How does a paradigm change in society? It happens one funeral at a time ..

Finally had the opportunity to make it out to a RISE event this week. Albeit, it was the closing ceremony, I did have the pleasure of listening to John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods elaborate on his perspective of entrepreneurship and business strategy.

Back tracking a bit, for those who are not aware of Relationship & Information Series for Entrepreneurs (RISE) Austin, no worries. Only in its third year, several have described this year’s conference to be the best yet. RISE co-founder, Roy Sosa, proclaimed that this year’s conference saw 133 sessions, over 1600 attendees and over 50 percent growth from last year in session attendance.

Not too shabby for a three-year old un-conference-conference.

Closing the conference out at the Bob Bullock History Museum, the crowd ranged in ages, experience and industries. It was great to see such a diverse crowd. Fittingly, tonight’s speech was a good reminder of that slight twinge of Austin “weirdness” that lends itself to all facets of this city’s culture.

After schmoozing and food, Mackey took the stage and presented his theory of Conscious Capitalism. In a nutshell, businesses of the 21st century will survive and succeed if they adopt the following:

• The enterprise must have a deeper purpose beyond just maximizing profit
• One must look to optimize for all stakeholders not just the shareholders
• Leaders of these future businesses should practice service leadership; you should serve the enterprise not vice versa

Mackey poses the question: What is your purpose?

He defines the four great purposes of any successful business as the following:

1. Service to others (e.g. SW Airlines, Nordstroms, Container store)
2. Discovery and seeking truth (e.g. Google, Intel)
3. Excellence – quest for perfection world class (e.g. Apple, Warren Buffet)
4. Changing the world (e.g. The Gates Foundation)

Mackey brings up an excellent point that people now expect more from their jobs – not only to make money but to also feel good about what they do.  It goes without saying that this economic situation has become a catalyst for this realization. Perhaps all the buzz of a recession sparking innovation is indeed truth.

So will entrepreneurs of the future really adopt this business practice?  And, will Austin, as Sosa predicts, be the entreprenuer capitol of the world? Guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.