Succeeding in Business by Living Our Principles

Sometimes gifts of love come out of nowhere. They are the best kind. I received such a gift today from Mario Vellandi. His gift was a simple one but magnificent in its effects on me. Mario introduced me to Ode Magazine by sharing an article entitled The gospel according to Adam Smith, written by San Francisco business journalist Carleen Hawn for the June 2008 issue. The article tackles a subject that is my first and last business passion.

I call the passion leading with your heart, which is built on a business model that places people's happiness before all other business metrics, including ROI, profits and revenues. I was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi who said, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world." In my most recent, I spend the better part of 200 plus pages explaining what the business model looks like, offering case studies and examples of businesses living the model and showing how to create a successful business based on the principles within. Here are the fundamentals, or guiding principles, I write about:

1. Business is people-centered. People come before profit in every instance.
2. Its values talk to making the world a better place to live and work.
3. Business understands the wants, needs, and desires of it employees and its customers.
4. It creates products, services, value, prices, and most important, experiences that meet or exceed people’s wants, needs, and desires.

Hawn's article introduces me to another way of describing those principles. Calling it spiritual capitalism, Hawn tells us that "the success of an enterprise is measured by values like integrity and commitment as much as by targets like efficiency and profitability. It’s based on the recognition that every businessperson—whether you’re the CEO of a major multinational or the head of your own small firm—is in the service industry, and the services rendered must benefit not just yourself and your shareholders, but the planet and other people as well. The first commandment of the growing spiritual-capitalism movement is: Taking care of business means taking care of others."

While I recognize Gandhi, Hawn identifies Adam Smith as the father of spiritual capitalism. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith writes that “every man, so long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with any other man” is the best way to build wealth.

Hawn also solidifies his argument using the book Business and the Buddha: Doing Well by Doing Good, written by Lloyd Field. In it Field quotes Smith's moral philosophy: "The average man and woman, along with the society in which they lived, should be the primary beneficiaries of a wealthy nation.”

In my humble work, I write about companies that follow Smith's philosophy, whether or not they know they are doing so. Why do these companies, big and small, follow such a moral philosophy? It's not just because it's the right thing to do, although they recognize that is is. It is also because putting people first (employees, customers and communities) increases productivity, drives employees and consumers to be loyal to the company, and results in excellent profits and revenues. As partial evidence of this I write:

"Employees, customers, and communities that do not care about your business all threaten its existence. They care little whether or not you prosper or survive. When you lead with the heart, execute strategies with passion, and build happiness, you achieve engagement, where people start to care about your business and want you to do well. When people don’t care one way or the other, you’ll experience losses in productivity, little customer loyalty, shrinking market share, and difficulty attracting quality employees and valuable customers.

"Business models that are driven by greed and executives who either don’t know how or don’t want to change create this kind of apathy. According to a recent Gallup poll, 55 percent of employees are doing the bare minimum required of their jobs and 19 percent are actively working to sabotage your business. That leaves just 26 percent of employees who care."

If you are interested in such a business to work for or to start, here are the basics to move from passion to a solid foundation:

From Passion to a Solid Foundation

1. When the business is in its infancy, the proud parents who understand the essentials of success raise their prodigy on these fundamental principles:
   Make values and goals the backbone of your business.
2. Innovate and encourage your people to express their ideas, opinions, and perspectives, and reward them when their thoughts benefit your business.
3. Make respect, dignity, trust, and credibility part of everything your business says and does.
4. Promote an environment where people can question authority. You will be pleasantly surprised by the results.
5. Spread the passion among your employees by regularly demonstrating and communicating this passion and let them know they are the most important part of your business—not revenues, not products, not services, but people.

Author's Note: I encourage you to read Hawn's article and am grateful to those of you who have read Lead With Your Heart.