THE HEART OF BUSINESS

The prospect of reading a book authored by Hubert Joly should appeal to business-minded audiences in and of itself.

After all, he’s the executive under whose watch the retail chain Best Buy got its mojo back—no mean feat in the age of e-commerce. At a time when big box retailers face an existential crisis from the likes of Amazon, Joly and his team were able to help Best Buy carve a new niche for itself and be competitive by leaning into the chain’s retail presence. Who wouldn’t want to read and learn about that?

Indeed, a good portion of The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism goes into detail about the thought process and strategic decisions that placed Best Buy on new competitive footing.

Yet that’s not really what the book is about, nor the most compelling reason to read it.

That, instead, would have to be Joly’s philosophy of work that he articulates throughout the book.

Many business thinkers have put forward their own perspectives on what work is and how it should be, but few zero-in on the humanzing qualities of work and how our dignity as persons is intertwined with the work that we do. Joly articulates these as an entire philosophy of work: it is, in his estimation, “an essential element of our humanity, a key to our search for meaning as individuals, and a way to find fulfillment in our life.”

This single idea is crucial to understanding everything Joly sought to accomplish at Best Buy, whether he was completely successful at doing so or not. It’s also what breathes life into his perspective on business in general. On the subject of profit, for instance, he writes that

“...considering profit as the sole purpose of business is wrong for four fundamental reasons: (1) profit is not a good measure of economic performance; (2) an exclusive focus on it is dangerous; (3) this singular focus antagonizes customers and employees; and (4) it is not good for the soul.”


The cynical reader would argue that this is little more than virtue signaling, and that it’s plenty convenient for a high-powered executive on the back end of his career to mouth such platitudes. They may have a point; yet even then this would not mean that Joly is wrong. “Profits are an outcome of a successful strategy and the quality of the human relationships that drive it,” Joly posits–and who can take issue with that?

This is a truly remarkable account on how the right kind of leadership will take an organization to the next level of success. Hubert Joly was able to show us in this book that by going to the heart of business we will be able to create an environment where success is always possible.