In his book, “Natural Capitalism”, Paul Hawken (co-founder of Smith and Hawken, the wildly successful catalog specialty retailer of gardeners’ dreams), laid out a very compelling case for what has come to be known as the “triple bottom line”. The notion is that if a company generates profits, while doing what’s right for people and for the planet, it creates a sustainable and competitively advantageous organization.
Sustainability as an investment craze?
Posted in Strategy and the Big Picture
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I ain’t retiring, so quit asking
I am now of legal age to take advantage of those wonderful senior citizen discounts at Denny’s. So this subject is one I am intimately familiar with, as a student of the workplace and as one of the many individuals who represent the biggest demographic segment of the American population. And just how many are we talking about?
Posted in The People
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Conditional success
“If we can get two other customers to add 10 million units annually, that will raise our profitability to a level that would make us an attractive acquisition target,” Jeremy explained, as the rest of us listened intently. Jeremy is the CEO of a manufacturing company that has been struggling to reach a sustainable rate of business for several years. He continued.
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The reluctant rubber stamp
“Dear Stan,
I’m Chairman of the Board of a large private company. I was recruited for the specific purpose of ensuring that proper governance was applied to the decisions regarding the strategic future of the organization. There are strong-willed shareholders who were having disproportionate influence on the company’s management and there was no independence on the board. I agreed to the role on the stipulation that the company, its board and all shareholders would ‘play it by the book’.
Posted in Politics and Business, The People
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