Economic, Social and Spiritual Capital

Pete Ochs is a very successful businessman and author of High Impact LIFE. In the book he delves into how economic, social and spiritual capital relate to flourishing. When I first heard him in an interview expound upon these ideas as it relates to business I found it interesting and wanted to take the time to delve a little deeper into his thoughts.

The Idea

Typical success in business is quantified as maximizing shareholder value. Milton Friedman won a Nobel Prize on that idea. Ochs believes that business should be a catalyst for flourishing. The principles he uses to achieve this state come from Genesis 2:15-18:

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The principles he takes from this passage are:

1. God put man in the Garden to work and if you work you will have material provision.
2. It is not good to be alone. You need a helpmate and deep authentic relationships.
3. God gave a commandment, moral code to follow.

Ochs would say to flourish you need money, friends and Jesus (to follow God’s Word). This would be applicable to personal lives or business. In business terms the three ideas could be defined as the following:

1. Material provision = economic capital
2. Relationships = social capital
3. Relationship with Jesus = spiritual capital

Putting it to Work

One thing that stood out to me about Mr. Ochs is how he has instituted these concepts in his businesses. In 2006 two of his businesses, Seat King and Eletrex, were struggling to grow their workforce. He sought to grow his workforce in Hutchinson Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Kansas. He wanted to transform it into the best prison in America by having the best inmates. He began the transformation by leading with economic capital and giving the inmates good paying jobs. He cultured social capital by visiting on a monthly basis and greeting every inmate and getting to know them. By doing the first two the spiritual capital doors sprung open. They have gone on to institute a Church-Based Seminary program at the prison as a well as built a church on the premise. Below is a short video of the work being done at the prison.

Steps to Institute It in Your Business

Ochs and his team go through a process with businesses to evaluate and incorporate these principles. They simply begin by going through a few questions:

1. The Why Question – What is the purpose of the business?
2. The Strategy Question – Who am I serving?
3. The Operation Question – How am I serving?
4. The Execution Question – What is my Impact?

The first three questions need to be viewed through the lense of how it translates to economic, social and spiritual capital. How you measure the impact of that capital is different. For economic you measure it by the bottom line. That’s the easiest and best way to measure the output. However, the way Ochs measures both social and spiritual is by the inputs made by the business since the output is harder to quantify.  Examples and things they do across their companies are:

• Bible Studies
• Encouraging people
• Have luncheons
• Vision talks
• Send employees on mission trips
• Love people like you love yourself
• Have the best benefits
• Have chaplains
• Have fun days

They can judge how successful some of the things are by the level of participation but understand that, especially with spiritual, the “output” may take some time to come to fruition.

Takeaway

I think it is an interesting perspective on how to segment, evaluate and use the different “capital” in your life and/or business. I would encourage his book, High Impact LIFE, or to listen to him speak. He shares his wisdom in a practical, humble manner.