Creating Value, Meaning and Accountability

Value grows from doing things that matter.

The human soul is driven largely by its quest for meaning; it’s a big part of what makes us tick. When we “throw our heart and soul” into the work of an organization, we do so for reasons that go well beyond simple financial considerations. The organizations that understand how to engage us at that level are able to move mountains.

This kind of soulful connection to our work generates a deep sense of ownership and accountability for what we do. Soulful companies purposefully extend this meaning and accountability to employees, customers, partners, investors and other important stakeholders. In so doing, they create a community of shared meaning; one that builds tremendous economic and social value.

Featured Articles on Creating Value, Meaning and Accountability:

The Divine Right of Capital

The Divine Right of Capital, by Marjorie Kelly is one of those mind-opening books that deserves to be read by a large audience. It represents a dramatic rethink of the corporation and asks some very hard questions about the nature of capitalism as we practice today. In this post, I summarize each chapter with the permission of the author, in the hope you’ll go out an read this important book.

Fairness

It is time to find a richer understanding of fairness; one that incorporates both its libertarian and egalitarian sensibilities. The dynamics of libertarian and egalitarian fairness are what built this country. It is what made us great – and it is one of the keys to returning us to that greatness.

“Thick Value” Looks Like a Carpet to Me

When companies deliver goods and services that truly leave the world better off, that’s “thick value.” That means creating real economic value; not simply capturing it from customers or suppliers, but genuinely making everyone better off.

Latest Articles on Creating Value, Meaning and Accountability:

• The Sole of a Business Shoe repair man, Mr. Lee, teaches me the beauty of business and its ability to be of service to society.
• Netflix Explodes Its Customer Goodwill Netflix is slowly exploding all its goodwill with customers, through a series of decisions on pricing and reshaping its service offerings. It's been a bad six months for the company, and I don't see things turning around for them again for a while ... if ever. It's too bad. It's a good company that just made some bad decisions.
• Software Will Replace You Software-based businesses like Amazon and Netflix are rapidly displacing traditional businesses, but it goes much deeper than that. Software will soon replace much of what you do at work - and at lower cost and with better service. The question is - how far will we take this? Will software someday run our companies?
• The Great Unbundling and Collapse of Local Newspapers The web's unbundling of the local newspaper business model didn't occur all at once, but as a one-two punch of vertical marketplaces for easily aggregated data like car buying, and crowd-sourcing platforms to get at the fragmented, more difficult to aggregate information in local markets. In essence, what the Internet did was enable web-based businesses to cherry-pick the profitable pieces out of the local newspaper's business model. When that happened, the flow of money for reporter salaries came under increased pressure and newsrooms across the US were slowly eviscerated.
• Influence: the Flip Side of Permeability Part 3 of 4: Doing effective influence mapping isn't easy, just as creating effective geographic maps isn't easy. To be useful, the map needs to describe the actual terrain - and for that, you need people who understand how the decisions that impact...
• 5 Steps to Influence Mapping Part 2 of 4: As Walmart's move to sustainability illustrates, when you scratch below the surface of most institutional change, there's usually a handful of relationships that play a disproportionately large role in bringing those changes about. That's...
• Change Happens Through People - Even at Walmart Part 1 of 4: Marc Gunther just reviewed Force of Change, the story of Walmart's conversion to sustainable business practices. When the world's largest public corporation makes any big change, it's noteworthy. But this change could very well help save t...

Working Spiderman image by Eneas. Thank you.