Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

At the same time as we reflect on some gains made, and wins achieved, through the 2011 year, we must also remain constructively conscious of the ongoing threats that confront our growing business, moving forwards.

This recent article from the Economist about the contrast between Kodak and Fuji presents some thoughts worth pondering about.

Brings to mind both:
(a)  the Andy Grove message that “only the paranoid survive”.
(b)  the Jim Collins statement about “confronting the brutal facts but never giving up”

I’m not familiar enough with either company (or the industry) to really know about the truth of some of the conclusions drawn in the article.  Leaving that to one side, for the moment, there are a number of thoughts that occurred to me that are relevant to us.

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In ”The Profit Principle” the authors make the challenging statement that:

“The only reason to go into business is to make money. …
If you’re lucky, you’ll make that money doing something you love.  If you’re really lucky, it will also lead to some greater good – but don’t let delusions of grandeur get in the way of your profit and loss statements”
(p92 in my copy, my emphasis added)

This statement, on the one hand, is very sensible – but, on the other hand, is a direct challenge to many others who empathise that a business must have a purpose that is more than just making money, if it is to be sustainable, and successful:

(a)  Jim Collins calls this “more than profits”;

(b)   Daniel Pink talks about the importance of Purpose.

(c)  Jason Baptiste notes that if entrepreneurs “got into entrepreneurship first and foremost for the money” then they “are in the wrong business”

Hence there is an apparent paradox between these two points of view.

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As you might have noticed, I have been adopting an iterative (and open) approach to the communication of my Vision for the company, starting with this post, and linked to several others that provide more details.

As this communication has been progressively clarified, I have become more aware of the need to also clearly communicate why our company exists, in the first place (it’s not primarily to make a profit, though of course it’s nice when it does).

Hence, this post has been added – it’s currently the 1st draft, and may be progressively refined (depending on what feedback I receive about how clear it is)

Summary

I had previously posted about the Mission of the company on the same page on which I posted about the Vision for the company.

To allow me to to provide further explanation, I have shifted this to a separate post:

WHY?     The purpose of our business is to help the broadest range of people make the most of the opportunities that the electricity market offers them.

HOW?      We do this by helping people understand the electricity market (so they can see the opportunities for themselves).

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A central part of the changes we’re making internally, stemming from the Autopsy 2 process, is that we’re aiming to get very clear about “why?”

Why does our company exist in the first place?

Why should our customers care about what we’re striving to be?

Why would anyone be led by me?

Shirlaws call these questions “context”. read more »