Sometimes it’s hard to see how things change, everything seems so entrnched. Or it’s hard to see whty things should chancew, everything seems so settled. Here’s a true story
EDITOR’S NOTE: I originally wrote this for Equal Exchange’s 2006 Annual Report (where it appears on page 12.)
Back in the 70’s almost every bicycle in the U.S. was a form of road bike, often a racing bike with curved down handlebars. For over a century this form of bike had evolved for one primary purpose, to travel down roads, usually fast. And that they did. Similarly today’s corporations are built for one primary purpose – to make shareholders money fast. And that they do.
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a new type of bike (image from the mountainbike hall of fame)
Then some wild-eyed folks in California noticed that most of the world didn’t consist of smoothly paved roads or roads at all. They wanted to cycle through forests, up hills, and across streams; to go places that road bikes couldn’t take them. While everyone else thought they knew what a good bike looked like, they set that aside and built a different kind of bike—one with fat tires for better grip, low gears for the long climb, and strong brakes for the hairy descent. The result was a more versatile, rugged, durable bike. You probably own one: it’s called a mountain bike.
Just as most of the land area in the world doesn’t consist of roads, so most of the good in the world isn’t just about money. Conventional corporations are designed to make money, but poorly suited to pursue a larger social mission. This takes an entirely different kind of business. So what are the gears and brakes, the tires and suspension of our new corporation? What makes Equal Exchange more versatile, rugged, and durable? Below are features that constitute the frame of our organization, built with the explicit purpose of pursuing social justice and fairness over profits.
It only took a few years for the advances of the mountain bike to be embraced by the mainstream. Now more than half of all the new bikes sold in the U.S. are mountains bikes. Perhaps in 20 years from now half of the new companies started in the U.S. will be purpose built to pursue the greater good.