Acts of Service
UNDERSTANDING UNDERSTANDING LETTER 6
IMAGE: TALENTLESS FOOL
“Service doesn’t scale.” For most of my professional life, I’ve heard investors and captains of industry winge about the impracticality of service businesses as an investment. Their slow-to-grow and human-dependent nature makes them inherently unattractive to those looking to multiply their money at faster rates. But to say that service doesn’t scale is a self-fulfilling prophecy based on the capitalistic metric that the only thing worth scaling is profit.
The vast majority of my career has been spent building services businesses. And let’s be honest, they are hard to scale. They’re people-centric, interdependent organisms that need lots of proverbial sun and watering to flourish. But when done right, and more specifically, done with the right intent, something far greater and more valuable than financial growth can be achieved.
To be clear, this is not an anti-capitalism rant. I recognize that the primary purpose a business exists is to create financial value. This is the nature of the economic foundation for capitalism and at the core of any for-profit enterprise’s ability to survive. But if we limit ourselves to only think about how to scale our businesses financially, we do a great disservice to our colleagues, to our customers and clients, and frankly, to society.
Since the early 90s when John Elkington coined the phrase “triple bottom line” a handful of organizations have begun to expand their raison d’etre to include more than profit. The adopters of triple bottom line thinking hold themselves accountable to economic, social, and environmental metrics. Said another way, in addition to making money, they must also articulate clear goals and aspire to create positive impact with their employees and communities, as well as the planet.
Nearly two decades after Elkington’s framework made its way into every MBA curriculum, we witnessed the advent of the public benefit corporation. To the surprise of many business leaders I’ve spoken to about this topic in recent weeks, what I’m talking about is not a “B-corp”. Without getting into a whole complicated treatise, there are nuanced differences between a public benefit corporation and a certified benefit corporation (aka B-Corp). For the purposes of this missive, let’s simply state that the former is founded in an IRS distinction, while the latter is an independent 3rd party distinction bestowed on companies who have jumped through requisite hoops to meet a certain set of standards.
What’s interesting, particularly in the context of late-stage capitalism’s bloodlust for scalability, is that the public benefit corporation status has actually been created to (in part) combat the demands directed at leadership teams to scale at all costs and place profit above all else. For mission-driven businesses, impact investors, and social entrepreneurs, the public benefit corporation structure actually creates a set of legal guardrails and backstops to ensure that leaders investing in social and environmental goals won’t suffer retaliatory action from their boards nor will they be impacted deleteriously by the investor community.
In effect, it’s an (imperfect) shield to protect business leaders who are investing in pro-social and environmental efforts, even when these investments may come at the cost of additional profit.
Sounds great right? Here’s the sad part. Of the approximately 33 million businesses in the US, only .01% of them are public benefit corporations. .01%. That’s it. That’s how many boards, leaders of organizations, and small business owners are truly willing to commit to work that’s focused on a greater good.
Because we’ve been trained to think that “greater good” doesn’t scale.
But it does.
It might not scale quickly, and it might not immediately scale financially, but in fact, “research suggests that when variables like price and quality are held constant, 87% of customers would switch from a less socially responsible brand to a more socially responsible competitors.”
To believe and act as if our efforts are only meant to myopically focus on the short-term, selfishly guided goal of increasing profitability is exactly what has brought the planet and our communities to this perilous moment in history. Climate crisis, food insecurity, war, etc. What else but corporate greed combined with social and environmental irresponsibility could be at the root of these issues? And what will it take for a new generation of leaders to rise up and rattle loose the chains of a single-minded corporate zeitgeist to find a path forward?
To have an aim greater than ourselves. Greater than profit. It might seem naive but believe me when I tell you we humans are hard-wired to do this. We’ve been doing it since the dawn of time. But sadly, many of us have lost our way. We’ve let some of the best parts of our humanity atrophy. Power struggles and politics pull us farther from our nature every day. But we can come back. We can rebuild those muscles that have gone soft. Even in a capitalist society, we can still be civilized.
Years ago, the anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fish hooks or clay pots or grinding stones. But she didn’t. Instead, Mead said that the first sign of civilization in the ancient human culture she studied was a femur that had been broken and then healed.
Mead went on to explain that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, you can’t get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are, in effect, an easy dinner for prowling beasts.
No animal survives an injury like this long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken the time to stay with the one who fell, they’ve bound the wound, they’ve carried the person to safety and tended to them through recovery.
Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts. Mead said. “We are at our best when we serve others.”
As a practitioner and educator working in the field of empathic leadership, I can tell you that this is absolutely true. And, for those of you still side-eyeing me, it’s also profitable. Teams and organizations who embrace a culture of empathy are able to understand and connect more meaningfully with the customers and communities they serve. Employees feel supported and seen for the whole person they are and work together collaboratively. There are shared goals that benefit more than a small few. Retention increases. Mutual respect thrives. These findings and more are further elucidated in a recent Catalyst study.
In effect, every business is a service business. Whether you make a product or you provide an offering to your customers, you’re doing so in service to a great many constituents. Triple bottom line thinking or some version of benefit corporation behaviors are a great start. But they aren’t all there is to it.
Service cannot happen without an empathy precursor. If we don’t truly understand others, how can we provide them with what they need? It’s true that empathy takes work. It slows things down before it speeds them up. It will cause you to have hard and at times uncomfortable conversations with people, and yourself. But if you are willing to listen, and to ultimately shift your actions to bend toward the needs of the many, you won’t simply scale your business, you’ll scale your impact.
So ask yourselves and the companies you work with and for, what is it that’s holding us back from acting with greater empathy and in deeper service to those around us? What would we have to do to take a step closer toward thinking and acting with greater understanding? And perhaps most vitally, what’s more important at this critical time than working intentionally in the service of others we rely upon?
Let’s go a new way.
Take good care,
MV
HAPPENINGSEvents, talks, workshops, retreats…
Things I’m doing and things others are doing that you might find interesting.
UNDERSTANDING US
Now Live
A little over a year ago I connected with Sister Simone Campbell to put our heads together and build a social initiative that brings people with differing views together for productive discourse. Out of it, Understanding US was born. The site is now live and we’ll be rolling out discussion sessions across the US in the months ahead. If you would like to help us host one, please get in touch!
FROM SMALL TALK TO BIG TALK
Tuesday, July 12th at 6pmET
As part of my monthly residency at Neuehouse, I’ll be hosting my first salon session this July. Join me for an intimate discussion on the power of empathy followed by a chance to connect more deeply with a partner, friend, or even a total stranger. No trust falls. Promise. RSVP here, space is limited.
BY THE DUNES
Saturday, July 9th from 10:30am - 10:30pmET
Join Allie Hoffman and Peter Corbett for a day-long retreat (+ camping accommodations for those looking to stay overnight) at their cortisol-lowering retreat in Amagansett. After all, doesn’t everyone deserve a little salt air and down time?
(Note: I am not affiliated with this but sharing on their behalf)
OFFICE HOURS
Wednesday, July 6th from 3-4pmET
Gonna keep experimenting with this and trying new things. For this next one, I’m going to toss out a theme and see if it speaks to anyone. Come join me to talk about your next chapter and what I can do to help you make it happen.
OPPORTUNITIESTalent, jobs, investments, collabs, and more…
If you or someone you know is interested in making a move or if you’d like to share a need in this section on a future letter, drop me a line. It takes a village.
Planned Parenthood is looking for a Senior Creative Director in New York. There’s no time like the present to support this organization.
Sharks is finalizing its latest investment round and there’s still a little room left. If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch and I can provide you with a more complete breakdown on the business.
Amy Snook is taking her experience from Glossier and disrupting the publishing industry. Pay attention to Parea as they continue to grow.
EPHEMERAPsychedelics, AI bigotry, alien radio waves, weird pizzas…
Things I’ve picked up while meandering around the internet.
The mainstreaming of the psychedelic movement continues, thanks in part to the work of people like Paul Stamets, Amanda Feilding, Rick Doblin, Michael Pollan, and others. How To Change Your Mind is coming to Netflix on July 12th and is sure to help expand awareness for this important work.
As a follow up to my last post’s information about the ongoing sentient AI debate taking place at Google, researcher Blake Lemoines shared his views about AI bigotry with WIRED. Fascinating.
A “twin radio signal” from deep space is the sort of thing that sounds like the beginning headline of an alien apocalypse movie. In this case, it’s real and has been the topic of lots of discussion in the scientific community. After the week many of us Americans just had, alien invasion doesn’t sound so awful.
Finally, as a person who’s never really met a pizza he didn’t like, this post from Atlas Obscura on the country’s strangest regional pizzas is at once disconcerting and appetizing.
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