I think that the key to moving forward is to understand what it means to own an organisation..at small scale, be it a family or a community the issues are contained but once scaled it gets to be contestable then unknowable. Instead of too big to fail, we need to consider too big to manage and too big to care and possibly others. Instead of antitrust we need to promote anti mistrust
Great, rightly indignant piece. Back in 2024 Adam Lowenstein wrote a highly researched piece in American Prospect (https://prospect.org/2024/09/17/2024-09-17-ponzi-scheme-of-promises/) showing that, for from marking a turning point, the fabled 2019 Business Roundtable 'reframing' of purpose was in fact a well-ececuted PR ploy designed to ensure that the only thing that changed was the words it was discussed in. J&J played a prominent role in the re-drafting, being thus not only an archtect of the broader deception but also, as you and Harris lay out, its locus classicus. Thank you for this important piece (and all your others, come to that).
Thank you for this insight. I remember this infamous statement. I used to rail against the word Purpose because it is intrinsically so meaningless, but I think executives simply thought me pedantic. What’s sad though is that some executives believed in this, wanted it to be true and wanted to make it true. If I were that kind of writer, I’d be tempted to trace where all the senior folk at J&J have ended up and their influence across the (primarily) US economy. Might also dig into campaign contributions too.
And thanks for the pointer to the Loewenstein article, which I’d forgotten about. (I like his work a great deal.) Reading it again now is a timely reminder that reneging on public commitments is hardly new, as we;ve seen with sustainability issues.
Thank you for this amazing report. I recorded a podcast earlier today and posited that when we humans learn to love ourselves first and forsake the worship of wealth, we might begin to make real progress. Sadly, I think you are absolutely right on with your conclusions here.
Yes, J&J soiled the bed. That's not a reason to burn down the house.
Yes, some corporates use purpose like magicians, distracting with one hand, while doing the undercover thing with the other.
While Enron is raised from the dead once more to diss the value of values.
Purpose is a potent weapon for for bad actors to use, because of the good it can do, for a person, a team, an organisation. Purpose builds shared belief in doing something beneficial for people, simplifies decision-making, and spurs innovation, giving the freedom of a tight brief.
I've heard "Profit before Purpose" in several boardrooms. Here's an antidote from Konosuke Matsushita, who built the twin empire of JVC and Panasonic.
"Happiness of man is built on mental stability and material affluence. To serve
the foundation of happiness, through making man’s life affluent is the duty of the
manufacturer.
"Profit comes in compensation for contribution to society. Profit is a yardstick with
which to measure the degree of social contribution made by an enterprise.
If the enterprise tries to earn a reasonable profit but fails to do so, the reason is
because the degree of its social contribution is still insufficient."
I am not persuaded that profit is a yardstick with which to meausre the degree of social contribution made by an eneterprise. J&J is immensely profitable but it has paid out billions of dollars as compensation to patients who took their drugs or used their products. By your measure they have done more good than harm, but I'm not sure that I think the value of lives ruined matters less than the dollars made. That is one of the problems with measurement: it looks like the same tool can measure everything, when it can't. I can't measure in money how much I love my children, or my neighbours, or my own life. It's so obviously the wrong metric that it isn't worth trying.
A yardstick, Margaret, not the yardstick. And I read Matsushita's comment in a slightly different way. He writes of why organisations don't make a profit. As you rightly point out, some organisations that make a fat profit lie and cheat.
I'd like to think that being caught out would either end in bankruptcy and prison, or profit-busting fines and contrition (VW after Dieselgate was exposed). Sometimes it does, more often it doesn't. Yet I can't throw proverbial baby out with the bathwater. If the profit is insufficient I believe upping the social contribution will do more, long-term, than upping the prices, and empty promises.
I think the problem is that too often the profit is enormous and the social contribution is negative. Companies will-and do-externalize the social costs of their profitability. It’s what Uber does when it employs drivers on precarious terms, assuming that the state will take care of them when they can’t take care of themselves because the contracts are so onerous. It’s what AI companies are doing when their new data centres send up electricity prices for residents in the areas where the data centres are built. Pollution, environmental damage: these are not social benefits but the externalizing of harm. Or, as the editor of the Financial Times once put it, the privatization of wealth and the nationalization of harm.
When invited to submit a question to the speakers in the registration form, I went with this: "Margaret Heffernan says https://heffernanm.substack.com/p/purpose-is-pointless purpose is pointless, so what could/should our "green messaging" now be??"
Green messaging should be honest about whatever the green product or strategy can actually achieve--and what it cannot. You minimize the risk of greenwashing by not doing it! There are always trade offs; the respectful and honest thing is to be clear about them: to oneself, to colleagues and customers. And being honest means using language that can be easily understood.
Thank you for shining a light on this important book and valuable lessons. If only every organization and the people in them were asking and accounting for: not just what the profits are, but how they have been achieved and at what cost to individuals, employees, to society at large.
I know triple bottom line reporting was intended to address this. Do you feel like it’s had any real impact or is just more buzzwords and window dressing. I know j&j claim to conduct this and even feature as a case study for students on it.
The triple bottom line ought to work and is a step in a good direction but it is a curated conclusion summarizing a thousand small decisions. In bundling up all those decisions, what actually happened gets lost. If even huge billion dollar penalties for poor decisions can no longer be seen, because subsumed by greater profits, then how does any shareholder know what the company has been doing? And how would you reflect the costs of the opioid epidemic?
I think that the key to moving forward is to understand what it means to own an organisation..at small scale, be it a family or a community the issues are contained but once scaled it gets to be contestable then unknowable. Instead of too big to fail, we need to consider too big to manage and too big to care and possibly others. Instead of antitrust we need to promote anti mistrust
As long as I can remember J & J was held up as a by word for wholesome healthy product. Bloody hell!
Pretty much what I thought too.
Great, rightly indignant piece. Back in 2024 Adam Lowenstein wrote a highly researched piece in American Prospect (https://prospect.org/2024/09/17/2024-09-17-ponzi-scheme-of-promises/) showing that, for from marking a turning point, the fabled 2019 Business Roundtable 'reframing' of purpose was in fact a well-ececuted PR ploy designed to ensure that the only thing that changed was the words it was discussed in. J&J played a prominent role in the re-drafting, being thus not only an archtect of the broader deception but also, as you and Harris lay out, its locus classicus. Thank you for this important piece (and all your others, come to that).
Thank you for this insight. I remember this infamous statement. I used to rail against the word Purpose because it is intrinsically so meaningless, but I think executives simply thought me pedantic. What’s sad though is that some executives believed in this, wanted it to be true and wanted to make it true. If I were that kind of writer, I’d be tempted to trace where all the senior folk at J&J have ended up and their influence across the (primarily) US economy. Might also dig into campaign contributions too.
And thanks for the pointer to the Loewenstein article, which I’d forgotten about. (I like his work a great deal.) Reading it again now is a timely reminder that reneging on public commitments is hardly new, as we;ve seen with sustainability issues.
Thank you for this amazing report. I recorded a podcast earlier today and posited that when we humans learn to love ourselves first and forsake the worship of wealth, we might begin to make real progress. Sadly, I think you are absolutely right on with your conclusions here.
Yes, J&J soiled the bed. That's not a reason to burn down the house.
Yes, some corporates use purpose like magicians, distracting with one hand, while doing the undercover thing with the other.
While Enron is raised from the dead once more to diss the value of values.
Purpose is a potent weapon for for bad actors to use, because of the good it can do, for a person, a team, an organisation. Purpose builds shared belief in doing something beneficial for people, simplifies decision-making, and spurs innovation, giving the freedom of a tight brief.
I've heard "Profit before Purpose" in several boardrooms. Here's an antidote from Konosuke Matsushita, who built the twin empire of JVC and Panasonic.
"Happiness of man is built on mental stability and material affluence. To serve
the foundation of happiness, through making man’s life affluent is the duty of the
manufacturer.
"Profit comes in compensation for contribution to society. Profit is a yardstick with
which to measure the degree of social contribution made by an enterprise.
If the enterprise tries to earn a reasonable profit but fails to do so, the reason is
because the degree of its social contribution is still insufficient."
I am not persuaded that profit is a yardstick with which to meausre the degree of social contribution made by an eneterprise. J&J is immensely profitable but it has paid out billions of dollars as compensation to patients who took their drugs or used their products. By your measure they have done more good than harm, but I'm not sure that I think the value of lives ruined matters less than the dollars made. That is one of the problems with measurement: it looks like the same tool can measure everything, when it can't. I can't measure in money how much I love my children, or my neighbours, or my own life. It's so obviously the wrong metric that it isn't worth trying.
A yardstick, Margaret, not the yardstick. And I read Matsushita's comment in a slightly different way. He writes of why organisations don't make a profit. As you rightly point out, some organisations that make a fat profit lie and cheat.
I'd like to think that being caught out would either end in bankruptcy and prison, or profit-busting fines and contrition (VW after Dieselgate was exposed). Sometimes it does, more often it doesn't. Yet I can't throw proverbial baby out with the bathwater. If the profit is insufficient I believe upping the social contribution will do more, long-term, than upping the prices, and empty promises.
I think the problem is that too often the profit is enormous and the social contribution is negative. Companies will-and do-externalize the social costs of their profitability. It’s what Uber does when it employs drivers on precarious terms, assuming that the state will take care of them when they can’t take care of themselves because the contracts are so onerous. It’s what AI companies are doing when their new data centres send up electricity prices for residents in the areas where the data centres are built. Pollution, environmental damage: these are not social benefits but the externalizing of harm. Or, as the editor of the Financial Times once put it, the privatization of wealth and the nationalization of harm.
Great piece.
I just signed up for this WEBINAR: Spotlight on Marketing: How to minimise the risk of greenwash and maximise the impact of green messaging. Date: 20 January 2026. Time: 11:00 - 12:00. Link: https://webinars.businessgreen.com/how-to-minimise-the-risk-of-greenwash-and-maximise-the-impact-of-green-messaging/
When invited to submit a question to the speakers in the registration form, I went with this: "Margaret Heffernan says https://heffernanm.substack.com/p/purpose-is-pointless purpose is pointless, so what could/should our "green messaging" now be??"
What is your answer, Margaret??
Green messaging should be honest about whatever the green product or strategy can actually achieve--and what it cannot. You minimize the risk of greenwashing by not doing it! There are always trade offs; the respectful and honest thing is to be clear about them: to oneself, to colleagues and customers. And being honest means using language that can be easily understood.
Thank you for shining a light on this important book and valuable lessons. If only every organization and the people in them were asking and accounting for: not just what the profits are, but how they have been achieved and at what cost to individuals, employees, to society at large.
I know triple bottom line reporting was intended to address this. Do you feel like it’s had any real impact or is just more buzzwords and window dressing. I know j&j claim to conduct this and even feature as a case study for students on it.
The triple bottom line ought to work and is a step in a good direction but it is a curated conclusion summarizing a thousand small decisions. In bundling up all those decisions, what actually happened gets lost. If even huge billion dollar penalties for poor decisions can no longer be seen, because subsumed by greater profits, then how does any shareholder know what the company has been doing? And how would you reflect the costs of the opioid epidemic?
Appreciate the article and the book recommendation, Margaret. Keep it coming ✍️ 🩹
Thanks Gregory. I know you know what I'm writing about...