Imagine a person growing so big to have the body of an elephant, but the mind of a bird. Is this growth?
A company grows by making huge profits and neglects the building in-house skills are this growth? Problems start when we grow from the outside, but not from the inside as well. Growing internally is an organic growth. Growing externally is an inorganic one.
One more issue is referring to growing companies as living companies. We know that in biology to be living is to have seven ongoing processes. These are summarized in the acronym MRS. GREN. For details, I suggest this post.
M – Movement- All living things move
R – Respiration- Getting energy from food
S- Sensitivity- Detecting changes in the surroundings
G – Growth- All living things grow
R – Reproduction- Making more living things of the same type
E – Excretion- Getting rid of waste
N – Nutrition- Taking in and using food
This is besides all living systems have cells.
Can we call organizations as living ones with no:
— Sensitivity for the environment?
— Attention to growing the skills of their employees or increasing the global waste?
The global wicked problems that humanity faces on a global scale say that what we call living organizations are in fact not.
Is it a growing organization that makes huge profits, but also harms the environment? Examples include the killing of many species and the depletion of bees, the chief pollinators.
Loudly I ask can we call an organization a living one when it kills other species.
Back to one-sided growth
The problems we face today globally refer to caring to grow regardless of what harm this growth causes to others.
I believe the root problem attributes to businesses and individuals not growing their purpose.
I dare say that a living company or human is the one also that grows its purpose.
Businesses that grow with growing purpose are the most successful. Read this wonderful post by Tia Collings, which has wealth of information explaining why this claim is true.
A reader asked me if Dennis Pitocco pays me for advocating his noble call “let us bring humanity together”. My answer is flat no because I allow my purpose in life to grow by supporting noble goals.
Hello Brother Ali
I love how you have described business health as an organic growth process – the requirements for life.
One strategy I often hear discussed in this context is the difference between acquisitive growth -buying the customers and capabilities of another company through mergers and acquistions vs. growing internally.
Like many business dilemmas the answer changes depending upon the evaluation timeline. Organic growth takes a long time whereas an acquisition provides an immediate bump in the numbers of cuatomers and apparent capability.
If the measure were taken just a year later, the newly merged company will have lost customers and people. If one looks five years out, value will likely be lost compared to the organically grown company.
When you point out that we shouldn’t accept a company as a living breathing entity if it doesn’t grow its people, creates waste, kills species, andin detrimental to the environment in other ways, you describe a species that is self destructive.
Many species provide value to the rest of an ecological system to which they belong. A company has an ecology too. It serves customers, shareholders, its people, suppliers, and the community as a whole. If it does damage to any of those consituencies over the long term to benefit another in the short term. it is out of ecological balance -or self-destructive.
A company’s purpose must benefit all the constituencies it serves. If it does not, how is it different from the thief who hits you over the head with a blackjack to take your money. Even if the thief gives money to widows and orphans he still took what was yours violently.
Thanks for another brilliant analogy, Brother Ali.
No wonder you are so close to my heart brother Alan Culler with such passion for others and contribution to their minds.
Your comment is simply outstanding. It is sheer brilliance.
I love the idea of self-destuction and how you extended the same to businesses. Yes, no wonder if a company acts like a thief and then helps the poor with a very small donation. What is based on wrong is wrong.
Besides, how can we call such businesses as fit when they commit self-destruction? They are not the fittest and soon shall phase out.
I truly admire the way you captured the essence of the p post.
Ali,
This right here has such meaning and power:
“I dare say that a living company or human is the one also that grows its purpose.”
I love the way you have broken this down to the basic 7 ongoing processes to ‘live’. I find it true that companies and humans have complicated the basics… all in trying to find our way to a perceived success.
I do not know if the tag #growsinpurpose is yours or not, Carolyn . No matter what it simply reflects perfectly the message of the post.
I am so glad that you find the post of some value. Greatly appreciated
Alan.
Your comment is simply outstanding. It is sheer brilliance.
I love the idea of self-destuction and how you extended the same to businesses. Yes, no wonder if a company acts like a thief and then helps the poor with a very small donation. What is based on wrong is wrong.
Besides, how can we call such businesses as fit when they commit self-destruction? They are not the fittest and soon shall phase out.
I truly admire the way you captured the essence of the post.