All business is personal

We are in the political season, sometimes called the silly season. I will avoid discussions of politics, but I mentioned politics to introduce a well-worn phrase: “All politics are local.”

Whether that is true or not, it led me to the observation that “all business is personal.” That phrase and a note on this blog by Shannon Wagner, and a discussion with my sister-in-law in the mountains.

Business is a revealing of who we really are.

Business is an acting out of “love thine enemies.”

Business is the 12-step program to becoming a mature person.

Business is how we really help our grandmothers, our kids and those members of our families who have known hard times.

Business helps us appreciate that it is more blessed to give than to receive. Yes, Virginia, there is much evil and much failure in our being and our doing.

Business is that process of refining that out, however slowly it may drip out, drop by drop.

Some people think business is about money, as though it were a zero-sum game. This is not so.

Yes, making a reasonable return for capital investors is a constraint. Like side-lines in a football game, but it is not the game. In business, you score each time you make someone happy. Make just one someone happy… (some may remember a song Jimmy Durante sang).

Agile is personal, for example. It’s between persons.