Apple CEO Tim Cook lays out a new Manifesto for Moral Business Leadership and More Personally Meaningful Individual Performance

Events of the week of August 10, 2017 in Charlottesville, North Carolina may go down in the history of American business as the moment that triggered something of a visible epiphany in the behaviors and beliefs of many US business leaders.  Tim Cook, chief executive of Apple was inspired to begin a national conversation about the moral responsibilities of tech businesses.  In the process, and especially through his earlier commencement address at MIT on June 9, 2017 he laid out a new Manifesto for Business Leadership and More Personally Meaningful Individual Performance.

1. Business has a moral obligation greater than the accumulation of wealth and sole allegiance to Wall Street. ”Business has a moral responsibility to help grow the economy, to help grow jobs, to contribute to this country and to contribute to the other countries that we do business in,” he told the New York Times.
2. Businesses should be places where individuals can find meaning, purpose and serve humanity, something greater than themselves.
3. Businesses, like technology can do great things. But like technology, businesses don’t necessarily want to do great things, they just do things. Business purpose comes from those who lead and work there. He said, ”it takes our values and our commitment to our families and our neighbors and our communities, the love of beauty and the belief that all our faiths are interconnected, as are decency, and kindness.”
4. Keeping people at the center of business and in life can have enormous impact.
5. Whatever you do in life it must be infused with the humanity, values and decency that each of us is born with.
6. Use technology to reinforce and amplify the rules of decency and avoid pettiness and negativity.
7. Measure your impact on humanity on the lives you touch, rather than popularity and likes.
8. Stay on your personal course, focused on what really matters.
9. Bring your values, your compassion, empathy and concern for consequences into your daily life and your work. Avoid those who advise otherwise.
10. When you know your course is right have the courage to take a stand.
11. If you see a problem or an injustice, recognize that you are the only one to fix it.
12. Use your mind and hands and heart to build something bigger than yourselves.
13. Strive to create the best, give the best, do the best for everyone.

Links:

Apple’s Tim Cook Barnstorms for ‘Moral Responsibility’

Tim Cook Delivers MIT’s 2017 Commencement Speech