STAKEHOLDER CAPITALISM
I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone speak with such insight and wisdom about how the interests of business employees, shareholders and customers can be aligned as Hubert Joly. He was the architect of a major turnaround in the fortunes of Best Buy, a US electronics retailer, in 2012, just as Amazon should have killed them off.
At the heart of it was defining what he calls ‘noble purpose’, which sounds like guff, but was actually the product of a great deal of work defining something bigger than just profit and numbers. In the case of Best Buy it was ‘enriching lives through technology by addressing key human needs’. Even this sounds like guff until you hear him describe how it translates into an ethos that creates a sense of belonging and meaning for everyone, with implications for pay, structure, markets, engagement and of course finance.
Joly himself is disarmingly straightforward and unaffected, whilst also clearly having a vision far bigger than simply profit and loss.