The companies I was looking for all operated on what you might call human scale, that is, a size at which it’s still possible for an individual to be acquainted with everyone else in the organization, still possible for the CEO to meet with new hires, still possible for employees to feel closely connected to the rest of the company.

They’d learned, moreover, that to excel in all those things, they had to keep ownership and control inside the company and, in many cases, place significant limits on how much and how fast they grew. The wealth they created, though substantial, was a byproduct of success in these other areas.

The shareholders who owned the businesses I was looking at had other, nonfinancial priorities in addition to their financial objectives. Not that they didn’t want to earn a good return on their investment, but it wasn’t their only goal, or even necessarily their paramount goal. They were also interested in being great at what they did, creating a

level of customer service so natural, so warm, and so apparently effortless that patrons didn’t experience it as service at all, but rather as the kind of hospitality they might receive if they were guests in the home of a person whom they perhaps didn’t know very well but who clearly felt honored by their presence. Meyer called it “enlightened

Whatever their particular ownership structure, all of the companies guarded their equity zealously to make sure it remained in the hands of people committed to the same goals.

Success means you’re going to have better problems. I’m very happy with the problems I have now.”

“To me, a good client is a good corporate citizen, honest and good to the community,”

to customers, having great relationships with their suppliers, making great contributions to the communities they lived and worked in, and finding great ways to lead their lives.

“For me, it was important to be part of something great and unique.