Good Morning Beautiful Business by Judy Wicks - Literature review Example

Good Morning, Beautiful Business Introduction It is something rare that someone stumbles into a business and after that ends up reviving the community by the national economic reform movement. That is real in ‘Good Morning, Beautiful Business’. In 1983, the author, Judy Wicks came up with the White Dog Café in a row found in Victoria brownstone, West Philadelphia. She started the business on the first floor of her house. After coming in to save her block from demolition, she grew a tiny muffin shop into what became a 200-seat big restaurant. It was among the first restaurants to feature organic, humane, and local food. The restaurant developed into a regional hub of the community, and it became the powerhouse for modeling the socially responsible business (Wicks 11). Her Approach to Business Wick’s memoir traces her career roots. She explores what it takes to marry commerce with social change. She has a different approach to business. She incorporates fun, passion and inspiration to do what is right, and doing well in the process of doing good (Wicks 16). Just above the shop in her home, she hanged a sign in her bedroom closet where she could see it every morning. The sign read “Good morning, beautiful business.” It reminded her of how beautiful could be if one puts energy, creativity and care in producing a service or a product that met the needs of the community. She thought of own business and how farmers were already out to farms, harvesting fresh organic vegetables and fruits. It was just to take them to the restaurant. Her approach to business was on relationships. She maintained a cordial relationship with everyone she sold to, bought from, worked with and a relationship with the earth. Her company expressed her love of life and gave an insight of how business is beautiful. She fully embraced her feminine energy in helping to build a new economy (Wicks 18). It all started at her tender age when she rebelled against learning how to cook and playing with dolls only to concentrate on business. While in business, she discovered about the unhealthy and the cruel treatment of pigs within the industrial system. Such animals lived their entire lives where the sows crammed to small crates in the windowless factories. She was unhappy that the pork she served at the White Dog came from the barbaric system. It was also common to pork supplied in the whole country (Wicks 19). Her reaction was to remove pork from the menu unless situations change. All the bacon, ham, and the pork chops; did not feature in the list until they got a farmer who traditionally raised his animals in a kind manner. She discovered the plight of the animals that they got meat and decided to seek humane sources for all their animal products. She now had all the sources of meat for her restaurant from farmers who treated their animals kindly. Her dimension of social responsibility started from that point. None of the products in her cafe came from the industrial system of the factory farms. She had the only restaurant in town with that stand. Therefore, that became her market niche and her competitive advantage (Wicks 22). It was her point of transformation. There existed disaster at other places; the farm animals treated in a cruel manner, the small farmers pushed out of enterprise by factory farms. The environmental pollution was by the concentration of unhealthy practices and waste, workers working in ghastly slaughterhouses and the plants. Moreover, the rural community was under destruction while the consumers ate food full of hormones and antibiotics. She no longer saw it as a competitive advantage rather went ahead to share the knowledge with her competitors (Wicks 34). She felt that her highest calling was to model a socially responsible approach to business. As part of a sustainable system, she moved from a competitive mentality and approach to the industry to a more cooperative one. She embraced cooperation to build the system. That is, to make an entire local food in which the system based. The move was a calculated one. She expanded the small network of the local farmers who supplied White Dog to a larger network of farmers (Wicks 34). Therefore, Wick was the right about the business. Her perspective on the idea of the interrelationship between business and the society was a good one. It is improper for entrepreneurs to assume their social responsibility while carrying their day-to-day operations. Business thrives in the society, and the same business has the responsibility to ensure sustainability. Henceforth, a social approach, a humane, or a kind nature of entrepreneurship is relevant to the business entity (Wicks 41). Her views on Business’s Responsibility Judy sees business as a collective responsibility, especially towards the society. From her actions, it takes much capital to build a new economy. She loans Glenn a low-interest loan to buy a truck to supply White Dog across the country. As from the book, Glenn needed some money to expand his business, “I only need thirty thousand dollars so as to buy a refrigerated truck so I can deliver to more restaurants.” She loaned him the amount with a view of building the economy (Wicks 58). The same help she gave Glenn is what she referred to support that was to be in the country. Most people, even those who are to bring social change invest in the stock market perpetuating the old exploitative economy. Her notion majorly relied on the plea of the helpless. She thought of the stockholders having wealth and all sorts of materials at the expense of the society (Wicks 69). Her perspective as a shareholder started back in the year 1999. She learned how to invest after her mother passed away. She inherited the stock portfolio made up of holdings purchased by her grandfather. She hired a broker to help her trade her stock in the name of socially responsible investing. The process involved screening of stock to eliminate companies that were in the trade of items like weapons, animal testing, and tobacco (Wicks 71). Nevertheless, when she looked at her new portfolio, she was shocked at seeing Wal-Mart. The company was underpaying its workers and destroying the local economies. That time is when she moved out of the stock market business. The companies maximized profits of the stockholders above the interest of people. She, therefore, preferred investing in a company that passed through a different screen. Screening filtered out such bad companies not owned by the stockholders. She sold all her stock in the year 2000 and invested in the RSF Social Finance (Wicks 71). She also spent in a local investment vehicle, by the name, The Reinvestment Fund. She had confidence that her money could now be used to build the economy that she envisioned. Surprisingly, her investment outperformed on their stock market returns. She coined the name of her return “living return.” The returns not only brought her money, but also had a better social impact. The Reinvestment Fund capitalized the wind turbines that brought a renewable source of energy, electricity, to Philadelphia. Therefore, her living return was a fruit of her struggle. She built a society that was now from an abused by stockholders’ business (Wicks 74). Ethical Principle In a business environment, ambition, innovation, and competitiveness are always significant to the success of a business but they need regulation by moral principles. The memoir describes an evolution of an entrepreneur who changed her neighborhood and went ahead to change her world, helping the communities create local living economies. Cities became diverse, satisfying, resilient, and prosperous (Wicks 97). The author recounts a girlhood developing of age in the sixties. As she saw the local living economy having fewer roles in advocating ethical standard in business, she took a self-initiative to make it a reality. She covered a stint working at Alaska Eskimo village during the seventies. Wick’s experience cofounded the store of the first free people. Her accidental entry into restaurant world leads her to come up with the White Dog Café. She nurtured a role as an international speaker, and a leader in the local economies movements who had ethical an ethical eye (Wicks 101). As Abraham Lincoln identified, a character is like a tree, and reputation is like the shadow. Therefore, Wick maintained a reputation of an ethical standard that kept her ahead of others in business. She believed in honesty and transparency. She was always forthright and candid. She always commits to excellence. She respected others with their decisions of excellence. From the incidence of the pigs and other cruelly treated animals, she was a caring one. Ethical leaders like Judy do not deceive, misrepresent, or overstate, for personal gain. That accounts for the importance of ethical standards in the business. It makes the business environment conducive for all. Therefore, I agree with Judy in her endeavors to make business more ethical than before (Wicks 141). Conclusion Building a new economy is nothing natural. It is only possible by taking note of simple qualities such as the capacity to care. Followed by the person’s readiness to act on what is necessary for defending and nurturing what we care. In business, change begins in the heart of an entrepreneur. The same reflects in the heart of the consumer and the investor as well. It is only by the power of compassion and love that brings transformative change. All leading to an active and a prosperous economy as identified in Judy Wicks memoir Good Morning, Beautiful Business. Therefore, an economy that matters relationships matters more than those that are profit minded (Wicks 132). Work Cited Wicks, Judy. Good Morning, Beautiful Business: The Unexpected Journey of an Activist Entrepreneur and Local Economy Pioneer. White River Junction, Vt: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. Print. Read More