The Energy-Entropy-Information Nexus
By: Wael Itani
Tags: Development, Innovation Management, Personal Development, Investing, Innovation

Redefining businesses as purpose-driven allows them to break free from the reign of profit and shareholder value.

Apart from shortcomings of current business dynamics in describing the microscale, the macroscale is also under recent investigations. The ideas entertained above make more sense within the framework of purpose-driven business. The framework, which was previously in circulation, has been solidified by Business Roundtable in a 2019 statement. Redefining businesses as purpose-driven allows them to break free from the reign of profit and shareholder value, as the respective articles by Harvard Business Review and CNBC highlight.

In the October that followed the statement — three days before the suspected day zero for the Coronavirus — Deloitte has put together an actionable article on the matter. A year later, we see that purpose-driven businesses are not only surviving the pandemic, but thriving and outperforming their counterparts. The advantage these firms achieve seems not to be an ephemeral one.

It is not solely a web design gimmick.

Nowadays, it seems to have become all the buzz, with companies that were shortsighted to the change rushing to adapt and gasp the much needed fresh air it provides for their survivability. Before you rush to rephrase a few words on your website and claim you are purpose-driven, take the time understand what it means and develop your authentic purpose. As this section of this essay points out, it would take effort to change the structures of your organization. It is not solely a web design gimmick.

When purpose replaces greed, in the just-enough “Need” economy, the concept of market competition becomes misleading if not redundant. Players would be able to collaborate, and leverage an ecosystem to fulfill their purpose. It is for this that I have argued against breaking up Big Tech “monopolies”, and for envisioning their raison d’etre in my article on redesigning the Internet. Mergers and acquisitions would then be driven by synergies, rather than the latter being left as an afterthought, risking the success of M&A.

Such utopian markets rely on ensuring a business being driven by purpose beyond lip service. One way to start would be to give your business self-development skills. One particular item to add to your checklist, comes straight out of Barry Davret’s article. Give your customers what they need, not what they want.

Beyond your business, systems at other scales would affect whether it is capable to live up to its purpose. Placing the personal in parenthesis before development in the subtitle is a hint that all scales are to be considered, such that you are looking at a system of systems, a unified framework, at the end of the day. Apart from the people running it, a business is affected by the jurisdiction within which it exists.

“Revive the human, so that the nation thrives.”

It is by no chance that warships are crowding the Mediterranean as industrial nations are seeking to secure contracts for their stagnant Oil & Gas sectors. While purposes unify business, those of nation-states drive them to clash, for nation-states are ill-defined to serve within a limited scope rather than ideological ideals. They, too, need to be redefined. Design across scales, and, as Sultan Abdulhamid II would say, “Revive the human, so that the nation thrives.”