What if lawmakers never spoke to their constituents? Oddly enough, that's exactly how corporate America operates. Shareholders vote for directors, but the directors rarely, if ever, communicate with them.
In the age of activism that is clearly not going away, it would seem that some form of engagement from directors with shareholders - rather than directors simply taking their cues from management - would go a long way toward helping boards work on behalf of all shareholders rather just the most vocal.
We do not talk enough about spirit in business, yet it is what moves employees, customers, and shareholders alike.
In 2014, I left my job and launched TransTech Social Enterprises, a for-profit and nonprofit hybrid model focusing on the well-being of the trans community, not on external profits for shareholders.
What I am saying is, all health care has a problem with costs. Medicare is growing slower than the private insurance plans. Why? Because of their efficiency. They don't have to give money to shareholders. Why should be defending shareholders?
Shareholders, of course, have every right to weigh in on whether (or how) they want a company to exercise political influence.
Charities must treat donors as if they were shareholders.
I would rather be responsible and accountable and help to reward the public shareholders going ahead.
For decades, activist shareholders were an entertaining, but largely ignored, Wall Street sideshow. Disgruntled investors would attend annual meetings to harangue executives, criticize strategies - and protest that their complaints were being ignored.
When someone takes their existing business and tries to transform it into something else - they fail. In technology that is often the case. Look at Kodak: it was the dominant imaging company in the world. They did fabulously during the great depression, but then wiped out the shareholders because of technological change.
