By Paul Kearns and Stuart Woollard
The Mature Corporation represents the first textbook of the Maturity Institute, a new, not-for-profit, multi-disciplinary professional development institution established in 2012 to address the developmental needs of corporations. It explains the institution’s brief history, philosophy, goals, principles, strategic framework and measurement of mature, management practice.
The Mature Corporation also offers a critique of earlier attempts to temper and moderate the worst excesses of late 20th century capitalism including concepts of ‘balanced scorecards’, ‘triple bottom lines’ and ‘corporate social responsibilities’. It tackles the root causes of capitalism’s present malaise, tracing them back to the mantra of ‘shareholder value’.
In its analysis, the text describes a mutually inclusive, whole system, value paradigm where every societal stakeholder can benefit from corporate activity, where true wealth creation, resource utilisation and sustainability go hand-in-hand. This book provides a sophisticated, yet practical, navigation chart for all organisations needing to address the immense social and economic changes of the unfolding millennium.
Table of Contents of The Mature Corporation
Part One – How should we define, diagnose and understand organizational health?
- Fundamental impediments to organizational health
- Redefining and measuring the value of corporate health
- Total Stakeholder Value as the purpose of capitalism
- Whole System Management (WSM)
- Quantifying the value of a Mature Corporation
Part Two – Improving organizational health through mature practice and development
- Knowledge, learning and innovation
- Creating coherence with performance, reward and value systems
- Authentic leadership means trust, cooperation and engagement
- Building systems to assess and manage people risk
Part Three – The new mature management system
- Organizational Maturity Rating: using the OM30 diagnostic instrument
- Mature leadership and a new education for Whole System Management (WSM)
- Redefining company reporting, valuation and responsible investing
- Developing Organizational Health Professionals for Responsible Capitalism
About Paul Kearns and Stuart Woollard
Paul Kearns is Chair of the Maturity Institute and one of its founding members. He is also a Senior Partner in the UK-based advisory firm, OMS LLP (Organizational Maturity Services) which developed OMINDEX as the primary instrument for measuring the Total Stakeholder Value of corporations. He is the author of several seminal works at the forefront of thinking in how organizations manage their people, including HR Strategy (2010) and The Value Motive: The Only Alternative to the Profit Motive (2007).
Stuart Woollard is Managing Partner of OMS LLP (Organizational Maturity Services) and co-founder and Council member at the Maturity Institute. He is currently leading pioneering work using the Maturity Institute’s OMINDEX to show how the very best organisations are able to serve society, build effective human value systems and provide the greatest benefit for all stakeholders. He has published research on the management of people in global contexts and was appointed an Innovation Fellow at King’s College London in 2010. He was part of the international leadership team at E*TRADE Financial and UK Managing Director, and previously led advisory businesses, both independently and at Arthur Andersen. He is a regular conference speaker and teaches on MBA and graduate programmes.
