Purpose Before Profits

The World Today

In a highly competitive business world and being part of it myself for over a decade, wherever I see, the current model is too focused on making money. Man is this greedy little specie inhabiting the planet doing whatever he can to outdo other to constantly become richer. The last few hundred years has built on an idea of a business whose main purpose is to maximize profits at all costs. Everything else is secondary.

At all costs I say because these establishments grew in strength across the world along with its flawed support systems giving rise to extreme major problems that we are now trying to find solutions for. Don’t you find this insane? We are creating problems through our business ventures and then we are trying to find a solution for it simultaneously only to create more problems. If you glance at social media today we are constantly being faced with various threats of losing the planet, for e.g. the forest fires happening in the Amazon are all over the news, extinction of various species, climate change , inhumane functioning, sense of despair, lack of creativity are all leading to a meaningless existence.

To understand why this is happening, we need to observe that when entrepreneurs began their journey, they began it with one idea they thought was something revolutionary, an invention that would change the world…for better. The young idealist had passion which was their fuel to create the business. A fire in them burning to change something wrong and so they decided to dedicate their lives creating a business model, only to find themselves in the same rat race of keeping profits and money at the centre and the ideology that once was at the forefront at the back seat.

Money is Good, Purpose Is Better

Let’s be clear with one thing, profits are not bad. It is actually needed to keep the engine running, but to focus the entire business on just that one aspect creates an organisation that becomes inversely proportional to everything else that exists in life and in nature. And not just that, many owners who have given their entire life to business with an aim to maximize profits and garner immense wealth find themselves extremely unhappy. The suicide of CCD owner shocked India and a generation of upcoming entrepreneurs and who isn’t aware about feud between the Ambani brothers. Who can truly turn a blind eye to the Modi & Mallaya frauds and innumerable bankruptcies? We are very much aware about the nexus of power, position and money. Human beings are eaten up by the internal conflict that we go through while driving the business for profit at cost of our personal values, passions and ethics. Today this slow decay of the man,business and the world around begins when human virtues of goodness, beauty, justice and truth are being bought& sold.

There is an interesting philosophy that I learn in my weekly classes. We are souls having a complete human experience and to achieve this experience we make use of a tool and that is our human body to fulfill a higher purpose that’s more in line with the truth and the unity we strive to achieve. Keeping this in mind, we come to the conclusion that our body is temporary and just a tool to serve the eternal soul. When we think about inspirational figures like Gandhi or a Buddha, we actually remember their purpose, the ideal, the central idea that they dedicated their lives for and not really their bodies. Similarly, a business without a purpose is like a body without a soul and when i started to think about business being an actual living organism i realized that for it to sustain organically it needs to have a higher purpose. A purpose beyond just making money and calculating figures.

The Fixable Flaws

I believe the major flaws in workings of most businesses today are:

1. The Purpose of the business has shifted from the Ideal, to making money, it is just about the profits. Shares, stock market, dividends, ROI, are the only things we hear about once a business reaches level. And then there is a plateau and its all that remains of it.
2. The term Ethical Business has become a contradiction. The norm followed these days is if you step into the business world, you need to let go of some of the ethics you strictly followed, and maybe tweak them a little, to find your way around and climb the ladder.Every business person initially knows that the way you run a great business is to have great products, good employees, great suppliers and by being good citizens of the country. The centre of the business should be the ideal and to reach the ideal we need Ethics. The term Ethical business is coined today and lauded because its actually rare to find an organisation like that when infact it should be the most natural thing.
   
   
3. And lastly something we can’t really change, Human beings are complex creatures. Believe it or not but we are more than just beings of pure economic self-interest. We need to fuel not only economically, but with a deep passion for something that we completely believe in or else,and i quote youtube speaker here, “Once you start treating them like a simple jackass, they start behaving like one, rooting for the carrot to avoid the stick forgetting why they are even part of the organisation.”

Recently, members of the influential Business Round table (BRT) lobby group, which represents 181 of the US’s biggest companies, are contemplating to put the planet before profits. It is a moment of increasing distress in corporate America, as big companies face mounting global discontent over income inequality, harmful products and poor working conditions.

But all this can be slowly changed with us, a new story can be created, that can revolutionize the world we live in. We can get the purpose right and the profits will follow. We can keep the passion alive that will fuel our creativity and imagination creating better more useful products to engage the world in a harmonious existence.

One of my client is one of India’s leading manufacturers of Rigid Packaging Films (PVC and PET). The owner is personally involved in ocean clean up initiatives and is deeply  touched with the pollution that plastic is creating. While these may seem conflicting, they are now trying to align and define a higher purpose such that most of his manufacturing is based on circular economy using waste plastic that is creating pollution. Also they are gradually evolving their product portfolio so as to focus more on food packing products that help increase the shelf-life of the food with an aim to help reduce food wastage. This is a difficult transition but he has chosen to walk the path.

Another client who is one of the globally reputed service provider for editing, translation and publication support is gradually evolving their business model with a purpose to make the world a better place by promoting science, technology and humanity researches working with researcher and editor community and doing everything that is necessary to strengthen the entire eco-system.

The Real Solutions

We can create value for all the stakeholders and not just shareholders without making trade-offs and ethically, using simple guidelines and steps.

1. First thing that needs to be done is get completely involved with the working of the organisation. We need to head deep down on the grass root level to test our own values and ethics and how those they apply in your organisation specifically. We need to put it at the center at least on the same level of money and profits.
   
   
2. Taking the above point one step further, we need to see “conflict drivers” as I would like to call it, as important for what we do. If you have certain values and ethics at the core and it can’t be challenged, If you have a purpose and someone can’t point it out to you at every step than you aren’t living it…you don’t truly have it. You need these catalysts from time to time, you need people to question you, you need situations to confront you to steer the organisation on the right road constantly.
   
   
3. We need to raise the bar at every level; we need to expect more from our company from our co-workers. This will come if we keep our employees happy. They need to feel a sense of ownership towards an organisation and make it their own. They need to feel part of the workings and believe that they are working for a larger cause.
   
   
4. Let us stop comparing your business workings, the profits, and the management of the organisation with that of anyone else. We need to realise that just like how no 2 people are identical, including twins, similarly organisations are living bodies with their own USPs , own characteristics, own vibe that makes it stand out. It shines at its own time with the right effort in the right direction.
   
   
5. And lastly but most importantly, we need to believe that without the planet, none of us would exist and no business would be born. If the business is not aligned with the laws of nature, and I’ll take it a step further by saying, if it is not profitable to the planet, it will never be profitable mentally emotionally and spiritually to you. Everything is born out nature, everything correlates with this force and if your organisation causes disharmony outside, eventually it will experience the same inside.

If we can do these things i believe we can be the generation that makes business better.

My advice to any entrepreneurs is to ask yourself a few questions before following the rat race and I’ll leave you with these thoughts.

What is the main central purpose of the organisation and is it something higher than just maximizing profits?

Will the lives of the stakeholders who are part of the firm have more meaning?

Will a purposeful business align with the laws of nature?

And most importantly, will it address the thorniest global issues we are currently facing and solve them creating a better future for generations to come?