Workday’s Aneel Bhusri on “The Inflection Point”: Business Needs to Have a Soul

Quick Take: Aneel Bhusri, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Workday, joined “The Inflection Point,” hosted by Monica Langley, EVP, Salesforce. The two discussed the impact of culture, optimism, and why businesses need to have a soul.

What’s the impact?: Stakeholder Capitalism is a hot topic in today’s corporate conversations and Bhusri knows that it takes more than just strategy and profits to succeed.  The right culture and a positive mindset can bring out the “soul” of your company — if you want to have a positive impact on your employees, customers and community. 

What he’s saying:

“There’s no way to start a company without optimism. Winston Churchill had a great quote during World War II: ‘I choose to be an optimist because, basically, the other choice is not very good.’’’

“If you have the right culture, people get together, they have an open mind, they put all their thoughts forward and you can collectively come up with the right strategy.”

“Very importantly, we want to take care of the community, and I think that that last piece is a big part of stakeholder capitalism.  And that last piece is where you need a soul.”

Learn More: To see the full interview with Aneel Bhusri, watch the latest episode of “The Inflection Point” here.