Simple Goals

It’s important to me to have goals. They help me figure my life out. They act as a filter for my choices.

Jason Yip recently read The Goal. Talking to him about this book really got me thinking. Thinking about a single overriding goal for me and for the company I work for, ThoughtWorks. What is our goal, what single purpose unites us?

One reader of The Goal reflected: “I just had a thought about this inspired by NonviolentCommunication: the purpose of business is to serve life, the strategy is to make money. Thinking of it this way really clears it up for me”. --JasonFelice

I thought this perspective was a bit too commercial. If business really served life then we would already live in a utopia, long beyond the point of needing a primitive concept such as currency to make our system work. I think our goal should only be altruistic: "To serve our society without exception". This didn’t quite fit thought, so I reformed my goal to:

“To create sustainable economic value in pursuit of intellectual value to the benefit of all people.”

Jason rightly pointed out that this sucked. It sound like too many concocted corporate mission statements. “Wording is too unnatural though. From the gut, how would you say it?”. So I had another go:

“To further humanity through commerce while remaining economically viable.”

Again not quite hitting the spot. So I thought for a while. I analysed the basic concepts. I looked for the simplest way to express each thought. This is what I arrived at as my goal:

“Learn some stuff, help some people, and make some money”