A Job Description for the Business Owner

Microsoft: “to enable people and businesses throughout the world to realize their full potential.”

McDonald’s: “providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.”

It might seem a little strange for people to start businesses if they benefit not just the founders but other people as well. Of course, we all have personal goals in life, things we try to achieve. It can be creative expression, achieving personal comfort, or establishing high living standards for one’s family. No matter what your job is, personal goals are equally relevant to a middle manager and to a business owner. One may be dreaming about a sports car, while the other may dream about professional acknowledgment or glory. As a rule the more a person has suffered defeat in the struggle to achieve his goals, the less his desire to achieve goals, and the fewer his personal goals.

When a business owner creates a main goal that does not go beyond his company, but stays “inside,” the company will not be able to expand and overcome obstacles. It is like trying to climb a mountain while having a goal of chatting with friends, or trying to lead an army while having a goal of looking good in a uniform. Of course, this is as silly as it sounds. That is the reason why a main goal “to become number one” inspires only an employee who has self-identification issues, for it is vitally important to such an individual to stand out from the crowd, and being an employee of a number-one company is a way of achieving this. But what does this have to do with the main goal of the group? Such a goal would be boring to people with high self-esteem who want to achieve big goals. It doesn't mean that “becoming number one” is a bad goal; it just cannot be the main goal. It is a good mid-level goal on the way to achieving something more. It is impossible to expand your influence without breaking out of your shell, working only in perfect comfort and coziness inside. I will discuss mid-level goals at greater length in chapter 12.

The main goal is relatively simple, as truth is simple. Fools are fools only because they cannot accept the truth as it is. Therefore, to perceive something closer to the truth, such people need to add some form of complexity. Only then will they look at the complexity, wrinkle their brows, and discuss it. For example, when somebody says that his personal goal is, “to increase people’s abilities,” others might ask, “What for? What is the sense?” The silliness of these questions is that the goal, on its own, is the basis for the sense. There is no clearer sense than this for the basis of the goal. What is the sense in climbing mountains, or what is the sense of competing in a contest, other than reaching the summit or triumphing in competition? Do not look for any clearer sense to a main goal than the intention to achieve that goal.

This is what the Grundfos Corporation says about their main goal: “It is our mission—the basis of our existence—to successfully develop, produce and sell high-quality pumps and pumping systems world-wide, contributing to a better quality of life and a healthy environment.” Do you see? The company aspires to achieve its main goal of “contributing to a better quality of life and a healthy environment” while producing pumps. Certainly if the water-supply and sewage-removal systems in your house work well, then the quality of your life is better. Why, exactly, is Grundfos’s goal worded as it is? Simply because this idea came to the company founder’s mind and he had the authority to make it so. There is no other reason. Why does Apple declare that its goal is “to make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind.”? Because Steve Jobs decided so. Why does McDonald’s say its goal is “to make every customer in every restaurant smile”? Because Ray Kroc decided so. These main goals are not necessarily unique. Without working hard to achieve them, they would never be a key to a successful company. These goals create long-term meaning for such companies and provide clarity about what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong.

A company's main goal does not need to be absolutely unique. Its purpose is usually more distinctive. Just like Grundfos strives to improve the quality of peoples’ lives, thousands of other companies and organizations seek to achieve a similar goal. This, on its own, does not weaken a company’s employees’ aspirations to reach that goal. While Visotsky Consulting helps to turn businesses around by implementing management tools targeted to improve a company's management culture and enhance its effectiveness, thousands of other consulting and business-training companies seek to achieve this same goal. However, a company’s purpose is always individual.

The Purpose

The second part of a mission statement is to define the company's purpose. Every strong company has its own individual operating style, which determines the actions of that company. For example, Apple’s purpose is to develop both software and hardware to achieve ideal compatibility with one another. Unlike Microsoft’s operating system, Apple’s OS and certain applications were designed to work only on Apple hardware. Apple was a total and self-contained package. In 1995, before Steve Jobs returned to the company, Apple’s management decided to change this purpose and sold the license to manufacture Apple-compatible computers (using Apple’s OS) to a few companies, most notably to Motorola and Power Computing. Apple then had to suffer the consequences. Abolition of third-party manufacturer licensing was one of the first things Jobs did upon his return to the company. If the main goal determines the general orientation of the company’s operations, the purpose determines a specific, particular way of operating that the group is trying to achieve. It may sound complicated, but in essence, it is very simple.

Let’s look again at the Grundfos mission statement. Its first part, “to successfully develop, produce, and sell high-quality pumps and pumping systems worldwide”, is actually a pretty clear purpose statement. It is how they are going about fulfilling the main goal of “contributing to a better quality of life and a healthy environment.” By the way, Apple has another purpose, which Steve Jobs always carried out well: The products have to be aesthetically pleasing. In fact, the design is even more important than the technical elements in manufacturing. The design of every aspect of the visible and user-function controls and ports was just as important as the technology operating inside. If Apple remains loyal to this purpose, it will never manufacture cheap products, as the low cost of such products is achieved by improving the internal technological process at the expense of slick design and user-friendly interfaces. As for McDonald’s, the main part of their purpose is cleanliness, a limited number of items on the menu, and fast service. By stating its purpose, the company’s owner predetermines what the company is going to be like. For example, Visotsky Consulting’s purpose is consulting with business owners and leading them through the difficulties of implementing essential management tools. Our purpose is embodied in our core product, the Business Owners Program. We do not do anything else.

It is important to focus on defining the organization’s purpose, as this is what will lead the group to fulfilling its main goal. If a small company has too broad a purpose, it will just waste its resources. If instead the purpose is more narrowly defined, the company will concentrate its resources toward its main goal. Take, for example, a furniture manufacturer that defines as its main goal “creating comfort in life,” and its purpose as “to design, manufacture, and sell modern, well-designed furniture made available to a wide range of customers.” The intent is very well defined. Clearly, the manufacturer will not produce luxury furniture and will not use high-grade natural wood. A well-defined purpose determines which market a company will serve, who its customers will be, its distribution process, and which resources and equipment it will use.

In 2003, my business partner and I formulated one of the purposes of the Geroldmaster Company—namely, “to produce medals that perfectly match their designers’ creative ideas while prioritizing quality over the manufacturing process.” It may seem a strange purpose for a manufacturing company, but that is how it was stated at the outset. The fact is, the company started with just a small office specializing in medal design. It was founded by designers who had a pretty good but, as it later turned out, na?ve idea. They saw the medals that Ukraine received from the USSR and decided to design more inspiring ones. The underlying idea was “to design and fulfill manufacturing orders using already existing facilities,” but the idea contained the above-mentioned purpose. When the first orders of Jubilee Awards for the State Corporation for the Production of Armaments and the Emeritus Employee of the Tax Service medals were designed and manufactured, two things became clear. First, the existing manufacturing facilities could only produce products at the prior level of quality, rather than improved, value-added quality. Second, these manufacturing facilities could only produce the products they had been producing for years, since the idea of making the processes faster and cheaper had been the most important standards to follow. It was impossible to implement Geroldmaster’s purpose with this approach. That was the reason that, over time, the design office eventually turned into a manufacturing facility with a unique production cycle of models and molds for manufacturing medals. The unique part was that when the customer approved a medal design, special software allowed all of the geometrically correct elements of the medal to be modeled, directly based on the approved design. If the medal contained a wreath, figures, or any reliefs, their prototypes were hand-sculpted first. Next, a 3-D scan was performed, the model was finished on the computer, and special equipment transferred the computer model into a metal one. As far as I know, to this day it is the only facility with such fast and perfect manufacturing tooling technology. The creation of such a process was not just the owners’ whim. All we wanted to do was accomplish the main purpose: to make sure the manufactured medals matched the intended design. It was simple, made sense, and proved to be commercially successful. Despite fairly high prices, our customers came back to us time and again. None of our competitors could match the same level of quality, and with regard to medals, people were not willing to compromise quality in order to save money. I am not saying there were no customers who prioritized price; they just weren’t Geroldmaster’s customers. This is neither good nor bad, as it is impossible to satisfy everybody’s needs: those who want well made products and those who want cheap ones. That is why companies with different purposes are needed. In the end, there will always be a Mercedes and there will always be a KIA. Such companies have different purposes and, accordingly, different customers.

Incidentally, when a business is just getting started, there is always some new purpose being formed—for example, “We repair used Japanese cars,” or “We bake confectionary products according to local customers’ tastes.” These are not the most ideal purpose statements. The more specific a purpose is, the stronger it is. One could say that, ideally, the intent should have some unique element that provides a competitive advantage.

Preserving the purpose and making sure the company does not deviate from it is not an easy job. In Visotsky Consulting’s company, our customers, consultants, and business owners promote some new idea every month. Our purpose was precisely formulated for such a reason. Before this actively expanding company was started, I had the usual consulting projects. I found companies and then worked with the owners or managers under contract. I, along with some assistants, implemented the management tools and left when the job was done. However, I found this was not a good approach, for two reasons. First, during such projects, you cannot pay enough attention to improving the competence of the owner. His 100 percent understanding of how the management tools work determines whether these tools will really be applied in the company. Second, when the consultant turns the company around, he, in fact, takes on the authority, becoming the employees’ boss. But this completely contradicts the idea that is the main goal of our company, which is to help business owners become stronger. I was able to turn the situation around when I came up with a way to implement the management tools with the owners' own hands. In essence, this is the purpose of our company. And it looks like we are the only ones who do not do the owners’ job for them, but instead help them to do it themselves. That is why proposals to teach the clients' personnel instead of directly focusing on the business owners go against the purpose of our company. Such ideas will never be implemented. On the other hand, any proposals that contribute to our main purpose and help business owners become stronger, I will consider with interest. And if I see that they truly align with our main purpose, I will gladly implement them.

Between the years 1990 and 2000, there were many Ukrainian companies that are examples of companies without a clear purpose. Their sole purpose was to make money, and this, in fact, is simply a lack of clear purpose. Naturally, such companies jumped on every opportunity to make money and introduced a variety of services. In remote areas, there are still companies that do general wholesale, retail, catering, et cetera. And now when narrowly specialized companies come into these areas and start operating, they successfully push the locals out of business. How should the local companies deal with these specialized companies? They first need to realize that a multioperational company is, essentially, a set of groups—a complex of companies within itself, every one of which has its own main goal and purpose. Managing these subsidiaries means managing every single company separately, as they indeed are separate businesses. I will discuss this further in my next book about business structure and functions.

If you read the mission statements of different companies and analyze their operations, you will find that every strong business has a distinct purpose. Very often, that purpose involves some know-how. To John D. Rockefeller, the purpose was merging small oil-producing and refining companies through stock purchases in exchange for shares in the merged Standard Oil Company. This purpose very quickly led to his control of the entire industry. Moreover, he gained total control of the transportation of oil from the wellhead to the refinery and distribution beyond, thereby enabling himself to set prices that forced producers either to be absorbed by Standard Oil or to go out of business.

While highly successful in this goal, his monopoly of the process from production through transport and refining to retail sale led to the antitrust breakup of Standard Oil. Note that there are no absolute decisions, one being the best over all others. Any purpose is successful to some degree, and to some degree it creates a weakness. For example, Steve Jobs’s refusal to sell licenses for Apple’s operating system resulted in Microsoft’s complete domination of the operating systems market. Every personal computer manufacturer used the Windows operating system and more than a few software developers produced versions compatible only with the Microsoft system. On the other hand, this same purpose by Apple helped create the most convenient computer platform, which is just a pleasure to work with. Those who have used Apple computers do not usually switch to Windows unless they are forced to by some specific circumstance. The almost cultlike loyalty of Apple computer users provided a critical base of early adopters of the iPod, the iPod touch, and all the subsequent products—users who spread word-of-mouth testimony and enthusiasm that supercharged Apple’s launches and incredible growth in unit sales (at premium prices).

When formulating purposes, it is important to take three things into consideration. First, there are products (merchandise or services) that potential customers are ready to pay for, and there are those for which they are not. For example, what can be more important than preschool education for children? Whether a child will be creative, whether he will want to learn and apply his knowledge, and what his values will be all fully depend upon the way he is treated during his preschool years. Essentially, his future, the future of those around him, and that of all mankind will be determined during this time. You would think providing preschool education would be a priceless service, right? But the truth is, for some strange reason many people believe that anyone can take care of children, and therefore they do not like to pay for it. The idea of paying a thousand dollars a month for a child’s preschool seems crazy to some parents, even when that parent is driving an eighty thousand dollars car! There is nothing rational about it. In five years, that piece of metal will not be worth even half of what it cost, and eventually it will fall apart completely. But try to open a kindergarten where kids are taken care of by caring and highly qualified professionals and charge a reasonable price, and you will see that a purpose like this is difficult to bring to life. By the way, start-ups with uncommon purposes very often fail not because they don’t benefit the consumer, but because their purposes are too complicated for most of their potential customers to understand and recognize their benefits. Tremendous effort is required to convey the benefits to them, which is not an easy job for a small company.

Second, in formulating a purpose, you must consider whether it is possible to make the purpose generate large-scale activity. For example, you have a talented craftsman who can create amazing leather bindings for books. A good book with a leather binding could be a wonderful present for any serious reader. You could sell this product all over the world. But there is the question of whether it is possible to create a whole army of such craftsmen and whether it is possible to teach a number of people to create such bindings with the same degree of skill. Also, is there equipment that would allow you to produce the bindings in sufficient quantity? Hamburgers and fries are not difficult to make, yet Ray Kroc still had to open Hamburger University so that those operating his franchisees could do a quality job. IKEA is another great example. That company’s purpose becomes clear if you read a book about its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, entitled Leading by Design: The Ikea Story. I remember one story from the book in which Ingvar was in one of Ikea’s competitor’s stores and saw a drinking glass that was in high demand at the time. He went to his purchasing manager and asked whether it was possible to get the same glasses for a significantly lower price. The manager collected the necessary information and later replied that it was possible to get it much cheaper, but Ikea would have to sell over a million of such glasses. Ingvar gladly accepted the deal and, as a result, the glass was a best-seller, bringing the company good revenues.

Usually we say that a business’s purpose is successful if it allows the company to expand significantly. Expansion requires energy—that is, money—and you can only get a lot of this energy if you provide customers with high volumes of your product. For this reason, companies that make their expertise available to only a limited number of customers never become large and thriving businesses. For example, I like to educate business owners on the subject of strategy, but I do not know how to teach other consultants to do it with the same success. Because I cannot put this product on a “production line,” I would not start a company with the purpose of providing customers with these particular consulting services.

Third, the purpose must provide a company with an advantage over its competitors. For example, McDonald’s purpose is “fast customer service,” which is why, even with relatively low prices, the restaurants can afford to be located in buildings and shops in the most highly trafficked areas, have good-quality kitchen equipment, and still retain their high profit margin. Starbucks’s purpose is to provide the highest-quality coffee; it started as a coffee supplier to various coffee shops and restaurants. Now there are more than seventeen thousand stores operating under the Starbucks name. Starbucks is active in preserving its purpose, which I personally witnessed while visiting their stores in various countries. Without such a purpose, the company would never have been able to retain its quality standards and would not have gained the well-deserved recognition of its customers.

Apple products are always distinguished by their reliability and user-friendliness, thanks to the company’s purpose to develop both the hardware and software themselves. Nobody else in the world has an opportunity to create a similar computer product. Developers of other operating systems are forced to make them versatile so they will run on all types of computers. Hardware manufacturers have to consider the capabilities of these other operating systems. Only Apple can afford to create revolutionary technologies of such quality and with such speed, and this has turned out to be a huge advantage for Apple in the personal computer industry. While Apple still produces and markets desktops and laptops, which are available through resellers and its own many retail stores and the online Apple Store, its greatest volume (unit sales) is accounted for by the iPhone and the iPad.

Thus, a successful purpose must take into consideration the market conditions and potential customers’ viewpoint, existing technology and resources, and an idea that provides a competitive advantage. But there is one more important point. This purpose should reflect the fundamental idea and personality of its founder. In modern society, individuality is valued at a premium. Just consider those professionals who are the highest-paid and get the most publicity. These include certain actors and performers of popular music, writers, scientists, and sports figures. They are either people who have enough courage to show a personal point of view in what they create, or those who have transformed themselves into a product—a pop-culture idol like Miley Cyrus or Beyonce. In a 2010 rating of the most popular people, the first ten positions were taken by such performers and sports figures. These are people who promote their personality traits and talents to the whole world. In our society, things that are considered to be rare become expensive. Why do marketing gurus such as Jack Trout command tens of thousands of dollars per presentation? You don’t think it’s because of the great practical value of the information, do you? You can get significantly more information if you read Trout’s books on marketing and branding. People are eager to touch the revered and profound person who is courageous enough to express his or her opinion during a time when most of the people on this planet deny the very ability to have a point of view of their own. On the one hand, they deny it in themselves, and on the other, they admire it in others. It is not difficult to see that the magically alluring trait that everyone calls charisma is nothing more than the courage to express a personal point of view. Having charisma does not mean people will necessarily agree with you. It is the courage to have and express a personal opinion that attracts people.

When it comes to leadership, the foundation is very simple. A leader is a person who has found enough courage and persistence to set a main goal and purpose for a group. It is that simple: courage and persistence. Notice that I did not say anything about intelligence. It is desirable but not vital. If this seems incredible to you, just listen to the majority of political leaders who are followed by millions of people and you will be able to see for yourself. When we were kids, we would meet our friends after school in the school yard and then wander from corner to corner, suffering from idleness until someone suggested, “Let’s build a fort”, “Let’s play soccer,” or some other activity. If the boy who made the suggestion was able to advance his idea and get others to be in favor of it, then he would become the leader at that particular time. We then had a very meaningful (at least we thought so) activity to engage in, and our game began. Any game was better than no game, and any leader was better than no leader.

From the viewpoint of experience, we could debate the purposefulness of such games, but boys who wander around aimlessly are happy to engage in any activity. Modern culture often offers people very boring games: wrapping your body in a fashionably branded piece of cloth, buying a shiny car to take you places quickly, and building a house with thick walls. But the most talented people, even if they cannot dream of something really large, respond to an interesting or challenging game offered, even if it goes beyond their usual daily routines. If you create an important goal and attractive purpose, it inspires those who still have a taste for life.

The first role of a business owner is to create an inspiring main goal and a clearly defined purpose. It is the very first thing you need to do, no matter whether you’ve already started out on your journey as a Vaishya or you are one of those rare people who have survived the civilized world as a Kshatriya.

Chapter 4. A Business Owner’s Personal Goals

A business owner, along with all other company employees, is, of course, part of a group. Every group member fulfills his own particular responsibility as a salesperson, an accountant, a process engineer, et cetera. An organization is a system whose members perform specific functions. A salesperson works with customers; an accountant handles financial transactions and maintains records; an engineer develops new processes and monitors their compliance. In this system, the owner plays a special role. His function is to establish goals that will unite the entire group. But in this capacity, he may encounter a trap that is easy to fall into.

As I discussed in the previous chapter, every person has his or her own individual goals. Only people completely disappointed in life do not have goals. Every salesperson and accountant dreams of a new house, a car, a cruise, a special gift for a loved one, and a business owner is no exception. Just like the others, he has his own personal goals that he dreams of achieving. He dreams about amassing personal wealth, about houses and cars, about comfort and vacations, and about opportunities to do something creative. There are as many goals as there are different kinds of people. And the more capable a person is, the more individualistic his or her aspirations will be.

At the same time, the owner is the only person in the company who is responsible for establishing goals for the entire group. He is the only one whose function it is to establish these goals, and then direct the group’s attention to them. That is where the catch is. The owner can confuse his or her personal goals and dreams with the business’s goals and purposes.

Interacting with many business owners, I occasionally meet people who say, “The goal of my company is to make money, increase assets and the company’s market value.” These people have no idea that they are not talking about the company’s goals, but about their personal ones. The owner has a goal of increasing the company’s value and wants his or her “baby” to continually grow. This point of view could be compared to that of a father who wants his child’s only goal to be to serve his parent. This is a completely unnatural point of view. Of course, a child should bring his parents joy, but it should be the joy of his own successes, achievements, and victories on the way to his individual goals. When the owner of a company says that the company’s goal is “to increase the company’s value,” he really means, “My goal is to become rich.” He is not talking about the group’s goal, but about his personal one. A group’s goal cannot be someone's dream of becoming happy and rich.

Once, during a workshop, the owner of a roofing materials manufacturing and retailing business approached me. His company employed around fifty people. They manufactured copper shingles, gutters, and other parts for copper roofing. Our conversation went as follows.

“Our company manufactures a good product and our customers are happy. It is certainly not a cheap product, but the customers who know us usually thank us for our services. But there’s one issue I still can’t understand. When I start my workday, I’m full of energy. I meet with the customers and manage my employees. The window of my office faces the sales department, and since I usually arrive at the office earlier than everybody else, I get to observe my employees as they come in. You know, we try to take care of our employees. Their salaries are high and the working conditions are good, but when they get to work, they look like they have been working hard all night long and can’t wait to finally get some rest. They barely move. And unless they get enough coffee, they cannot even start working. Why is it this way? I am full of energy and desire to work, but why aren’t they?”

“What is the main goal of your business?” I asked him.

“What goal? It is to make money for me, of course!”

“Imagine you just joined a good company as a salesperson. During the orientation period, you are told, ‘The goal of our company is to make another million dollars for the owner!’ Would that inspire you?”

“No. I get it,” he said after giving it some thought.

When the company owner confuses his personal goals with the goals of the company, he creates goals for the company that do not motivate his employees. Imagine a company where during corporate events it is announced, “Our goal is to make our owner rich!” It doesn't seem as if anyone would honestly want to put any effort into achieving this goal. Only when employees want to achieve the company’s goals will you see the spark in their eyes and will they be full of energy and creativity. This does not mean that when you establish goals for the entire group that you must renounce your personal goals. Giving up your own goals can lead to a complete lack of joy and pleasure for you. I personally think that a miserable person will not be able to be particularly useful to other people. Keep your goals. Just take care not to confuse them with the goals you establish for your company.

Think big. Don't waste your time on pseudogoals like “making more money,” “benefiting everybody,” or even “becoming number one in the industry.” Assess what the company can realistically achieve in the long run. If you manufacture furniture, maybe your goal would be “providing comfort and design for people’s lives.” If you are a grocery wholesaler, perhaps it would be “creating high-quality living standards for a wide range of people by providing a fresh and premium-quality range of grocery items.” Of course, these goals need to reflect your own aspirations and talents. One owner will start a company to bring the latest technology to the market. Another owner will start a company to provide satisfying and cheerful service. Ever since he started walking, my nephew, Vasiliy, has amazed the people around him with one particular habit: He cannot walk past an excavator, truck, crane, or tractor without stopping to admire it. The boy can just stand there and admire such machines, enjoying them. As you can imagine, his mother does not share his fascination, and every time he stops to gaze, she tries to pull him away. What kind of company will he start when he grows up? I don’t know, but I do know one thing for sure: If he does become an owner of company that a produces construction machinery, he will be doing what he likes most. What goals will he establish for the company? Perhaps they will be “to provide construction workers with reliable and efficient machinery and contribute to the prosperity of the construction industry.” Companies’ goals are really very distinct, as individual as their owners.

Trying to set up a goal based on the individual goals of the group members is also a common mistake made by business owners. The owner needs to be aware that as the founder as well as a member of the group, he performs a very specific function: He forms the goal for the entire group. An example of this kind of mistake would be to say, “Our company’s goal is to provide customers with a quality product, increase owners’ equity, and create a decent standard of living for our employees.” This is not a goal. It is merely an attempt to please everyone who has something to do with the company—employees, owners, and customers. And this attempt to please is the exact opposite of the manifestation of individuality. A problem with such goal formation is that people are not so na?ve as to believe that this is really the group’s goal.

I am genuinely surprised by what results when some not very clever consultants’ brainstorm about the main goal and purpose of a company with its top management team. They come up with these monstrous ideas that do not inspire anyone—not managers, owners, or employees. Have some fun by reading the goals and mission statements of some of these various companies online.

Occasionally, I help owners to create mission statements for their companies. I first ask them questions that relate to the purpose of the company. I ask what the initial business idea was and whether it had any competitive advantage that distinguished the company from its competitors. I ask the owner to describe the company’s operations in a few words. When the purpose is clear, I help him or her state the main goal by asking questions about what would change in the company’s external environment if it successfully carried out its purpose. Why do I start with the purpose? I do this because the purpose is more concrete to people, as it will determine the company’s course of action. The main goal, however, is less apparent, though in essence it is predetermined by the purpose.

When you create the main goal of the group, don't think about whether employees will like it. The most important thing it should do is inspire. Look around at the leaders of some outstanding companies. As a rule, they dedicate their whole lives to doing their favorite job. They have enough courage to do what inspires them. And they create main goals that attract the right people to their companies and encourage them to stay.

Chapter 5. The Pursuit of Money

The business world is brainwashed by the idea that the goal of any business is to make money. Of course, the people who made this idea popular are not very smart; they do not understand anything about money at all. Money is just a medium of exchange. The amount of money a company makes depends on how useful its products or services are, and how widely available these products or services are. Behind every product, there is a particular person’s dream, as well as a goal that inspires an entire team to overcome any obstacles along the way to creating the product. Long before Mark Zuckerberg became a billionaire, he refused Microsoft’s generous offer to buy the program he’d developed. The reason was simple. When he came up with the idea of Facebook, he was thinking about creating a communication and social-networking platform for university students, not about columns of numbers on a financial statement.

Making lots of money is a great idea, but in reality, the meaning behind business is to create a lot of something that people will consider useful and want to obtain. The main goal of a company should be an exact wording of this aspiration, not the expression of a desire to receive as much money as possible.

“I want to work for a company that contributes to and is part of the community. I want something not just to invest in. I want something to believe in.”—Anita Roddick, The Body Shop

Of course, you do not get paid for your aspirations alone, and rarely do aspirations without tangible results receive support. However, to say that the main goal of a business is to make profits is the same as saying that the goal of a human is to breathe. Without being able to breathe, a person cannot survive for long, because breathing is essential for a person to move, think, and create. Every person has his or her own main goal. Some dream about teaching children, others dream of constructing beautiful buildings, and still others desire to raise talented and independent children. Without breathing for more than just a few minutes, a person would not be able to achieve any of these goals. This is comparable to the important role of money for a business or any other organization.

“Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations.”—Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Media founder and CEO

Any good idea can be brought to the point of absurdity. For example, since ancient times there have been practices in which followers try to improve themselves with sophisticated ways of breathing. Likewise, there are business practices that claim that proper money handling and money management are the keys to success. This is only partly true. It is really important to handle money wisely, but good money management alone does not lead to success. That is because money management is simply a tool for managing the exchange process of your product for money.