In today’s business environment, purpose is the path to enduring profit

ACROSS my time working in and leading very different organisations, one idea remained remarkably persistent: The primary purpose of business was to maximise shareholder returns.

For much of the past half-century, that assumption has been associated with American economist Milton Friedman. But the world in which it flourished was very different from the one business leaders inhabit today.

One reason is that we have entered what I call the “glasshouse economy”, an era in which artificial intelligence, social media and universal connectivity are making corporate behaviour radically more transparent.