What exactly is “conscious capitalism”?
Is it the opposite of unconscious capitalism? Or perhaps subconscious capitalism?
Or neither? That’s what about 100 business owners and others assembled at the New Haven Lawn Club Tuesday morning to learn. The occasion was a conference presented jointly by the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce and the Connecticut chapter of Conscious Capitalism, a nonprofit movement with 30 U.S. and 40 worldwide chapters.
Entitled “Purpose & Profit: Enlightened Leaders, Amazing Results,” the event brought together three Connecticut business leaders and one high-profile business professor/entrepreneur to talk about ways in which organizations in the pursuit of profits can pursue a higher purpose that serves not just the bottom line, but the interests of stakeholders including employees and even customers.
Conscious capitalism, the philosophy, asserts that companies can and should exist for purposes that extend beyond profits alone — that profits are a tool to achieving higher ends, though by no means the sole tool.
Conscious Capitalism the organization calls itself a community that aligns purpose and profit for shared prosperity — shared among the people who work at the organization, those who use its products and services and the broader community of which it is a member.
Empowering employees
In a wide-ranging panel discussion, Cindi Bigelow, third-generation president and CEO of Bigelow Tea, discussed how she focuses on creating a positive attitude among her company’s 400 employees in Fairfield — about 300 of whom are directly involved in the production of the more than two billion tea bags Bigelow produces each year.
The key to fostering that attitude, she said, was to make sure that workers feel both engaged and respected. “If you care about them, then they’ll care about you,” she said of her employees. “Our purpose is more than just a tea bag.”
“Beyond fulfilling basic needs, money is useless,” observed Lawrence Ford, founder and CEO or Conscious Capital Wealth Management, whose writings probe the connection between the modern business world and the ancient world of wisdom.
“Our industry [wealth management] is ruled by fear, greed, obfuscation and testosterone,” he said. “It is ripe for change. One can do well and do good at the same time.”
Another panelist whose leadership style reflects a concern for values beyond profit maximization was Gavin Watson, vice president of manufacturing and maintenance for Watson Inc., which creates health and nutrition products and employs some 300 workers in Orange and West Haven.
According to Watson, his company’s management philosophy centers on three principles guiding its treatment of its employees: 1) maximizing autonomy; 2) sharing as much information with them as possible; and 3) pushing decision-making down the chain of authority to the people actually doing the work.
Such principles help workers to play a greater role in the overall director of the organization, Watson added. For company executive, he advised, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
The keynote speaker was Barry Nalebuff, a professor at the Yale School of Management who in 1998 co-founded Honest Tea with a former student, Seth Goldman. Nalebuff called that enterprise “a mission-driven business in a profit-driven world.”
In 2011 Honest Tea was sold to the Coca-Cola Co.
