Truth. Growth. Repeat.

Chapter 6 reward

For a majority of business owners today, Reward is the only starting point to consider in any model reflecting how free enterprise works. You set your targets for income and profit and work from there. It’s overwhelmingly the standard choice. So much so that many of the business owners I meet can’t conceive that there may be another way. Capitalism is all about the financial return. Full stop.

The fear of not making money, the constant pressure of shareholder return, the insane levels of modern-day competition, the squeezed profit margins, the transparency of corporate leadership: all of these conspire to embed this thought. Like an addiction.

purpose isn’t anti-money

At this point I want to be absolutely clear with you on something: I don’t think making money is wrong. Don’t paint me as a bill-burning hippy because I’m most definitely not. I’m a genuine fan of capitalism. I just think having a money-first attitude in business is blinkered.

In a world where consumers are becoming smarter and smarter about how business and branding works, and about how companies research what our feelings and values are and then pretend that’s what their feelings and values are too in order to sell us something, I think money-first is an increasingly short-sighted way to run a business. What’s more, when you add our ability to share the truth with our fellow consumers instantly and globally, you could even argue that money-first is foolishly naive.

You see, I agree with the ...