Wise Business

Business Contains Difficulty

The cornerstones of Buddhist Wisdom are the Four Noble Truths. The original first noble truth is most often interpreted into english to say that life contains suffering or “dukkha”. For the purpose of these writings I am translating “dukkha” as difficulty.

Within the first noble truth includes the statement that business contains difficultly is true. It does not matter whether the company you represent is a Fortune 500 company, venture capital backed start-up, a privately owned small and medium business or you are an individual bringing your skills to the world all businesses have difficulties for three reasons.

First Reason for Difficulty: The Ordinary, Everyday Nature of Existence

Businesses are similar to organic life forms in that they have a beginning, they have a lifespan and they have an ending. Tens of thousands of small businesses are started every year, and tens of thousands cease to exist either through retirement, sale or going bankrupt. It is not uncommon for medium and even large businesses to go out of business or to be acquired and cease to exist under their original name.

Not only do businesses live and die but some get sick and get well, others become media stars only to blow up in a super nova like fashion while others continue to shine. In other words, businesses have lives very much their own. This means that executives, managers and individuals on a daily basis are concerned with the issue of the health of their business as defined by its place in the world, its relationship to other businesses and what that means not only from a corporate perspective but what this means to the executive, manager or individual personally.

Not only are the people involved concerned with their business but all the business’ they buy and sell products and services to and from. In other words, businesses like people exist within a community that is constantly changing.

It is the very rare person indeed, who is completely content with their looks, position in life and wealth. If they are it is fleeting in nature. As we judge ourselves in this manner so we judge our businesses and careers. Add to this the typical fear of the deteriation of a business or career it is relatively easy to feel how the very fact of moving through the world on a day-to-day basis creates difficulty.

I always enjoyed Scott McNealy’s wit. He was one of the co-founders and long-time CEO of Sun Microsystems wit. Below is an applicable case study based on Sun.

Case Study: Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems was one of the first companies to design, build and sell a high-end computing personal workstations. Sun was founded in 1982 and grew to over one billion in annual sales by 1988 . During the early 1990s due to increased competition from IBM, Hewlett-Packard and to some degree more powerful Intel based computers they began to experience slower growth. Concerns around the Sun’s future began to rise.

In 1995, Sun launched the Java programming language and had products that were well suited to the “.com” boom and once again were a hot growth company in the late 90's until the collapse of the bubble in 2001. Once again Sun began struggling to grow revenues and profits and was ultimately acquired by Oracle in January of 2010.

In different eras, the executive team and employees who worked at Sun changed as the company dealt with both its triumphs and tribulations. During it’s life Sun went from being a start-uo, to a high growth company, to a Fortune 500 company and while doing all of this at different times their growth was driven more by hardware and then while still a hardware company for a while software became at least as if not more important.

Company Consciousness

The point being that there is something called a “company consciousness” that is constantly changing, developing and evolving. It is common when discussing an organization to refer to it’s culture. I am purposely introducing the idea of company consciousness as a different concept then company culture. (I will decscribe this in more detail in later posts).

Due to the rapid pace of change in technology there are many excellent examples of dynamic evolutions at many companies including Apple, IBM, Microsoft and Yahoo but these stories are by no means unique to the technology sector.

Implications and Questions

As you read the next paragraph keep in mind that Adam Smith when writing the intellectual foundation of capitalism in the Wealth of Nations used the phrase “enlightened self-interest” not “self-interest” when describing the proper motivations behind capitalist activity.

If we view a single business as an organic life form and inter-related businesses as communities would it make sense to think about “health of a business” and “health of a business community” more deeply then we do today? The Buddha was often referred to as a Doctor. How would the typical business’ operate differently if it was wisely concerned with the holistic health of not only it’s operations but it’s employees and the community (in the broadest sense of the word) that it is a part of?

To ensure you don’t dismiss this as extremely idealistic or naïve I will point to Cullen F. Goenner, Assistant Professor of Econmics at the University of North Dakota who published a detailed paper entitled “Investing in Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For In America” which examined a variety of investing strategies around this list from 1998 to 2005. From the abstract….”The results indicate that portfolios consisting of firms on the list offer higher risk adjusted returns then the S&P 500 over the period 1998 – 2005”. There have been additional studies which reach similar conclusions.

It does not matter whether the higher performance was due to higher productivity or because these companies attract the better performing employees on average, the point is that there are more sophisticated and wiser ways to create long term value then focusing purely on raising quarterly profits by a ruthless focus on increasing productivity and/or lowering costs as is often the case.

Please note that I am not advocating ignoring the importance of profitability which is fundamental to the health of a business and it’s community. What I am advocating is a thoughtful approach as to how to create profitability not only for the business in terms of dollars and cents but how to create a world in which we, our family, our colleagues and friends may do well by doing good. Where doing good is defined as creating long term value for yourself and others.

My next post at http://linkd.in/1lS2LMd explores the joy and pain of goals in business.

Caveats, Disclaimers, Past and Future Posts

If you enjoyed this post please promote this post as well through by liking, sharing, tweeting or forwarding.

This post is the second in a series that looks at how Buddhist Wisdom can be applied to business. To start from the first post go to linkd.in/1qEIoKb. I have also created an an index / table of contents for all the posts at http://linkd.in/V7Yugv.

The writings in these posts represent my personal interpretations and understandings of buddhist wisdom as it applies to business. The responsibility for any errors, misconceptions and/or alternative interpretations of traditional buddhist teachings are completely mine and mine alone.

I hope to post additional thoughts and writings each Tuesday and Thursday but this will vary as life’s circumstances require. Please follow me on LinkedIn to stay in touch. I sincerely appreciate and look forward to reading any posted comments.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post. Stay tuned!