The Story of Purpose (Mats' post in 2013)

For as long as I can remember I have had a strong desire to unite. To bring together. To commune. I find it to be the most attractive of our human desires. To come together. To join. To belong. At the same time we seem to be farther apart than ever in our ability to compromise, collaborate and cooperate around some very pressing problems facing most of us. 

I grew up very much shaped by two very distinct set of values. On the one hand was entrepreneurialism. My father is a archetypical entrepreneur. He is a doer. And he sets things in motion. He has high standards and only the best is good enough for him. And he works hard. Incredibly hard. And while demanding he never demands of others what he dosen’t first demand of himself. He and my mother instilled in me a love for the act of walking, more than the act of talking. I admire entrepreneurs as they often set out to please more than to reform and they always put their money where their mouth is. I don’t have a lot of patience for people who profess what to do with other peoples money. 

But I also had the great fortune to grow up in Sweden. Particularly during the formative 60s and 70s. Sweden, for reasons I don’t fully understand, has managed to create a culture of care, compassion and common sense. Swedish people must be fed  enlightenment with their mothers milk.  

Unfortunately these two ideas are often at odds with each other. Or at least so we are told. Can you be a successful entrepreneur and yet still promote values that people care for? Many say we can’t. Business is for business. Society is a different thing. 

Well here is where my story got interesting. I disagreed then. And I disagree now. I have committed my life to proving that capitalism is a force for good. I think it is. And I think it can be even more so. 

The left like to think that profit per definition is a bad thing. The right seems to think that imbedding social values into a profit seeking enterprise is suspect. At best. 

So what has changed. Well, how about everything. Today we live in a totally transparent world. Consumers can see everything. We have entered the world of Clark Kent. Old traditional marketing works poorly because of fragmented media landscape amplified by the difficulty in consistently delivering against any promise made. Trust goes down as an effect. 

I believe both consumers and employees, clearly our two most important stakeholder in any business will both work for and buy from companies they trust. Companies need a social license to operate. 

We have to abandon the idea that doing well and doing good are inseparable in some way. They are not. Making money is a worthy outcome if you did it by solving a problem that people wanted to get solved.