What is Your House Built On?

Remember the phrase "Get while the gettin's good"? Guess what! It LIVES and it's the mission statement of some current businesses. Not yours, of course, and it's not ever actually published anywhere, but it's around. It can also be called Greed, but--jeez louise--we would never say that out loud or have it in our drop-down menu either. We might, however inadvertently, lay it as the foundation of our company because our intention was to make money. We want to make a lot of money, make our numbers, reach our financial goals and take our goods n' get out.

Our foundation seems secure enough and, historically, it's worked. So we build our modern-day home on top of it and we hire our seasoned, motivated, driven family to play their roles and do their best gettin' in our fancy house.

But what lurks in the basement is like Amityville Horror (for dramatic purposes), because greed--no matter how disguised and entertained upstairs in your living room--is a fundamental sense of desperation, a need for something that is lacking, and a bottomless craving that takes the air out of the room.

Your people don't have any air to breathe. Your beast in the basement is sucking the joy out, pitting people against each other, making people assume the worst about their own team mates, rolling their eyes at simple requests and giving coworkers month's long silent treatments. They're gasping to breathe. Do you see the horror in this?

Yet, we keep grasping for more. Like running a race and chasing a cloth bunny that, once we get it, we find out it's not so good. It's metal and it's cold and it's lifeless. That's your get.

I have written a philosophy of structuring a business that puts Profit at the very end of your intentions. If you think it's crazy, please see above.