Could you balance Purpose and Profit as a CEO?

A while ago I wrote: “Do all CEOs “only care about profit”? No..” to address a commonly held (and understandable!) view that companies are only lead and managed around driving profits, often by working their people hard with limited concern for People, Planet or even Purpose, or as I call that, the “new triple bottom line”.

This came up in conversation with someone again this week, and it has me thinking that perhaps when I write or talk about this I focus too much on the Purpose, People and Planet side of the above model, not enough on the Profit that sits on the other side and is so necessary to spin the “righteous flywheel” and so allow social and societal impact to be scaled.

I did spend the first two decades of my career very much focussed on growth, profits, shareholder return etc, gradually integrating more and more concern and focus on People and Planet and then recognising that they go together in balance. So, a learning from that recent conversation is to be more balanced in how I talk about…