One can understand the role of 'selflessness' in business, when one
understands the true meaning of business. If you will recall Maslow's
hierarchy for a moment... Maslow believed that you could not grow toward
self-actualization unless you had first met the 'lower-order' survival
needs, belonging needs, etc. All these lower-order problems have to be
solved before one can move up the human development ladder to solve
greater problems, until finally self-actualization is achieved. The true
meaning of business, is to help people develop. When a company solves a
lower-order need of people in society, then true value is created.
Everyday businesses such as the telephone company, the grocer, Fedex, etc.
contribute to the advancement of mankind through their mundane labor. By
selflessly solving the lower-order problems of people, businesses fulfill
a spiritual role. The profits of a well-managed business serve two
purposes: 1) reward by society to continue to fulfill the business' role,
as well as expanding to solve other problems. 2) a measure of the real
impact the company is having.
Yes it's true that there a selfish people running companies, but my hunch
is that the businesses don't do so well in the long run, and certainly
don't compare to the real giving companies. The beauty of the system, is
that even in their selfish pursuit of profits only, they still are solving
problems at some level.
Finally, if you understand that at some level, we are all interconnected,
then selflessness ultimately benefits the giving individual as well. Thus
a fine line between selfishness and selflessness exists.
Shaun
Shaun.gilley@fanb.com
--Shaun Gilly <shaun.gilley@fanb.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>