Author: Christiane Molina, Christiane Molina, professor at Escuela de Negocios and EGADE Business School of Tecnológico de Monterrey.
Calls for a different kind of capitalism have gotten louder in the last few decades. The urgency of changing the way we manage businesses and organizations has been emphasized by organizations like the Business Roundtable, the United Nations, and the World Economic Forum.
Even though it seems like leaders are responding to these calls, especially in the business sector, we must remember that a shift in organizational management models necessitates a transversal approach in applying the concepts connected to this updated version of the traditional economic model. To achieve systemic changes, it also requires the participation of numerous other actors, including the public sector and civil society organizations. Put another way, the various disciplines and professions that exist today must be filled with the values of prosperity, inclusivity, and sustainability.
We can use the concepts of Conscious Capitalism, which emphasizes elevating the role of businesses and guiding their management with a higher purpose, stakeholder management, conscious leadership, and culture, as an example of this process.
According to Mackey and Sisodia's 2014 book, all occupations "have a higher purpose as a reason for being" in addition to providing people with a means of subsistence. This goal is connected to the need that the profession fills in society, enabling society to give the profession respect and legitimacy. However, management for stakeholders asks us to take care of any individual or group of individuals who might be impacted by the organization or have an impact on it while it pursues its objectives. This viewpoint is replicable on a functional or even personal level. In terms of leadership, Conscious Capitalism challenges us to cultivate a "selfless" servant leadership style that possesses qualities like spiritual intelligence, emotional intelligence, and systemic vision. In the realm of culture, the ultimate goal is to arrive at a point where practicing consciousness naturally becomes second nature, a way of life for both individuals and organizations.
Keeping these comments in mind, let's see how this proposal can be adopted by some disciplines. Consider the marketing domain. Similar to traditional marketing, conscious marketing would be customer-focused, but it would also consider the customer as a stakeholder, implying a different kind of relationship than just as a buyer of goods and services. Within this domain, there exist propositions like the 4 A's formulated by Jagsish Sheth and Raj Sisodia, which refocus marketing endeavors towards the acceptability of the product or service, accessibility concerning cost and availability, and customer awareness. Furthermore, the importance of conscious marketing becomes more evident when we look at consumer trends for the current and upcoming years. According to Euromonitor International, consumers are becoming more demanding of businesses and are drawn to brands that share their values and are purpose-driven, such as those that protect the environment and reduce waste.
Economics is another field where advancements in line with the idea of higher consciousness have been suggested recently. One suggestion is to give public goods more consideration. Similar advice applies to the financial industry, as the goal of sustainable development has sparked the rise of niches like ethical banking and sustainable finance. The objective of these proposals is to guarantee that positive outcomes in the social and environmental domains are accompanied by favorable outcomes in the economic domain.
Similar trends can be seen in talent management, which faces major challenges in the new reality including remote work, burnout, and work pressure, among others, and supply chain management, which aims to be more diverse and sustainable.
The examples mentioned above serve as illustrations of how altering the business sector model can and ought to coexist with changing the academic fields that support economic activity. They also serve as a call to consider how we can all lead more conscientious lives across the board in society.
Originally published in El Financiero.