The term ‘business’ often leaves a bad taste on people’s mouths, and for a good reason: it is directly tied to things that are uncomfortable to talk about such as: money, profit, return of investments, key performance metrics, net worth, IPOs… to give a few examples. It’s exhausting. It sounds a lot like shop talk. It sounds a lot like work, you know, the kind we actively avoid thinking about on Friday nights after a full 40-50+ hours of actually living it.
When I think about business, as I have over last the few months, certainly those things come into mind but they aren’t the whole picture. They’re just a part of a bigger system and at the center of that system are humans. It always leads back to humans. You can’t think about business without thinking about humans. It seems pretty straightforward, right? You would think it’s common sense but how often do we forget that in lieu of bigger, sexier macro-subjects such as financial models, market predictions and trends, angel investments etc. We don’t talk about humans enough, and that bothers me.
‘Humans’?
“At its core, all business is about making bets on human behavior” says this feature from The Washington Post. I couldn’t agree more. Before we get pre-occupied by the What, perhaps it will be much more beneficial for us to focus deeper on the Who (customers, users, stakeholders) and the Why (mission, problems to solve, cost opportunities).
What are the opportunity costs of doing this?
What are the opportunity costs of not doing this?
Aside from financial metrics, what are the other things we should measure the success by?
How will the world, or a small part of it, be a lot better with the existence of this product/service/company?
Who will this serve the most?
Who are the stakeholders and how will this venture significantly increase their values and worth over time? Enough to make it worth it. Enough to make it worth everybody’s time. Enough to make it worth the sacrifices critical of any venture worth growing.
It isn’t enough to just say, ‘I want to make money.’ or that ‘I’d like to gain enough padding on my net worth so I can retire young and travel for the rest of my life.’ . This kind of thinking is everything that is wrong with modern society, and it is hurtful in the long run. I’m not telling you to avoid being one of those people. Please, by all means, you are free to do whatever you want especially in this free market.
I just don’t think this kind of thinking can thrive in the next few decades where we will most definitely witness a big shift in the way we do things. No-one can predict the future, not even the experts. But we can be better at discerning the present to look for evidences of what it’s going to become. The future doesn’t just happen. It is happening and if you pay attention enough to the present, you can see glimpses of it. Some are great, some are just downright catastrophic, depending on where you look.
One thing we can be sure of, if history ever taught us anything, it is this: short-term thinking never works in the long run, in business thinking as well as, well, life. If we know that enough to be true, why, then, are we wasting so much time on the shallow parts of this widely divisive topic?
We should hold ourselves more accountable to producing things that are more than just money-making ventures. Our personal decisions everyday should follow suit as well. Beyond the minimum objective of profits, we should, instead, start factoring the following as well:
Personal pride. Are we proud of this?
Societal contribution. Does this product/service/business contribute to the greater society? or otherwise.
Environmental implications. What is the carbon footprint of this whole operation? And how can we work towards reducing it as soon as possible without throwing our entire profit under the bus? Make no mistake, this is an tremendously challenging problem.
Mental health. Even if this is a hard job, are we doing right by our people? If not, then how can we make this whole process a lot better for everyone who’s making sacrifices?
Complexity and gravity of problems solved. What kinds of problems do we choose to solve every day? And who benefits from those solutions other than the most immediate stakeholders?
Sustainability issues. How can we build and scale this in a way that is ethical?
Generational legacy. How can we inspire the next generation to continue the mission? How can we learn from them, and them from us? How can we build something that is bigger than ourselves and pass the message forward?
I imagine there’s a dozen more factors to think about here. This is probably just the tip of an extremely complicated iceberg that comes with thoughts like ‘progress’, ‘civilization’, ‘history’. I’m reminded of how hard it is to really build small and big things that matter. For what it’s worth, self-studying this gives me more and more hope for humans. No matter how terribly hard the problems are, a few of us always rise up to the occasion and actually fight for a better world.
And everyday, with the rise of startups, creative entrepreneurs, scientists and engineers, medical professionals, I am reminded that despite everything that is particularly bad in the present, there are heroes who are carving a much better future for all of us.
Against all odds.
Against all the million possibilities of it going wrong.
Against everything.
It is hard not to root for those people.
This is the kind of ‘business’ thinking I can get behind on.
Thank you for reading,
Nikki
This post is inspired by the following pieces of gems in the internet. Without whom, I would be far less optimistic about the future:
Seth Godin’s Akimbo Episode ‘Turning the ratchet’
‘Why business thinking for designers matter more than ever’ by InVision’s Design Better Podcast
What is systems design? by Melanie Bell-Mayeda on the Creative Confidence Podcast
Inventing the future by Josh Wolfe on the Knowledge Project
“I always turn my turret of attention to this very sophisticated two-word question, “What sucks?” And it’s amazing in the same way that big investors often don’t ask, “Does it work?” about technology, you just turn to something, and you look around, almost everything that we use—everything that was invented—started with somebody saying, “Huh, that sucks. You know, that could be better.” — Josh Wolfe
I am a designer by craft and profession. Therefore, I am, in no way, an expert in this subject, at least not in the traditional sense. I’m learning and if I haven’t expressed this enough, I do so by writing. Please, if you have any feedback, comments, thoughts on this piece, you are welcome to email me: nikkiespartinez@gmail.com. I really do appreciate messages from my readers.
If you liked this topic, you might like these previous pieces, #22: Our North Star, and #20: Design + Courage + Uncertainties. All future-focused. All present-oriented. Thank you again for reading working title.