Aristotle taught us that Excellence is a habit; a way of life. Tom Watson of IBM, challenged us to THINK afresh. Today, Nikos examines a benevolent ethic that lies behind a good proportion of small businesses - Altruism.
Altruism is a major focus behind major political movements, charities and a whole range of businesses that exist primarily to serve their customers. Altruism may take the form of personal service beyond formal obligation - as Nordstrom does. Delivering products at affordable prices - as Sam Walton's Wal-Mart; or using technology and ideas to improve the lives of people - as Hewlett-Packard does. In these examples, altruism is directed at the customer, but it does not have to be. For Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, and other leaders of so called new age businesses, altruism and customer benefit are distinct. In her case, the altruism is directed at animals, and to some extent her staff. Service businesses often "care" about their staffs, which in turn care for customers-an approach summed up by Federal Express as "People-Service-Profit."
Service is about Emotion; you can't fake it. The desire to care for other's well-being as well as our own-indeed we maximize our own happiness only by taking into account the happiness of others. Would you trade your selfish pleasures for the moral instinct to care for others?
Altruism is a major focus behind major political movements, charities and a whole range of businesses that exist primarily to serve their customers. Altruism may take the form of personal service beyond formal obligation - as Nordstrom does. Delivering products at affordable prices - as Sam Walton's Wal-Mart; or using technology and ideas to improve the lives of people - as Hewlett-Packard does. In these examples, altruism is directed at the customer, but it does not have to be. For Anita Roddick of the Body Shop, and other leaders of so called new age businesses, altruism and customer benefit are distinct. In her case, the altruism is directed at animals, and to some extent her staff. Service businesses often "care" about their staffs, which in turn care for customers-an approach summed up by Federal Express as "People-Service-Profit."
Service is about Emotion; you can't fake it. The desire to care for other's well-being as well as our own-indeed we maximize our own happiness only by taking into account the happiness of others. Would you trade your selfish pleasures for the moral instinct to care for others?
2 comments:
The Law of Polarity states that nohing can exist without its opposite. If hate exists in someone than love must exist as well. If selfishness exists in someone than the moral intinct to care exists as well. These opposites are simply manifestations of the same thing. Therefore I think we need to do both, but I would eliminate the word selfish and replace it with the word self-interest. Being Selfish is not a good thing. Being selfish is asking other people to follow your life's choices as their Life's choices. This happens often on a day to day basis and most people arent even aware that they're doing it. Being self interested however is a good thing. I believe we all have the moral instict to care for others, but if we are not able to care for ourselves first, then when we do it for others we will resent doing it and feel like victims to that prticular situation. The solution for me is to first be clear on what I want, and once I am clear I am in a much better position to have a bigger impact on others. So if you are currently in a position or job that you feel is not in our self interest, start doing one thing per day that is in your sellf interest as well as doing one thing per day for someone else that displays your moral instinct to care for others. For example, I love anything on self development, so anyone who knows me, knows that I am constanly sending out info. on ways for my relationships to improve themselves. By focusing on myself and what makes me happy, at the same time I am ables to share that with others, so it is addressing our human instinct to care for others as well as our self interest in ourselves which is important. This way life is a Positive sum game and we dont have to choose, we can do both. Thats the way the universe is designed.
Ted
@ Ted.
You made me think of what I see around every day while at work. ‘Win-Win situation’ is what I call this. I am amazed to see how ‘software developer community’ is contributing by providing open source solutions to users for free of cost and in turn not asking for anything. But when I dig deep to learn their motives, I see they are satisfied by developing the amazing piece of technology and all the hard work they put in is to learn and grow by leveraging the open source framework available to them free of cost. Indeed, their single source of inspiration is to ‘learn’ more what they know and while doing that they help others too by providing some useful technical solution. I am wondering how we can make this blog a ‘Win-Win’ for us all……
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