THE ALtruistic corporation: Growing richer by

giving everything

Isaac Getz and Laurent Marbacher

(Albin Michel, 526 pages, 2019)

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How can corporations benefit societies when they are structurally conceived to be first and foremost in the service of their own profit? What if giving unconditionally was the key to financial success? These are provocative questions that Isaac Getz, a leading figure in the corporate liberation movement, and Laurent Marbacher, a micro-credit specialist, answer by taking us to various parts of the world—France, Scandinavia, the United States, and Japan—in search of a new species of corporation that, in the last decades, has been quietly changing the destinies of their economic counterparts. These “altruistic” companies place themselves unconditionally in the service of others. They also, thanks to this radical orientation, have been able to thrive economically.

Historically, corporations have been celebrated as much as a force of social progress as decried for their destructive impact on people and the environment. In the nineteenth century, their remedial response to the social ills they created was dubbed “philanthropy.” More recently, self-regulating business models such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) have helped companies become socially accountable—to themselves, their stakeholders, and the public. Even so, social responsibility remains subordinate to economic imperatives. But Getz and Marbacher are interested in a more radical and counterintuitive approach instead, convincingly showing that while far from being a utopia, their approach is the path to the future.

Over a four-year period, they conducted numerous interviews with CEOs, employees, customers, and suppliers as well local community members. Their varying subjects include a French cheese company sensitive to the decline of the rural region it occupies, a large Japanese pharmaceutical lab that focuses its attention on patients and their families rather than on profits, a firm organizing seminars that treats its clients like friends, and a Finnish private cancer clinic whose architectural design echoes an innovative care philosophy which comprehensively attends to its client’s needs.

Grounding their research in philosophical, psychological, and historical contexts, the authors examine the convictions, struggles, and personal events that have brought highly motivated leaders to radically alter the way they manage their companies and conduct their business. With a wealth of human stories, this book is an innovative treatise on corporate management as well as an iconoclastic reflection on trust, courage, and personal transformation. By outlining the specific challenges encountered by these inspired leaders, the authors hope to inspire others to take the plunge and transform their own corporations into altruistic ones.

Isaac Getz is a professor of leadership psychology at ESCP Europe, a top business school. He’s the author of several books on creativity and organizational transformation including L’Entreprise libérée (Fayard, 2017). With Brian M. Carney, he co-authored the international best-seller Freedom, Inc. (Crown Business/Random House, 2009), which popularized the concept of “liberated company,” and Leadership sans ego (Fayard, 2019) and Liberté & Cie (Flammarion, 2016).

Laurent Marbacher has created a micro-credit bank in Chile with the help of Muhammada Yiunus. He has published interviews with Edgar Morin, Michel Serres, and Muhammad Yunus.