The Heart of Business

Regrettably, for the majority of businesses today, “What’s the point” is a question which has been largely ignored, its answer assumed.  Most businesses today do not have a transcendent point to their existence nor do they have a higher purpose to their efforts.  The point and purpose of most companies is in fact very ordinary – increased profits. 

The effect of ‘increased profit’ as the purpose for the overwhelming majority of modern business is far reaching.  The point and purpose of a business is also the motivation of every work day.  In the eyes of the company it is necessarily the point and purpose of every employee’s existence.  The stark deduction is that when ‘increased profit’ is the purpose of a company, it is also that company’s point and purpose for the hiring and care of its employees. 

‘Increased profit’ becomes the unfortunate point of each employee and customer relationship.  With profit as the central purpose of that relationship, authentic care within that relationship is impossible.  The employee or customer is a tool used to achieve an objective and in such a dynamic it is always the object instead of the tool that is valued and cared for.

We are reminded of C.S. Lewis’ striking allegory from The Four Loves:

“We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he "wants a woman." Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes).”

Although graphic, Lewis’ classic quip is nonetheless a remarkably accurate parallel to the modern day workplace.  For many companies it is neither an employee nor a customer that the company wants.  In fact, the headaches, costs, and liability they associate with them, make both the employee and the customer exactly what the company does not want.  As the popular one-liner goes, “This would be a great business if it weren’t for the customers.”  These companies want more profit. The employee and customer alike are no more than the “necessary piece of apparatus” required to achieve the company’s desire.