and value of stakeholders came early in the history of Whole Foods , when the small and thriving company was nearly bankrupted by the consequences of a flood . Only the commitment of employees ( working temporarily without wages ) and business partners ( deferring payments for deliveries ) enabled the business to survive . For Mackey , this was no less than a demonstration of the “ power of love ”: the love of employees and business partners for the values and purpose of a business they felt committed to , and did not want to see perish .
The Conscious Capitalism approach goes far beyond lip-service to the importance of the customer , with leaders taking every opportunity to teach employees concretely to realize that without the customer , the organization cannot exist . This pillar of Conscious Capitalism rests on a simple question : are there more “ win-win ” or “ win-lose ” relationships in our business lives ? If most of your business relationships are zero-sum , integration of stakeholders can ’ t be a sound practice . Research on negotiation , however , indicates that positive-sum “ games ” far outnumber zero-sum ones , and that some negotiators persist with a “ win-lose ” approach regardless of the situation due to “ fixed-pie ” beliefs .
A significantly large number of firms practicing stakeholder integration raises the overall level of social capital in a community , expanding opportunity structures for new ventures . A key question for Alaska is , how richly connected to each other are businesses in our community and to key public institutions such as the University of Alaska ? Is our
level of social capital sufficiently high to support a culture of new venture formation ?
3 ) Conscious Culture and Management – This goes way beyond adding a Ping-Pong table in the break room . Mackey and Sisodia ask , “ is it possible to build a business on love and trust instead of fear and stress ?” Logically , a company impelled by a higher purpose should hire for cultural fit and rely less on extrinsic motivators such as pay to get high performance . At Whole Foods , the employees are the gatekeepers ; new hires must endure a probationary period and are retained only through a two-thirds vote of members of their team . The credo is one of hiring selectively and training extensively , which is afforded by low turnover . The core organizational structure of Conscious firms is the team . Managers recognize the profound duty to care for their employees like family , to send people home at the end of the day happy and fulfilled , to earn the discretionary effort of their people and , subsequently , to multiply the capacity of their teams .
In the area of culture and management , the Conscious Capitalism framework reiterates the normative thinking that has periodically ebbed and flowed for over a century in the United States . A few years ago , the Economist magazine published an article entitled “ When to Terrorize the Talent .” The article summarized research indicating that normative ( or employee-centric ) and instrumental ( or productivity-centric , where employees are a means to an end ) practices in manage-
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