Caring Company

ISAAC GETZ is a professor at the ESCP Business School. He is also a sought-after public speaker and delivers dozens of keynotes and seminars each year to large corporations, trade associations, and business and management forums worldwide. LAURENT MARBACHER is a senior business advisor and leadership development expert. He has designed and coached multiple learning journeys for both business leaders and teams. His clients include global family businesses, listed companies and European start-ups.

• Introduction 1Your Journey Through This Book 15Part I How to Do – Or Not to Do – Good 17Chapter One The Why, What, and Who of Effective Social Innovation 19The Pioneer of Social Innovation 21From Apprentice Draper to Industrialist 21Getting Radical 23Going National and Beyond 24Mixed Record Rich in Lessons 26The WHY of Social Innovation 27The WHAT of Social Innovation 31Netflix’s Unlimited Vacation Policy 33Dan Price’s $70,000 Salaries 34The WHO of Social Innovation 37History’s Who’s Who of Social Innovation 38Chapter Two “catch Me if You Can” Or Doing Good to Keep One’s License To Operate 41The “Catch Me If You Can” Game 43The Public Gets Uneasy 44Industrial Accidents 44Ethical Scandals 46Global Crises 46Governments and Authorities Trying to Catch Businesses 50Thinkers Enter the Field 53Milton Friedman’s Critique and Its Unexpected Consequences 53The CSR Escape 55The Triple Bottom Line and the First Balancing Escape 56The Shared Value Creation Escape 57Stakeholder Capitalism and the Davos Escape 58How Companies Are Playing the Game 59Meet the Mavericks 62Bottom of the Pyramid Movement 63Industry-wide Mavericks 64The Mavericks’ Record 65Has the Corporate World Finally Managed to Escape? 67The Effectiveness Record of Stakeholder Capitalism 68The Problem with Balancing and What Companies Ought to Be 72Chapter Three Doing Good Face-to-face Or Through Philanthropy? 75Can Philanthropy Be Effective? 77People Give for Parochial, Status, and Conformity Reasons 78Our Caring Ancestors 81To Care Despite Everything 83Back to Tolstoy and Beyond 88The Virtues of Local Government 93Part II The Caring Company Way 97Chapter Four Running Business Through Caring Relationships 99Unconditional Care for Your Customers 101Launching a Start-up from a Kitchen 101From a Middle Finger to Unconditional Customer Service 103Transaction or Caring Relationship? 104Welcome to the Bathroom! 107Serving All Your Counterparts, Not Only Clients 111Of Owls and Gophers 111On Marriage, Adam Smith, and Mutual Sympathy 113Mutual Sympathy and Charles Darwin 117Caring as a Bet on Life 119Ecosystem, Community, and the Significant Other 122Givers Protected from Takers 125Crises That Reinforce the Caring Companies 128Chapter Five The Heartset Shift: on Self-transformation 133Eisai Pharmaceutical 135The hhc Imperative 136The 1968 Samurai 137Special and Not 139The Magical Touch and How You Can Find Your Own 141Where Do I Go 145How Do I Get There 149Becoming a Caring Leader 153Changing Habits 154Changing Beliefs 157Becoming a Caring Leader Works 159Caring Employees 161Caring for the Public Good and Still Making Profits 164Walk with a Raised Lantern 167Chapter Six Building the Caring Company 171The Power Shift 172The Branch Is King 174Full Availability of Advisors for Caring 177Lasting Results 178On the Right Type of Organization 180To Revamp or Not to Revamp 182Why Revamp Administrative Bodies? 183Revamping Managerial Framework Allows Building a Caring Company 185When Employees Transform Core Processes 187How to Communicate in the United Kingdom 189A Better Place to Take Care of Customers 190Gas-station-building World Record 193Buying Better Fuel 196Bringing the Board Onboard 198Lessons in Building the Caring Company 202Part III Shifting Business and the Economy 205Chapter Seven Caring About the Entire Society 207Caring at the Local Scale 209At the Oslo Manor 210The Pøbel Program 212“Bad Boy” Turned Manager 213Rising in REMA 1000 215Local Impact Doesn’t Mean Low Impact 216Doing It Through Business Activities 219Caring at the National Scale 222The Savior Bank 224The 1929 Savior Still Alive 225Replacing the Government 227Caring at the Global Stage 229From Sonoma Valley to the World 230The Secret of Doing Good at Large Scale 234Chapter Eight A Whole New Paradigm 237A Paradigm Shift 240The Dominant Paradigm and Its Beliefs 241Belief 1: Business = Transactions 242Belief 2: We Must Maximize Profits 244Belief 3: Economies of Scale Are the Surest Path to Prosperity 248Understanding Transitions 252Caring Companies, Economics, and Politics 258Chapter Nine Heart-to-heart: the Future of Business and Capitalism 265Capitalism on Trial 270Alternatives to Capitalist Enterprise 274Social Enterprises 275Cooperatives 276From Heart to Heart 281You Can Care Today 287What’s Next? 291Notes 293Glossary 319Acknowledgments 325About the Authors 327Index 331