Do Good, Do Well ‘The cool thing about Conscious Capitalism is that it isn’t just a nice way to run a business — it’s a proven business strategy.’
— which she calls “an unconscious con- scious business.” She explained: “Just by virtue of the type of culture and lead- ership that we have and the relation- ships that we have with our customers, employees, vendors, communities, and our industry, [I felt] that we were some- what already there. So it didn’t feel foreign to me. But what occurred to me at the time is that if we became more conscious [about the principles], what more could we accomplish?” While Freeman Parsons admits that
her “initial journey was focused on Freeman,” she has set her sights on “not just how Freeman can grow as a con- scious business but how we can advance this movement, outside of Freeman and more broadly into business.”
I
n addition to her day job as vice chair at Freeman, Carrie Freeman Parsons finds time to serve on the boards of several organizations, including pcma — and Conscious Capitalism
Inc., which while not directly related to the meetings industry helps inform her role at Freeman.
According to its website, Conscious Capitalism is an organization that promotes “a belief that a more complex form of capitalism is emerging that holds the potential for enhancing cor- porate performance while simultane- ously continuing to advance the quality of life for billions of people.” It’s a lofty goal, and one that might be confused with corporate social responsibility, but the website makes the distinction between a company that practices
24 PCMA CONVENE MAY 2012
Conscious Capitalism and one that performs CSR this way: It comes from “within the company as an expression of an overall perspective on how to con- ceive and build a business, rather than as a response to external notions of what counts as ‘socially responsible.’” When Freeman Parsons first
attended Conscious Capitalism’s Annual CEO Summit three years ago, she felt an immediate affinity between its values and those of Freeman
How do you summarize the principles of Conscious Capitalism? Business — capitalism in particular — is the best vehicle to effect positive change in the world. Generally speaking, in Conscious Capitalism there are four key attributes. And the first is really having a very strong sense of purpose: Why does this company exist? At Southwest Air- lines, it would be freedom to fly, and for Johnson & Johnson, it is caring for the world, one person at a time. It’s bigger than vision, bigger than mission. The second piece of it is to have a
strong stakeholder model. What I mean by that is the way business has gone recently is to do everything to improve shareholder value. And that might mean you don’t take as good care of your employees or you squeeze your vendors — it’s [more important that it’s] all about the shareholder. What the conscious capitalist believes is that you need to optimize value for all of your stakehold- ers — whether it’s your employees, vendors, customers, communities, or your environment — that as a strategy,