{"id":311,"date":"2017-08-11T17:38:28","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T22:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/?p=311"},"modified":"2017-08-10T18:11:14","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T23:11:14","slug":"a-unlikely-but-potentially-huge-force-for-fighting-inequality-conscious-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/11\/a-unlikely-but-potentially-huge-force-for-fighting-inequality-conscious-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"A unlikely but potentially huge force for fighting inequality &#8211; Conscious Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"312\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/11\/a-unlikely-but-potentially-huge-force-for-fighting-inequality-conscious-capitalism\/apple-589640_640\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/apple-589640_640.jpg?fit=640%2C452\" data-orig-size=\"640,452\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-title=\"apple-589640_640\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/apple-589640_640.jpg?fit=640%2C452\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-312\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/apple-589640_640.jpg?resize=300%2C212\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"212\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/apple-589640_640.jpg?resize=300%2C212 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/apple-589640_640.jpg?w=640 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>So, I&#8217;m reading a new book this month which really piqued my curiosity. \u00a0It&#8217;s called, &#8220;Conscious Capitalism,&#8221; by John Hallenbeck and Raj Sisodia. \u00a0Many of you whom I&#8217;ve chatted with about inequality know that a key element that further widens the gap is &#8220;capitalism gone wild&#8221; &#8211; an unhealthy view that the only thing that matters is &#8220;maximizing shareholder return.&#8221; \u00a0This was popularized by the late Milton Friedman, a huge thought leader and prominent economist from the University of Chicago and epitomized by my old CEO, Jack Welch of General Electric.<\/p>\n<p>I do agree it&#8217;s very important to maximize shareholder value. \u00a0After all, money is the lifeblood of business. \u00a0But, it&#8217;s not the only thing that is important. \u00a0In fact, if all you care about is money and a short term outlook then you are tempted to do silly things like:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>not pay your employees well because you consider them a bothersome expense as opposed to your greatest asset<\/li>\n<li>not be committed to quality and safety because &#8220;it costs too much&#8221; and we know we can bully consumers into arbitration (with an arbiter of our choosing) rather than leaving ourselves open to class-action lawsuits<\/li>\n<li>not really care about cleaning up our messes after we&#8217;ve strip-mined, drilled, pumped out noxious gas or generated toxic waste rather than taking the responsibility for also protecting our environment after it&#8217;s provided resources for us<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In fact conscious capitalists see the big picture and realize that running a business is not just about focusing on one stakeholder &#8211; it&#8217;s about finding the right balance for all of them. \u00a0This is good in the long run (kind of like caring for all 4 of the tires on your car &#8211; keeping only 1 tire in good condition while the other 3 waste away doesn&#8217;t really optimize the car as a high-performance system to get you from one place to the next).<\/p>\n<p>Conscious capitalists care about:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>employee engagement<\/li>\n<li>customer satisfaction<\/li>\n<li>regulatory compliance<\/li>\n<li>investor return<\/li>\n<li>supply chain partners<\/li>\n<li>community reinvestment<\/li>\n<li>social and environmental responsibility and leadership<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Great examples of companies which do so AND who have outperformed their peers (in spite of the protests from the Friedman school of &#8220;pure capitalists&#8221;) include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Whole Foods<\/li>\n<li>Costco<\/li>\n<li>REI<\/li>\n<li>The Container Store<\/li>\n<li>and more!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Anyways, if you want a great read that may be perceived as &#8220;sleeping with the enemy&#8221; (but is really a great way to build bridges with those on the right who may be skeptical about the issue of inequality in the first place) then check out Conscious Capitalism!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So, I&#8217;m reading a new book this month which really piqued my curiosity. \u00a0It&#8217;s called, &#8220;Conscious Capitalism,&#8221; by John Hallenbeck and Raj Sisodia. \u00a0Many of you whom I&#8217;ve chatted with about inequality know that a key element that further widens the gap is &#8220;capitalism gone wild&#8221; &#8211; an unhealthy view that the only thing that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kHU7-51","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/apple-589640_640.jpg?fit=640%2C452","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":313,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thelight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}