I love business. And it transcends setbacks. I’ve had my wins. I’ve had my losses. And I can certainly say I’ve had my thrashings. Nonetheless, I love business.
To me, business isn’t about greed or even making money. Business is the process whereby we exchange value for value. It’s that simple. It’s the process whereby we focus on what we have of value that we can either create or distribute in exchange for somebody who is willing to pay for that value.
Why is it so fascinating to me?
It is a creative process which requires you to be fully engaged….in the moment…all the time!
It requires you to think about the value proposition you are offering. It’s not that you can’t offer a value proposition for a limited period of time and get fees and make money out of it; however, your life will be about bumping from one temporary value proposition to another with no lasting value proposition to anybody, including yourself. Business is about creating a value proposition that is a value to a group of people for a respectable period of time—and possibly lasting far longer than you.
Business is about human interaction. There is no business that can operate intelligently, at least for any length of time, unless it has intelligent systems in place to deal with the human relationships involved. That’s not an HR function. HR should simply codify what is real in the organization. It’s really the reality of an organization that creates a culture for itself and for everybody around them.
How I react to different circumstances and different events teaches me about myself and allows me to learn and grow in the process.
Business allows you to create independent sovereignty. I view a business and the decision makers behind that business as sovereigns in their own territory. They have rights and responsibilities. Their employees are citizens, they’re salespeople or ambassadors, their materials are imports and their products and services exports. Within that sovereignty, each of us has the opportunity to be sovereigns in our own land controlling our own destiny and inspiring our own landscape.
There are a lot more reasons, but the bottom line is that I simply love business.
Original writing date: February 25, 2008