A second post on Conscious Capitalism. Reading John Mackey and Raj Sisodia’s book I found myself agreeing and disagreeing at the same time. As I said in the last post, I agree with the general idea and found much to like about concepts in the book. That said, I have to say that the tone was off-putting for me. Even when we were at the same place I was left thinking we got there in very different ways. This got me thinking about the need to work with people who don’t agree with you. I think it is great that Mackey is building a movement towards stakeholder management. I guess the lesson is that you don’t have to want to have a beer with everyone who is going in the same direction as you.
Heroic Spirit Of Capitalism
There is a strong current of heroism going through the book. Heroism gets its own category in his four elements of great purpose. It did read like a hero’s tale. (Mackey has a co-author but it felt like all Mackey to me, so I’ll stick to that designation going-forward). The heroic leader of the business has to make sure they aren’t distracted by those they deal with. I find a lot of heroic leadership books that I read a bit much to take. To my mind, Mackey seemed very much human like the rest of us. (To be fair, I imagine it is hard to be too heroic when trying to persuade people to eat more broccoli).
Am I Right?
Part of the challenge I have with heroism is that you need to have a lot of confidence that you are right. I worried that Mackey felt he knew best and had the purest of motives. This meant he didn’t really get why other people, e.g., unions, might not trust him.
Government, ditto. He feels that he knows that he could spend the taxes better than the government. As such, he resents taxes. But if we don’t have taxes aren’t we just relying on people like Mackey to know best how to spend the money? I’m not as convinced of his wisdom as he is.
Furthermore, even the most heroic entrepreneur hasn’t achieved all they have without any support from anyone else. How heroic a start you get isn’t equally distributed amongst people. Mackey’s father was an accounting professor and CEO. Mackey had a lot of advantages and support from the way society is structured that weren’t just the result of his own personal heroism and he didn’t do a great job to my mind of recognizing that.
Some of the writing, a least to me, suggested a lack of self-awareness.
Sorry, Not Sorry
One of the strangest stories in the book was when Mackey was interviewed by the feds. He had posted anonymously on a financial board praising his company and putting down a company he was trying to acquire. On the face of it, such behavior is not okay. It looks like market manipulation. Even the way he justified his actions looked quite bad to me. I can believe his actions were just an innocent bit of fun as he says and I doubt they had too much impact. But he should really have borne a bit more responsibility. When you do things that look crime-adjacent, even if purely by accident, you shouldn’t be too offended about being asked by law enforcement to give an explanation.
I don’t think I did anything wrong by posting on the Yahoo! financial bulletin boards, but it was highly embarrassing to the company, and it gave people the opportunity to distort my motives and actions. It therefore was a mistake in judgment on my part.
Mackey and Sisodia, 2013, page 209
Agreeing And Disagreeing At The Same Time
So while I agreed with the need to ensure capitalism is focused on its stakeholders stylistically he didn’t win me over. There is a Conscious Capitalism Credo and he also talks (a lot) about spiritual qualities, which seem a bit of a distraction from stakeholder management. If your spirituality leads you to help people that is great to my mind. Or maybe your lack of spirituality leads you to help people, which is great too. It is the helping people that seems the important thing to me.
So I ended up agreeing and disagreeing at the same time. I know I’m being too negative. Mackey wants to get business to treat workers well and he wants to help wean American consumers off animal-based foods. Given these laudable aims, I wish him all the best in his quest to be the first business leader to have a Homerian epic written about him.
For more on leadership see here, here, and here.
For more on stakeholder management see here, here, and here.
Read: John Mackey and Rajendra Sisodia (2013) Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, Harvard Business Review Press