A Core Ideology is a statement of what a company stands for and the purpose it exists, beyond making money. In his book Good to Great, on page 193, Jim Collins writes a chapter on Core Ideology: The Extra Dimension of Enduring Greatness. During an interview with Bill Hewlett, he made the following statement; “As I look back on my life’s work, I’m probably most proud of having helped create a company that by virtue of its values, practices and success has had a tremendous impact on the way companies are managed around the world.” “The HP Way,” as it became known, reflected a deeply held set of core values that distinguished the company more than any of its products. These values included technical contribution, respect for the individual, responsibility to the communities in which the company operates and a deeply held belief that profit is not the fundamental goal of a company. I don’t know if that same feeling about HP exists now, but in 2001 when the book was published, that was an accurate statement.
In his paper, “Conscious Capitalism, Creating a New Paradigm for Business,” John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods Market makes the following statements;
“Corporations are probably the most influential institutions in the world today and yet many people do not believe that they can be trusted. Instead corporations are widely perceived as greedy, selfish, exploitative, uncaring – and interested only in maximizing profits.”
“For business to reach its fullest potential in the 21st Century, we will need to create a new business paradigm that moves beyond simplistic machine/industrial models to those that embrace the complex interdependencies of multiple constituencies.”
“When we recruited our original investors at Whole Foods Market they understood that Whole Foods Market had other purposes besides maximizing profits.”
“When I co-founded Whole Foods Market in 1978, we began with $45,000 in capital; we only had $250,000 in sales our first year. In 2006, Whole Foods Market had sales of more than $5.6 billion, with net profits of more than $200 million, and a market capitalization over $8 billion. Profits are one of the most important goals of any successful business and investors are one of the
most important constituencies of public businesses. Although it may seem counter intuitive, the best way to maximize profits over the long-term is to not make them the primary goal of the business.”
My Vision is to build a series of interconnected businesses networked together by the following Core Ideology:
“We believe that we can make a positive contribution to the world by empowering people, with ideas, education, training and opportunities. We will use timeless business and management principles to encourage creativity, innovation, diversity, balance and alignment, in all of our efforts. We aspire for greatness in all the projects we undertake.
The vehicle that we will use is private, for profit businesses and business entities. Constantly applying and refining our business model to all of our projects will enable us to have the ability to grow exponentially and become leaders for positive change in the world”
