REASONABLE TECHNOLOGIES

There are only relationships. 

When I first truly got into business, I read the book Business Matters to God by Jeff Van Duzer.   It’s not a quick read but one of the things that changed my thinking was the line  “… in order for a business to succeed, it must first do no harm. He explains that it should be sustainable and his view of sustainable was multi-dimensional, not a single dimension, not just stake-holders, not just the environment. You get the idea.   Van Duzan writes in the book, “And this do-no-harm constraint should apply to all the businesses’s stakeholders.  It applies to investors who provide the business capital and to employees who contribute their labor.  It applies to suppliers who provide raw goods and to customers who purchase finished goods.  It applies to communities that nurture businesses and of course to the natural environment in which the business is situated.”

You know what all those have in common? 

People. 

People that you have built a relationship of trust with.  You fulfil that trust with every delivery, every interaction with employees, every purchase made with investor’s money, every decision made about the community that you live in.  We need to keep that in mind because you have built relationships, whether you know it or not, with all the people that sustain your business. 

I’m not saying that flippantly, it’s a tough job to balance competing demands and priorities but it’s part of the responsibility you take on and the people you serve have value. You don’t have a business relationship, you simply have a relationship.

When my daughter’s son was little my daughter always called him, “the tiny human”. I loved that not just because he’s my grandson but because that reminds us that this tiny human has great value.

Your stakeholders are human.