About this episode

Eric Ries discusses how companies can maintain their mission-driven focus amidst the pressures of profit maximization.

What happens when a company built on trust and purpose faces the immense pressure of quarterly profits? Eric and I discuss why good companies go bad and explore the structural blueprint to keep your business mission-driven, soulful, and incorruptible for the long term. We go from story to story of human centric and purpose driven founders trying to combat the corrosive effects of financial gravity. We explore why “financial gravity” pulls good companies toward bad decisions and how leaders can protect their mission. The companies that last aren't the ones that avoid pressure. They're the ones that decided early what they would refuse to trade away. This is an ethical and a leadership question. One of organizational soulcraft, and it's one that every single person listening gets to answer in some small way. In order to build orgs that are truly strong we need to pay special attention to the exoskeleton that separates inside from outside - this is the art of organisational soulcraft — designing the deep structural foundations that give organisations strength - governance. This involves embedding values directly into the legal and structural foundation of a business. A central…

People in this episode

Host: Suzie Lewis

Guest: Eric Ries

Topics covered

• human flourishing
• business ethics
• mission-driven companies
• financial gravity
• organizational governance
• leadership

Keywords

• trust
• purpose
• financial pressure
• long-term goals
• mission guardians
• organizational soulcraft

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Public Benefit Corporation

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