Integrating Principle and Profit

“If you don’t believe in your company’s intrinsic value or its contribution to society, if you’re just focused on trying to make money, you’re not going to be successful in the long run.”             – Kenneth Frazier

I loved reading this HBR interview with Merck’s CEO Kenneth Frazier, a man who is not afraid to inject the concepts of principles and purpose into what it means to run a business.  Businesses do not exist in a vacuum.  They have an impact on the societies within which they operate.  This is why leadership can never be just about generating profit for a company’s shareholders.   Leadership in this enlightened sense means striving to make a contribution to society alongside profit-making and, where business operations have the potential to impact negatively upon society, whether from an environmental or human rights perspective, addressing those concerns or holding a corporate accountable for such impact.  Leadership in this sense means taking a stand when it matters.  Being principled need never be in conflict with running a successful business. Leaders such as Kenneth Frazier and Paul Polman (CEO at Unilever) articulate this so well by discussing the role of business within society, not as a separate endeavor of corporate social responsibility or philanthropy, distinct and set apart from their day-to-day operations, but rather as part of an integrated business model for creating sustainable shareholder value.