We are so often asked to talk about businesses that have found the sweetspot – that place where CSR and stakeholder engagement intersect in a really meaningful way.

While we’re always listening, watching, reading and learning, one of the best collection of inspiring stories is in the book Firms of Endearment (http://www.firmsofendearment.com) by Raj Sisodia, Jag Sheth and David B. Wolfe. Philip Kotler claims that this book not only challenges capitalism’s traditional marketing paradigm, but the very “genes” of capitalism. If any book is going to launch a New Capitalism of Caring it is this book that redefines great companies as stakeholder value builders, not just shareholder agents.

The authors researched hundreds of companies that people love – not just like, but love. They put them through a stringent set of screening criteria to arrive at a final set of 28 Firms of Endearment: companies truly loved by all who come in contact with them – customers, employees, suppliers, environmentalists, the community, even governments!

A great read!

We’ve heard the inspiring stories of companies like Interface, Avon, Timberland, Patagonia, Seventh Generation (and many more), and how they have integrated social strategy into the very core of their businesses, transforming or defining their corporate culture in the process.

What if every company championed a cause and/or social purpose?
What if every business leader gave employees and stakeholders the opportunity to link arms, tap a collective corporate soul and spread the mission of the company beyond the balance sheet and out into a world of need?
What if the curriculums of business schools taught that Social Capital is becoming the NEW model of Capitalism?
What might that look like?

• Would employees be inspired?
• Would loyalty and retention increase?
• Would business attract great talent?
• Would the intrinsic common thread of compassion and inspiration weave its way into the DNA of the company?
• Would leaders be enlightened?
• Would business grow?
• Would the world be just a little or a whole lot better?

This idea of Social Capital strategy has been evolving under the umbrella of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the decades since the industrial revolution. Business today is feeling the pressure to develop good corporate citizenship both from those in the talent pool looking for great companies to work for and consumers wanting to support companies that are community minded.

This is an idea whose time has come. Over a decade ago Paul Hawken, co-founder of the garden retailer Smith and Hawken, wrote the bestselling book The Ecology of Commerce. In it he brilliantly points out that the quality of every living system on earth is in decline as a direct result of personal and corporate irresponsibility. Our air and water are polluted, our forests are being destroyed and our animals are facing extinction. At the same time, human health is deteriorating, in part due to the stress and strain of the modern employee. He goes on to predict that the trend will turn: there will be a profound business transformation, one that will render new business unrecognizable. The companies of the future will be in the business of healing our world. Businesses that exist to rebuild our communities, repair our ecosystems, protect the environment, improve our health and provide inspirational work environments that create prosperity, will thrive.

Hawken’s message can be related to the Chinese expression for crisis, which consists of two characters side by side. The first is “danger” and the second is “opportunity.”

Corporations have become the most profound and influential forces on the planet. The balance of power today lies in their hands. Of the world’s 100 largest economic entities 51 are corporations, and only 49 are countries, when measured by annual corporate sales and annual gross domestic product (gdp). Corporations have an extraordinary opportunity to influence the world. Whether for good or bad — it’s up to us.

Hawken’s message has not only been heard, it has also been embraced. A collective consciousness is now demanding accountability. Governments, businesses and individuals are being asked to step up.

While I was formulating the idea of a corporate social strategy consulting business, I was looking for a word or phrase that meant corporate soul. At that time I was reading Eric Klein and John Izzo’s book Awakening Corporate Soul. They tell of Native American author Jamake Highwaters and his use of the word orenda to describe the tribal soul, or tribal fire. There was the name. The soul of the tribe, the soul of the company — the orenda.

The old capitalism has been focused on quarterly earnings- with hitting sales targets, keeping costs down, reducing headcount and managing growth, but if we are right and the new capitalism requires social strategy, fueling the orenda of your company will simply be a cost of entry.

In 2000, after a long and successful career in sales, I accepted a position as Vice President of Network Development (sales) for Usana Health Sciences. In joining this public company, a manufacturer and distributor of nutritional supplements based in Utah, I was also accepting my first “job job”: the kind that required me to go to an office and work closely with colleagues on a shared vision. When I accepted the assignment I was accepting a significant challenge. The company had experienced flat sales during the previous few years, despite aggressive international expansion. It was looking to me to re-energize the sales force and turn things around.

It was immediately evident to me when I started that something was fundamentally wrong with the company’s culture. Rather than embracing its mission to “develop and provide the highest quality, science-based health products,” it was engaged in toxic politics, the effect of which inevitably trickled down to the entire sales force. I knew that addressing the company’s culture would do more than anything else to breathe new life into the organization. I wondered what would happen if every person who worked for and with Usana was completely energized by the company’s mission and its founder’s ultimate dream of “a world free from pain and suffering … a world free from disease.” What if that’s what drove people? What if that’s what they woke up to do every day?

During my short time at Usana (I stayed until 2004) I created and integrated into its corporate culture a philanthropy program that changed the way people felt about the company they worked for. Usana partnered with Children’s Hunger Fund™ (CHF) to get desperately needed nutritional supplements to children in the developing world. CHF has an on-the-ground presence in many developing countries. They could see the remarkable changes that our supplements were making in the lives of children ravaged by disease and hunger, and they shared their stories with those of us who were energized with a new sense of purpose.

Through this partnership with CHF, Usana reached out to all of its employees, customers, board members and shareholders, who in turn donated both the company’s nutritional supplements for children and their own financial resources. This had a profound impact on the company itself. I watched in awe as Usana’s sales more than doubled, from $120 million to $270 million, and as its stock value rose over 3000%, from $1.70 to $70 a share.

What had changed? The same people were in place, the same products were produced, the same marketing efforts were made. So what unlocked the potential of Usana? The only answer I could come up with was that the company had “found its sou”l. People came to work for a higher purpose and were truly connected to the company’s values. This new found soul also unlocked in the company a new way of looking at and creating “culture”. We created an inspiring workplace. We attracted great talent. We retained that talent, and productivity increased dramatically. We had more customer satisfaction and loyalty. Finding our soul was good for business!

At the same time donations to CHF during that period grew exponentially. In the first year of the program we contributed close to $120,000 in product and cash donations. By year three, as more and more constituents became engaged, the contributions grew to over $1 million.

What began as a philanthropy program became a way of life for Usana. What began as a partnership became an essential part of how it sees itself in the world. Today Usana’s products continue to be distributed to children in need through CHF. I am proud to have been part of finding, and releasing, the company’s soul. It has proved to be a win-win-win for children worldwide, for the numerous people who have had the life-changing experience of working for a company that touches their soul and for the shareholders of the company.

When I was a little girl, my mother insisted I stay at the dinner table until I had finished eating everything on my plate. My mother was a great cook, so usually it was no problem….until it came to the night each week that she cooked those wicked peas. I HATED peas! I would push them around my plate for what seemed like hours…wishing there was a way to squish them into vapour…or knock them on the floor when she wasn’t looking so that the dog would eat them (none of our dogs ever liked peas either)… or pull a Jerry Seinfled “mutton” and make them disappear into my napkin. Nothing worked. I sat for hours. Usually ended up going to bed with no dessert (dessert is something mothers made when I was young).

When I asked my mom why I had to eat the peas, her confusing response was “because there are starving children in the world”.

What did that mean? I didn’t know what starvation was. And I certainly was not able to connect the dots between my eating of the peas and the starving children.

I grew up in middle class, suburban Toronto. We had a milkman that delivered milk to our home twice a week and a breadman that brought our bread and pastries. I would go with my mother to Mr. Amodeo’s, the green grocer, to get our fruits and vegetables… and then next door to Mr. Claytons butcher shop for our meat. For me, the world was as big as my neighbourhood, and I wondered why the milkman, breadman, Mr. Amodeo and Mr. Clayton didn’t just feed those starving children. At least then, I might not have to eat those disgusting green peas.

As I got a bit older and TV entered the picture, Sunday night always involved the Wonderful World of Disney. I remember seeing for the first time a sponsorship advertisement for “Save the Children” or “Foster Parents Plan”…or one of those humanitarian groups asking people to feed a child for $10/month… promising a photo of your child and letters that would let you know how they were doing. These ads ‘got’ me. I saw for the first time what starvation looked like. I was shocked, uncomfortable, emotional, vulnerable…and I didn’t know how to respond. I couldn’t even talk to my parents about it. And I still didn’t understand the connection to the peas.

I know now that a seed was planted in my soul… a seed that was to grow and flourish into a sense of compassion and responsibility. It needed a lot of nurturing along the way and I was always waiting for the time to be right to help. I was always saying ‘Someday”.

Someday I’ll feed those children, once I’ve fed my own.
Someday I’ll volunteer my time, once I have more of it.
Someday, I’ll give to charity, once my own bills are paid.

My journey to “someday” took a giant leap forward in 2000 when I went to work for a company that gave me the opportunity, at work, to link arms with my fellow employees and go out and make a difference.

I’ll tell you more about that story in posts to come.