Review of Betterness in Business () — Foreword Reviews
So the content of the portfolio and the soul behind it mean just as much if not more than simply managing one. What exactly are we missing? In his book, Haque describes the problem with how we measure prosperity. He compares using national GDP as a measure of progress to tracking the rev counter in your car instead of the speedometer.
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It tells you something about effort, but nothing about movement or change. As someone involved in product design and enterprise transformation these two quotes from the book hit me:.
Betterness: Economics for Humans
Why is it that the unhappiest part of the day has been found to be… the daily commute to work, closely followed by being at work when so much of our short lives are spent at work? Haque argues that the pursuit of profit alone has caused the diminishment of other forms of progress, like the emotional, social, intellectual, physical, and ethical growth of humans.
It becomes a problem if companies gain profit by taking away profit from others, instead of creating new value. Then the societal pie never gets bigger, just redistributed or reduced, sometimes at the expense of our other desires. He argues that the goal of creating wealth should be about helping others create a life that matters. Which involves a focus on creating relationship, environmental, organizational, human, emotional, and intellectual wealth alongside financial wealth.
You will have more.
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You will be and become better — fitter, smarter, closer, wiser, tougher, humbler, truer, wealthier in terms that add up to a life meaningfully well lived. He says that in the future companies will be judged by their ability to create wealth. And that shift will pay off. He references studies showing that profit tends to come to companies who are providing betterness. Consumers are frustrated with the options and will spend their money with companies that also provide higher-order value.
Instead of maximizing profit, he says that organizations achieve betterness when they consistently, systematically, and habitually maximize human potential and minimize suffering. Maybe our value frameworks need to include social, natural, organizational, human, emotional, and intellectual capital.
‘Betterness’ – the most important thing I’ve read about business in years
His call to arms is to reconceive why our companies exist and what we want them to do for the greater good. In fact, it is increasingly recognized that neither the full cost nor real value in human terms of a product or service purchased today is accounted for in current pricing. Our challenge, then, is to re-craft our economic systems to reflect a more complete understanding in society of real value -- beyond a simple price point.
Economics for Humans", invites us to learn how institutions can take a slightly more active role in creating a higher conception of the human good.
The road to betterness is a powerful call to us all as we think about the next iteration of a healthy capitalism -- one built around business models that yes, limit harmful impacts created by our industrial society, but also deliver products and services that get beyond simple impact on GDP to actually drive tangible and lasting positive impact on human experience.
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