Local author, speaker and consultant Carol Sanford has been named to the 800CEOread short list of Best Business Book Awards of 2011. (For reference, there were more than 11,000 business books published last year.)

Her book “The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability & Success” was one of five books represented in the General Business category, under the heading “What was the Best Business Book written in 2011?”

800CEOread is a leader in distributing business books around the world.

“When most people think of corporate responsibility, they are focusing on a business's effect on and relationship to stakeholders,” Sanford said.

“A responsible business sees stakeholders as full partners and meaningful instruments for the evolution of healthier communities and more successful businesses.”

Sanford believes that business can and will play a major role in creating a better world, and she has worked with businesses for four decades that have successfully done so by building great companies.

“Responsibility will not only be in the DNA with everyone contributing, but the current approaches of doing less harm, following best practices and working with fragments will have given way to working from a living systems view that makes all systems more vital, viable and able to regenerate themselves, without tradeoffs,” she said.

Sanford has been leading major consulting change efforts in both Fortune 500 and new-economy businesses for more than 30 years.

Her client list includes Colgate Europe and Africa and DuPont Canada, US, Asia and Europe.

She also works with companies like Intel, Agilent and leaders of corporate responsibility such as Seventh Generation.

Sanford is also a judge and mentor for the University of Washington Global Business Center Social Entrepreneur Competition where she combines her economic development experience with her extensive business education and background working with Responsible Governance in Community, Provincial and Regional Policy and Education. 

She has published dozens of works in 10 languages.

"It's important to find out what differentiates your business from the crowd," she said, "and then thinking about how to do business so that communities, societies, and ecology as a whole are improved.

“These are not separate but interwoven pursuits. It's completely doable, and a conversation worth having."

What is this book about?

“The future of business and changing the conversation we are having about responsibility,” she said.

“We move the conversation—from a Position Approach to a Pervasive Approach. We would not manage the development of people or costs as though a function did it for the whole company.

“It is the responsibility of every manager and employee.”

And a lot of people in the know seem to agree with Sanford’s approach.

"Through Seventh Generation's work with Carol Sanford we learned the value of systems thinking and how these frameworks made us a more effective business and me a better values-based leader,” said Jeffrey Hollender, co-founder of Seventh Generation and author of “The Responsibility Revolution.”

“Sanford's approach also makes it possible for people in our company to be more conscious and work from a commitment to a higher set of values."

And Bill Reed, a founding member of LEED System and co-author of “The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building,” sees Sanford’s book as a path to how we will live in the future.

"The powerful concepts in ‘The Responsible Business’ have changed the process of sustainable development and how communities truly thrive,” he said.

“These proven approaches will be the roadmap to truly achieve the deepest level of living communities.”

The book will also help teach those who will be leading our largest companies in the future.

“This is a bold and inspiring book; one of those game-changing books that come around only once in a decade,” said Pam Hinds, Stanford University, Management Science and Engineering, Co-Director, Center for Work, Technology & Organization.

“It will change how I teach organizational behavior and management. I return to different sections repeatedly and gain something new each time.”

For more information go to 800CEOread.com.