What a fabulous read! I really couldn’t put this thing down.
Written by the Co-CEO of Whole Foods and co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., John Mackey, along with Raj Sisodia, co-founder and trustee of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., and professor of marketing at Bentley University, this book gave me hope of a brighter future for our world, in business dealings and otherwise.
After years immersed in corporate America where my ideas of a kinder business philosophy were often looked upon as silly pipe dreams, I feel, in reading this book, that I have found my community, support, and a movement to join.
Spread Good Stuff shares the views presented in this enlightening work. John Mackey uses stories and lessons learned from the building of the Whole Foods Market organization. Not only do we learn how WFM became such a success, but we also learn why this kind of business model will be the only kind to survive upcoming generations.
Early in the book, we read a description of the four tenets of conscious capitalism: higher purpose, stakeholder integration, conscious leadership, and conscious culture and management. Keeping these at heart proves to be what holds a company together through thick and thin. From the chapter Purpose: The Corporation’s Search for Meaning, we read, “For publicly traded companies, the stock price becomes a barometer of the morale of team members and executives. These firms have a hard time pulling out of slumps, whereas purpose-driven companies recover faster. They remain true to their purpose even when times are bad, and the best ones become even more committed to their core purpose.”
Each tenet is beautifully detailed. But simply put, if all the stakeholders are considered of importance, from employees and vendors, to customers and investors, the culture becomes one that foster happiness and creativity. When all are of a similar greater good mindset, everyone is acting in concert for the benefit of all. How can this not work!
We read how to create a conscious business and how to convert to a conscious business, the latter being a bit more challenging but not impossible. We are inspired by stories of how John Mackey survived downturns and made Whole Folds Market the success it is today. And we learn of how other conscious businesses, such as Southwest Airlines, Cosco and UPS to name a few, have ended ahead of their less altruistic competitors in the long haul.
I particularly like the take on environmental issues. When discussing some pushback Whole Foods got for talking about improvements in deforestation issues, we read, “Many also believe fear is the most effective motivator and think that they have to keep people scared to keep them from becoming complacent. However, fear short-circuits creativity and inhibits innovation and problem-solving. When we rely on fear, people eventually start to emotionally contract and tune out. This has already happened with many environmental issues.” This is a belief I hold to my core. Show people what they can do instead of presenting them an impossibly hopeless world!
In the later pages of the book we learn of an important idea put forth by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins about Natural Capitalism that I find basically undeniable. The idea is that our traditional or industrial capitalism is unsustainable. It doesn’t account for natural resources, living systems or human capital. The theory argues that if businesses don’t learn to work in harmony with nature, they cannot survive. If you think about it, it’s a simple idea. Our resources are this earth and the beings on it. We must tend to these if we are to survive as a civilized world and as a species.
So read up, folks. Greed is out! Love, community, and sustainability are the new vogues.
One final quote from the book I’d like to share is this: From the chapter, The Second Tenet: Stakeholder Integration, comes this summation:
“There may be no more important truth in our book than this: What we collectively envision, we can create and bring into reality. Together we create our future reality, so we should do so consciously, collaboratively, and responsibly. The Good, the True, the Beautiful, and the Heroic can be made manifest in our world through the power of our collective creative dreams.”