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Zero Gravity Business Principle # 5: Responsibility

Guest post by: Rebel Brown

Article Overview: We need to change the way we define success - in business and our personal lives. Those definitions create some of the biggest and most dangerous Gravity around.

Zero Gravity Business Principle # 5: Responsibility

There was an interesting article last week in HBR from Umair Haque concerning Apple's Achilles' Heel. Umar's point really struck a chord with me. Umar's focus is on innovation beyond the way we've always done. Not innovation in features or technologies or advanced science. Rather, this innovation is about being responsible in the way we create and deliver new products, new offerings or new worlds.

Apple is, without question, one of the leading innovators in business today. They bring us new ways to access and interact with our digital world.

Yet Apple is stuck in its own form of Gravity, a Gravity that the majority of businesses share. Even with all their innovation and out-of-the-box thinking - Apple hasn't changed the way they design, create and manufacture products. You can read the details in Umar's article, I won't repeat them here.

This is a great example of a Zero Gravity Business Principle:

Measurement of success includes a focus on responsibility and sustainablility.

We can no longer focus on profits alone as the single measurement of business success. Nor can we focus on growth at the expense of our responsibilities to other people and our planet. We've all seen where that leads - just look at the financial sector, the Gulf Oil Spill and the challenges facing our environment and resources for the future. And let's not forget the human factor (or lack of) we all see with offshore manufacturing facilities that don't share the US focus on human rights and just plain civility.

As we seek to ditch the Gravity inherent in our own business thinking, I think it's time we also take a hard look at the status quos we hold so dear concerning profit and success.

If we make a huge profit yet destroy our natural resources - is that really success?

If we grow our businesses at the cost of human suffering, is that the kind of growth we want?

I think we need to change the way we define success - in business and our personal lives. Our old definitions create some of the biggest and most dangerous Gravity around.

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Article Tags: business growth strategy, Defy Gravity, responsibility, Sustainability, Zero Gravity Business



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Re: Why Did You Become An Entrepreneur? - You mean Freedom = Responsibility. Freedom and responsibility are two sides of same coin. But I like the word choice. Robert
Re: Congratulations Topeyinka - Congrats Topeyinka! As Spiderman said "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"... Just kidding.. Have Fun!
Re: Free elecrtricity generator - Can anybody help me with any aspect of my invention? In basic terms it is the energy of Gravity conserved and reused = (Auto engaging and disengaging shafts) = perpetual motion Perpetual motion + static friction generated in a pipe = free static electricity Free static electricity converted to usable electricity = Free usable electricity Free usable electricity generated by the constant friction generated by an auto engaging and disengaging machine that conserves the energy of gravity in a overcrankable clock spring The weight is easilly lifted back up the shaft with the aid of a double pully on ropes
Re: Quote of the Day - "We are each responsible for our own life - In one of my articles related to "Is It a Scam or is it YOU" most cry Scam when in fact they have done nothing the with the program, havent followed the bluprint or the training, improperly marketed it. etc. "One mans scam may be another mans bonanza" is a quote used. Summing up the article, Do your Own Due Diligence, Make your own decision, and finally "Take Responsibility for your Decision regardless of the outcome Good or Bad"


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