We measure business success in revenue, growth and profit. I keep wondering what those numbers miss.
Imagine two companies. Both are profitable, growing and respected.
In the first, people are under constant pressure. Meetings fill the calendar and work runs into evenings and weekends.
In the second, people have time to think and a life outside work. Customers feel valued. The business earns enough to keep going.
On paper, they are equally successful. I don’t think they are.
Growth became the goal
Companies are good at measuring money: revenue, costs, profit. Those numbers matter. They show how a business is doing financially. They don’t show whether it makes life better for the people in it, or the people it touches.
Somewhere along the way we started treating growth as the goal. It is only one way to get there.
Picture a leadership meeting deciding whether to move into a new market. The opportunity looks good. It also means more travel, longer hours and more pressure on a team that is already overworked. Usually they talk about revenue and risk. Add one question:
Will this decision improve the quality of life we create?
Expansion may still be right. Or the company may find that getting better is worth more than getting bigger.
Ask people first
Plenty of companies run engagement surveys and wellbeing programmes. These ask what the company wants to know: how do we cut absence, how do we keep staff?
I find the more useful question goes the other way:
What kind of working life do you actually want?
One person values freedom over any benefit. Another wants more meaningful work or more flexibility. Teams and generations differ.
That’s what I look for in my own work with the Compass: the gap between the life people have and the one they want. In working life, that gap rarely shows up in a standard report.
Quality of Life is the New Success™
A business affects the lives of its people, customers, suppliers and neighbourhood. It needs profit to survive. To me, profit is one measure among several.
So the question I’d put to any leader is this: what kind of life does your company help create?
More on how I read the gap: how the Quality of Life Study works.