The idea that business is an opportunity to create change is obviously a fraught one. Most businesses work on a fairly simple and effective set of human drivers. It is not easy to establish different patterns where there are so many already established and out there ostensibly working and grinding away. It actually takes a critical mass of people to see the same thing before anything like a coordinated movement can properly take hold. The basis of a meaningful and genuine change in business, is I think the collected and accumulating weight of experience of people who have not found in their previous careers any satisfaction or genuine sense of purpose and are looking for something else. There seem to be more and more of these people out there. That’s a lot of untapped energy.

When business values begin to dominate and then overtake a society’s values, business must in turn, eventually be held to account and civilised. For all of the things which it provides for society, the many things business doesn’t provide, eventually re-emerge as factors which people seek to have addressed in their lives, their workplace and careers. People in a market have a choice. Responding to new demands is essentially what a market is here to do. A business that can listen closely, respond to and enable the expression of this nascent energy in new forms of organisational design, can I believe, become eventually very powerful.

This month Optim Legal had two new recruits, attracted to us, I think for the genuine reasons for which we were established- Lucy Meadley and Danny King, from Mallesons and Freehills respectively. This has given us a renewed sense of vigour. It is one of those things along the way that makes us remember why we are doing what we are doing and why it is important to continue on.

I found this article in Fast Company- and have extracted a nice quote from John Mackey, the founder of Wholefoods. The article also then contains a useful analysis of what happens when intentions reach the real world.

“"You see, Conscious Capitalism is a fairly new idea, but it's going to have a huge impact," he begins, describing the philosophy he developed as he built his tiny natural-foods store into an $8 billion retail beast. "I do believe it will become the dominant paradigm of business in the 21st century." Conscious Capitalism, Mackey insists, moves corporations to refocus on purpose instead of profit. In theory, it underscores the importance of all of a company's interdependent "stakeholders": employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, community, and the environment. When all of those constituencies' interests are factored into the company's decisions and aligned, his thinking goes, all -- including, not incidentally, the bottom line -- will flourish.”

Onwards and upwards!