How Big Business Sees the World
The success of a business is determined by PROFITS not PROPHETS!
The practical, first requirement of good management is to make a profit for the enterprise so that those who made the capital available may be rewarded, and thus encouraged to provide more, through further savings, and so that the worth and dignity of profit as the source of progress and improvement may be simultaneously established.
–Super Valu Sales Service Department, Computing Margins & Mark-ups
I don’t really have a problem with big business adopting policies like this. I just wish we’d stop personifying businesses, especially in the government, which is where I find this online. (It looks like Super Valu is just parroting the State Department?)
I think the root of most problems with businesses is our tendency to think of them as if they were people. I think we do this because we’re more comfortable conceptualizing people than abstract organizations. But what does it even mean for a business to “see the world”? Surely Walmart doesn’t have real eyes, and I’m not sure what it’s metaphorical eyes would be.
Comment by OrangeBeard — September 7, 2006 @ 2:11 pm