Andrea Hartley is Founder and CEO of Skating Panda, a creative social impact consultancy (Twitter, LinkedIn).
DISCLOSURE: I do some work for Skating Panda as ‘Senior Associate — Strategy and Sustainability’. In the 12 months to April 2023, that work comprised about 18% of my income.
We speak about Andrea’s three priorities:
- Unlocking those individual and organisational impact journeys,
- Finding ways to communicate big issues so that they can better have real impact
- Shifting the nature of consulting so that it acknowledges and acts for positive impact as much as possible.
Listen
Links
B-Corp, a certification scheme so that people can trust when companies claim they are ‘for-benefit’ (in contrast to being exclusively ‘for-profit’).
Wikipedia on the bid for the London 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics
Sandy Abrams attempts to get lawyers to ‘divest’ from working with harmful companies is covered in this news item on Lawyers for the Future.
Climate Quitting – here is KPMG saying that “One in three 18–24-year-olds have rejected a job offer based on ESG record”
Jonathon Wise at Purpose Disruptors – mission: catalyse the advertising industry’s climate transition to align with the 1.5C degree IPCC global warming target.
Effective Altruism is a “research field and practical community that aims to find the best ways to help others, and put them into practice.” It is worth knowing there are some very important and strong critiques of Effective Altruism. For instance, here (£) The Economist shows how the commitment to “strong long-termism can also lead people to disregard common-sense moral commitments to living people”.
My view: while a commitment to rigour on impact and getting ‘bang for buck’ is laudable, too often Effective Altruism is used as a cover for today’s billionaires to perpetuate a status quo that they are successful in, rather than a better world for billions. As such, whatever the intentions of the founders and participants, I fear it has become an intellectual justification for on-going oligarchy, and so for preventing fundamental change.
Episode with Susan Harrison
0:48 – Q1 What are you doing now? And how did you get there?
8:57 – Q2. What is the future you are trying to create, and why?
12.01 – Q3. What are your priorities for the next few years, and why?
21:29 – Q4. If someone was inspired to follow those priorities, what should they do next?
26:55 – Q5. If your younger self was starting their career now, what advice would you give them?
30:09 – Q6. Who would you nominate to answer these questions, because you admire their approach?
34:21 – Q7. Is there anything else important you feel you have to say?
Timings
0:50 – Q1 What are you doing now? And how did you get there?
11:10 – Q2. What is the future you are trying to create, and why?
27:33 — BONUS QUESTION: Is the rise of imagination activities a sign that we have run out of road and trying to imagine something different?
31:10 – Q3. What are your priorities for the next few years, and why?
38:14 – Q4. If someone was inspired to follow those priorities, what should they do next?
41:45 – Q5. If your younger self was starting their career now, what advice would you give them?
43: 34 – Q6. Who would you nominate to answer these questions, because you admire their approach?
46:06 – Q7. Is there anything else important you feel you have to say?
Quotes
-“Branding, for branding sake, no, thank you. You’re building a brand or a proposition in order to achieve real impact? Yes, and I mean, your podcast is right, rightly called, you know, has the words powerful times in it. And I think, if, in a way, part of our mission is to get every organisation or individual acting in some positive way for a sustainable planet and a healthier, happily, happier society. And that’s quite a big goal. But if you break that down, it’s, in my view, highly achievable.”
-“it’s about unlocking the impact journey at an individual level. So what is the part, you can play in that, or each one of us can play in that. And maybe we do it, you know, collectively as a team, that could be within an organisation across organisations, but what is the most that we can do to create that real impact.”
-“a big theme across all of the conversations really is about giving as much as possible, giving people the power to make a difference in their own lives. Which is what I think I hear when you’re saying, your first of those priorities about unlocking individual impact journeys and mobility, organisational impact journeys.”
-“Try and find a job that you love, and that has importance. Make the mistakes, you know, enjoy learning from them.”
David Bent 