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

Front Cover
Pearson Prentice Hall, Jan 30, 2003 - Business & Economics - 464 pages

Today’s best companies get it. From Costco® to Commerce Bank, Wegmans to Whole Foods®: they’re becoming the ultimate value creators. They’re generating every form of value that matters: emotional, experiential, social, and financial. And they’re doing it for all their stakeholders. Not because it’s “politically correct”: because it’s the only path to long-term competitive advantage.

These are the Firms of Endearment. Companies people love doing business with. Love partnering with. Love working for. Love investing in. Companies for whom “loyalty” isn’t just real: it’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. You’ll find specific, practical guidance on transforming every relationship you have: with customers, associates, partners, investors, and society. If you want to be great—truly great—this is your blueprint.

We’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, today’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 Endearment illuminates this, the most fundamental transformation in capitalism since Adam Smith. It’s not about “corporate social responsibility”: it’s about building companies that can sustain success in a radically new era. It’s about great companies like IDEO and IKEA®, Commerce Bank and Costco®, Wegmans and Whole Foods®: 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. It’s about aligning stakeholders’ interests, not just juggling them. It’s about building companies that leave the world a better place. Most of all, it’s about why you must do all this, or risk being left in the dust... and how to get there from wherever you are now.

From inside the book

Contents

Chapter 1 Its Not Share of Wallet Anymore Its Share of Heart
1
Chapter 2 New Age New Rules New Capitalism
23
Chapter 3 The Chaotic Interregnum
49
Chapter 4 EmployeesThe Decline and Fall of Human Resources
65
Chapter 5 CustomersThe Power of Love
97
Chapter 6 InvestorsReaping What FoEs Sow
125
Chapter 7 PartnersElegant Harmonies
145
Chapter 8 SocietyThe Ultimate Stakeholder
171
Chapter 9 CultureThe Secret Ingredient
197
Chapter 10 Lessons Learned
235
Chapter 11 Crossing Over to the Other Side
253
Acknowledgments
273
Index
277
Copyright

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Popular passages

Page 268 - I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.
Page 29 - In such an economy, there is one and only one social responsibility of business — to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition, without deception or fraud.
Page 35 - As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Page 28 - World Commission on Environment and Development (1987, p.8) defines sustainable development as: . . . development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Page 214 - Customers' orders must be serviced promptly and accurately. Our suppliers and distributors must have an opportunity to make a fair profit. We are responsible to our employees, the men and women who work with us throughout the world. Everyone must be considered as an individual. We must respect their dignity and recognize their merit. They must have a sense of security in their jobs. Compensation must be fair and adequate, and working conditions clean, orderly and safe. Employees must feel free to...
Page 214 - Employees must feel free to make suggestions and complaints. There must be equal opportunity for employment, development and advancement for those qualified. We must provide competent management, and their actions must be just and ethical. We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work and to the world community as well We must be good citizens — support good works and charities and bear our fair share of taxes. We must encourage civic improvements and better health and education....
Page xxi - The future is disorder. A door like this has cracked open five or six times since we got up on our hind legs. It's the best possible time to be alive, when almost everything you thought you knew is wrong.
Page 214 - We are responsible to our employees, the men and women who work with us throughout the world. Everyone must be considered as an individual. We must respect their dignity and recognize their merit. They must have a sense of security in their jobs. Compensation must be fair and adequate, and working conditions clean, orderly and safe. We must be mindful of ways to help our employees fulfill their family responsibilities.
Page 204 - I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company's existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being.

About the author (2003)

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.

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