There’s a new business in South Africa called Sealand. I’m not working in the business, but it’s run by a CEO client I have worked with in the past, so I have both a vested interest in following it and, based on what I know about the CEO, I have some insight into how it’s being built.
It’s hard to spot what makes Sealand different at first because, from the outside and at a quick glance, it looks and feels like most other businesses.
But there’s something interesting about Sealand that I’ve been observing:
- There’s a magnetism about the business: the brand is increasingly visible, and that brand seems to have something of a Lovemark quality about it (click on this link if you want to see a cool branding idea)
- It has strong societal relevance given that all its products are made from recycled materials, so people are naturally attracted to Sealand’s ‘mission’
- It has excellence to it: the products, the store experience, the general sense of good design about it, the online presence, and the way staff show up in the retail stores
- It has some kind of vital energy about it, definitely modelled by the CEO, but spreading further out than just him: a felt ‘life force’
- It feels like it has big upside, and my guess is that it will soon be attracting attention from other brands (likely global, in my view) who want to add to their portfolio
In my work building what we at Lockstep call ‘Transcendent Businesses’, I’ve codified what makes Transcendent Businesses (TB) different:
- TBs have generally come through some kind of challenging moment and used that moment to transform, as opposed to shrink or collapse
- TBs are able to integrate opposites: profit with purpose; innovation with tradition; long-term with short-term, etc
- TBs re-order their sector through innovating so profoundly that competition and peers have no choice but to follow suit
- TBs express their purpose throughout the business in visceral, real ways (as opposed to paying lip service to it). Purpose lives in their Soul, not on their walls
- TBs act as ‘beacons’ for other businesses to aim at or emulate, such is the attractiveness of the overall business
These descriptors aside, what really stands out to me is how different Transcendent Businesses feel. It’s similar to how some restaurants absolutely nail ambience, and how others (despite spending liberally) just never seem to get it right. Sealand just feels different. Pumped with life force and vitality. Sealand’s energy is just different.
Why am I telling you about Sealand? After all, it hasn’t shot the lights out on a global stage (yet).
I’m telling you because Transcendent Businesses are not a whimsical idea. They are real, observable, and codifiable. They are the physical manifestation of a new and better form of business, and they exist right around the corner from you. They are not necessarily Fortune 500 businesses (in fact, they invariably are not), and they are not necessarily written about in popular business journals.
But they are there, and they are undoubtedly the way forward. And as Transcendent Businesses accumulate in number, they are going to change business, and they are going to change society. Simply because they shape great people, they delight their customers, they are good for the planet, and they produce great results.
Basically, the same old stuff that has made great businesses great for decades.
Just done in a way that has some sacredness and wisdom to it.
Go Sealand. Show the way.