The Multi-Dimensional Bottom Line
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”
-Michelangelo Buonarotti
Italian Painter, Sculptor and Architect
(1475 – 1564)
Incessant talk these days about “Bottom Line.”
OK we’ll come out of the closet… We admit it. We’re interested in profit. We’re keenly interested in the bottom line.
But, while we’re as interested in profit as the next corporate guru, we’re just not ONLY interested in profit.
And while we’re on the subject, just how is it that “Profit” has became synonymous with “Evil?”
We suspect that pop culture sets the target too low, celebrating the losers – who do not or cannot contribute to the common good and vilifying the winners who do.
In our minds, the point of corporate existence is not profit, but product and/or service.
One creates a corporation as a precondition for amassing the tools, skills, manpower and other resources required to build a product or service, then engages the team in action. Design it, build it, sell it, maintain it, market it and reinvest to improve the next version – while attempting to stay ahead of ruthless competition. If everything goes well, there’s a profit – this year – and you get to do it all over again…
Speaking from experience, that’s not exactly easy. And a profitable year is the difficult, yet still minimum standard for merely remaining in business, still able to field a team. If that’s the target, you’ve hit it. But the larger objective is not to merely hit it, but to nail the high score ring in the center!
What would a high scoring corporation hold out as a lofty target? Start with profit, but aim for more!
What about more than mere profit, how about lots of it?
How about having sufficient resources to self-finance and self-insure? To become independent of outside financiers?
How about enough profit to finance your own research efforts to vastly improve product/service and expand product lines?
How about sufficient profit to create the financial cushion to survive the ups and downs of outrageous markets brought about by those who think only of their own immediate rewards?
How about bonuses for the team? How about child care, great food, a nourishing working environment?
How about dividends? How about client/customer rewards?
How about service sabbaticals to re-endow the community?
How about sufficient funds to endow a trust – to pass the knowledge on to the entire community?
And all this while continually compensating, challenging and rewarding the family of employees?
Now that’s a multi-dimensional bottom line!
That’s our perspective; but what about the endless discussion and dissection of those who become wildly rich?
Well, it’s a free country; they can do as they please. And the press is full of people who have “made it” as they erect castles, moats and monuments to their own grandiose greatness. That tarnishes the image of success. But many – the leaders – have evolved, and they do aim higher. Those who truly set the standard have earned great wealth, and directed its power to benefit education, medicine, and every imaginable kind of philanthropy. We suggest not sadness that many people don’t rise higher, but instead, pride, respect and admiration for those who not only hit the target, but also hit the center!
To clear a bar, you have to aim high, but to hit the center, your aim must not only be high but highly accurate.
Applications
1. Personally
It’s one thing to get through the day and slide into home base and your favorite chair, quite another to pick up something special for dinner, and then to drop it off at the church food center. Teach. Volunteer. And argue for a multi-dimensional balance sheet, and a multi-dimensional life. Be a model for larger, higher thinking.
2. At Home
Consider Junior Achievement for your budding business moguls. It’s a great way to introduce the simplicity, complexity and rewards of business. We think if more people knew more about business, and its capacity to inspire and harness individual imagination, we’d have an even more vibrant entrepreneurial sector.
3. At Work
Well there’s the bottom line, yes. But that’s not the entire balance sheet. And the “balance sheet” can and should have more than a single (monetary) dimension. Carry that aspiration with you to the office and never fail to remind people that we’re in it for the money, sure… but that’s not the great prize. Imagine what we could do if we aimed higher than mere profit and self enrichment. Keep dreaming yourself, and be a multi-dimensional manager, leader and influencer for the firm.
The Bottom Line:
Aiming, both high and accurately, allows us to not only make a profit and remain in business, but also gives us room for greater achievement. Aim too low and hit the target – not such a win. You’re invited back, but barely. Set the target higher, nail it and earn the right to become a target yourself on a bad day, but also to become an example of what’s both highest and best about a multi-dimensional human being.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
