Imagining The Soul of A Business

From Availing Wisdom, July 28, 2009

The soul, or pneuma, of a business is shown in its DNA, the very code that gives it life. A company is very much like a belief system offering values, community, relevance, leadership and vision, empathy, and trust to the body of customers (see believers) that buy (see follow) its product(s) (see values). People are looking for companies and brands that they can believe in, belong to, and that spark the right emotions that connect them to something greater than themselves.

On the other side, Companies run and survive on connections, on interactions with people. Without a sufficient quantity of quality interactions, the company will die. These connections are the life blood of the organization, the only way to make it survive.

The average corporation is 20 to 30 years old but most don’t make it to the age of 5, and many die in their infancy. If corporations are treated as people then what does this mean, how do we create corporations that last? A company survives based on the number and quality of its relationships to people, no company is an island and it cannot live alone. These relationships are the fuel, the life blood, the sustaining force.

The Company’s character determines its value to customers and how it communicates that value, the quality of the connections it can establish, determines how long it will stay alive.

Do you see it this way?  Do you think it’s fair to treat companies as people in this manner?