ABSTRACT
A new set of competencies, more often associated with the right-brain world of artists, inventors, and Cultural Creatives, is required for the unexpected, complex, and messy challenges of sustainable value creation. Directly witnessing and experiencing aspects of behavior in the real world is a proven way of inspiring and informing new ideas. The director of HP Labs wondered why the organization was not considered the best industrial research laboratory in the world. It profoundly altered the context of the inquiry – to become the best for the world as the larger context for becoming the best in the world. In a world where specialization rules, functional silos are celebrated, organizational boundaries are fixed, stakeholders are automatically at odds with shareholders, and outsourcing is a must, the idea of wholeness may appear as the less than obvious choice. The concept of embedded sustainability challenges the very assumptions, the design principles of business as a whole.
