????連鎖超市全食（Whole Foods）創始人兼聯席首席執行官約翰?馬基是一位堅定的自由主義者和素食者。隨著他知名度的提升，他也變得越來越難以捉摸。他所崇尚的競爭理念似乎既包含友善、“謙遜”的一面，也有極具爭議性的一面。

????馬基的職業生涯始于上個世紀60年代和70年代的反主流文化合作社。目前，他所經營的公司尤其善于搶占顧客的錢包份額，以至于很多消費者都將之稱為“全額薪資支票”（意思是，購買它昂貴的全食品會花掉全部薪水——譯注）。馬基說，他撰寫新書《自覺資本主義：解放商業的英雄氣概》（Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business）的原因在于，他覺得有必要在金融危機爆發之后捍衛資本主義。然而，閱讀此書之后你會發現，他幾乎又回到了他的工作歷程的原點：一位滿腦子理想主義、認為高度的自我認知有利于做生意的嬉皮士。

????馬基寫道：“假以時日，基于正確的原因而采取的正確的行動會帶來好的結果。” 他和聯合作者拉吉?西索迪亞認為，一旦公司過于關注是否能夠達到財務目標， 它就很少能采取正確的行動——而且也很少能找到正確的原因。為什么？如同馬基在電子郵件中解釋的那樣，對于指標的過分關注可能會模糊人們的視野，看不清遠大的目標，而這種目標曾經讓公司在幸福的時光中充滿生氣。失去遠大目標會使決策過程變質。

????實現收益目標的壓力會讓我們遠離更好的守護神嗎？聽起來很像馬克思主義者的話。我曾問馬基，如果一家公司發現自己眼下已經處在這樣一個位置，他會推薦什么樣的糾正措施。他的回答達到了商學院的高度：

????“對于此類公司來說，第一步是要明確地制定利潤最大化之外的遠大目標。隨后，公司應開始圍繞為股東創造價值而設計一切事務。公司應該擺脫所有與為股東創造價值無關的指標。然后，公司應制定新的未來業績先行指標，以及激勵員工熱情、倡導客戶利益的措施。”

????The founder and co-CEO of supermarket chain Whole Foods, John Mackey, is a staunch libertarian and a vegan. As his public profile rises, he becomes harder to pin down. He seems to embody competing philosophies in one affable, "aw-shucks," yet entirely controversial package.

????Mackey began his career among the co-op counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s, and now helms a company so adept at wrangling share of wallet that many consumers have dubbed it "Whole Paycheck." Mackey says he wrote his new book, Conscious Capitalism: Liberating the Heroic Spirit of Business, because he felt that capitalism needed defending in the wake of the financial crisis. Read it, however, and you'll see he has wound up close to where he started his work journey: an idealistic hippie who thinks that being highly self-aware is good for business.

????"The right actions undertaken for the right reasons generally lead to good outcomes over time," Mackey writes. When a company becomes too focused on meeting its financial targets, he and co-author Raj Sisodia argue, the right actions are rarely undertaken -- and rarely for the right reasons. Why? As Mackey elaborated over email, an obsessive focus on metrics tends to obscure the sense of higher purpose that animated the company in happier times. Losing connection to a higher purpose then corrupts the decision-making process.

????Pressure to meet earnings targets can alienate us from our better angels? It almost sounds Marxist. I asked Mackey what corrective step he'd recommend for a company that found itself in such a position. His answer was business-school standard:

????"The first step for such a company is to clearly define its higher purpose beyond maximizing profits. It should then start to design everything it does around creating value for its stakeholders. It should get rid of all metrics that are not connected to value creation for stakeholders. It should then create new metrics that are leading indicators of future performance, measures such as employee passion and customer advocacy."

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???? 【注：《自覺資本主義》對利益相關方做出了寬泛的定義——不僅包括投資者和管理層，還包括計時工、供應商和業務運營所在地的社區。】

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????(N.B. Conscious Capitalism defines stakeholders broadly -- not only investors and management but also hourly employees, suppliers, and the community in which the business operates.)