Impact Business Design: The Playbook for Developing Sustainable Business Models

Impact Business Design will be the new standard for developing sustainable business models. The playbook contains a holistic organizational model that is suitable for all organizations (as the systems can be adapted). It enables a differentiation between the status quo and what the social and ecological ideal of the organization should be.

This book offers the opportunity to explain and develop the driving patterns and motives of an organization and provides extensive methods and tools for immediate use. Every company needs to make a significant turnaround now and in the coming years. Impact business design is the method for shaping this.

At its core, every turnaround is about perception. The moment you change your perception is the beginning of your tipping points. A future turnaround requires a new collective understanding of the values that drive us, which manifests itself in changed behavior and new results.

This book offers perspectives on how to think, feel, and act in the future. It draws attention to the relevant questions about the future. Readers provide the answers and design their future. They create a new and sustainable framework for the sustainable development of their organization. It demonstrates how an organization can be strategically developed to become sustainable for future generations. In other words, it ensures the organization’s ability to thrive in the 21st century.

This playbook invites you on a journey to examine and evolve collective patterns where they no longer meet the demands of our era. It is structured into three main parts: the check-in, the transition, and the check-out. The transition is further divided into three phases, which encompass 13 steps. These steps are undertaken in three phases:

-- 1st phase: Transparency: preparation for crossing boundaries

-- 2nd phase: Transcendence: transition to a new level

-- 3rd phase: immanence: stability at a new level.

Stephan Grabmeier is a visionary Future Designer, recognized as a leading thinker in New Work and sustainable economic practices for the future, within the realm of Sustainable Transformation. He is the founder of Synergie Zukunft GmbH, a company that collaborates with think tanks and futurists across Europe to drive the Green Transformation. Grabmeier excels at converting trends into strategies, guiding his clients through the dual transformation of digitalization and sustainability toward a regenerative economy. As a Business Angel, he champions Impact Start-Ups and contributes to the Social Business initiatives of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus. With teaching roles in Innopreneurship at the University of Duisburg-Essen and ESCP Business School in Berlin, he equips young minds with the Future Skills necessary for tomorrow’s challenges. He’s a prolific author (3 books) co-author (20 books) and columnist in German-speaking media.

Stephan Petzolt’s passion lies in guiding leaders within organizations to unlock their potential and that of their teams. His focus is on deeply engaging with the essence of business: responsible action. With over 20 years of leadership experience across various roles and organizations, particularly in IT, Stephan has spearheaded comprehensive and holistic change processes. For a decade, he served as a lecturer on ethics in business.

In 2010, he founded the Institute for Practical CyberEthics, aiming to bridge scientific insights with everyday organizational practices. His goal is to achieve a dynamic equilibrium between dichotomies: SELF and US, efficiency and resilience, appreciation and value creation, transcendence and immanence. His clientele includes renowned companies of various sizes and organizational structures across different sectors. Despite their differences, there’s a common thread: all organizations possess a distinct corporate identity that provides meaningfulness for stakeholders, especially employees.