The conversation starts with a look at IKEA’s founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who was perhaps one of the modern world’s first Conscious Capitalists. Ingvar believed that business can make the world a better place, and this belief shaped IKEA’s entire business approach, starting with its vision: “to create a better everyday life for the many people.”
Juvenico shares, “[Ingvar] founded the company as a means to achieve a greater purpose.”
As many of us seek to answer the call to a Higher Purpose through our work, IKEA has done so for 80 years by making affordable, accessible, sustainable solutions that help people around the world create a better life at home so that they can contribute to a better life outside the home.
Beyond providing their products to customers, IKEA also focuses on the other stakeholders that make the company’s success possible, including their team members, the people who support their supply chains, the planet, and even future generations.
Juvenico details the many ways in which IKEA engages with each of these stakeholders, but one of the groups Juvenico is most passionate about is IKEA’s team members. From Juvenico’s perspective, he believes that “recruitment is the most strategic decision in companies; it’s the beginning and the end.” As a leader at IKEA, he sees a broad but deep, shared commitment to ensuring that the company’s vision translates into the lives of their stakeholders, primarily their employees: “We carry a big liability, responsibility, and privilege to make [IKEA’s] culture and values a living reality.”
But building a business focused on conscious principles does not come without challenges. Juvenico’s advice for business leaders facing difficult decisions: “The more you build and cement the big purpose and the big belief and the big why, then the easier it is, later on, to go through all the issues and challenges.”
A grounded sense of purpose and a strong sense of team is what makes IKEA a leader in the Conscious Capitalism movement as it pursues its vision to better the world.
“Good leaders come together to really have an influence, a greater influence in the bigger community…No one can do everything, but everyone must do something,” Juvenico continues. “And it’s this collaboration and partnership that is needed” to explore the possibilities that all businesses hold to better the world.
This conversation is hosted by long-time Conscious Capitalism supporter Daniel Shakhani, Co-Founder of Salary Finance, a Conscious Capitalism, Inc. Partner company, and Timothy Henry, one of the Co-Founders of the Conscious Capitalism movement and co-author of the Conscious Capitalism Field Guide.
Interested in more from IKEA? Javier Quiñones, CEO and Chief Sustainability Officer of IKEA USA, joined us at our 2023 CEO Summit. Hear what he shared →
