The New Business as Usual

Michael C. Bush (00:08):

Hello everyone. Really excited to be here with you today. And I mean, what is going on? I mean, what is really going on? I'm going to come back to this, but I'm going to move to a far simpler subject, the brain. So famously the brain has two sides, but contrary to popular belief, it's not a matter of one side of the brain being emotional and one side of the brain being rational. The fact of the matter is the left side of the brain sees things in parts and pieces and sees patterns, and it's really good at those things. And the right side of the brain takes those patterns and creates the whole or a picture. The right side of the brain is really good at understanding context. So the left side of the brain zooms in on pieces. The right side of the brain sees the big picture, the whole, and the fact of the matter is we need them both. We can't exist without both. But it's a funny thing. The right side of the brain knows that the left side of the brain exists and knows that it needs the left side of the brain. 

(01:35):

The left side of the brain doesn't know the right side of the brain exists. So sometimes it focuses the brain to zoom in because it has no concept or awareness of anything else. And as a result of zooming in, we just see the pieces and lose sight of the whole. And this is what businesses sometimes do. They zoom in and focus in on the pieces. AI, generative aI, agentic AI, reasoning, have to forget about everything else. That's all we have to focus on. Profit got to focus on the top line. Oh, top line's kind of weak. We got to cut costs. Forget about everything else. Us, okay? We have partners in the supply chain, but we're just going to focus on ourselves right now, just zooming in. Well, the problem is right now, the whole world seems to be zoomed in on us, on what we fear, on what divides us. This has become commonplace. All you have to do is pick up your mobile phone. This has become business as usual. 

(02:51):

But when you zoom out, you see beautiful things like this. This is my city, Oakland, California, so I want to stay zoomed out so we can keep some perspective. If we go back in time, say to a thousand years, this is the old English description or word of business, and business meant something very different. A thousand years ago, it meant anxiety, which is actually the perfect definition for today, and then it became this word, which meant trade or occupation. And then about 500 years ago, it became business as we know it, commerce, which is, listen carefully, fair trade, where both sides have something to gain. Let me repeat, you know what I'm saying? Fair trade. Where both sides have something to gain. 

(04:07):

So as we zoom forward to March 20th, 1602, this is a very important day, especially for those of us who are in business. The land of the Dutch, the Dutch government merged 12 companies into one, and this is what they called it. I'm not going to try and pronounce it, I'm just going to call it the VOC for short. And when you translated this, it translates to the Dutch East India Company and they were in business. It's the first entity in the world where you could buy stock in a company. The stock market was created right in this moment where people could come together and buy and sell stock in a company. People could get a piece of paper that gave them ownership in a company. And this company moved around the world moving mainly spice. It's the first multinational company in the world, fair commerce, fair trade. And at the time, the VOC completely dominated the spice trade. By 1669, it was the richest organization on earth in the history of the planet. It was true domination. It had 200 ships, 50,000 employees, and if you invested in the company, you got a 40% return every year on your investment. So this is very powerful, especially thinking about today. 

(05:46):

And in terms of the people who work there, 15 to 20% of them were administrators and merchants. 20 to 30% of them were soldiers and mercenaries. Kind of an interesting thing to have in your HCM. I don't know what it's like. It's like you're a soldier and you're like, Hey, I've been working as a soldier for five or six years, but what I have to do next quarter to become a mercenary. The majority of the people, 40, 50% were sailors and ship crews. And then you had 20 to 30% that were enslaved or indentured servants. So let's just say it was not a great place to work for all, great place to work for not a great place to work for all, but it created this beautiful city. It was thriving as a result of this innovation, of this new way of doing business. But it wasn't good for everyone. People on the Spice Islands eventually lost their countries, lost their land. The VOC killed tens of thousands of people. 

(06:54):

They clearly didn't believe that everybody does better when everybody does better. They believed in something else and enslaved almost a million people. So none of this was really unusual. This was kind of business as usual. And when something interests the market and people start making a lot of money, guess what happens? There's competition. Soon there was a British East India company, then a Danish East India company, then a Swedish East India company, then a French East India company. So as a result, wars occurred because competition meant something different in this world of business. Eventually the VOC went bankrupt. To me, the story had a happy ending and it was formerly dissolved and all of that became business as usual. But let's zoom out again. 

(07:52):

We've come a long way since 1602, but have we really? This is like one of my favorite movies. You can get me on the therapy couch to talk about why, but the parts of business I really like. But the thing about greed is good is it's good for a few people and it's not good for long. But this movie was really inspired by the work of Milton Friedman who decided the purpose of business is to satisfy the shareholder. Period. That's it. People like Ken Lay, it was a shareholder, took care of the shareholder and then lost all the money for the shareholders, ended up in prison, people's lives were destroyed as a result. Whenever greed is chased, some people do really well, but a lot of people lose everything, which is what happened in Lehman Brothers, Elizabeth Holmes. Luckily her company never went, but she lost all the money of their investors. 

(08:59):

I guess it's hard to get ruby red lipstick and a mani-pedi in prison. I'm a little salty today, but businesses zoom in and sometimes lose sight on what matters. This is the point. We believe the point of business is to make life better for all people. It's very simple. That's our belief. That's what we talk about in terms of a great place to work for all. I know, that's why you're here. You know that about us and you believe the same thing. And there are another group of leaders who are zoomed out, who really show what leaders do, which is they create value. They don't destroy value. Leaders like Chris Nasetta from Hilton. Number on the 100 Best list. And what I'm going to do now is talk about the money. Is that okay? Okay, talk about the money. Don't look at your phones, don't be talking about your money right now. 

(09:54):

I'm not sure what's happening. Okay? We're going to be talking about the collective money right now. And so what I'm going to do is go through a series of stock charts. And so some of you are very familiar with them. I look at 'em every single day. But not everybody does that. But so what I've done here, I'm going to go through a series of companies and I'm going to display the stock chart from November of 2014 to November of 2024. I stopped right at election day, so I don't get into politics yet, but just so that you know what you're seeing. And then you're going to see this is Hilton data market cap numbers. I'm going to put up a market cap number. The market capitalization of a company is the share price times the number of outstanding shares. So it's the value of the firm. So in this case, we have 26 billion in 2014 and 60 billion in 2024. We love these charts. A great place to work. This is a Great Place To Work company. And look at that money doubled in value over the 10 year period. Blackstone was the investor in Hilton, got Chris 2007. The most successful investment in Blackstone history is Hilton. It's a great story. Chuck Robbins, Cisco. 

(11:23):

I didn't think that was okay. I should have known. Alright, alright. So here's the stock chart, what you can see, and a hundred billion to 217 billion. That's what great leaders do, leading the right way. Chuck started in 2015. A lot of this growth came in underneath him. We started working deeply with Cisco in 2015 on our For All methodology, largely inspired by Fran Katsoudas, who was the prior CHRO there and still with Cisco, but tremendous results. This proves to us the Great Place To Work Effect. If you do this work, treat people a certain way, treat your communities a certain way, this is the return you're going to get. Ed Bastian, Delta. 

(12:12):

So take a look at this chart. Now, airlines, I think it's the most difficult industry in the world. There's more money lost in the airlines industry than in any industry on earth, which proves how difficult it is to run them. So take a look at this chart. You can see what happens. Ed comes in as CEO in 2016, runs up, increases the value of that firm. Firm goes to zero. And then look at what happens after that. Tremendous value creation, tremendous value creation. And through this volatile industry of things going up and down and you never know what's going to happen, which is what the airlines industry is. What do they do on February 14th, 2025? Give their employees $1.4 billion, okay, on Valentine's Day, alright? That's what they do. So they doubled down on the people. Times are tough, highly uncertain, don't know what's going to happen. 

(13:08):

We're taking care of the people. That's what they do. That is a Great Place To Work company. And I also think you have to take airlines and break them out and compare them to each other because of the uniqueness and around the world government support of the airlines. So you've got American Airlines, 6 billion of market cap, Southwest, 15 billion of market cap, United Airlines, 18.88 billion of market cap and Delta on our list at number 15, 24 billion of market cap. So this to me is a great story of value creation. The largest airlines in the world, the most profitable airlines in the world. We believe this is the Great Place To Work Effect. And it says the exact same thing. Brian Doubles, Synchrony. Synchrony is clearly here. Might be in your back pocket too, depending on your credit card choice. So let's take a look at Synchrony. 

(14:07):

Also a fascinating story because they were actually spun out of GE. So comparing market cap is complicated because market cap is distorted when firms, repurchase firms and repurchase stock. So it's a little complicated. So I chose here earnings per share. And you can see when Brian started as CEO, he had been with GE prior, been with Synchrony prior as the CFO and moved into the CEO role, which always doesn't go that great. It has certainly gone great here. What you see here is when Brian started and then you see when some banks collapsed, stock went down and look at what's happened after that. Just tremendous value added for owners of Synchrony. Number two on our list of the 100 Best. So it's truly a great place to work and this is earnings per share. I don't know if anybody else has tripled their profitability over this 10 year window. Synchrony has done that. Julie Sweet. 

(15:05):

So here's a stock chart of their performance. What am I driving home the point? These are great businesses. These are outstanding businesses. This way of working leads to financial performance that is unparalleled. This is the chart. Julie started as the CEO of the whole global business in 2019. And look at what she's done. More than doubled the value of the firm. Outstanding financial performance. Tony Capuano for Marriott. You can clap for Marriott, even though we're in a Hilton hotel, it works. Okay? And so taking a look at these numbers because the numbers are important over this time. Tony became CEO in 2021, took the reins after Arne Sorenson passed, a great For All leader. And look at the value here, 22 billion to 77 billion. And Tony's had a great run. Look at when he started and look at that appreciation and increase in market capitalization. Jensen Huang, Nvidia. 

(16:11):

So this one's fascinating to me because look at that crazy chart. It goes from 52 cents a share to what's happened, one of the most valuable companies in the world. But if you're at Nvidia, when we met them, no one knew who they were except they made some chips for video games. But a stock that goes from 52 cents to $5 and 20 cents, that's awesome. And then finally it gets to like $10. That's awesome. So people were having a great time. So people have sometimes said to me, well of course Nvidia is on your list. They're banking all that money. They've been on the list. We've known Nvidia a long time. They were a great place to work before you knew necessarily who they were. It's not about the money, it's about the leadership, which is always true. And large market cap. It's the only market cap. Yep, there we go, Abbvie. 

(17:04):

And so for this one, I wanted to share this quote because everybody in this room works for a company that says things like this. This is what makes Great Place To Work companies different. Never understate the power and dedication of 50,000 people around the world united in the same mission to make a remarkable impact for our patients, improve society and support our communities. That's it. It's we're about much more than profit. We're about much more than our people. We're about our communities. This is part of being a great place to work for all. And by the way, they know how to make money too. Okay? This is their chart. Outstanding financial performance, which we love to see. Once again, it proves the Great Place To Work Effect.

(17:47):

Penny Pennington, Edward Jones, yeah don't leave Penny hanging. Been on our list 26 years. Great place to work. Private firm got 19,000 associates, 8 million customers overseeing $2 trillion of money for those customers. They're a private firm. They don't like to throw their numbers all over the place. So I had to dig to get what I could get and I just know it was 17 million in 1977 and 14 billion. And when you're overseeing $2 trillion, you're doing okay. Not only that, they do great things in St. Louis. They do great things in St. Louis. So they are committed to making communities better where they operate in St. Louis and beyond. Jim Kavanaugh, World Wide Technology. Also doing great things in St. Louis and beyond. So this company has, they're also private. When you're private, you don't want to put all your money out in the streets, so you have to work a little harder. 

(18:49):

But Jim said that I could share this. They are over 20 billion in revenue and the most impressive thing is they have 15% compounded annual growth rate. I don't think anybody else on the 100 Best has that. This is phenomenal achievement from the company that was co-founded by him and Dave Steward. And the thing about them two humble people, they don't talk about all the other things they do, but this is a new soccer stadium in St. Louis. St. Louis had their football team leave after investing a ton of money in the stadium related to it. When that happens, it just crushes a community. I know I'm from Oakland where we've lost our teams, okay? It's never a good thing. And what did they do? Stepped in and fill the void. This is a 32 acre complex that they built the largest in the United States dedicated to soccer and youth and kids and the game of play. 

(19:41):

Jim doesn't talk about these things very much, but I just want to let you know, this is a remarkable company. Like many of your companies that do so much more than just create great profit and return for shareholders. Wegmans, any of you know Wegmans? Wegmans is one of those places that people love it who shop there. If you say Wegmans, they start to smile. They actually like going, you want to go to Disneyland? No, I'll go to Wegmans because the experience is so great. It's a privately held company. I called Colleen and asked her if I could share some numbers. She acted like she couldn't hear me and said, I'm going to send you some pictures of people. 

(20:20):

This woman is smart, okay? She's like, don't be posting my stuff all over the place. Alright, but you know these pictures. So you see the woman in the middle, she's 15 years old. What happens at Wegmans? They hire people in high school, teach them about work, teach them about teamwork, teach them about money, teach them about care, teach them about service. And then you have a woman on the far right, I can say this, older than 80, that's all I can say. They were like, don't say but older than 80. And you have people who have worked there, started at 15 and worked there until they're over 80. There's no other company probably in the world where this is true. So it's obviously a great place to work, pound for pound, you just can't beat it. On the far left, you have a gentleman who's doing dishwashing and they have many who have started there and then became a master chef, like the man in the middle of the screen. Brian Cornell, Target. 

(21:19):

I know Target, I know Target well. And so I just want to tell a story here. This is really Brian's tenure. They've created tremendous value for shareholder, billions and billions of dollars over time and it is a great place to work. And the reason I wanted to point them out is because there's nothing easy about business. There's certainly nothing easy about retail, but through things that happened as a result of the executive order, various things have happened to a lot of companies and in particular them. And so this idea, someone should boycott Target because of a position that they took. I just think that's the action of a person who just doesn't know the facts. I know this company, the data's very clear about this company and what they do in the communities that they serve and who they hire and how they treat people and how they promote people and grow. 

(22:19):

And the 443,000 employees, while business is tough, they haven't laid off anyone. That's a Great Place To Work company. And I just wonder when somebody's like, Hey, we're going to boycott this place. Do they think about the 443,000 people and who those people are? And just to double click on that, this is me sitting with Brian Cornell and Abuba, who's on the far right on your screen. He runs the southeast for Target, over a hundred thousand employees. His particular story of an ascent in that company is a remarkable story proving that they're a great place to work for all. So my net promoter score for 100 Best Companies is 100. I'm about all of 'em, a fierce protector of each one of 'em because I know what they believe in. I'm a fierce protector of this company too. So I hope you shop at Target. 

(23:11):

Yeah, I'm not supposed to do it. So what? Okay, so John Pearson, D-H-L-D-H-L Express. So this is a remarkable company on a different stock exchange. So I wasn't able to pull numbers in. So I just grabbed a statistic that I thought was interesting from their annual reports. This is market share, it's market share. They brought their market share from 30% to 47%. And so this is a great achievement for all of us in business. We all want a larger piece of the pie and our competitors to have actually none of the pie, but certainly a smaller piece of the pie. And they have done that and we started our work with them in 2016. It's been a great relationship. They've been on number one in the world two times in the last few years, as well as they're the reigning number one on the Great Place To Work World's Best Companies to Work For list, outstanding company, John Burke. How many of you got to hear him yesterday? 

(24:10):

He did a masterclass for us that was a masterclass, an absolute masterclass, also a private firm. But he said, I could share these numbers of great growth. This is definitely a great place to work for all, great stewards in the community, and they have institutionalized Great Place To Work in the way that they operate. As John said yesterday on stage, they wouldn't be where they are today without Great Place To Work. Of course we love hearing that and spreading the word so that more people can understand what happens when you create a great experience for your people. Doug McMillon, Walmart. 

(24:47):

Okay, we got some blue in the house. Happy to hear it. So look at this chart. It's a great chart. You're going from 277 billion of market value to 730 billion. And Doug's a longtime veteran at Walmart and they started their work with us in 2016. Actually, they were the first customer to use our Emprising platform. They almost broke it because they're big. We were nervous but somehow survived it. And so this is an amazing company that has transformed itself largely under Doug's leadership and the people experience has gotten so much better. It's just tremendous as well as the financial return. So it's a great story for us. Mark Benioff, anybody here from Salesforce? So Mark's really important here because when we created Great Place To Work For All and changed our methodology, people didn't, not everybody loved it. Some people said, well, we aren't so sure really what that means. 

(25:52):

Mark doubled down at that time, wrote one of the forwards for our book and said, now I really want to be on that list. I believe this is what it's about. It's about a company where everybody is having a great experience and we're happy to show the stock performance of this company. Look at those whopping numbers. So it's a great example of what happens when you not only take care of your people, but you take care of the people, the society, the communities that they live in. You make sure their communities are safe and this company is tough to beat in that regard. We believe this is how business is done. 

(26:30):

I'm going to dip my toe into the political waters just lightly. So this is a stock chart. It shows the performance of 100 Best companies compared to the S&P 500. This is post-election. So election caused uncertainty and volatility in the stock market. Great Place To Work Companies outperform the S&P 500 by a factor of two. During that window in a time of crisis, our companies do better. When things are unstable, our companies benefit from the fact that their employees aren't worried about what their company's going to do to them and they can focus on their customers and their work. They don't think there's going to be a layoff because that's not a habitual annual act from a Great Place To Work company. So the performance actually got better since the election for 100 Best companies, revenue per employee recent survey done of 6,000 companies in the U.S. compared to our 100 Best, the average revenue per employee for the 6,000, 104,000 per employee. A hundred best companies, 883, 883,000. So I have a question actually, I got a lot of questions, but I got one main question. 

(27:56):

Why would you tell these companies what to do? Why would you tell these companies what to do or what not to do? It makes no sense at all to me why you would do that. They were destroying value. I could see why they were hurting people. I could see why. But if they're thriving, growing, promoting people, taking care of communities, I really don't understand it. If I could write an executive order, I'm an executive with not that much power, but I'd write too to these companies and to the companies in this room. Keep doing what you are doing. If you are drinking cold pressed juice, lighting incense, keep doing it. Whatever you are doing, please continue. Drink Coca-Cola every day like me. Keep drinking Coca-Cola every day. Not good for you, but keep doing it. My second order would be get more companies to behave like you. 

(28:58):

Get more companies to be committed to their people. Get more companies to care for their people. Get more companies to invest in the communities where their people work. That would be my second order. That would be the one two punch. It's time for businesses to zoom out. Civility for all. Bullying isn't good for anybody. Civility for all, integrity for all, opportunity for all, prosperity for all, sustainability for all, trust for all. That's what we measure. It's the core of our business. It all comes down to trust. Trust is a universal currency, not crypto. It's trust. 

(29:45):

Trust is how the left side and the right side of the brain work together. Trust is also how the left side of the aisle and the right side of the aisle can work together. Trust is what makes people who believe very different things be able to work together. It's all about trust. Without trust there is nothing. And when things happen that destabilize people, they aren't really sure what they can believe in. Great companies become that place where as some people are saying in survey results, now I feel better at my job than I do when I leave my job. My job is stable. It's a place that I can count on. Here's where we're resuming in next. Incentivizing for all leaders, it's never been harder to be a leader. It's never been more important. Incentivizing supply chains, making sure that people understand how they can treat people that will make them better for your company. 

(30:35):

Human-centered AI people first, how's it going to make things better for people? Using AI to find untapped talent, to use the hard-to-find, machines can do that. Let's zoom in on you. Free speech. I was watching CNBC one of our CEOs, CEO of Box and co-founder was on Monday and he sat in the chair on the CNBC desk and he said, I've watched CEOs sit in this chair and say things, and then I talk to them privately and they're saying something else that caused me great concern. This used to be a place where you could say what you thought as a business leader without facing consequences, something's changed. Free speech has always had consequences for some people. My advice to you is figure out if you're now some people, be careful. Be thoughtful. That's what I'm trying to do on this stage. It ain't easy. 

(31:28):

Click bait. It's meant to distract you from the things that you need to be doing. That's its whole purpose. You.ai. If you're still writing emails for yourself in 30 days, you got to call me. You got to get going. You got to get in the mix. You got to get going. This quote from Jim Kavanaugh, never lose sight of the importance of grit, determination, and work ethic. This is required in everything you do. If you want to be the best you can be. He doesn't say, if you want to be the best executive, best professional, he said the best you can be. We're here to help you be your best self. Now, there's some people in this room who are certainly already their best self. Let me hear from you. If you're in an ERG, these are people who are their best self. Thank God right now. These are remarkable people and employees who are doing work under a lot of pressure, got families, sick pets and everything else, and still volunteer their time to take care of their company and to help their company become great. We need your best self right now. 

(32:33):

Everybody here, we need it right now. We're in a very, very critical situation. This isn't being your best self. If one of your kids is on that playground, don't get distracted. Don't get sucked in. Don't let your left brain take over, back up and bring in your right brain too. We're here to zoom in and to zoom out, we can do both. The collective brain. I'm a very good driver. I had one accident when I was 16. Somebody ran a red light and hit me. The only time I'm a bad driver is when my wife Melba was in the car. Something happens and I'm driving and I'm thinking about things that I usually think about, EBITDA, a free cash flow. And she's like, hit the brakes. And I'm like, what? Not? I hit em. Didn't you see? Can't you? What are you thinking about? And then her famous line, she loves the most. I can't believe they let you run that company. The collective brain works though. I didn't hit anybody because her brain was working and I knew it would. Well, we need the collective brain here. This isn't just a summit. This is a critical mass of companies that are going to change the world. A couple of months ago I was going to talk about you can do business this way or that way. I no longer feel that way. There's only one way to do it. A future where business works for all. That's it. Have a great summit.