Organizations with Heart

The title of the book, Profit for Life: How Capitalism Excels (Society for Organizational Learning, 2006) by Joseph Bragdon, is misleading--the subtitle gets me quicker: "Living Asset Stewardship." It's about focusing organizational leadership on the living assets--the organization's people and the environment--and allowing the "non-living assets"--the financial ones--serve the living ones.

Today's post is an excerpt from the book on "How to Recognize a Company with Heart."

• an authentic mission, vision, and values that arose spontaneously from within the firm and that strongly appeal to the heart;
• a decentralized, networked organization, based on the principle of subsidiarity, in which employees are trusted to self-organize in their areas of competence and are held accountable;
• a culture of servant leadership, wherein the role of leaders is to serve the professional growth of employees, and employees are treated as precious assets rather than potential costs and liabilities;
• a commitment to continual learning that gives employees permission to experiment and fail in their quest for innovation; and
• a history of prudent fiscal management that reflects an intention to serve humanity in sustainable ways for generations to come.

I'll hold that as a manifesto for church leadership as well. Imagine that coming from the Harvard Business School!