Let’s Be Pragmatic

Nine years living and working in the Netherlands offered more than international experience. They provided a close view of a business culture that has built global relevance around a remarkably simple principle: pragmatism.

For a relatively small country, the Netherlands has achieved an outsized position across agriculture, technology, semiconductors, water engineering, logistics and international trade. Its public institutions and infrastructure also demonstrate a strong focus on efficiency, accessibility and functionality.

There are many reasons behind this success, but one characteristic consistently stands out: the Dutch preference for solutions that work.

“Let’s be pragmatic” is an expression heard frequently when addressing a challenge in the Netherlands. In its simplest form, it means exactly that: find something that works and move forward.

But there is more behind the expression.

A pragmatic solution does not need to be unnecessarily sophisticated, complex or overengineered. It needs to fulfil its purpose, account for the needs of the relevant stakeholders and be sufficiently clear and practical to implement.

This mindset offers a valuable lesson for international governance.

From complexity to practical decision-making

Companies operating across borders face increasingly interconnected challenges. Governance structures, joint ventures, regulation, supply chains, energy transition, technology, stakeholder expectations and geopolitical considerations can all influence a single strategic decision.

In this environment, complexity can easily become an excuse for inaction.

Effective international governance is not about eliminating complexity. It is about creating structures and decision-making processes capable of navigating it.

That requires balancing different interests, understanding local realities and establishing a common direction without attempting to create a theoretically perfect solution for every stakeholder.

In other words: be pragmatic.

This becomes particularly important when businesses face issues where economic, political and social perspectives are increasingly polarised.

Sustainability is a clear example.

Sustainability needs pragmatism

The sustainability debate has become increasingly polarised. At one extreme, ambitious targets are sometimes discussed without sufficient consideration for economic and operational realities. At the other, sustainability itself can be dismissed as unrealistic, expensive or incompatible with competitiveness.

Neither position helps businesses move forward.

A more useful starting point is to consider what being unsustainable actually means: operating in a way that cannot be maintained over time because resources, economics or environmental impacts eventually make the model unviable.

From a business perspective, avoiding that outcome is not ideological. It is strategic.

The question therefore should not be whether businesses are “for” or “against” sustainability. The question is how companies can build more resilient and sustainable business models while maintaining competitiveness, reliability and affordability.

That requires pragmatism.

Transition rather than disruption for its own sake

Fossil resources have played a fundamental role in industrial and societal development, supporting advances in health, safety, mobility, infrastructure and quality of life. Decades of investment, optimisation and scale have also made these systems reliable and economically competitive.

They cannot simply be replaced overnight.

At the same time, maintaining existing models indefinitely without adapting to changing resource, environmental, regulatory and market realities is equally unrealistic.

The pragmatic path lies between these extremes.

For industrial businesses, this means developing transitions that are incremental, credible and economically sustainable. It means diversifying feedstocks, incorporating renewable alternatives where they make sense, improving resource and energy efficiency, investing in lower-carbon technologies and continuously reducing environmental impact.

Most importantly, the direction needs to be sufficiently predictable to allow companies to invest, innovate and build new businesses around it.

Pragmatism as a governance principle

The same principle extends well beyond sustainability.

International governance frequently requires leaders to reconcile global strategy with local realities; shareholder objectives with joint-venture interests; long-term transformation with short-term performance; and ambition with what can realistically be implemented.

The strongest solution is rarely the most radical one or the most intellectually sophisticated.

It is the solution that stakeholders can understand, organisations can execute and businesses can sustain.

After years of operating across different countries, businesses and governance structures, one lesson remains remarkably consistent:

Complex challenges do not always require more complexity. They require clarity, experience and the ability to move forward.

Sometimes, the best advice remains the simplest:

Let’s be pragmatic.