What if we changed how we do things?
I was listening to the audiobook version of The Art of Power by Thich Nhat Hanh, and was struck by how apt this portion that talks about business and politics seemed:
“By focusing our spiritual power, we can change our bottom line from pure profit to one that includes compassion. We don’t need to get rid of profit. Compassion can bring financial and political success. I believe it is simply good business to include in our definition of the bottom line a consideration of all the effects we have on each other and on the planet. Businesses that intelligently combine profit-making with integrity and concern for the world have happier employees and more satisfied customers, while making more money.
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Most politicians, and many businesses, from the pharmaceutical industry to multimedia technology development, started out with some intention of relieving people’s suffering. We have to keep that intention, that ambition, alive. When financial profit overrides all other motivations, we self-destruct.”
I do think that most people start out with good intentions. (And we all know which road is paved with those.) But I think that it might be easier for people to keep those good intentions if some of the fundamentals of how corporations are run were changed.
A corporation is pretty single-minded. It has one goal: make the shareholders happy by bringing in profits. Immediate profits. Constant profits, no matter what.
But who are the shareholders? Isn’t that…us? What if we changed how things were done by mandating other requirements in addition to profit, and by NOT making profit the number one goal?
I have this vision of a company that I would like to own — one that does positive things, and where workers set their own hours and work from home, receive paid-for health insurance, have good salaries + profit-sharing, and receive at least 6 weeks of vacation per year. Wouldn’t you be committed to working for a company like that? Wouldn’t you work hard to see it succeed? Or am I just being idealistic?
October 9th, 2008 at 10:33 am
I agree with your vision of the ideal company and I believe such a business model is quite viable. But only on a limited scale. I believe that the larger a company grows, the harder it would be to stay focused on its socially-conscious, worker-friendly ideals.
I’d like to add that I believe it is the responsibility of each one of us, as consumers, to be conscious of how we “vote” with our money. I hate to bring it up, but Walmart is a perfect example. As consumers, each dollar we spend is a vote of support for the company to whom we give our business. It’s hypocritical to dream of socially-conscious, worker-friendly businesses all the while supporting companies with blatant disregard for those values.
October 9th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
I’d like to shout out an “Amen!” to Elizabeth’s comment and then submit my resume for Blunt Money’s new, fabulous business.
There’s a really great documentary called “The Corporation” that addresses the pursuit of profit at all costs that has become so rampant. I think we also need to admit the fact that criminals exist at ALL levels of society. We seem to picture the criminal element as some poor person who robs a liquor store. Yet we have an overwhelming amount of criminal activity in the business sector that is perfectly legal, albeit completely immoral.
I just wish we could return to realistic profits. Does any one human really need to make billions of dollars? Reasonable profits allow for a more equitable distribution of wealth and an allowance for mission as priority. (That’s why I work in the non-profit sector. Mission comes first.)
October 9th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Elizabeth, I totally agree.
CF, so what kind of business shall we start?
October 10th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I’m in. When do we start?
I think that there ARE companies like this, like the guy whose polarfleece plant burned down in Massachusetts, and he kept paying his workers salaries until the plant could reopen. You can bet those people did everything they could to help him get that plant up and running. Don’t know how he’s doing today, but it just goes to show that you CAN make compassionate business decisions.
Thank you for saying so eloquently that we should and can run our business world with the values we’re always to quick to espouse on the campaign trail and ignore in the boardroom.