What is your company for?
“What is your company for?” is the question posed by Mark Carney in his book from 2021 called Value(s) — Building a Better World For All.
His claim is that purpose is revealed and reinforced during times of disruption and to make the point, he cites the example of a man who was born in Burslem, Stoke on Trent. This is what Carney has to say about that man.
“There are many contemporary examples of purpose-driven companies, but to draw out the concept let’s cast our minds back a few centuries to the remarkable life of Josiah Wedgwood, a life that testifies to what purpose can accomplish.
“Born in 1730 into a family of potters, Josiah Wedgwood was the Steve Jobs of his day, bringing unparalleled innovation and design brilliance to the field of pottery and in the process transforming business practices across all industries. Originally trained as a pottery thrower, Wedgwood contracted polio as a teenager, leaving him unable to operate the throwing wheel and forcing him to concentrate on other aspects of pottery production, in particular the composition of clays and glazes. He took a scientfic approach to his work and his notebooks document over 5,000 experiments he conducted searching for optimal production conditions. Later in his life, troubled by the unreliability of oven temperature, he invented a pyrometer that got him elected a member of the prestigious Royal Society.
“Wedgwood’s experiments resulted in superior products, and he scored lucrative contracts and became a favourite of Queen Charlotte. He could have had a successful business catering to England’s elites, but recognising that his innovations had also improved the reliability of production and lowered costs, he expanded his business into new markets. By the end of his life, he had brough fine pottery products to the emerging middle class in England and overseas. In doing this he revolutionised factory productions as well as marketing and sales.
“All of this would have been enough to establish Wedgwood as one of history’s great entrepreneurs, but he was more than that. Wedgwood operated his business at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Technological changes were leading to greater prosperity but also gave rise to inhumane and dangerous working conditions. At a time of minimal government regulation, Wedgwood looked after his workers. He built a village alongside his factory, Etruria, with housing for employees that exceeded standards prevailing at the time. Amenities included a bowling green, public houses and eventually a school where members of the Wedgwood family taught elements of their trade. Wedgwood implemented a sick club scheme at his factory, where employees paid a small proportion of their weekly wages into a fund that could be used to support those who had to miss work due to ill health or accident. He was a fierce opponent of foreign outsourcing, and publicly advocated national production despite potential higher costs.
“Beyond caring for his workers and community, Wedgwood was a social activist, involved particularly in the movement to end the transatlantic slave trade. In 1787, he produced a medallion for the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade that depicted a slave in chains accompanied by the text ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ Wedgwood bore the cost of producing the medallion, and it would go on to become an iconic symbol in the British abolitionist movement.
“Wedgwood’s example, grounded in his outstanding success as a businessperson, underscores the importance of purpose in an age of tectonic change. We are currently living through a series of transformations that are as far-reaching and disruptive as those in Wedgwood’s day, ranging from the new technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to shifting geopolitics that are reshaping the nature of global integration, to the worsening climate criss and the rapidly changing social norms bringing renewed imperatives for social justice and equity. These changes are influencing virtually every company’s strategy, and they will increasingly prompt the question ‘what is your company for?’”
If you are a businessperson interested in abolishing modern-day slavery, then do get in touch as we’d like to promote you, and your business.
— Mike