FOREWORD

A FEW YEARS AGO, I came across a billboard on a New York City bus shelter. It read, “If your company cared, it would be in the caring business.” The ad was for a jobs site, and the message was clear: the vast majority of companies do not care, and the best thing you can do is to find another company that also doesn’t care, but where you may be somewhat better off.

This cynical but sadly true message is symptomatic of the dominant business culture that exists in the world today. The old clichés about business all still ring true: it is a dog-eat-dog world out there, nice guys finish last, only the paranoid survive, and, most tellingly, “It’s not personal, it’s business.” Business has become dehumanized and impersonal. Human beings are ...

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