In Steve Jobs’ legendary commencement speech to Stanford University students (above), he signed off with a maxim he first read in the proto-sustainability bible, the Whole Earth Catalogue, namely “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.”

In other words, keep searching for what you want to do and don’t be afraid to try stuff and fail. When you succeed, don’t stop, keeping going.

This is the opposite of the ‘mid-table mediocrity‘ trap identified by the Corporate Sustainability Mastermind Group. We need to build on success, not rest on our laurels.

The CEO of Coca-Cola, Muhtar Kent, put it nicely in a recent HBR interview when he talked of being ‘constructively discontent’ – taking a frame of mind that what you have achieved is never good enough, but in a way that puts other people off trying.

So how do you reward success, but keep people hungry – or constructively discontent?

One of my favourite approaches is competition – whether giving out awards for good performance, internal/external league tables and/or competitive tendering where the best sustainability performance is always rewarded. No-on wants to lose that no1 slot, or that Queen’s Award, or lose a contract to a greener competitor. So they have to keep raising the bar – and so do their competitors.

And if you can bring a bit of the foolish into it, why not?