The Beautiful Business by Steven Morris
More of a meditation/inspiration than a how-to manual, Morris leads us through plenty of general guidance on how to build a business that makes the world better both in its attempts toward justice and in its attempts at art. While there’s certainly plenty of instruction, other books will be more useful if you’re looking for someone to hold your hand and steer. This one emphatically celebrates “your weird, your crazy…what makes you uniquely you” (p. xiii) and notes that “all edge-pushers are considered crazy by those who fear change (p. 4).Morris carries this artistic energy forward into the design of the book, which is set in an attractive unidentified modern sans-serif typeface that might be Avant-Garde, in various sizes—with the text augmented by numerous (mostly quite striking) black-and-white photos.
Morris sees purpose and profit supporting each other in a “both-and” (p. 8); in his “world of possibility” (p. 135), your win doesn‘t mean someone else has to lose. And in this world, it makes sense to play the long game that understands how abundance wins over scarcity. “Moral highlights” exist, but they are not binary (p.18); the truth is nuanced. Pages 33-34 provide a concise three-paragraph manifesto.
Art is integral and leadership is an art (p. 9) that can be beautiful. Creating something beautiful, value-laden (p. 51), and life-changing, even in something as traditionally unbeautiful as business, says Morris, is the path to immortality. He lists seven criteria (p. 52), 12 questions to guide growth (pp. 62, 64), and four tenets of the beautiful business (p. 67). And, like Apple’s designers, he sees simplicity as a form of beauty (p. 208).
Higher purpose flows throughout the book. I love his addition of Justice to the traditional Diversity, Equity, Inclusion acronym, turning DEI—which I’ve always found a bit too similar to DUI (driving under the influence) into the beautiful JEDI warrior a conscious business can become (p. 72). And I’m delighted that he sees that process, not just outcome, has to be beautiful: respectful and inclusive. Better process yields better outcomes, as he demonstrates by comparing actual command-and-control-style vs. inclusive meetings (pp. 112-117).
Morris freely acknowledges the shoulders he stands on. He quotes frequently from Brené Brown, Toni Morrison, Carl Jung, Buckminster Fuller, Peter Drucker, and many others. I love Brown’s differentiation between belonging—being where you want to be, with people who want you as you are—“I get to be me”—and fitting in—conformity (p. 74). I love the sweeping systemic thinking of Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard: to change government, we have to change corporations, and to change corporations we must change ourselves (p. 249).
He devotes a big section (pp. 216-229) to psychologist Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs. You’re probably already familiar with Maslow’s five stages: biological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. But I didn’t know that he later added three more: cognitive, aesthetic (#5 and 6)—and self-transcendence (#8).
The book is published by Conscious Capitalism Press; Morris concludes by describing four tenets of conscious capitalism and the BCorp assessment process (pp. 288-295). Then there’s a glossary (partially alphabetized and partially random, which is confusing). No index, unfortunately. To me, user-friendliness is also a form of beauty, so those two anomalies are surprising.
