The Goal

Everything has a purpose for it's existence. A Goal. A reason for being.

A business is no different. It is the pursuit of that goal that propels the business forward.

But any business is simply a collaborative association of knowledgeable people, and so the goal of the business must be aligned with the goal of the people, whatever their stakeholding in it. The business does not really exist in any meaningful sense separate from the people. Yes the business is a separate legal entity with limited liability in the eyes of the law, but try talking with an "entity". An entity is a "thing". We call it "entity" because we don't know what it actually is nor what else to call it. So a business is a "thing", which legally allows people to shelter behind a protective veil. At knowledge associates we believe it is time to lift the veil. We are people first, a business only second.

So what is our goal?

Customers want satisfaction. Nothing wrong with that. Shareholders want a satisfactory return on investment. Employees want job satisfaction. There is much satisfaction required all around, both now and into the future. In fact more satisfaction is required in the future than we have now, otherwise someone is bound to become dissatisfied. So it is not enough to just keep going. We are compelled to improve, if only to remain competitive in a changing world and continue to provide satisfaction for our associated stakeholders.

So what should our goal be? What is the one thing that gives us purpose enough to simply "be" and keep on "being".

Well, we want to do good. We want to do good things for ourselves and our customers. We want to deliver projects that add value to our customer's businesses.We want to design industrial processes that have no waste, just like in the natural world. We want to write computer software that enhances the financial performance of our customer's business by increasing the speed of delivery of their products and services. We want to help our customers increase their sales. We want to increase regulatory compliance. We want to improve the quality of our customers products and services. We want to aid in the provision of computing resources to children in underdeveloped countries. We want our employees to become the most sought after workers in the world. We want to do good.

By inference that means we want to be around to do good, and be capable of doing it. Our Goal, therefore, is to secure the future capability of the business to do good. It is the ongoing existence of the business that is the vehicle through which we can continue to do good. It allows us to continue to satisfy all of our stakeholders in the future.

But satisfying our stakeholders are necessary conditions for us to pursue our Goal. We must do that now, just to have opportunity to continue to do it into the future. In order to be able to satisfy customers tomorrow, it is necessary we satisfy them today. In order to be able to have satisfied employees in the future, they must have job satisfaction today.

Haven't we left some of our stakeholders off this list? We included shareholders, staff and customers. Is there anybody else? We are but one business amongst millions. All of these stakeholders are but a few people amongst billions. Surely the communities we live and work in are stakeholders in our business as well, aren't they? Would it be acceptable for us to conduct business that met everybody's needs but ignored the well-being of our communities? Don't we live in those communities? Wouldn't ignoring community well-being lead to deforestation, toxic spills, radiation leaks, poisonous groundwater, fuel and oil spills, landfill, relocation of villages, deaths of adults and children, extinction of endangered species, over-throwing of governments, pollution of the air, destruction of marine ecologies, and so on and so forth. Has any of that ever happened? We now know it has all happened. Some of it is due to lack of knowledge, and as humanity learns we quickly take action to remedy our shortcomings. But some of it has occurred due to corporate prioritisation of profit over all else. Such behaviour and attitude is not sustainable because it is a crime against nature. The tide has already turned on that kind of behaviour.

So, our Goal is not just to make money. Whilst money is a necessary condition, otherwise our shareholders will not be happy and we won't have the capacity to carry on business for long, money is just a tool. Of itself it has no purpose. Our Goal should not be to acquire as much of a tool as we can. It is only through the utilisation of the tool that the value of money can be realised and have any physical manifestation. It must be exchanged for products and services. We must see to it that we have money to exchange for products and services which do good for our shareholders, staff, customers and community and which secure our future capability to do more good.

So, the Goal of knowledge associates is to Secure the Future Capability of the Business to do Good. In order to pursue our goal we MUST make money, now and in the future, we MUST satisfy customers, now and in the future, we MUST provide employees with a secure and satisfying workplace now and in the future, we MUST ensure the safety and security of our community, now and in the future and we MUST have a Process of Ongoing Improvement lest we become irrelevant over time.

The MORE we can do all of those things, the greater our attainment of the Goal will be. If we can make MORE money, now and in the future, and have MORE customers who are MORE satisfied now and in the future, and have employees who are MORE secure and satisfied and ensure MORE safety and security in our communities and have MORE processes which improve our business MORE, then our business will have MORE security in the future and MORE capability to do MORE good.

Certainly it won't be easy to do all of that. It will take FOCUS! But WhatShouldWeFocusOn?

Perhaps there are some things we can identify that would be required in the pursuit of The Goal because they are critical success factors for achieving an environment in which the above necessary conditions were satisfied.

Now it become clearer what we must do.