That is a question all (small) business owners should have asked themselves from the moment they started their business or took over the reins of an existing operation. Yogi Berra famously said that "If you don't know where you're going, you will end up somewhere else". It makes no sense to be in business without having a clear understanding of what you want to achieve with it. Nor can you expect your employees to give all they have if the mission of the business has not been shared with them or if they have not bought into this mission.

To many in business the mission is vague, subject to change or the mission has really never been articulated. To others the mission is the framed certificate in the lobby of the company telling traveling salesmen and the UPS delivery person what the company intends to pursue. But it is no more than that. It is a dead letter that does not live in the minds and the hearts of the people working in the company; not even with the 'boss'.

Will success elude such businesses?

Let's address that question here and look at some hypothetical but realistic scenarios:

Meet Carl Vandergast. He is 48 years old and has accepted a 'package' from a multinational corporation where he was one of 38 Vice Presidents. He lives in Newport RI, where he wants to stay, because his wife comes from a prominent Newport family. He has used the money of the 'package' to buy a local distribution company of animal feed, a product line he was familiar with from his twenty-five years with his previous employer. He sees his investment in the company, named Newport Distribution Inc., as just that. An investment that hopefully will be less risky and give him a better return than he can get with his money at Wall Street or in real estate. It also keeps him in the industry and gives him something to do for the time that he does not spend on the golf course, his sailing boat or with his Rotary friends. Finally it gives him something that has eluded him so far in business: ownership and the right to be his own boss and call all the shots.

Then meet Terrence Sowell. He is 24 years old and still in grad school at the University of Tennessee, pursuing an MBA in Management, but has started six years ago, while he was a Senior in High School, a company to provide a social network for worldwide academic research in any discipline. His network that he has dubbed 'Globaliter' provides instantaneous access through cloud computing to articles written for academic purposes by subscribers of Globaliter anywhere in the world. It already has 3 million subscribers and has huge advertising support. Terrence is single and finds no time for any activity that is not work or study related.

Let's see how Carl and Terrence answer the question: "To what end?"

Carl has not given much thought to this question. He has bought an established business for the purpose of keeping him occupied, in the loop; and to provide him with an income and some flexibility in moving some of his personal expenses over to the business. In his mind the company, Newport Distribution Inc., will be there long after he will be gone (after all it has been in business for more than 100 years) and he figures he can sell it when the time comes to really throw in the towel. His two daughters are making a career for themselves and have no interest whatsoever in Newport Distribution. The mission of the company as Carl sees it is to provide him with a platform for operations and a comfortable living for the foreseeable future.

Terrence on the other hand has become obsessed with the concept of building a business that will defy imagination. He is after creating the next Google or a next generation Facebook. He has gotten everyone in Globaliter involved in articulating the mission for the company and he has been adamant that it should be simple and easily recognized and memorized. Globaliter exists so that it can "aggregate global mind power and focus it like a laser beam on solving the world's toughest challenges". It will take a while, probably a few business cycles, to determine success or failure for these two enterprises. Both are at risk of failing (which is inherent in business). Newport Distribution may fail for lack of direction, missing the boat on new trends or technologies and failing to excite its customers. Globaliter may fail for having its sights set on overly ambitious goals and may flame out before it can become the next powerhouse. It may be ahead of its time and become merely the stepping stone for another entrepreneur. Newport Distribution may very well deliver on the expectations that Carl Vandergast has for the business, but unless some or all of the employees step up and take the destiny of the company in their own hands (which is hard to do without access to capital), the company will be at the mercy of the marketplace. Carl may or may not have anything to sell by the time he gets ready for retirement. The company is likely to lose what few employees it may have had with ambitions and capabilities beyond doing more of the same from nine to five.

Globaliter may fail to fulfill its mission, but it will likely spark a huge leap forward in practical application of global networking technology. In the meantime it will bring a huge and diverse talent pool together that will be highly motivated, creative and energetic. The talent pool may break up, if Globaliter will not make it in the end, but the individuals will stay connected and be scheming and dreaming about the next opportunity until they find a way to complete their mission.

Yogi Berra had the right idea: in business much like in top sports, you can't get to the top and stay there unless you have all the members of the team pulling in the same direction. Someone will have to let the team know which direction that is. In privately held corporations, that is the task of the business owner. The business owner will have to answer the million dollar question:

"To What End".

In business in the 21st century it is not enough to meet the owner's expectations of what the company should deliver. If the company does not have a stated "Ends Strategy" that all stakeholders have bought into, it has no right to claim durability and long term growth potential. Without it will be unable to attract the right talent and the right financial resources required to build a business that means something.

Frans Jager is President of Castnet Corp. (www.castnetcorp.net) a Business Consultant for the Green Industry and an Executive Coach. He frequently writes about matters pertaining to the Green Industry. He can be reached at castnetcorp@gmail.com.
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