Conscious Capitalism, With a New Preface by the Authors: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business

I have had direct experience with hundreds of large companies in my career as an executive, academic and journalist. Quite a few have toxic work environments and I have thought deeply about how we can change this so that persons get up on Monday morning energized rather than dreading the week to come.John Mackey and Raj Sisodia have also thought deeply about this and have articulated a coherent philosophy of what the problems are with the current structure of business, how to go about transforming it and giving lots of examples of companies. A caveat: not all companies are good at all parts of what they advocate. So when they cite an example, evaluate that company only on the characteristic they are discussing.I found myself nodding in agreement many times as I read the book because it articulated what I deeply believe. First, business is a noble enterprise, even a heroic one. It makes life easier for every one because of new products and services offered. It lifts entire populations out of grinding poverty and channels human creativity and energy into productive avenues. True, there are downsides as many thoughtful critics of global capitalism have pointed out, such as rampant inequality, environmental degradation and fostering of excessive materialism to name a few. But these are not inherent flaws of business. They are the unfortunate by-products of the way business is currently structured and the "goals" of most businesspersons at present.At the core of the book is the notion that a business stands for much, much more than "maximizing" value for shareholders or meeting high revenue or earnings targets. This is exemplified by a quote from Mackey in the Foreword pertaining to his famous debate with Milton Friedman, "While Friedman believes that taking care of customers, employees, and business philanthropy are means to the end of increasing investor profits, I take the exact opposite view: Making high profits is the means to the fulfilling Whole Foods' core business mission. We want to improve the health and well-being of everyone on the planet through higher quality foods and better nutrition, and we cannot fulfill this mission unless we are highly profitable. Just as people cannot live without eating, so a business cannot live without profits. But most persons don't live to eat, neither must businesses live to make profits." BTW this debate is both instructive and entertaining. You can find it on Mackey's blog or by Googling it.There are five parts to the book. The first talks about capitalism, how it evolved and how a different form that Mackey and Sisodia call "Conscious Capitalism" is coming into being. I am not quite convinced that it is coming into being but I certainly wish it were so. Conscious Capitalism recognizes that business is a subset of society and society is a subset of the planet and requires conscious leadership at all levels to function as described.The second part of the book talks about the higher purpose of business and why it should be consciously articulated. Whole Foods own mission comes through in Mackey's quote above. When a company is clear about its purpose and the senior executives walk the talk, tremendous creative energy is unleashed.The next part of the book mentions the different stakeholders - such as employees, customers, shareholders, etc - and how the interests of each must be met in a balanced way. They give the example of medical students dissecting a cadaver and studying the heart. liver, brain etc as separate entities. True, these are separate but a live human being needs all of these and they have to work harmoniously. You cannot have the liver demand all the blood and leave none for the brain. In exactly the same way the elements of business - the stakeholders - all have to benefit and prosper. I entirely agree with this and the authors make an excellent case for it and give examples but it is more art than science. This is perhaps the weakest part of the book because it is so hard to manage these conflicts. In part, these are conflicts because they have been defined as conflicts in our business school education and future managers are encouraged to pick a side rather than think in terms of a "win-win" solution. Thus, in many ways, our business schools today are part of the problem.The fourth part of the book talks about what conscious leadership is and how to cultivate it. I think this is the best part of the book and explicitly incorporates the leaders own growth on many dimensions, including spiritual, as the vehicle for an organization's growth. This is easier when you have a charismatic founder/CEO like Mackey at the helm. It is less clear when you have an amorphous group of "top mangers" at the helm each of whom is jockeying for power. And you still have the $64,000 question of what can be done when these "top mangers" have no clue about what is meant by Conscious Capitalism and have no desire to change.The last part of the book talks about the elements of Conscious Capitalism in a company's culture and explicitly mentions concepts like love and care that are rarely discussed in a business context.This is a book about what business can be like and should be like. The authors feel that we are in the midst of a deep transformation that will bring this about. I would love to see this happen but am somewhat less sanguine."Firms of Endearment" is an earlier book that Sisodia co-authored and also covers many of the same concepts though not in quite as developed form. It is also an excellent read and well worth your time.

Whole Foods CEO Mackey and Co-Founder of Conscious Capitalism Sisodia teamed to write a book that should be read by every working American, no matter where they are on the wage scale or organization chart.As I turned the first page, I was a little hesitant for two reasons. First, Whole Foods and Mackey have been portrayed as a "hippie" culture. I expected a lot of esoteric drivel that has little to do with the world of business. Mackey does mention Holotropic Breathwork, usually associated with psychedelic psychotherapy, but he doesn't drift far enough afield to lose me. Also, he does posit excellent advice in that realm that all of us can use. Second, I knew he was caught posting anonymously on Yahoo message boards criticizing a competitor. Anonymous posting is almost unforgivable until you find out that almost all such postings are anonymous.Unless you are a stockholder or customer, you may learn more about Whole Foods than you ever want to know, but along the way, you will learn a lot of valuable insights or have your own solid beliefs confirmed in a real-world company. The best thing about this book is that it focuses attention on business and investing truisms that receive little or no attention elsewhere.For example . . .The Stock Market--As a former financial consultant, Mackey got my attention by correctly pointing out that short term investing is a contradiction in terms. He says it should be called trading. I say it should be called legalized gambling. This book also shines a light on a largely overlooked but very important statistic. The average holding period for stocks in the forties was twelve years, eight years in the sixties, and is now well below one year. That is not good for an efficient market and terrible for the small investor.He also confirms another of my long-held beliefs saying . . . "the values and philosophy of Wall Street has become a type of cancer that is corrupting the healthier parts of the business system."The Federal Reserve--The Fed has kept interest rates artificially low enabling the very financial institutions we had to bail out in the 2008-2009 debacle to make very high and virtually risk-free profits on interest rate spreads--"a prime example of crony capitalism run amok". And this . . . "much of the animosity toward capitalism today comes from the distortions that crony capitalism has created". Crony capitalism is not free enterprise capitalism, which this book exhorts. Amen.Executive Pay--I love free enterprise, and companies who do not take government handouts should be free to pay their execs whatever they want, but that does not keep it from being bad business to pay exorbitant salaries, bonuses and perks. The best executive in the world should be able to struggle along on three million a year. Pour the rest back into R&D, employee salaries or benefits, infrastructure, and dividends that find their way back into the wider economy. Companies, like countries, should be run by people who are not motivated by the pursuit of power or personal enrichment.The authors also talk about finding purpose in your life and in the company's life and embedding that purpose with everyone who works there. I learned early on that stories are the best way to do that and that eventually led me to write fiction. Mackey confirms that.Mackey addresses another of my pet peeves when he discusses how all leaders, especially highly charismatic ones, are subject to the trap of narcissism and that as a nation, we worship fame for fame's sake, not skills and accomplishment.This book quotes from several other good reads, including Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Dan Pink, the author, distills our intrinsic motivations into three elements: autonomy--the desire to direct our own lives (I called it freedom), mastery (the desire to continually improve something that matters), and purpose (the desire to do things in service to something larger than ourselves)."One of the reasons free enterprise works better than any economic system that's ever been created--particularly better than government bureaucracies and command and control structures, is that it recognizes that the collective knowledge and intelligence in a society and in organizations is wifely diffused."This is more than a business book. It has many gems for personal lives and careers. I don't necessarily agree with everything he says or does, but Mackey may be one of the brightest and boldest CEO's in the country.One caveat: The authors, in my opinion, unfairly criticize Jack Welch, another enormously successful CEO who happened to run a different organization in a different style--very successfully.

YUup

This is a fabulous book. Complete with detailed anecdotes and moving stories, John and Raj put together a compelling framework to think of business and capitalism in general in the 21st century. More power to them both, and everyone associated with the movement.

Definitvamente si tienes la duda de como genersr mas impacto desde tu posicion en una empresa es un buen libro. Si no te interesa esto, no pasaras del primer capitulo. Es una excelente guía de liderazgo. Aunque habla sobre la estrategia de un negocio consiente, el mayor valor esta en las recomendaciones para los managers que buscan un propósito en su día a día.

Aí está uma terceira via ao capitalismo e o socialismo.... A visão geral e a percepção e preocupação com todos envolvidos, o senso de propósito e todos os pilares me levou a pensar em que realmente há uma alternativa

This book is very interesting approach of a new economic logic. As it says it is a new paradigm, which differs clearly from FRIEDMAN's approach.It shows how this new stakeholders approach functions as a real win-win logic.Excellent and forward looking bookMarc Luyckx PhD.