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Imagine a company that cares profoundly about the well-being of its customers, treats its suppliers as part of the family, with the same care and love as it shows to its own employees and customers. Imagine a business where those who are lucky enough to be employed, rarely, if ever, leave and every employee is committed and passionate about their work.

If you’re saying to yourself, “not possible, unreal,” you're part of the majority. But, the management paradigm shift is catching on and it could turn the classic management style upside down.

The shift in management style centers on how companies view all stakeholders in the business. More specifically, how the vision and goals should center on long-term sustainability instead of short-term profit maximization. Many examples of this management style can be seen in today’s marketplace. They include the likes of some of the top performing companies in the public markets; Google, Whole Foods, Eaton Corporation, Starbucks, UPS, and Costco. Private companies such as Patagonia, Twitter, and Wegmans also join the ranks.

This representative sample of companies outperformed the S&P 500 by a ratio of 10.5:1 over a fifteen year period. Clearly, there is something more than a ‘good economy’ underlying these companies' success factors; that difference lies with the new management style.

Many books have been published about this new management paradigm shift, including Conscious Capitalism written by the Co-CEO of Whole Foods. The book brings up excellent argumentative points for how profit maximization is the wrong way to go about running a sustainable business and why this new management style works better. I suggest giving it a read, maybe your business can latch on to this new style. 

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