We all have the ability to do more good in the world. At Blacksmith, we believe that every individual and business has significant opportunity to ‘use their powers for good’ and make a positive difference to the world, just by doing what they do in a more conscious and deliberate way. You CAN make a dollar AND a difference!

Social Responsibility – Use Your Powers For Good

The world has changed in the past few years, or not so much the world as the people on it.  Whilst we all still want to have our basic needs taken care of, and then some if we’re honest, we have experienced what Edelman is calling a ‘purpose reset’.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is no longer just about looking ‘less bad’, having a bucket of money for the marketing department to use as sponsorship money with name brand charities and giving everyone a day off to volunteer. Well thought-out and focused strategies and initiatives that align your brand, values and organisational purpose with a single social mission are now a source of distinct competitive advantage for talent attraction, employee engagement and retention, and customer decision making. By taking a job with your business, buying your product or service, or engaging with you as a supplier…what happens beyond the transaction or base business/employment relationship?  Do we have a common purpose?  Are we making a positive difference together?

At Blacksmith we’re committed to making the world a better [work]place and positively impacting the lives of 1,000,000 people by 2020. What could you and your business do?

What we do:

Corporate Social Responsibility

• Discovery of current state of play – what’s working and where are the untapped opportunities?
• Executive alignment around purpose, values and social mission
• Facilitated support of strategy development and action planning
• External accountability and strategic oversight to ensure you stay on the path and work through obstacles, continuing to evolve and create the impact you’re after
• Creative approaches to volunteer programs to leverage value for individuals, causes and your business/brand
• Connect you with the people and ideas required to make your vision a reality

 

The Happiness Experiment

What started as a personal ‘small happiness experiment’ in mid 2011 is slowly but surely gaining momentum through the magic of Facebook spreading throughout NZ and beyond our shores.  From humble beginnings, #3goodthings has evolved into a vision to create a national (perhaps even global!) happiness experiment.

Considerable evidence exists to demonstrate that undertaking ‘three good things’, one of the core practices of Positive Psychology (as described by Dr Martin Seligman), for as little as 7 days (21 is better!) has a positive impact on optimism, mental health, sense of well being and levels of depression for over 6 months following the practice.

Given the challenges we’ve all experienced in recent years thanks to the GFC, restructures, belt-tightening and natural disasters, layered up with our appalling youth suicide rates (the second highest in the developed world), high school bullying, especially among teenage girls, falling levels of employee engagement and happiness at work AND at home…wouldn’t it be amazing to get our whole country focused on the good things in our experience, shifting our focus and retraining our brains?  Imagine: teams sharing together at work; parents and kids at home; our fabulous elderly folk with each other and their families; teenagers together with their teachers, and more!

If you’d like to be a part of creating a happier New Zealand contact kate.billing@blacksmith.co.nz

Some food for thought and inspiration:

TED Talk – Shawn Achor on ‘the happy secret to better work’

TED Talk – Martin Seligman on positive psychology

TED Talk – Nic Marks on ‘The Happy Plant Index’

Delivering Happiness: The Movement

The Happiness Experiment (3GoodThings)