Are Purpose and Profit Opposites—or the Key to Sustainable Success?

For decades, business leaders have been told that profit should always come first—that maximizing shareholder value is the ultimate goal. But history tells a different story. Companies that chased short-term profit at the expense of purpose—like GE, Enron, and Sears—ultimately crumbled, while those that prioritized mission, innovation, and stakeholder trust continue to thrive.

So, is purpose really at odds with profit? Or is it the secret ingredient to lasting success?

In this episode of The Purpose and Profit Podcast, Dr. Ty Wenglar challenges the outdated notion that purpose and profit pull in opposite directions. Instead, he reveals how mission-driven businesses consistently outperform their competitors, driving higher engagement, customer loyalty, and long-term profitability.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
✅ Why the "profit-first" mindset of the past led to corporate failures
✅ How purpose-driven companies like Patagonia, Costco, and Southwest Airlines are thriving
✅ The three-step framework to align purpose and profit in your business
✅ Why profit follows purpose—not the other way around

🚀 If you're a leader looking to future-proof your business, drive sustainable growth, and create real impact, this episode is for you.

🎧 Listen now and rethink what success truly looks like.

📍 Visit www.LucentraAdvisors.com to book a free consultation.
📍 Explore www.TyWenglar.com for books and additional leadership insights.

Until next time—stay purposeful, stay aligned, and lead with impact.

4o

Transcript

[00:00:00] And welcome back to the Purpose and Profit Podcast. I'm Dr. Ty Wenglar, your host. And today we're going to be talking in a little more detail about the Purpose Profit Paradox. Specifically, is it opposites or is it allies? But before we get there let's be honest I've been slacking a little bit on the Podcast schedule and by a little, I mean, well, kind of a lot, but the good news is I'm back.

And if you've been wondering where the episodes have been, well, I've been helping a company untangle decades of we've always done it this way thinking and realign it into something that's scalable and that works for growth. So I do appreciate your patience. Today, well, we're coming back, as I said, and we're coming back with something big.

We've talked about the purpose profit paradox before, but today's podcast was sparked by a recent interview I [00:01:00] did regarding conscious capitalism. And the interviewer asked the question of how can businesses balance ethics and profit? And without hesitation I answered, well that's the false choice.

Ethics and profit aren't at odds. They aren't an either or decision. When businesses prioritize stakeholders. Thereby ethics profits follow and the answer stuck with me as much because it rattled off without really thinking But also because if ethics and profit aren't opposites. What about purpose and profit kind of my hallmark You know do really do leaders really have to choose between making a difference and making money Or, is this another false dilemma, a false either or, one that keeps companies stuck in short term thinking?

Well, that's what we're going to break down today, so let's dive in. I'm going to start with the myth of the antithetical [00:02:00] model. That's just a fancy way of saying an either or situation. And we're going to start with why so many leaders still believe that purpose and profit are at odds. After all, the traditional mindset, business mindset, says that purpose is nice to have, but it's not a necessity.

Investors care about numbers, not mission statements. If you prioritize purpose you're going to lose financial control. This thinking comes straight from the 80s and 90s and the corporate playbook that went along with it. These are the days when Jack Welch and the shareholder first model dominated Wall Street.

Welch was the first superstar CEO. He turned GE into a profit machine through cost cutting, mass layoffs, and a lot of financial engineering. He was, at that time, hailed as the greatest CEO of his era. Here's the [00:03:00] problem. The moment he left, GE began to crumble. Not because he left, but because of that short term mindset, and GE had focused so much on those short term profits, that it had lost sight of sustainable growth.

And within two decades, GE went from the most valuable company on the Dow Jones to being dropped off of the Dow Jones industrial average. GE wasn't alone. We can look at Enron. They prioritized stock price manipulation over fundamentals. Ended up being one of the biggest scandals in the history of Wall Street.

Sunbeam and Chainsaw Al Dunlap, ruthlessly cut costs to boost short term profits. Company collapsed shortly thereafter. Sears focused on short term investor gains instead of innovation. Eventually they went bankrupt. The lesson, chasing profit at [00:04:00] the expense of purpose is a short term gain with long term consequences.

And to highlight this, I think we can go back to Jack Welch. Who, in a 2009 interview, almost a decade after he left GE, stated that shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy. Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers, and your products.

And with that, let's fillet the script. What if profit and purpose weren't enemies, but allies? I mean, the data speaks for itself. Purpose driven companies outperform the market by 42 percent over time. Companies with High employee engagement, which is a direct result of company purpose. See a 21 percent boost in [00:05:00] profitability.

79 percent of consumers prefer to buy from brands that align with their values. Here are some real world examples, real world companies. Further, the case for the fact that profit and purpose actually exist in a symbiotic relationship rather than an either or relationship. Patagonia, they told customers not to buy their jackets in order to promote sustainability.

Sales exploded. Similarly, they dedicated to donating 100 percent of their profits to environmental causes. Wall Street said they were crazy. They saw a 30 percent increase in revenue. Costco pays employees well above industry average, it retains top talent, and it thrives in [00:06:00] customer loyalty. And our last example, Southwest Airlines.

They have prioritized company culture and purpose, and they managed to remain financially stable, even during the pandemic. Some of the most damaging industry downturns. Coincidentally, I think we are seeing what happens when a company begins to stray from that in which Southwest recently announced. Fees for their bags, something that goes against everything they've always stood for, and their most dedicated and loyal customers are up in arms.

Regardless, the takeaway from these three companies is that companies that prioritize purpose, they don't just survive, they dominate the market. Now, this brings us to our final segment, and that [00:07:00] is how do you align purpose and profit in your business? And for those of you that have listened to my pods before, you know that I'm about making it practical.

Not academic. So, here's a three step Purpose and Profit Alignment Framework. Simplified version, but it's the same framework that I use with companies that I work with. First, is define a purpose within the company that drives profit. Why do you do what you do? This can't be just a slogan, it has to drive decisions.

Ask yourself, how does our purpose create value for customers, employees, and investors? That is the difference between a purpose, a true purpose, and a marketing mission statement. A purpose is something that your employees [00:08:00] can and want to get behind and support.

Secondly, Embed that purpose into your daily operations. It's not enough to say you believe in purpose. It has to be woven into the daily strategy of the business. Without it, it all becomes just rhetoric, not reality. And third, measure what actually matters. We're only tracking revenue and you're looking at departmental financials.

In a compartmentalized fashion through the lens of pure profit return expenses and not through the lens of purpose. You're doing a disservice to your company purpose driven companies optimized for long term value, not [00:09:00] quarterly earnings, but you should be tracking. Customer loyalty, lifetime value, employee engagement and retention, brand trust, market positioning.

If you can get this right, profit becomes the natural result of a well run, purpose driven company. You've heard me use the example of the horse and the cart. Focusing on profit is the equivalent of setting on the cart, staring at the cart, and expecting the horse to drive. In a straight line, turn around, focus on the purpose, focus on the horse, and the cart's going to follow naturally.

We started today off with the question, is purpose at odds with profit? And the answer? Absolutely not. The real challenge isn't choosing between purpose or profit. The real challenge [00:10:00] is learning to align them so that they fuel each other. So here's my challenge to you. Take a moment and really think about How does your business align purpose and profit?

Drop me a DM, drop a comment. I'd love to hear your perspective on this. And if today's episode gave you a fresh perspective, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. It helps us keep these conversations going and helps us to share this message with others. Lastly, check out our website, www.lucentraAdvisors.com. There, you can see our services, book a consultation. If you feel it appropriate, they're free or check out www.tywenglar.com and take a look at the books I've done regardless. I hope you've enjoyed this. Hope you got something useful out [00:11:00] of it. This has been some profit podcast with Dr. Ty Wenglar. Stay purposeful, stay aligned, and we will see you next time. Thank you. Yeah.