What Does Success in Business Mean in the 21st Century?
3 questions you can judge your business accomplishments by
With each new generation born, it is said, the sensitivity to values grows. It could be the natural progress of civilization. Or it could be the load of global issues which we daily read about. Climate change, extreme inequality, dangers to democracy, and ever-increasing mental stress — these are just a few of hundreds of similar topics.
Also, the latest generations — the millennials and generation Z — are now those who will be responsible for tackling these issues. It’s no wonder, then, that they look at the world a bit differently. They see it not just as a resource meant to be used for personal gain, but as a system which they are part of and which needs to be protected and improved.
Business as a Tool for Improving the World
Since business is an important part of such a system, it can also serve as a tool towards improvement. In fact, it needs to be a part of it.
How business is done has a huge influence on how we live, work, think about money, and think about the world. And how business is done is influenced by what goals business people want to achieve.
So to truly use the full potential of business for improving the world, we need to redefine what business success means. We need to change the goals that business people have in mind when building their organizations.
Ten years ago, Alain de Botton gave an interesting TED talk on the topic of success and how everyone can define it on their own. But we also need some common ground on how we are going to judge the success of others. Especially in the light of challenges we face as humans.
Success for the 21st Century
This is why I suggest a concept called Success for the 21st century. This new measure could tell us whether an organization is successful or not. But unlike the most common measures of the 20th century — profit, size or growth — it doesn’t focus on increasing wealth or power. It focuses on creating human well-being (or simply, a good life) and doing it in the long run.
To judge if an organization is successful in the 21st century, we should ask ourselves these three questions:
1. Does this organization create a good life for its clients and other people?
Are its products and services increasing people’s well-being? Are they contributing to their physical and mental health, relationships, and quality of life? Are they fulfilling some fundamental needs? Are they contributing to feelings of purpose and satisfaction? Do these products and services, or the existence of the organization itself, have any negatives? Could these negatives outweigh the positives? Could the same benefits be achieved without those negatives?
2. Does this organization create a good life for its employees and partners?
Are the working conditions good? Are the needs of the employees met? Are relationships good? Is the culture humane and enjoyable? Do the employees feel their work has a purpose? Is the workload well adjusted to the individual nature of each worker? Are they under unnecessary stress? Does this work make them enjoy life more? Are they fairly compensated? Can they participate in steering the organization? Do they get their share of the organization’s successes? Does it behave fairly and morally towards suppliers and partners?
3. Are this organization and the way it works sustainable in the long term?
Can this organization sustain itself financially in the long term? Does it behave sustainably towards the environment and society? Is it long-term oriented with its goals? Does it provide a long term value to society? Does it cause any damage? Does it have any externalities that need to be accounted for?
Goodbye to the Old Gang
As you can see, the words profit, size or growth are not mentioned anywhere in these criteria. That’s because if we start looking at business as an activity that is supposed to create a good life (in all its variety), these old metrics suddenly stop making any sense.
Where before there was profit, now the only thing that matters is whether the company can survive in the long term. Where before investors and entrepreneurs sought infinite growth, now it can be perfectly fine when a company stabilizes at a certain size and stays there for decades. Where before the most successful players were the largest international corporations, now an entirely new set of rules can be used to judge who to admire and why.
You might ask why this is important. Can’t anyone today decide to start a business that creates a good life? Is anyone forced to grow or make huge profits?
In theory, no. But what matters is not only whether we are theoretically free to do so.
What matters is whether it’s a path that our society supports — whether it’s actually viable for those people who attempt it. It shouldn’t be more difficult to make a good life business than to make an ordinary one. In fact, it should be easier, given the benefits and the lack of added externalities.
Everything Is a Status Thing
The biggest reason for using the Success for the 21st century measure is based on a deep desire every human shares.
The basic fact of evolutionary psychology is that we want to replicate. The second is that we crave status in order to find the best mate and get as many resources as possible for raising our children. Our brains are very sensitive to our status within society.
As it goes with humans, we are a colorful bunch. Among the various civilizations, nations, and tribes, there are hundreds of different ways in which people gain the respect of others and advance in the social hierarchy. Some cultures do it by bringing home the heads of defeated enemies. Some encourage people to learn complex dancing rituals and go through a series of difficult challenges. And some idolize the owners of the biggest gold stash.
This means that while the need for status is something we all share, the way it is achieved can change over time, as well as over the globe. It also means a great opportunity to improve our society by redefining what success, and thus status, is.
If we convince the rich that they will be admired by giving away their money, they will be more inclined to do that. If we tell them it’s admirable just having money, that’s what many of them will do. And if we can redefine success as building sustainable organizations and creating a good life, instead of money and power by itself, we can increase the probability of entrepreneurs doing just that.
If, suddenly, people who created more of the good life with their businesses were the most admired and idolized (not just by the public, but also by other business people), if doing that would mean gaining the highest status in our society, you can bet there would be much more of them.
And that’s why we should spend the next 81 years on making Success for the 21st century become the new definition of success. Starting now.
