In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the conversation is increasingly shifting from a sole focus on profit to a more holistic view that integrates purpose and values. Iyas AlQasem, Founder and Managing Partner of Beyond the Quarter, is at the forefront of this movement. With a rich background in technology consulting and a deep-seated belief in human-centric business practices, Iyas works with companies to cultivate growth that is not only sustainable but also deeply rooted in values and purpose. His consultancy, Beyond the Quarter, champions the idea that businesses can and should operate as forces for good, ultimately To Serve Humanity. In this insightful interview, we delve into Iyas’s journey, his perspectives on values-driven leadership, and his vision for a future where business truly serves humanity.
From Tech Consulting to Purpose-Driven Leadership
Iyas AlQasem’s career began in the realm of technology consulting, where he honed his analytical skills and business acumen. “I started my serious working life in technology consulting, helping companies do business intelligence,” Iyas explains. “Essentially, this was analyzing data and drawing meaningful conclusions.” This foundation led him to co-found a successful consultancy that grew to a team of 40 professionals, achieving a turnover of approximately 3.5 million. This venture was eventually acquired by one of their investors, marking a significant turning point in Iyas’s career.
However, the acquisition revealed an unexpected challenge: high employee turnover within the acquiring company. “What I didn’t know when we got acquired was that they had a bit of a staff churn issue at around 40%,” Iyas recounts. Despite strong sales figures, the company was struggling to retain its talent. In a twist of fate, Iyas was tasked with addressing this critical issue.
Taking on this challenge, Iyas joined the board and spearheaded a turnaround initiative focused on employee retention. The results were remarkable. “I took on that turnaround and led to reducing that churn down from 40% to 6%,” he states. Over several years, the company transformed from a team of 60 losing 24 people annually to a team of 200 with a significantly reduced attrition rate of just 12 people per year.
Interestingly, Iyas emphasizes that this transformation wasn’t driven by a complex formula or secret strategy. Instead, it was rooted in clarity of purpose and consistent adherence to core values. “What actually happened was quite simply that I made it pretty clear what I was hoping we would stand for as a team and as a company, and I was very clear about what we were about,” Iyas elaborates. The crucial element was not just articulating these values, but demonstrably living them. “Saying something is relatively easy. Going and doing it takes a little bit more discipline,” he notes. This commitment to authentic values resonated deeply with the team, fostering a sense of shared purpose and loyalty. The company continued to flourish, expanding to over 300 employees before another acquisition by a major American corporation. Iyas then led a consulting team of 500 across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Despite his success, Iyas eventually decided to leave the corporate world. This decision was driven by a misalignment in values and purpose. “Eventually, I left because my values and purpose, and the way that I believed in things was different from the organisation’s,” he explains. Iyas underscores that this wasn’t a judgment of right or wrong, but rather a matter of personal alignment. “My perspective is that if something does not fit my values it’s not necessarily bad it’s just not resonating with my purpose and what I believe in. When I am misaligned with what an organisation is trying to do it’s best to leave.”
This journey from technology consulting to addressing organizational culture and values became the genesis of Beyond the Quarter. Iyas realized that the true “magic source” for sustainable business success wasn’t solely technology, but rather the integration of values and purpose into the very fabric of an organization.
Beyond Profit: The Imperative of Values and Purpose
Motivated by his experiences, Iyas established Beyond the Quarter with a clear mission: to help companies recognize and leverage the power of values and purpose. “Although I’d grown consultancy that was around technology, I found out that the magic source wasn’t the technology at all. It was actually putting the values and the purpose into the organisation which is what led me to start Beyond the Quarter,” Iyas states. He firmly believes that companies that prioritize values and purpose are not only creating a better work environment but also paving the way for sustainable and meaningful growth.
However, Iyas avoids a dogmatic approach, acknowledging that profit-driven models can also achieve significant financial success. “I run into a lot of people who say, ‘Well, you absolutely need purpose and values, and you know, if you don’t have that, your company won’t grow, and it’s doomed, etcetera, etcetera’. Well, I call bs on that. Otherwise, how can British American Tobacco exist?” he points out. He uses the example of highly profitable companies with questionable ethical practices to illustrate that purpose and values are not prerequisites for financial success.
For Iyas, the integration of values and purpose is a conscious choice, a leadership decision that shapes the very identity of a company. “So for me, it’s not so much that you have to do it, but it is a choice that every CEO and leadership team can make with regards to what kind of a company do they want to be leading? What do they want to go home and tell their kids, their other halves, their parents about the companies that they work in?” he asks. This introspective question challenges business leaders to consider the legacy they wish to create and the impact their organizations have on the world.
At the heart of Iyas’s vision is a fundamental shift in perspective: “I’m talking about getting to a place where humanity is no longer serving business, but business is serving humanity.” He argues that the current paradigm, where capitalism often seems to be the end goal, needs to be re-evaluated. “We’ve got ourselves to a place where capitalism is the goal, and we’re all the fodder that goes into the machine that feeds capitalism. Whereas, the reality is even in capitalism’s origins, that it was about making the world a better place for humanity, and we seem to have lost that and swapped things around,” Iyas explains. Beyond the Quarter is dedicated to helping businesses rediscover this original intent, to realign their operations with the broader goal of serving humanity and contributing to a better world.
Generational Shifts and the Demand for Purpose
The growing emphasis on purpose and values in business is not just a philosophical shift; it is also being driven by evolving workforce expectations, particularly among younger generations. “I reflected to Iyas that, from what I’ve read, younger people like Millennials and Generation Z, are more attracted to purpose-driven organisations. Of course, that’s a huge generalisation, but it certainly seems to be a workforce trend.”
Iyas acknowledges this trend, while also cautioning against generalizations. “It is definitely a trend for employees. Again, to your point, it is a huge generalisation. We sometimes need to be careful about that because I think it isn’t just Millennials. There’s a bunch of middle-aged people who are now seeing this as an important thing,” he clarifies. He believes that the shift towards purpose is a broader societal evolution, not limited to a single generation. “We’ve probably got to a place in the evolution of society and capitalism where people are looking at and are thinking, ‘Maybe this has just gone a bit too far, and we need to put it right.'”
Younger generations, having grown up in an era of heightened awareness of social and environmental issues, may have a particularly strong inclination towards purpose-driven organizations. “As far as the Millennials and Gen Z are concerned they’ve grown up in that environment and so perhaps, their take on it is a little bit different because that’s all they’ve known,” Iyas suggests. However, he reiterates that the desire for purpose is resonating across age groups, signaling a broader societal awakening. “I think the reality is that a lot of society is heading that way. We can’t go on with the kind of crony exploitative capitalism that we’ve been busily building over the last 40 years since the wonderful Milton Friedman preached that the only social responsibility of the company is to its shareholders. That’s just taken us down a really bad path, and I believe everyone’s realising it, not only Millennials.” This widespread realization underscores the growing imperative for businesses to reconsider their role and purpose in society.
The Pandemic as a Catalyst for Values-Driven Business
The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a significant disruptor, forcing organizations to re-evaluate their priorities and consider their broader impact. Iyas believes the pandemic has accelerated the shift towards values-led business practices. “I asked Iyas if he thinks that the coronavirus pandemic has had an impact on organisations shifting towards being more values-led or purpose-led?”
Initially, there were concerns that the crisis would lead to a retrenchment to purely profit-driven models. “I think it has. It’s interesting. When it first kicked off, there was a lot of fear that we would all retrench into, ‘Well, we must make money. Businesses are threatened. Forget everything else, let’s just go back to what business is supposed to be about’, and I say ‘supposed to’ with my air quotes going up, ‘Which is making money’,” Iyas recalls.
However, Iyas had a different perspective, recognizing the pandemic as a catalyst for systemic change. “At the time, my response was different, ‘We are about to shake up the whole system. Coronavirus is about to shake everything up’ and so it has proven to be. I look back at any system that’s in flux, whether it’s physical, social or business because that system can change enormously, particularly when you’ve got the scope to be driving it in a certain direction.” He saw the pandemic as an opportunity to actively shape the direction of this change.
The pandemic forced businesses to confront not just financial challenges, but also the human element of their operations. “If you’re a CEO, you were no longer looking at a downturn that was solely about your money going out of the bank. It was about your people. And so we were dealing with lives as well as livelihoods. And I think that made people think of things in a different way,” Iyas explains. This heightened awareness of the human impact of business decisions has prompted many leaders to reconsider their values and priorities.
Even within the traditionally profit-focused investment world, there has been a noticeable shift. “Even if you were the most rabid capitalist classes in private equity and in an investment, looking at ESG funds (funds with environmental, social and governance factors integrated into the investment process) there’s been a real growth in them,” Iyas points out. The rise of ESG investing reflects a growing recognition that businesses must consider their environmental, social, and governance impact, not just their financial performance.
Iyas is optimistic that the pandemic will leave a lasting positive legacy. “COVID, hopefully, will leave us with one gift, having extracted so much from us along the way. I’m hoping it’s going to leave us with a gift where a lot of us have woken up to what business should be about.” This “gift” is the renewed understanding that businesses have a responsibility that extends beyond profit, a responsibility to serve humanity and contribute to a more sustainable and equitable future.
The Authenticity Gap: Living Your Values
While articulating values is a crucial first step, Iyas emphasizes the critical importance of “living” those values authentically within an organization. The disconnect between stated values and lived experiences can be deeply damaging, eroding trust and undermining organizational performance.
Iyas illustrates this point with a personal anecdote: “I am in agreement with Iyas here. I’ve always been fascinated by the disconnect, sometimes, between the stated values of an organisation and the lived values. I remember once, I went to go and do some training for a client, and behind the reception desk was this massive billboard listing their values. Diversity and inclusion was, I think, the second one on the list. And I felt, ‘Oh, we’re off to a good start. They believe in diversity, and they believe in inclusion’.” However, the reality on the ground was starkly different. “When I did the training session with the staff, they were complaining about what a terrible place this was to work, how the senior leadership team was far from diverse, and the behaviours they were exhibiting were far from being inclusive. I was left wondering, ‘What on earth is going on here?'” This example highlights the detrimental impact of values that are merely performative rather than genuinely embedded in organizational culture.
Iyas references research that underscores this point: “Iyas pointed out a study by the European Institute of Economic Research, on the correlation between values and company performance. They found that there was a positive correlation between positive values and an organisation’s performance. He continued, ‘Expected and pretty dull if you will. What I found more interesting was that they showed that the companies that had articulated values, but then did nothing about living them underperformed the market by about as much as those who’d articulated them and lived them were overperforming.'” This research demonstrates that simply stating values without actively embodying them can be worse than having no stated values at all.
This “authenticity gap” can have severe consequences. “So you very quickly get to the conclusion that I’ve actually seen with a couple of clients that I’ve talked to. I say, ‘Well, if you’re not prepared to actually do values rather than just articulate them, then I’m not interested in doing the work’. Because where it leads you to the conclusion is that you’re actually better off not saying anything at all about values if you’re not prepared to then go and do the work of living them.” Iyas is clear that his consultancy focuses on organizations genuinely committed to embedding their values into their daily operations and culture.
He uses the infamous case of Enron as a cautionary tale: “There was one company, a famous company. Its core values were respect, integrity, communication and excellence. They sound like reasonable enough values, right? Respect, communication, integrity, fantastic. That was Enron. This is a spectacular case study where the values were plastered all over the place. All over their offices, everywhere. Clearly, they just were not what the leadership and the organisation believed in. Enron is what happens when there’s complete dissonance between what you say your values are and what you go and do.” Enron’s collapse serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of values that are purely cosmetic, highlighting the critical need for genuine alignment between stated values and actual behavior.
For Iyas, the work of embedding values is ongoing and requires consistent effort from all levels of an organization. “It’s always been clear to me that as organisations, stated values are necessary, but then everyone needs to work really hard to make sure that people are living those values day-to-day. I asked if that is a lot of the work Iyas engages with? ‘Yes you need to make that happen, but you also need to make that happen in an enterprise that is commercially viable, which means it has to be both profitable and cash-flow positive. We can look at purpose and values and say it starts there, and it does start there. But it can’t stop there.'” He emphasizes that purpose and values must be integrated into a commercially viable framework, ensuring that the pursuit of purpose does not come at the expense of financial sustainability.
Iyas shares a personal example of a purpose-driven venture that, despite noble intentions, failed due to a lack of commercial viability. “I’ve been guilty in my past. I did a start-up that was about getting children to engage more with the physical world and with social activities, and do things that weren’t all online. I used the online paradigm. It was essentially a social network that gave them rewards for doing things in the offline world… It was very much purpose-founded. I had four young children and I saw how engaged they were in machines and I was like, ‘Okay, the machines are good, but they need to be doing the other stuff, too’. It was absolutely about purpose and values, but I couldn’t get the commercial model right. The company failed and took a lot of my savings with it. For me, it was a prime example of starting purely with saying, ‘Here’s a great purpose and I want to serve this purpose and make it happen’. If you’re doing that in a commercial enterprise and you haven’t figured out the commercial model, then you will end up under-serving your purpose.” This experience underscores the importance of a balanced approach, where purpose and values are strategically integrated with sound business principles.
“So for me, it’s about asking ‘How do you do the purpose and values, but embed them into a commercially-positive organisation? How do they get embedded in your processes? How do they get impacted across your stakeholders?’ There are ways to do this. It’s what making diversity and inclusion real in a company is all about.” This holistic approach ensures that values and purpose are not just abstract concepts, but rather tangible drivers of organizational strategy and culture, ultimately enabling businesses to serve humanity effectively and sustainably.
Diversity and Inclusion: Fueling Values and Purpose
Diversity and inclusion (D&I) are not merely add-ons to a values-driven business; they are integral components that amplify and strengthen an organization’s ability to serve humanity. Iyas highlights the crucial link between D&I and the realization of organizational values and purpose.
To illustrate this connection, the concept of a pyramid model is introduced: “To try and get my clients to think more strategically about diversity and inclusion I show them a picture of a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are purpose and vision. In the middle of the pyramid is objectives or their key results. At the bottom of the pyramid is their values. And then at the bottom, right at the bottom of the pyramid is basically your diversity and inclusion strategy. And I get my clients to think about ‘How can your diversity and inclusion strategy enable and empower all of the above?'” This pyramid model visually represents D&I as the foundational base that supports and empowers the higher levels of organizational purpose, vision, objectives, and values.
Iyas provides a concrete example of how D&I directly fuels organizational values: “If you have a value around innovation and creativity, we know that with diversity, you get an increase in innovation. You get out of group-think, you get people coming from all sorts of backgrounds with different perspectives, and that helps drive innovation. So that will drive that value. And that value might then drive a goal around innovating new products and shipping new products, which might help you fulfil your purpose.” This illustrates the direct causal link between D&I, core values like innovation, and the ultimate achievement of organizational purpose. Diverse teams bring a wider range of perspectives and experiences, fostering creativity and breaking down groupthink, leading to more innovative solutions and better business outcomes.
While not a D&I specialist, Iyas recognizes its fundamental importance. “I asked Iyas if that is the kind of thing he’d come across before? ‘I’m not a D&I specialist. When we drill down into the absolute detail of how to implement D&I, that’s when I would say to them, ‘Go and speak to someone like Toby because you want to get into the heart of how this happens, rather than just have somebody who’s helping you execute an overall business strategy’. But it is absolutely about that.'” He emphasizes the need for specialized expertise in D&I implementation while affirming its crucial role in overall business strategy and values realization.
Iyas further elaborates on the concept of cognitive diversity as the key mechanism through which D&I drives business performance. “And I think it’s interesting, it is about the perspective. We talk about diversity, but the reality is that the business performance comes out of, more than anything, cognitive diversity. And that cognitive diversity is what allows you to innovate, what gives you strength and depth. That cognitive diversity comes from people having diverse backgrounds and having diverse experiences. Where it actually turns into the business benefit is around cognitive diversity, and it’s incredible how overlooked that is, still. I don’t think people realise, organisations realise enough the opportunity cost of not doing it or how to actually make that happen.'” Cognitive diversity, stemming from diverse backgrounds and experiences, is the real engine of innovation and organizational strength. By overlooking D&I, organizations are missing out on significant opportunities and incurring substantial opportunity costs.
The synergy between values, purpose, and D&I is central to creating businesses that not only thrive commercially but also make a positive impact on the world. By embracing diversity and fostering inclusion, organizations can unlock their full potential to serve humanity in meaningful and innovative ways.
Inclusive Growth: Building Equitable Systems
The concept of inclusive growth extends beyond simply having a diverse workforce; it focuses on creating equitable systems that allow individuals from all backgrounds to thrive and contribute to their full potential. Iyas delves into the nuances of inclusive growth and its implications for organizations committed to serving humanity.
“This is definitely one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to Iyas. I feel there is this connection between what he does and what I do. Beyond the Quarter helps organisations grow through values and purpose. I talk about inclusive growth and how organisations can grow by being more inclusive and having a diverse workforce. To bring the two strands together I asked Iyas what his perspective is on inclusive growth and what it really means?” The convergence of values-driven growth and inclusive growth highlights the holistic approach needed for businesses to truly make a positive impact.
Iyas emphasizes that inclusive growth is not just about representation at the top, but about building pipelines and systems that enable equitable progression throughout the organization. “I’ll come back to the cognitive diversity aspect. We can look at an inclusive organisation, but if we’re looking at inclusive growth, how does your organisation grow through inclusiveness and diversity? For me, that turns into not only having leadership from diverse backgrounds which is an important and frequent focus but also other areas that need focus too. Another area, specifically, is asking ‘What does your pipeline look like that allows people to get there?'” He challenges the notion of “tokenism,” where diversity is represented at the top levels without genuine systemic change throughout the organization.
“I think it’s very easy to have the headline, ‘We have X percentage women on our board’, or, ‘X percentage people with disabilities or of ethnic backgrounds’, or whatever. And it’s great to have that as a headline. But more often than not in a lot of companies, they’re in the headline because almost they’re outliers rather than they’re a consequence of the system that’s got them there.” True inclusive growth requires building systems that foster diversity at all levels, ensuring that leadership representation is not just a statistical anomaly but a natural outcome of an equitable organizational culture.
“For me, inclusive growth is about having a system in place that allows people to develop through the organisation and get into those top roles. At the moment, I don’t think it’s unfair to call it tokenism, because sometimes, it feels like that. For inclusive growth, it’s important you’re not getting isolated cases that are at the top and taking that as a tick in the box that, ‘Therefore I’ve done diversity because I’ve got a black woman on my board, and I’ve got someone who has XY disability and an Asian man. And I’ve now done diversity, tick the box’.” He cautions against superficial diversity initiatives that focus on optics rather than fundamental systemic change.
Iyas highlights the subtle and often unconscious ways in which bias and exclusion can manifest in organizational cultures, even at the highest levels. “You need to ask, ‘How did they get there? How? What does it look like through the whole of the rest of your organisation? What have you done to promote that? What have you done to allow people to face that? What are you doing in the boardroom?’ It’s interesting, I sit in the boardroom and the types of discrimination, as we all well know, they surface in ways that are sometimes incredibly subtle and hard to spot. The number of times, and this happens, I see this a lot with women, and I hate to stereotype, but I’m stereotyping men as I am women with this example. We’re sitting in a leadership team and the hot debate kicks off. And invariably, the blokes all dive in with their various viewpoints. And I don’t hear much from the woman in the room. When the blokes have calmed down, the woman pipes up with a very valid opinion but gets dismissed at that point because it’s perceived as if, ‘We’ve had the debate, it’s all over. Why are you bringing this up again now?'” This insightful observation reveals how micro-behaviors and unconscious biases can undermine inclusion and limit the contributions of diverse voices, even in leadership settings.
“It’s a double penalty because, A, someone’s not engaged in the discussion in the first place, but, B, then when it is brought up, you’re almost sort of beaten down for mentioning it. I saw this sort of three or four times before I suddenly clicked that there was a pattern here. But these things are there in the culture, and the culture doesn’t come out of nowhere.” These subtle yet pervasive cultural dynamics underscore the need for proactive efforts to identify and address unconscious biases and micro-incivilities that can hinder inclusive growth.
Addressing these deeply ingrained cultural patterns requires a multifaceted approach, acknowledging the complexity of human behavior and the impact of social conditioning. “That cultural thing, highlighted by Iyas is made up of those very small micro-behaviours. We know about micro-incivilities, and there are those small acts of behaviour that undermine people. They can be directed towards a particular characteristic like someone’s gender or ethnicity or disability. We also know that things like unconscious bias, which can be subtle and unintended automatic behaviour. These can be products of social conditioning and of the way that our brains are designed and wired. To unravel that is a lot. Senior leaders have enough to worry about without having to unpick all of that.” Unraveling these complex issues requires ongoing commitment, education, and a willingness to challenge ingrained norms and behaviors.
The Ongoing Journey of Diversity and Inclusion
Despite the challenges, Iyas is optimistic about the progress made in diversity and inclusion, recognizing that it is an ongoing journey of continuous improvement. “Iyas was keen to highlight that there has been movement on this. ‘We’ve moved so far. I came to the UK in the late 1970s. And the things that I was called in school at the time because I am a Palestinian Arab and I have an Arab name, are words that you just don’t hear in society anymore. I remember when I was first going for work after university, an employment agency that I won’t name because they still exist, that I went and registered with, asked me to put a photo of myself with the CV. This was in the days when passport-type photos were taken with cameras with film, and you would go and you would print them out and you would cut out the square, and that would be your photo. I was told to staple one to my CV. I found it odd because what’s that got to do with anything?'” He shares personal experiences of overt discrimination he faced early in his career, highlighting the significant shifts in societal attitudes and practices over time.
“Eventually, I figured this out. I spoke to someone in an HR department in a company that I was actually temping at, at the time. They said, ‘Actually, it’s quite easy. When people see your CV with your name, they assume you’re Pakistani. They will want a photo to see that you’re actually white’. I found that offensive at so many levels. But that was the mid to late 1980s and now, we’ve gone completely beyond that, and that’s a great thing.” He acknowledges the positive strides made, moving from overt discrimination to more subtle forms of bias, and the emergence of practices like blind CVs aimed at mitigating bias in recruitment.
However, Iyas also points to a broader “crisis of leadership” characterized by a desire for simplistic, binary solutions in a complex world. “But also for me, the other point is that I think we’ve got a bit of a crisis of leadership going on at the moment anyway. For a variety of reasons, we’ve got to a place where there’s a much higher expectation of there being black and white answers for everything, that there’s a binary answer that I can look at this topic and I have an answer, and therefore, I can make that decision based on that answer. As if the answer is indisputable and can almost be traced through a spreadsheet formula. If I can just find the input variables, then I’ve got my answer in terms of how I lead in what I do. But the reality is there’s a massive amount of grey in leadership, in humanity. It’s actually what makes humanity magnificent. If there wasn’t that grey, we wouldn’t be able to be so curious.” This desire for binary answers can be counterproductive in addressing complex issues like D&I, which require nuance, empathy, and a willingness to navigate ambiguity.
“The crisis in leadership is that we are looking for a binary answer when actually, in the end, it comes down to wisdom and judgment that comes from experience and from humanity. With diversity and inclusion, as with many things, there isn’t a clear-cut answer. There is a view, a perspective that you will have, a view or perspective that I’ll have, a view and perspective that anyone has. There are some basic core values or basic ethics that I think ought to be adhered to. But above that, we’re all trying to find the answer. In doing so, we’re on this endless journey, which I think is the same journey that’s taken us from a place where I was being told to put a photo of my white face on a CV because it might help me get a job, to a place where now, we’re actually looking at blind CVs. It’s the same journey, we’re just constantly shifting the conversation forward and upward. And that’s a good thing, that’s a really good thing.” He emphasizes that the journey of D&I is ongoing, requiring continuous learning, adaptation, and a commitment to progress. It is through this continuous evolution and commitment to core values that businesses can truly move towards a future where they effectively serve humanity.
To learn more about how Beyond the Quarter helps organizations cultivate values-driven growth, visit their website: https://beyondthequarter.com/
Connect with Iyas AlQasem on LinkedIn: his LinkedIn page.
