A few weeks ago, I wrote about Adam Grant’s book, Give and Take.
In his book, Adam says that becoming otherish in a business context would require “dramatic changes in the way that organizations hire, evaluate, reward, and promote people. It would mean paying attention not only to the productivity of individual people but also to the ripple effects of this productivity on others.”
That’s what would happen if we were each individually otherish in our work.
But a business focused on otherishness would be another thing altogether.
The reason most businesses aren’t otherish isn’t because that way isn’t profitable. It’s because that way is much harder. Taking home more money this year is way easier than borrowing money so you can give it away. Focusing on doubling sales is easier than focusing on doubling the number of employees you’ve helped become better salespeople.
A business that focused on how it helped its employees instead of its shareholders would require equally dramatic changes in the way that it hired, evaluated, rewarded, and promoted its people. More importantly, it would mean that its productivity would no longer be measured by the profit that it made.
Its productivity would be measured by the lives it touched. It would be measured by the number of people it trained and sent on to greater heights. It would be measured by how it changed business.
