(2013-01-18) Marshall Business Doctrine

Bob Marshall: Business Doctrine. What is Business?

The US Marine Corps’ “Warfighting” Manual defines the Marines’ “doctrine” – what they believe about their “business” and how they approach it. The manual starts out by defining the context for the whole thing, War itself

So too, it seems to me, is it sensible to define what we mean by “Business” before we can productively start to define and discuss what we believe concerning appropriate means to go about e.g. “running a business”.

business about many different things, many unspoken, some contradictory. And most organisations have their own shared narrative (aka mindset, memeplex) – often implicit – about the very nature of business.

“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.” ~ Peter Drucker (Drucker on The Purpose and Objectives of a Business)

“The sole purpose of business is service.” ~ Leo Burnett

“Executives’ actions make sense [only] if you look at them as taken in order to maximise the executive’s well being.” [Ergo: a business exists to maximise its executives’ well being.] ~ Russell Ackoff

• direct quote: The principal function of most corporations is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize the standard of living and quality of work life of those who manage the corporation. (principal-agent problem)

And we might also accept various other interpretations of “Business Defined”, including the perspective of Art Kleiner and his Core Group Theory, and the idea that businesses serve a social purpose – to give people some place or “ba” in which to come together and be human.

Aside: Rightshifting takes the view that the purpose of any given business is more or less unique to a time, a place, and the people involved.

Doctrine

What do you believe business is for? How many of your colleagues share your perspective on “Business Defined”?

How can we come up with a doctrine for our business, if we can’t even agree on why we all turn up for work every day? Are we doomed to all pursuing our various different agendas, milling around like a herd of cats? (Strategic Context)