Have you ever read or heard something that lit a spark in you? That made you think, and question, and wonder, “What if…?”

That’s exactly what happened when I read Simon Sinek’s book Start with Why. I was just a few years into business ownership, wrestling with how to show up authentically as a business owner, and constantly feeling like I was playing a part that didn’t fit me well at all.

That’s when Sinek’s words got me:
 
“In everything you do,” he says, “find a mission or a goal more important than money and that ignites your passion. Steve Jobs was passionate about computer technology. He wasn’t the best in creating computers, but he was the most passionate. Good ideas will have to go from your head to your heart. Ideas without heart will quickly be forgotten.”
 
That was it. An acknowledgement that I could bring my heart into the business with me. And that if the traditional ways of running a profit-based business didn’t feel right, then maybe there could be another path: A space between profit and nonprofit.
 
It was just around that time that I was introduced to an emerging business effort called the B Corp movement, in which business leaders choose to make decisions that advance the common good and not just the narrow interest of shareholders. In these last 10 years, the B Corp movement has been a powerful proof point that successful businesses can put people over profit and successful businesses can be run with head and heart.
 
What if Mission Partners was a B Corp?
What if we challenged the notion of what business can be, and how it can operate?
What if we thought differently about the role of a small business as a force for good?
 
Never doubt the power of what can happen when your head and heart are aligned.
 
It was the brilliant Bridget Pooley who first asked me those powerful and pointed questions in 2017, and then led Mission Partners down an intentional path to receive our B Corp certification. It’s because of her vision, and commitment to this movement that we received our B Corp status in 2018, and that we are now days away from our first re-certification with a wildly impressive 30-point increase in our B Corp score.

Earlier this week, we released our fourth social impact report since becoming a woman-owned Certified B Corporation, and it’s by far our most robust report yet, detailing how we’ve challenged business as a force for good, and partnered with our colleagues, clients, and community to move missions forward, toward our vision of an anti-racist future.

Operating at this level of accountability is not easy. But for Mission Partners, it’s become essential as we aim to model the kind of business that I couldn’t have imagined when I was just starting out. The kind of business that people told me would never succeed.

There are many folks who are still unfamiliar with the B Corp movement, and others who question its validity. But to us, the B Corp is a coveted designation that signals our commitment to better business, as much as a challenge to model what the future of business can be, rather than what the history of business has been.

In business, as in life, there will always be shortcuts if you want them. But, just as there are shortcuts, there are also opportunities to examine the work more closely: to examine the process, to consider the construct, to reimagine the outcome. Maybe that’s what Simon Sinek first sparked in me, and what we’ve since found in the B Corp movement.  A pathway to passion, and purpose.
 
Read Mission Partners’ Latest Social Impact Report at impact.mission.partners.

This is week 18 of the Finding The Words column, a series published every Wednesday that delivers a dose of communication insights direct to your inbox. If you like what you read, we hope you’ll subscribe  to ensure you receive this each week.