How Do We Build Holistic Businesses?

Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.

Jane Addams

We’ve made it through January with its focus on “New Year. New You.” I truly would love for us to kick that thinking to the curb and focus on creating more sustainable solutions for the new norm we’re operating in.

What if we instead turned it into how can we be better corporate citizens and responsible consumers? The media is hyper-focused on supply chain issues. What if we looked at this as an opportunity to look at renourishing the local supply chain (supporting small businesses) and questioning how businesses (including eco brands) push us to buy more? How can we further long-lasting connection vs. transactional relationships with our teams and customers?

I wish that we wouldn’t be in a pandemic for the world to realize that the business world was severely broken before the global crisis. Hustle and burnout can’t be drivers anymore. Our new business norm should be well-being at the center of individual “performance”. We’ve built organizations that have frameworks that need restructuring.

The Old English word wela, via the Middle English welth, meaning “happiness and prosperity in abundance,” is the source of our noun wealth. Although the Middle English wele meant “well-being”, according to dictionary.com.

For me well-being includes time in Nature, delicious food, sleep, yoga and connection to like-minded souls. What if we built businesses that have well-being and responsible consumption embedded in its structure and exist with a corporate soul? Let’s use this chaos that we’re currently in to break down the old and create a new norm.

The question becomes: “How do we build holistic businesses?” Ones in which ethics and integrity are integral.

Where you know that you have to openly tackle systemic and racial bias.

Where we understand that business strategies and decisions must have environmental preservation as a metric.

Where profits don’t just profit a select few.

Where you scaling up doesn’t come at the expense of communities.  

Where you focus on quality vs. quantity with your product offerings, marketing tactics and customer base.

I admittedly don’t have all the answers either, but I do believe that we can build better businesses. Crises always bring opportunities for change.

And remember if you’re feeling overwhelmed and anxious in our current times, go outside, spend time in Nature and allow yourself to be reminded of how She nourishes us.

What does well-being look like for you personally and your business?