The End Is Near!!!

Ok, so first of all, thanks to all you dilegent blogwatchers for putting up with my lack of blogging here lately, but as many of you know, fighting the good fight and recording the fighting of the good fight are two different things. I have made a promise to post shorter blogs more often. And now I wil break that promise. Thanks for playing along!

Now that I am back, here is the big thought that's been kicking around my head for a while. What is business for? This seems like a rhetorical question, but I'm serious. What is the purpose of a business? No doubt everyone reading this will say it's for the sake of profit. What else could it be for, right? You want more money, therefore something must be made, done, or sold. Then one asks, "Can I do it myself? Do I want to? Is this the kind of thing robots or oxen can do for me?" When the answer comes back as "No", then the next step is clear. We need some people to do or make this stuff so that we can get some more money! Of course this is simplistic. We will need some people to sell us what we need to do or make this stuff and then some more people to buy this stuff. People are a means to work and work is a means to the end, which is profit. I know what your thinking- "This guy is brilliant!! When does his book come out?" But wait, there's more. This is what I unoriginally call the "The Capitalist Model" or the "Profit Model" of business. "There are others?" "Besides communism?" Yes there are.

Next, there is "The I Just Want This Really Cool Thing To Happen Model". My company currently operates within this model. It is the realm of indie record labels, small clothing lines, and...well...very small coffee companies convinced that coffeehouses on every corner with properly pulled espresso shots could save the world. In this model both profit and people exist for the sake of the work, which is viewed something like a mission, quest, or really cool thing that someone wants to see be and not not be. Most companies worth loving at least start like this and are usually bootstrapped by visionary founders with an overly inflated sense of self importance. Some even give their nickname to the company, start webpages, and then write long. rambling, grammatically suspect, pedantic, and sarcasticly tongue in cheek blog entries. I am rooting for these companies, but I think there is a more radical step along these lines.

So, we have the first model which goes

people > work > profit

and the second model which is something like

people > profit > work
or
people + profit > work

Now, I was reading "Love and Responsiblility" by Karol Wojtyla, also know as Pope John Paul II, and he threw out an earth shattering idea. He says, " ...a person must not be merely a means to an end for another person." Ok, with the "merely" it is a little less earth shattering, but what he has in mind is not just the preclusion of slavery or sweatshops here. These people involved are real thinking, feeling, longing, self experiencing subjects, not just things needed to make something happen, be that money or a cause. They, given the dignity of the human person, are worthy to be ends not means. Is this really the concern of business? Isn't this more the responsibility of religion? hhmmmmmmmm?

What if, and all really monumentally cool things start with "what if", there was another way. What if we took the spirit of the second model and make the people the big cool thing we want to see succeed. What if we had a model where we truly desired the real good for all human persons effected and affected by our businesses? Is this possible? Aristotle showed us that happiness in an active life is in doing, so giving your employees something to do is exactly what you would do if you wanted the good for them. Your suppliers want to sell to you, but are you promoting the right suppliers by buying from them? Do you care about their businesses at all? Is your product or service something good for your customers in the real sense of the word "good"? Would you tell your family and friends to pay full price for the product or service you spend your life on if you did something else?

What would this model look like? The end would be the true, real good of everyone involved, especially your employees. So, you would say, "We want the good for these people, therefore, we need to give them something to do." Hence, work and activity enters the picture. Then you would look around and see that no one involved had billions of dollars. At this point you would have a Eureka! moment and realize you will have to make a profit doing or making during this activity or it will cease to exist. Therefore the model looks like:

profit > work > people

Is this a pipe dream? Could there be a self sufficient community of persons, sharing a common doing or making for the sake of the true and real good of all involved? I say there have been hundreds, maybe thousands of them over the years. They are called monastaries! "What? You mean...monks?" Yes, monks. These communities have not only often been self supporting, but have profited, grown and franchised, spreading all over the known world. So I call this model "The Monastic Model" of small business. There will of course be limits on what doing or making will fit this model and not everyone will be fit to run or participate in this type of business, but what's to stop us.

In the first model the business makes money. In the second it makes records, clothes, or yummy artisan roasted small batch coffees available online or in a coffeehouse near you. The thing made by the third is people, friendships, and other businesses like this. There are many questions about how this could be, so stay tuned as we look at what this could mean for employees, customers, suppliers, and the community. Same coffeeboy time. Same coffeeboy channel.