Firms of Endearment How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose

by Sisodia, Rajendra S.; Wolfe, David B.; Sheth, Jagdish N.

• ISBN13: 9780131873728
• ISBN10: 0131873725
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-31
• Publisher: FT Press

Summary

Love, Joy, Authenticity, and Soul: Building Winning Businesses in the New Age of Transcendence bull; Why todayrs"s most humane companies are blowing away the S&P 500 averages bull; Increasing "share of heart": delivering the emotional, experiential, and social value your stakeholders are demanding bull; 30 powerful case studies, including CarMax reg; , Timberland trade; , Jordanrs"s Furniture, Trader Joers"s, Wegmans, and Toyota trade; Todayrs"s best companiesget it. From Costco reg; to Commerce Bank, Wegmans to Whole Foods reg; : theyrs"re becoming the ultimate value creators. Theyrs"re generatingeveryform of value that matters:emotional, experiential, social, and financial. And theyrs"re doing it foralltheir stakeholders. Not because itrs"s "politically correct":because itrs"s the only path to long-term competitive advantage. These are theFirms of Endearment. Companies peoplelovedoing business with.Lovepartnering with.Loveworking for.Loveinvesting in. Companies for whom "loyalty" isnrs"t just real: itrs"s palpable, and driving unbeatable advantages in everything from marketing to recruitment. You need to become one of those companies. This book will show you how. Yours"ll find specific, practical guidance on transforming every relationship you have: with customers, associates, partners, investors, and society. If you want to be greattrulygreatthisis your blueprint. Wers"re entering an Age of Transcendence, as people increasingly search for higher meaning in their lives, not just more possessions. This is transforming the marketplace, the workplace, the very soul of capitalism. Increasingly, todayrs"s most successful companies are bringing love, joy, authenticity, empathy, and soulfulness into their businesses: they are delivering emotional, experiential, and social value-not just profits. Firms of Endearmentilluminates this, the most fundamental transformation in capitalism since Adam Smith. Itrs"s not about "corporate social responsibility": itrs"s about building companies that can sustain success in a radically new era. Itrs"s about great companies like IDEO and IKEA reg; , Commerce Bank and Costco reg; , Wegmans and Whole Foods reg; : how they earn the powerful loyalty and affection that enables truly breathtaking performance. This book is about gaining "share of heart," not just share of wallet. Itrs"s about aligning stakeholdersrs" interests, not just juggling them. Itrs"s about building companies that leave the world a better place. Most of all, itrs"s about why youmustdo all this, or risk being left in the dust... andhow to get therefrom wherever you are now. Foreword xv Prologue A Whole New World xxi Chapter 1 Itrs"s Not Share of Wallet Anymore; Itrs"s Share of Heart 1 Chapter 2 New Age, New Rules, New Capitalism 23 Chapter 3 The Chaoti

Author Biography

Rajendra S. Sisodia

Raj is professor of marketing and founding director of the Center for Marketing Technology at Bentley College. He has a Ph.D. in marketing and business policy from Columbia University. He has published nearly 100 articles in journals such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Strategy, Journal of Business Research, and many others. He also writes frequently for the Wall Street Journal. His research, teaching, and consulting expertise spans the areas of strategic marketing, marketing productivity, marketing ethics, and stakeholder-based marketing. In 2003, he was cited as one of “50 Leading Marketing Thinkers” by the U.K.-based Chartered Institute of Marketing. Raj consults with and provides executive seminars for companies in various industries. Clients have included Sprint, Volvo, and IBM, to name a few. He coauthored The Rule of Three (Free Press, 2002) with Jag Sheth. Other recent books include Tectonic Shift: The Geoeconomic Realignment of Globalizing Markets (Sage Publications, 2006) and Does Marketing Need Reform? (M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2006), both with Jag Sheth. Forthcoming books include The 4A’s of Marketing and Marketing Management (John Wiley & Sons), also with Jag Sheth.

 

David B. Wolfe

David is an internationally recognized customer behavior expert in middle-age and older markets. He is the author of Serving the Ageless Market (McGraw-Hill, 1990) and more recently Ageless Marketing: Strategies for Connecting with the Hearts and Minds of the New Customer Majority (Dearborn Publishing, 2003). David’s consulting assignments have taken him to Asia, Africa, Europe, and throughout North America. He is widely published in publications in the United States and abroad. He has consulted to numerous Fortune 100 companies, including American Express, AT&T, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Hartford Insurance, Marriott, MetLife, Prudential Securities, and Textron.

 

Jagdish N. Sheth

Jag is the Charles H. Kellstadt Professor of Marketing in the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. He has published 26 books, more than 200 articles, and is nationally and internationally known for his scholarly contributions in consumer behavior, relationship marketing, competitive strategy, and geopolitical analysis. His book The Rule of Three (Free Press, 2002), coauthored with Raj Sisodia, has altered current notions on competition in business. This book has been translated into five languages and was the subject of a seven-part television series by CNBC Asia. Jag’s list of consulting clients around the world is long and impressive, including AT&T, GE, Motorola, Whirlpool, and 3M, to name just a few. He is frequently quoted and interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Fortune, Financial Times, and radio shows and television networks such as CNN, Lou Dobbs, and more. He is also on the board of directors of several public companies. In 2004, he was honored with the two highest awards bestowed by the American Marketing Association: the Richard D. Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award and the Charles Coolidge Parlin Award.

 

Table of Contents

Prologue : a whole new world
It's not share of wallet anymore; it's share of heart	p. 1
New age, new rules, new capitalism	p. 23
The chaotic interregnum	p. 49
Employees - the decline and fall of human resources	p. 65
Customers - the power of love	p. 97
Investors - reaping what FoEs sow	p. 125
Partners - elegant harmonies	p. 145
Society - the ultimate stakeholder	p. 171
Culture - the secret ingredient	p. 197
Lessons learned	p. 235
Crossing over to the other side	p. 253
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Foreword Foreword Producer and writer Norman Lear once told me, "When I've been most effective, I've listened to my inner voice." Lear's inner voice gave him the courage to transform television's voice with his society-mocking domestic comedy,All in the Family.Despite a string of impressive television successes, the raw texture ofAll in the Familymade it a tough sell. But Lear was driven by a sense of mission on behalf of the entire country. His persistence paid off when CBS finally agreed to run the show. Confident that one person can bring about big changes, Lear forced us to examine some of the most fetid prejudices that bubbled below the surface of society in the early 1970s. WhenAll in the Familydebuted, teeming throngs demanding civil rights for all and an end to the war in Vietnam swarmed in the nation's streets and on its college campuses. America's easy-going post-World War II composure was dissolving. Lear thought it was time that we tuned into our inner voices to hear what they had to say about how well we honored our claim to be a just society. Firms of Endearmentbrings to mind Lear's respect for the counsel of his inner voice. Judging by recent headlines, corporate America has too few leaders who open their mental ears to their inner voices. Rather, they take cues for their behavior from the external world where pursuit of power over others is the daily priority. Sadly, such ambitions weigh on us with a pervasive presence that extends far beyond the world of business. We are regularly served up headlines calling attention to abuses of power in government, academe, clinical research centers, social service agencies, and religious organizations. We seem overrun these days with people in high positions who compromise their organizations and the general welfare with their propensities for self-aggrandizement, avarice, and other perversions of public and private trust. Happily,Firms of Endearmentgives us hope that we are not morally going to hell in a handbasket, a relentless stream of headlines about moral failures in high office notwithstanding. The men and women cited in this book as exemplars of conscionable leadership give us reason for optimism about the character of our future leaders in business and other sectors of society. These executives operate by a guiding vision of service that takes into account all their primary stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers, partners in the supply chain, the communities in which they operate, and of course, their investors. Their companies follow astakeholder relationship managementbusiness model rather than a traditional stockholder-biased business model. At all levels of operation, these companies exude the passion of their leaders for doing good while doing well. Following Polonius's advice to his son inHamlet, these leaders are true to themselves. They evidence keen self-knowledge and project candor and maturity--three essential elements of integrity--in their interactions with others. In return, stakeholders in every category place uncommon trust in their companies and products. Beyond this, stakeholders develop real affection for such companies. They literallylovefirms of endearment (FoEs). It is not too much of a stretch to see that as FoEs proliferate--and that they are doing--the principles of leadership that guide their destinies will be adopted by organizations of every stripe. Indeed, the future well-being of this country could depend more than a little on executive leadership of the caliber and mindset described in this book. With a title that stands for the empathetic concerns of companies that wear their hearts on their sleeves, this book is about the pragmatic role of love in business. However, this is