By Dawna Jones
Back in the early 1990’s investment advisor Joseph (Jay) Bragdon noticed the emergence of a new genre of company that was more adept at learning and more profitable than the corporate mainstream. Rather than following the corporate norm of prioritizing the growth of capital assets, the new model placed a higher value on living assets (people and Nature) on the premise that living assets are the source of capital assets.
To determine whether this difference in corporate philosophy and culture had meaningful advantages over the older system he created an investment research “learning lab” of 60 companies. In constructing the lab he aimed to identify firms in every major industry/sector that modeled best practices of living asset stewardship.
From the beginning his goal was to determine whether the sixty selected for such stewardship and higher purpose would outperform their peers. The short answer to this is ‘Yes!’ As his research progressed he found these leadership companies had attributes that mimicked life, and the deeper they went into modeling those attributes, the more profitable they became. This was a revolutionary discovery and it is the theme of his new book: Companies That Mimic Life: Leaders of the Emerging Corporate Renaissance.
As with his first book, Profit For Life, which introduced the 60-company learning lab -called the Global Living Asset Management Performance (LAMP) Index – all investment results have been verified by the consultancy Northfield Information Services. Beyond producing outstanding returns, LAMP60 companies are also recognized sustainability leaders whose average lives exceed a century. (By contrast, the average life of companies on the S&P 500 Index is only 18 years.)
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About the Author: Dawna Jones sees the underlying forces impacting what you see on the surface. She works with leaders and decision-makers to update skills and expand access to their wider intelligences. Working with individuals, teams, companies or at a global level gives Dawna insights into scaling mindset, innovation and transformation through leadership and decision-making. Contact Dawna on her website or follow her on Twitter.