To take it further, maximization as a concept just isn’t interesting to me. I don’t care about ... See more
A Rant Against Maximization
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I can’t imagine anything less interesting in business than maximizing shareholder value. Yet this is what public companies are pressured — if not legally required — to do. A lot of non-public companies follow the same path towards performance and results.To take it further, maximization as a concept just isn’t interesting to me. I don’t care about maximization. Not maximization of profit, revenue, people, reach, productivity, etc. Not interesting.I feel like this makes me an outcast in the business world. Part of the minority, the ones who simply “don’t get how it works”.I get how it works. I just don’t care. I’m not interested in squeezing something so tight that I get every last drop. I don’t want, need, or care about every last drop. Those last drops usually don’t taste as good anyway. My thirst is usually well quenched far before that final drop.
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The problem (or at least one of the problems) is that the twin edicts to simultaneously optimize your team and life and to be flexible in light of an uncertain future are in opposition to each other. Optimization presumes a kind of certainty about the circumstances one is optimizing for, but that certainty is, more often than not, illusory.
People, communities, society, governments, investors, and employees alike are all starting to say: “I’m not interested in your business. Business is obsolete. The real question is: can your company do anything more than just ‘business’? What can you do to inspire, amaze, delight, surprise, elevate, enlighten, and better me, and the community around
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