It’s been refreshing to see the narrative of “maximizing shareholder value” be influenced by other ideas, like: triple bottom line, shared value, positive business and others.
These ideas are hybrids, balancing the interests of customers, owners, employees, and society.
But what if we went further and didn’t treat these interests congruently?
Instead, what if we simply refused to consider strategies that were unethical, irresponsible, or harmful? After first applying the hard constraints demanded by our character and integrity, we could then freely maximize shareholder value. At that point, maybe we ought to.
The problem is, that requires a lot of integrity and a lot creativity. I think it’s worth it, and something we owe to each other now, and to future generations.
I suspect that there are already many people that are quietly running companies this way. Even though running businesses in this way is hard, I think we can do it.
Afterall, the only two nearly renewable resources are sunshine and human creativity. And sunshine makes the difficult challenge of acting with integrity much more pleasant.
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