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BUSINESS
JUNE 2024
Capitalism for the ...People
By Eleni Stamoulakatou
Covid-19 forced society to see life through a different lens and its aftermath was in fact an opportunity for organizations’ C-Suite to revisit the corporate agenda and get it in sync with society’s new status quo.
Prior to the pandemic, corporations would found their strategy on the principle of change, making it the backbone of their narrative. This would remain the case yet change would needed to start from within and proceed to transcend the known tenets of employee and customer centric approach to become an extension of the societal underlay; and it was precisely that, that had turned it to an imperative but also a challenge. ‘Tomorrow’s Capitalist’ offers a reader insight on the principles that have come to shape contemporary business.
‘’Bright spots emerge’’ (referring to the post Covid-19 changes) – ‘’what became clear by year’s end – and what the critics of stakeholder capitalism seemed to miss – was this: Stakeholder capitalism wasn’t a choice. It was an imperative. It was being driven by trends in business and society that showed no sign of reversing.‘’
Among Harvard Business School, Michael Porter’s ‘’shared value capitalism’’, Whole Foods co-founder, John Mackey’s ‘’conscious capitalism’’, Salesforce CEO, Mark Benioff’s ‘’compassionate capitalism’’, hedge fund billionaire, Paul Tudor Jones’s ‘’JUST Capital’’, I think that what best captures the core of the stakeholder capitalism era we are in, is ‘’inclusive capitalism’’ as described by chair of E.L. Rothschild, Lynn Rothchild.
Corporate CEOs realized what was twofold; in order for their operating license to continue, it needed to be filtered through the societal fundamentals and for organic engagement to be achieved from the ground to the middle.
The talk track now needed to go from anything handily and occasionally available to address the hot agenda topics through the standard corporate narrative, to a tangible pledge to the greater good, with this promise be explicitly reflected in organizations’ strategy, organically embedded in their cellular tissue and clearly translated into an action plan.
The core tenets of capitalism would remain yet alongside knowledge now came a clear sense of ownership that would inevitably lead to a laissez-faire 2.0. With that it became clear to organizations that they could no longer afford to simply attract but also allow all stakeholders to weigh in on what needed to happen vs simply act on it, prompting a legitimate claim for more. Private ownership, profit motive and competition were now native concepts grasped by all stakeholders across the board and with that came a different kind of need for change; the one where the ones who do the job, are the ones who had already done the work.
Find on Goodreads: Tomorrow's Capitalist