(And one communicators ought to have laminated for their wallets, to be whipped out whenever an executive says, "It's all about the shareholders.")
Former G.E. CEO Jack Welch, father of the so-called "shareholder value" movement that said a company's singular strategic focus should be on creating value for investors, recanted last spring.
"On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world," he told the Financial Times. "Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy … your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products."
Why didn't that get more press?!
Exactly. If you take care of those other things, shareholder value takes care of itself. Thanks for digging that one out and sharing it.
Very interesting development.
Remember my post from awhile ago about Richard Edelman’s talk of the emerging “stakeholder society”?
http://ronshewchuk.blogs.com/for_your_approval/2009/05/towards-a-stakeholder-society.html
Do you think Jack Welch might be a Canadian, too?
Welch is growing more Canadian with age.
I would argue that his new list is 50% too long. Your products aren’t a “constituency.”