Growing People

In my mind, the primary purpose and goal of any business is growing people.It is a radical view; when I ask most leaders why they are doing business of course, one of the first reasons to come up is to make money; to this I say “of course, but why?”.  Many of the leaders I work with are beyond the economic threshold for happiness and security, so this is an interesting question, a personal one that deserves to be explored.The next answer is usually, to serve the stockholders, or to serve the customers; this is all well and good, but it continues to ignore the people who are doing the serving.Which brings us back to the people who are most directly involved in the process, and often the most overlooked.  In all the other reasons for doing business, money, stockholders, and customers, the people doing the work are overlooked.  Often they are stressed, depressed, haggard, uninspired…What if we radically changed our view and said that the reason to do business was to serve the people in the company?  What if the whole idea of business was to serve the well-being and happiness of the people doing the work? (Impossible?)  What if we went even further and said that this business was entirely devoted to the success of everyone who worked for it?  What if we said that our whole focus as a business was to grow people?Many people would think that kind of business would have to fail, that it would not be profitable, that the owner(s) would suffer economically.What kind of employees would that type of business attract?  Retain?How do employees who are inspired to succeed perform?  Contribute?As an owner of that kind of company, how would you feel about it?  About yourself?This kind of company is possible and will be the company of the very near future. Companies who do not become magnets for talent and success will struggle while companies that devote themselves to developing culture, that encourage success, contribution, happiness and well-being will thrive.  The future looks bright.