Speaker A
[Music] Well, I really, really came here to engage this incredibly powerful group of people in the B Corp movement. I really think that we have a unique opportunity to leverage this talent into more innovative business models
Jostein Solheim discusses leveraging diverse high-performance teams to solve complex issues by combining profits with social impact.
Key Takeaways
- Diverse teams with varied perspectives are essential to solving complex global issues.
- Gender diversity is important but should be balanced with other dimensions of difference.
- Unconscious biases in leadership styles need to be addressed to unlock full human potential.
- Inclusive leadership styles foster innovation and better problem-solving.
- Combining profit with social impact is a unique opportunity for modern business models.
Summary
- Jostein Solheim emphasizes engaging powerful groups in the B Corp movement to innovate business models combining profit and social impact.
- He focuses on building high-performance teams capable of solving complex, dynamic global issues.
- Diversity in teams—across gender, race, social and economic class, and religion—is crucial for bringing different perspectives and skills.
- Gender is a key dimension of diversity but not the only one; the goal is to build inclusive teams that unlock human potential.
- Solheim highlights the importance of having the right level of difference in leadership, not just a fixed percentage of women.
- He shares his background from Norway, a highly gender-equitable country, and how unconscious biases still affect leadership and problem-solving.
- An inclusive leadership style that embraces diverse skills and capabilities is essential to address complex challenges.
- The talk underscores the need to move beyond dominant leadership styles to unleash true human potential.
- Solheim is humbled by the scale and impact of the Women's Forum and the ideas being discussed.
- The overall message is about creating bigger, more inclusive 'tents' to foster innovation and social impact.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Purpose of Engagement
- 00:24Combining Profits and Social Impact
- 00:40High-Performance Teams for Complex Issues
- 00:58Importance of Diversity in Teams
- 01:16Gender as a Key Dimension of Diversity
- 01:33Unconscious Bias and Leadership Styles
- 02:21Inclusive Leadership to Unlock Human Potential
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
of combining profits and social impact. I'm extremely humbled by the size and scale of this organization and the powerful group of people that are here, and the ideas that are being discussed. My focus is on high
Speaker A
performance teams, and high performance teams that have to solve complex issues because the world we're living in is increasingly complex and dynamic. I really believe that only teams of real difference, and that is gender, that is race, that is
Speaker A
social and economic class, it might be religion, and I think these teams are different, bringing different perspectives, different skills, different innate abilities and capabilities. That is what's going to really take us forward and solve these complex issues. So for me,
Speaker A
gender is a key dimension. It's not the only dimension, and building a bigger tent, I believe, is one of the key ways of unlocking and unleashing the human potential of everyone. I think that's where we want to get to.
Speaker A
It's not about having 30% of women in leadership roles when maybe for that business you should have 100% women. I don't know, but it is about getting the right level of difference into the teams. One of the things that I've learned
Speaker A
on that journey—I'm Norwegian; I grew up in the most equitable nation in the world for gender. When I started to study the other aspects of what was getting in the way of unleashing the true human potential of our
Speaker A
organization, I came all the way back to gender as well and discovered that there are so many subtle unconscious biases in leadership styles, in behaviors, in approaches to problem solving that become like a dominant style. What
Speaker A
we need is a style that's inclusive and brings all these different skill sets and capabilities, this human potential alive to solve these complex issues. So I think that's the key. [Music]
Topics:Jostein SolheimB Corp movementdiversitygender equalityhigh-performance teamsinclusive leadershipsocial impactbusiness innovationunconscious biasWomen’s Forum
