And they said, we want to pick you up on that. We're not actually a team. We don't often get together and speak to each other. And I thought, okay, beg your pardon, you're a group of senior leaders.

And therein lies some of the problem.

Because as you said, if we have a bunch of people from different parts of a business, you might have production, you might have marketing, you might have sales, you might have finance. All the different parts of a business silo mentality is one of the biggest problems for communication, for innovation. Actually.

Once these people realize that finding the time to go and talk to each other and do exactly what you've just said in the long run saves them time, it comes up with all sorts of different benefits.

But I guess the pushback I often get is the same with getting leaders out of their businesses and going into a cohort of leaders, where we're getting people from different businesses, which we've also done, that can be massively beneficial. But a lot of leaders don't have got the time. I haven't got the time to get out and do this stuff, what would your answer to those people be?

Well, that should be just how they work. I think they should be focusing on each process in their business rather than each department.

Say if you focus on the end to end process, you know, the various end to end processes in your business, then you. That would be your work.

Your work would be focusing on that project group and this project group and how that process works rather than just talking to accounts and marketing.

I just think that it's just about changing your way of thinking, which will make your business more efficient and how it actually works in real life rather than by department. So I think it's just changing mindset rather than not having enough time.

Well, a lot of this stuff is mindset related, isn't it? I think the biggest blockages to a lot of changes is mindset related.

And Richard and I do a lot of work with leaders on mindset, understanding mindset and mindset change, because that is often the key that unlocks the door, if you see what I mean.

So in terms of getting leaders to reconnect with purpose and doing so in a way that doesn't overwhelm them, because I think a lot of people at the moment talk to me about I'm just so overwhelmed, I'm just so stressed, or I'm time poor. So we want to move in this direction. We don't want to overwhelm ourselves.

So, yeah, in terms of dealing with overwhelm, I would say start by getting in a room and starting at the beginning. Think about what is our business here to do, what is our purpose?

Once you've kind of nailed that, then I think everything becomes clearer and flows from that. So then it's like, okay, so how do we change that process to fit our purpose? What do we do about this challenge to fit our purpose?

I think that is a much clearer shining star than how do we make more money? Because when you only focus on how do we make more money, challenges pop up all over the place with people and the environment.

So if you've got that purpose as your shining star, think things would flow a lot easier.

Yeah, no, I totally agree. And I've seen that with the work I've done with businesses where we sit down and put that kind of structure and that framework together.

One of the first things we do is why does your business exist? I know we've done a lot of work on ours over the last four or five years in terms of being really clear about that.

And it has been really beneficial in terms of decision making and direction for the business and what have you.

I think if you get that, and I would add to that being clear about the behavior you expect through your core values as well, make sure that's embedded so you get the right people in your business that, that believe in your purpose, that want to make your purpose come to life and they've got the skills and the experience and the drive and determination to make that happen. So you get the right people, sit them in the right job, align them behind that sense of purpose and then everything else should flow, shouldn't it?

The profit should flow, the turnover should flow, the processes should get better.

Absolutely. A lot about sustainability is kind of risk management.

So if you looking after your people better and the environment better, your risks to the business should reduce and therefore everything should flow better, including profits.

So B Corp is not saying you're not allowed to make profit, they're trying to make it just a fairer capitalist system so you know that it should all flow better. And recently I did hear from one business that they didn't, the leadership team didn't come up with the business values.

They asked the staff what are our company values and, and therefore of course they're going to live by them because they've come up with them because that's what they feel. So I liked that idea of actually bottom up value creation rather than top down.

Yeah, I think that's really important actually. The more you involve people in those kind of fundamental decisions, the better, isn't it?

Because there's a world at the moment where if you're trying to find talented people, so is everybody else.

So yeah, if you've got some good people, involve them in your business much more, get them embedded so that they, they want to stay there for a long time. They want to really drive you towards the goals and the aspirations and all the good work that you want to do next.

Yeah.

Isn't this just common sense, Camilla?

I hope so. I hope it will become the new common sense.

Well, I can't remember who said it, but common sense isn't always common practice, sadly. And that's where I think a lot of what you're talking about to me sounds like just common sense, but it isn't common practice. But it should be.

That's the point. It should be.

Well, I think the word good has lost a lot of meaning, but if you really think about what it means, that's what be called as a force for good.

Good.

Yeah, good. I think if we think about what that means, and we try and live by being a good, you know, good for people, good for planet.

Being a good leader, you know, you think about what that really means. It means being kind. It means being empathetic, generous.

Listen, once you start, you know, living by those values, people will appreciate, you know, people will respond to that. People respond well to being treated well. So, yeah, I think that's, that should be the way forward.

I love that. And I, I think I'd add a couple of words to your list there.

I think being good is about being courageous, it's about being reflective because we all need to take a step back and just, you know, reflect on the journey as we go on it. Humble. Yeah, Humility is a big thing. I think we don't, I don't see enough humility in business.

Not in leaders. No. The best leaders I've experienced are, are humble. They recognize their limitations and they trust their team.

I think you're right. If, if we get a lot of leaders that, with this really purposeful intention who are talented but humble, that is a good mix for taking.

Perfect combination. Yeah.

So some closing thoughts then, Camilla. First of all, where can people find out more about the work that you do? How can they find you?

Well, yeah, my website is better business betterworld.org and there you will find what I do a lot of case studies of the businesses I've worked with. Worked with all different sectors, really.

I love working with different sectors because then I discover the different challenges of different businesses and I get to look into what the solutions can be for those. So I like that variety. And yeah, you can contact me and see, see what I do there.

And I guess you're on LinkedIn as well if people want to find you on there.

Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. Camilla Barnes on LinkedIn.

So in terms of a sort of a final thought to leave people with today, what were your would be your one or two top tips for anybody listening to this thinking? I really love what Camilla and Dave have been talking about today and I love some of the insights that she's helped create.

What will be your top tip or top tips for people to take away from this conversation?

As a leader.

As a leader?

Yeah. Well, I would say reflect on what is the purpose of your business? Why are you there? What good can you do with your business?

And are you talking to your people enough? Are you getting their perspective on what's working and what isn't and can you do more in that space?

And that's, you know, and that will be about environmental things and if you are a product based business or you have facilities, how can you make them more efficient? If you think about it as efficiencies, you will ultimately reduce your negative impact. So I would say those would be my top three.

Absolutely brilliant. I love that. Thank you. I think it's really great advice. So thank you for anybody listening to this joining us for this episode with Camilla.

If you're curious about how purpose can fuel your business transformation, please check out Camilla's website.

I'll repeat that again, better business betterworld.org and if you found this conversation helpful, please consider sharing it with a colleague or a team or someone else in your network. But for now, Camilla, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope it isn't the last conversation we have.

I'm sure we could do some great work together. But for today, thank you so much.

Yeah, absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Sam.