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.

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?

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