Raj Sisodia is Co-Founder and former Chairman of Conscious Capitalism Inc. He has been involved in the movement as a key thought leader since its inception in 2008. His work has been highly influential in shaping this and other movements aimed at fostering a more humane, caring and enriching way of doing business.
Conscious Capitalism is a philosophy based on the belief that a richer, more complex form of capitalism is emerging that can enhance corporate financial performance while simultaneously improving the quality of life for billions of people and nurturing and healing our planet. Conscious Capitalism challenges business leaders to re-think why their organizations exist and to acknowledge their company’s role in the interdependent global marketplace and ecosystem.
We believe that business is good because it creates value, it is ethical because it is based on voluntary exchange, it is noble because it can elevate our existence and it is heroic because it lifts people out of poverty and creates prosperity. Free enterprise capitalism is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived. It is one of the most compelling ideas we humans have ever had. But we can aspire to even more.
Conscious Capitalism® is a way of thinking about capitalism and business that better reflects where we are in the human journey, the state of our world today, and the innate potential of business to make a positive impact on the world. Conscious businesses are galvanized by higher purposes that serve, align, and integrate the interests of all their major stakeholders. Their higher state of consciousness makes visible to them the interdependencies that exist across all stakeholders, allowing them to discover and harvest synergies from situations that otherwise seem replete with trade-offs. They have conscious leaders who are driven by service to the company’s purpose, all the people the business touches and the planet we all share together. Conscious businesses have trusting, authentic, innovative and caring cultures that make working there a source of both personal growth and professional fulfillment. They endeavor to create financial, intellectual, social, cultural, emotional, spiritual, physical and ecological wealth for all their stakeholders.
Conscious businesses can help evolve our world in such a way that billions of people can flourish, leading lives infused with passion, purpose, love and creativity; a world of freedom, harmony, prosperity and compassion.
Conscious Capitalism is, in the end, simply a better way to do business. This includes but is not limited to generating superior financial returns over the long run.
A conscious business is still a business; it must have a good business model, sound competitive strategies, and the discipline to execute and run the business well. To these basic good business practices, Conscious Capitalism adds the four pillars: higher purpose, stakeholder orientation, conscious culture and conscious leadership. This elevates businesses to a higher level of operational success and makes them agents of societal flourishing.
There is strong and growing evidence that conscious companies significantly outperform the market financially. For example, the first edition of Firms of Endearment: How World Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose (2007) reported a nearly 9-to-1 ratio of outperformance of conscious companies over the S&P 500 index over a ten-year period. In the second edition (2014), the ratio was 14-to-1 over a 15-year period. Performance data as of June 30, 2017 are presented below:
| Cumulative Performance | 20 Years | 15 Years | 10 Years | 5 Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
US Conscious Companies |
2077% |
901% |
231% |
109% |
|
Non-US Conscious Companies |
1509% |
961% |
93% |
49% |
|
Good to Great Companies |
422% |
234% |
54% |
106% |
|
S&P 500 |
269% |
301% |
96% |
86% |
Raj is also the co-founder and Chairman of the Conscious Enterprise Center at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico.
The purpose of CEC is to “Transform business education and consciousness in leaders and organizations to elevate human flourishing, heal the planet, and create a more fair and prosperous society.”
