Most recently, The Business Roundtable (TBR), a conclave of America’s most powerful CEOs , opted to explicitly include the needs of customers, employees, suppliers and the communities in addition to shareholder value creation in their mission. TBR is a clear and unified voice for those leading the Fortune 100 companies whose decisions impact millions and millions of lives. 




Skeptics might question the true motives for this corporate paradigm shift or see this announcement as merely a high-profile PR campaign. It Will be fascinating to witness if and how CEOs translate the human needs of customers, employees, suppliers and communities into concrete choices. This intentional alignment is called Conscious Commerce. 




Conscious Commerce is the personal commitment to operate in a respectful, trustworthy and mutually beneficial manner within and beyond the borders of your business. This unusual approach results in a network of talented people that are rooting for everyone’s success. 




Paying someone to publish TBR’s story is one thing, actually doing something remotely resembling its proclamation, is another. It removes a little skin off anyone’s nose to add the words “all stakeholders” to a mission statement. Let me give you a prime example of falling short. 




Recently a highly visible and larger TBR company acquired another organization who at the time provided health care to their part time employees. Imagine the relief families, neighbors and friends felt knowing that the organization cared about them in this way. Good news. This same company staff is opening a store in my neighborhood next week and wanting me to shop there as well ashire my friends and part neighbors. 




Well unfortunately you corporate skeptics win. This TBR org recently chose to cancel health care for their part time employees. 




The outright hypocrisy is stunning, and as a result I am not loving this corporation or its acquisition, prior to their opening that retail shop in my neighborhood. The most difficult thing for me to reconcile about this lack of compassion is that when you run the numbers you discover it would take their CEO six hours of his personal profits to pay for the entire healthcare shebang for all those families. Greed? Stupidity? Heartlessness? Not my Problem? 


I dub this case study just one example of Unconscious Commerce. 


Corporate leaders who sign the TBR charter and then remove the healthcare for part time employees and their families… Wake up and Grow That Heart ! You are turning your back on the employees and community stakeholders your PR campaign erroneously substantiated you support. You might want to consider aligning yourwords with your deeds if you want to be taken seriously.