The Curious Capitalist – Grand Canyon University (Conscious Capitalism Arizona)

Claire: Welcome to the latest installment of The Curious Capitalist. Brought to you by the Conscious Business Collaborative Board in Connecticut. The Curious Capitalist is a series of podcasts where we take the opportunity to speak with a wide range of guests, including board members, business owners, and startups.

Claire: Our purpose is to engage, educate, and inspire business leaders. At all stages in their careers to think and work more collaboratively and sustainably. Please subscribe to this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from. Welcome along to the latest episode of the curious capitalist brought to you by the conscious business collaborative or the CBC.

Amanda: Thank you so much, Claire. It is a pleasure to be here with both of you, but especially you, Dr. Gibb. As you know, I’m a GCU alumni myself, and it’s full circle for me to be joining this conversation with you. I do understand that you lead the College of Business at Grand Canyon University, and the questions we’re going to go through today are Around the work that you all are doing at Grand Canyon University.

Amanda: So let’s start by if you could provide an overview of your personal philosophy on conscious capitalism and how it has influenced your approach to business and leadership. Well, thank

Dr Randy Gibb: I’m now the provost. We’ve hired John Katis to take over as Dean of the College of Business. And then Allison Mason is the senior associate dean. So the two of them are now leading the college, but certainly in my new role, I’m still all in to what we’ve started in the college of business. And even more so as, as the provost, I feel like we can even influence more and.

Dr Randy Gibb: Further promote the principles of the free market system and conscious capitalism, you know, around higher purpose, stakeholder orientation, developing a conscious culture. And of course, conscious leadership that we’ve kind of put our own spin on it and call it servant leadership, which many people are familiar with.

Dr Randy Gibb: That’s what business can do. And so we’re really excited to share some of our thoughts and our journey here at Grand Canyon.

Amanda: I love that and I truly resonate with the servant leadership aspect and how that brings it all together. I’ve told you before that, you know, GCU inspired me to really recognize and appreciate the servant leadership qualities that I have.

Dr Randy Gibb: That would be more so on. The serving leadership aspect, right, is, is being humble, understanding your role as a steward, that an organization has been around long before me, it’ll be around long after me. It’s just my time. I’m charged to serve others and, and be a good steward, look under rocks, try and solve problem, create a culture of.

Dr Randy Gibb: Of healing another kind of conscious capitalism phrase that a book out of Raja Sodhi. I just love what he, his approach and his way to just articulate because people can be blessed within the organization they work as well as having this higher purpose serving others. But if we can all become the best versions of ourself by working for an organization, So let’s say that, you know, the three of us can become better by working together also as we serve others.

Dr Randy Gibb: Our president of the university, President Brian Mueller, talks about conscious capitalism. So we have leadership from the top supporting the principles of free markets. We’re constantly trying to solve gaps. For society help adult learners, the 18 to 24-year-old, younger adult learner. So that is our approach in everything that we do.

Dr Randy Gibb: We’re going to generate the revenue, have our students learn how to run a hotel, learn hospitality management, and then we’re going to keep that revenue here at the university. And that’s one of many ways we’ve been entrepreneurial to not raise tuition in 16 years. Awesome. That’s incredible. I

Claire: was

Amanda: just about to say, what a great example of driving business as a force for good.

Amanda: Like that is the, that is the perfect example. So thank you for sharing. And I know you brought up Raj Sasodhi as well. I’m also a huge fan. I know you. We know a lot of, uh, key influencers. You, you and I have talked about, you know, the Ted talk from Rick Warren emphasizing on one’s gifts to make the world a better place.

Amanda: How do you see the principles of conscious capitalism aligning with this concept?

Dr Randy Gibb: So we’re blessed to be here and have this access to business leaders and jobs, internships, hiring pathways for our students. You know, I challenged them to say, you have to live out your values as a company. If you want to hire these amazing young men and women, you, they’re looking for companies with value alignment.

Dr Randy Gibb: They’re looking for companies that just don’t have a slogan on the wall. They’re living that out. So if you talk about community service, a good portion of this stakeholder orientation, stakeholder alignment is if, if you’re supporting this cause that. It’s your mission. Then by God, let’s make sure we’re doing that.

Dr Randy Gibb: pay it forward in a sense to society.

Amanda: Absolutely. And you know, I, I think that that is a great segue to actually into. Understanding a little bit more about the educational piece that GCU plays here within conscious capitalism. We’ve talked a lot about Raj Tassodia and other leaders and, and to your point, you know, the developments you all have had, but I’m curious even more to dig into the challenges.

Amanda: So what challenges have you encountered in championing conscious capitalism within the academic and business environments and how have you overcome them? Right.

Dr Randy Gibb: Great question because I’ve been speaking with a number of educators and a number of business people. Again, we’re lucky and blessed because our president, Mr.

Dr Randy Gibb: No, you want to solve a problem. You want to provide a good, a service, a product for society. And the better you do that. The more money you will make. And then as an entrepreneur, it’s your decision how to reinvest that money. And we trust our entrepreneurs to write who took the risk. And if they want to invest more in their, their product, they can, if they want to, you know, the R and D aspect, well, they also might have a personal passion and an interest to serve society.

Dr Randy Gibb: And then we, we meet in the middle. So we have organic support of our faculty and this whole university wants to wrap their arms around this kind of approach to education. We’re even trying to integrate free market principles in every college across the university. So an engineer just doesn’t be creative.

Dr Randy Gibb: An engineer should solve a problem and use their creativity. And then how would, you know, we have a great pre med programs. We have 26, 000 students here on our campus in Phoenix, Arizona at the undergrad level. And so we want to make sure that a A pre med major, a pre vet, a pre health, a pre dentist has some business principles so that when they start their practice, they can lead a successful practice.

Dr Randy Gibb: And then more recently we had Bob Chapman come and talk about everybody matters and culture of caring and the, the privilege of leading somebody else, leading people on your team. And so that goes back to the. Healing organization, love and care for the people that you’re in charged and responsible for as leaders.

Dr Randy Gibb: It’s a phenomenal business case study. And so as educators, that’s what we’d like to have more of are these business case studies to bring it to life, to students. No, I

Amanda: love, I absolutely love your passion for what you do. And, you know, I think it speaks volumes when you have so many different stakeholders that are on board and involved and want to collaborate with you to make this happen, right?

Amanda: Because that is how we serve the greater good, essentially. And, you know, you brought up Nathan Havey. I. I have to, you know, ask because I listened to that podcast, the 10 things you should know about stakeholder capitalism podcasts with him and Amanda Roman specifically regarding bags fly free Southwest.

Dr Randy Gibb: there’s 10 different series. They’re like 22 minutes each. They’re very well produced. It’s just that’s right about a time on a podcast. Hopefully we stay that right time on this podcast. But yeah, Blake’s bags fly free is one because everyone’s familiar with Southwest Airlines and that’s their whole campaign.

Dr Randy Gibb: And they were told you’ll make more money if you charge for bags. That’s what the whole industry is doing. And Southwest stayed true to their stakeholder orientation and they’re like, no, let’s do it. Treat our customers this way, our flyers, and over time we’ll gain more that way than by charging them and it panned out.

Dr Randy Gibb: So, you know, sticking to the principles of their stakeholders, plus the, you know, they did their own data assessments and push back on what the trend was. And so it’s just, it’s just a great story of using those principles of conscious

Amanda: capitalism. Yes. That’s great. Great story. And I know one faculty.

Amanda: Tell us the ways you’re promoting the free market system within GCU and its impact on future plans for Students, faculty, and the wider community.

Dr Randy Gibb: Yeah, it just goes back to, I think, kind of what I was alluded to before that we need to solve where are the gaps. What are the gaps in society that we can help?

Dr Randy Gibb: We could say, this is who we are. If you like it, come to our campus. Well, that’s not what today is. It’s a multimodality world. We need to meet. There’s more adult learners trying to get their college degree than there are. Lovable 18 year olds out of high school. We have an enrollment cliff happening of, you know, fewer people were born 18 years ago.

Dr Randy Gibb: So that means fewer will go to college and sadly fewer graduating high school want to go to college. So, you know, this trend is only going to more so be highlighted with more adult learners. Well, adult learners have a family, have a job. So how can we fit education around them? So the thinking is how do we solve problems for other people and meet them where they’re at?

Dr Randy Gibb: We, we, we help the local golf course. And so now it’s not a city led golf course. It’s people who work at the golf course. are now part of the university. So they have educational benefits for their children to come with free education at the university. We have a five point plan where we pour into our neighborhoods, Habitat for Humanity.

Dr Randy Gibb: We started a K 12 tutoring system. So we’re focused on the university, but our stakeholder orientation is to our immediate neighborhoods. So rising all boats with, with our efforts with high tide kind of

Claire: concepts. I love the examples you give. You’re doing it. and delivering it on campus with these students and changing the world.

Claire: I love it. I absolutely love hearing it. It’s inspiring.

Dr Randy Gibb: And so we’re very action oriented in that sense.

Amanda: Love that. Love that. I also love the, the community part of it, right? Like outside of just the school, the students, right? The faculty it’s, it’s about the community. And then that is where you’re making a huge difference when you reach a broader audience and your local community, I’m sure feel that from you all.

Amanda: You want to touch on regarding the free markets and your future plans and visions that, you know, maybe we haven’t covered just yet.

Dr Randy Gibb: Well, I want to make sure if we have listeners, I want to make sure they, they understand your reference because it’s, it’s a four minute video by Hans Rosling, who sadly the world lost an amazing.

Dr Randy Gibb: Human being when he passed away, but it’s, it’s four minutes of healthy and wealthy. And he goes through 200 years of history and it’s just using data and visualization to show how free markets, international trade cooperation can help. You know, increase the standard of living and then people can live longer, healthier, happier lives.

Dr Randy Gibb: It’s the issue is not an unequal distribution of wealth in our world. It’s an unequal distribution of economic freedom. And the principles of economic freedom are around rule of law. You know, I have the right to start a business and fail. That’s an amazing right. And that’s what we want to keep in terms of free market.

Dr Randy Gibb: Principles is this whole ideals of entrepreneurship. Let’s give it a go and let’s not make it so difficult to start a business. Let’s get out of a entrepreneur’s way. And they need to follow rules, process regulation, of course, but let’s not make it so burdensome that, that young, or it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry.

Dr Randy Gibb: You know what, what happened to the Blackberry, right? They dominated the market, then they lost the market. So that’s, that’s what I love. And that’s what we promote here is free markets and competitions.

Amanda: So as we wrap up here, you’ve given us a lot of great nuggets to work with, but you know, I want to make sure we, we have. At least a few key takeaways that you believe the audience should consider after hearing today’s podcast session. I

Dr Randy Gibb: would encourage business owners, founders, CEOs, anybody in business to reach out to your local high school or university college, you know, wherever on the K 12 higher ed spectrum.

Dr Randy Gibb: And if you could, Get on campus and just share your business case study story of what you’ve learned. And when it comes round to what is the purpose of your company, that, you know, making money is not a bad thing. There’s no charity without prosperity. All the nonprofits in the world that we love fundraise.

Dr Randy Gibb: What, what a great thing. And so go for it. You’ve earned that rate, right? Because you’ve generated that abundance. So just get involved. I mean, we’ll never turn anybody away who wants to come into a classroom and share their, their challenges, their story, their business, professional story, their business model, what worked, what didn’t work.

Dr Randy Gibb: If you don’t want to read the book, Do that. You already mentioned the podcast by Nathan Haby, Beyond Zero. There’s great content out there to integrate at the high school level or the university level to continue the story that, that, yeah, business solves problems for the world. We need our government, but business helps in such a significant way, the creativity, the innovation, and that, right, that the line is business can be a force for good.

Dr Randy Gibb: And that’s, I think that’s what we’re all about here.

Amanda: Now you have some key takeaways and a call to action for how you can serve your, whether it’s at a university, at your community, at your employer, you know, earlier in our conversation, I told you GCU has inspired me myself, right. After getting my master’s and, and leadership with you all. And. Ever since I’ve been on a variety of professional and philanthropic endeavors that are in line with servant leadership and the work that you all are doing at GCU.

Amanda: I think a great example of that outside of, you know, Conscious Capitalism Arizona is I serve as the Director of Strategic Partnerships for Jopwell, where we’re advancing careers for Black, Latinx, Native American students and professionals. So we have all, all underrepresented communities that need support too.

Amanda: I know you and I will connect more after, but. This has been a great session and, and Claire, thank you for your support as well, and helping us put this together. I wish you both nothing but the best and look forward to seeing more action from GCU and in the coming year.

Dr Randy Gibb: Yeah. Well, thank you. And thanks for hosting and Claire.

Dr Randy Gibb: Great to meet you. Appreciate what you do.

Claire: Well, an absolute inspiration. Truly. Thank you so much. And thank you for, uh. Not having a think tank, but a do it tank. That for me is my takeaway above all else. Do it incredible conversation. Thank you so, so much for your time today and being a part of the curious capitalist.

Amanda: My pleasure. Thank you.

Claire: This podcast was created and produced by Red Rock Branding, redrockbranding.com