Organizations Exist to Serve People

I'm honored to have my first book,?Impact with Love: Building Business for a Better World,?published on July 25th. In advance of that, I thought i would share a few excerpts from the book. To learn more or sign up for notification when the book is available, click?here.

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Organizations Exist to Serve People

There’s a chasm in our lives and in our organizational mindsets we must transcend to fully realize our potential, to fully live out our individual or organizational purpose. On one side is an inward focus. Its roots are insecurity, fear for our well-being, consumption with our identity, and ego. On this side, our well-being is in competition with that of others. We are focused on individual achievement, consumed by personal reward and recognition, and our individual brand. Social media is a force on this side of our lives, luring us in with clicks and likes and comparing ourselves with others, constantly exposing us to the individualistic, most polished view of others, constantly pushing us to question our own self-worth.

On the other side of this chasm is something very different. It is an orientation toward others. It is rooted in confidence and faith and self-assurance. On this side, we let go of our self-absorption and insecurity. We orient toward the impact we can have on people. Our well-being is interdependent with that of others. We are rewarded by the inner fulfillment we get from service, from being compassionate, from helping other people realize their talents, from delivering services and products that make a difference for others.

There is a specific mindset that is essential on this side of the chasm—a mindset of abundance. It involves a belief that a better world for others is a better world for all. This side of the chasm isn’t about self-denial or about service to others at my expense. Nor is it transactional, believing that service to others has a calculated algorithm where I’ll get something in return. Rather, being other-oriented, being people-centric, means that we recognize that service to others is fulfilling in itself and that it propels a virtuous cycle of relationships, collaboration, and connectivity that makes the world better for everyone.

When we live on this side of the chasm, we recognize that self-absorption is hollow. Self-absorption causes us to continually chase more: to work harder and work more hours, to seek more money and more promotions and more recognition and greater profits . . . and yet still feel unfulfilled. On this side of the chasm, we recognize that no amount of achievement or personal gain will fill this void inside us. The only thing that will fill it is knowing we make a difference, that we make an impact on others. It isn’t until we embrace the purpose of our work—as being service to others, both at an individual level and at an organizational level—that we begin to fill the needs that exist. And often we don’t even know that those needs are there. We may not have a language or name for them; we may not know what we are seeking, but we recognize something is missing, and we recognize when we find it.

This service to others—rooted in love, the unconditional concern and compassion for others, oriented toward impact and the positive influence on the lives of others—is what the healthiest organizations are built upon. Healthy organizations live on this side of the chasm, seeking to serve all people because of the intrinsic value of that service.