Reading an article about Patagonia’s and other’s strategies, I was struck by the sentence, “How do we make people better off by working with us?” It’s a fundamental question that has so many applications:
- Our customers?
- Our employees?
- Our suppliers?
- Our shareholders?
- Our communities?
Usually, when we think about thing, we focus on our return, we answer the question, “How do we make things better for ourselves?” As sales people, we focus on our goals, quotas, and commissions. The customer is only a vehicle for achieving those. As leaders, too often, we focus on ourselves and our own goals. Again, our people become vehicles for achieving those–and if they don’t we find others to do so.
