December 17, 2013
What businesses are for
Peter Cappelli has written an excellent post at HBR that falls simultaneously into the “Well, Duh” and “Needs to Be Said” bins: “It’s Not OK That Your Employees Can’t Afford to Eat.” Well, duh! It’s amazing that it even needs to be said. (Note that the Duh belongs not to Peter but to whomever needed to hear that.)
Let me put it differently. From my point of view, here are the two fundamental objectives for any business:
1. Enable your customers to lead lives that are a little bit better.
2. Enable your employees to lead good lives.
Profit is what you use to do both of those things.
