I just read an article about Starbucks expanding their offering in certain stores to offer beer, wine, and more food in the evening.

As a marketer, I have deep misgivings about this. Starbucks is supposed to be about coffee. I worry about brand dilution. As a consumer who enjoys coffee and beer, I do not see those two things living in the same space.

But as a change agent, I love this. It is critically important to be uncomfortable from time to time. It’s a good indication you’re trying something new. After all, if it has already been done then you already know how it will play out – nothing to be uncomfortable about there. Starbucks is adding an extra shot to their current offering. That’s terrific. If it works, great. If it doesn’t work, then they will have learned something useful.

Either way, kudos to them.

Now I might humbly offer them some advice. I LOVE coffee flavored beers. (Dogfish Head Chicory Stout, Southern Tier Jahva, Dieu de Ciel Peche Mortel…) Why not develop your stores as THE place to enjoy these beers? It could transform your business. It will definitely transform my Starbucks Gold Card!

There are many reasons why we don’t act to make our world better. One of them is the belief that someone else will do it. Someone else will give up their seat to the pregnant woman. Someone else will help that elderly man pick up the bag he dropped. Someone else will allow that car to merge into the lane. Someone else will pick up that piece of garbage.

We can go about our business and someone else will take care of it.

I’d like to suggest that we think differently. I’d like to suggest that we pretend there isn’t anybody else. If someone else was going to do it then the pregnant woman wouldn’t be standing in the aisle and the garbage wouldn’t be lying on the floor. There is no someone else.

You be the someone else.

See how much change happens then!

It’s impossible to consider the economic and financial events of the past few years and not conclude that the business world has lost its way. Many people have cynically used the crisis to push their pre-existing agenda. The left has gleefully argued that capitalism is dead or that it never really worked. The right has argued that the crisis proves we have to reduce regulation even more. But I think we need to think about what’s going on in a very different way. Yes, capitalism is not a perfect system. Like any human invention it will sometimes go haywire. And yes, sometimes regulation should be eliminated. But all of those arguments presuppose that we are asking the right questions and thinking about events in the right way. And I don’t think we have been.

I think business has lost its way – starting with its self-conception as an institution.

In the olden days (I always wanted to say that) business owners clearly understood that their businesses were social institutions. That is, that they were part of the social fabric. It was impossible not to see this because business used to be a local phenomenon. The butcher knew his customers. He knew what was going on in their lives. He knew the owners of the other businesses. He went to church with them. Their kids played together. He clearly felt the connection between anything that went on in the town and the rise and fall of his own business. Business owners understood the system and their role in it. If a businessman cheated a customer or mistreated an employee, he was cheating or mistreating his neighbor. If he polluted, he was ruining the water that he and his children drank – literally.

I’m not suggesting that businessmen were all righteous and that all business was conducted with grace and nobility. Clearly that is untrue. But I am arguing that businesspeople conceived of business as a social phenomenon and institution. Sometimes it served the community, sometimes it harmed the community. But nobody had any doubt that it was of the community – that what a business did affected (and effected) the community and vice versa.

In the march towards mass global corporations, business lost sight of its connection to people and society and therefore stopped self-conceiving as a social institution inextricably tied to people and communities. Without real tangible immediate connections to people and society, businesspeople were left with nothing to ground their efforts but abstract concepts. It was probably inevitable that as business yanked up the anchor that tied it to actual people and a local community, that it focused on money as its foundational concept. Money is inherently abstract. We often don’t even see our money anymore – we pay for products, we pay bills, we move money from account to account without ever actually touching money. Money allows business to measure its contribution in units that have nothing to do with people. (Sure, businesses also measure customer service. But even those measurements are done from afar – very afar – and feel very sterile and clinical.) Finally, money is fungible. It is easily moved around the world – it neither knows nor cares who touches it and for what purpose.

Today, (big) business is done under the theory of shareholder value. Business has decided that its purpose is to make money for “investors.” Not people mind you but nameless faceless entities called “investors.” This is about as abstract and soulless as you can get. Business today no longer self-conceives as a social institution. It is something else. It floats above people and society and even nationality. And it feels no accountability to people or society or nations. So it doesn’t surprise me that we’ve found ourselves in a crisis. When business readily lays people off to make its number, when it devotes itself to uninspiring products rather than taking risks to change the world for the better, when it skimps on service to save a nickel, when it puts money above all else, ultimately it will be rejected by society.

Business may prefer to conceive of itself as global, unanchored and unaccountable but the world is not obligated to agree. The fact is that business still is a social institution insofar as its employees, suppliers, partners, customers and even investors are human beings who exist in society. It seems to me that business has gone too far. It has attempted to remove itself too much from society and now society is fighting back.

I think it is a time for a new self-conception for business. Business should not just be about financial profit. It should be about impact. And there are many forms of impact. Yes, financial profit is one of them. Helping investors make money is worthwhile. But so is employing people. So is maintaining communities and even helping them grow. So is contributing to local and national discourse on issues that matter. And so on. These are ends in and of themselves. And they should not be pursued only when they are accretive to the bottom line. They should be pursued even when they dilute the bottom line. Being decent and human is not a luxury to be pursued only when net income and earnings per share meet Wall Street expectations. They are what is important. Financial profit is a means towards those ends, not vice versa.

I’m not arguing that business should think of itself as not for profit. I’m all for profit. But I’m arguing for placing profit in its place. Understanding that it is but one way of having an impact on the world and that sometimes lowering EPS so that you don’t make some kid’s daddy and mommy poor is exactly the right thing to do. Wall Street should not have the right of first refusal.

This new self-conception can allow business to feel much more comfortable about innovating, about investing in people and communities, about doing interesting valuable work that matters to people not just to balance sheets and income statements.

Isn’t that the work you’d like to do?

I needed some allergy medicine the other day. Normally I would use diphenhydramine (the active ingredient in the overpriced Benadryl) but I also planned to enjoy some alcohol that day and I didn’t want to mix the two. So I went shopping for loratadine (the active ingredient in the overpriced Claritin).

You can probably tell that I am not in favor of brand name over the counter medicines. They are way overpriced. Which is why I went shopping for loratadine and not Claritin. But even I was surprised by what I saw on the shelf at Target.

The branded drug is nearly 4 times as expensive as the store brand!

There are many legitimate criticisms of this pricing.

• There are moral arguments against marketing practices that sucker people into buying something they don’t need. I’ve written about that here. In case you’re wondering, I’m not accusing anyone here of trying to sell allergy medicine to people who don’t need it. I am accusing the Claritin folks of trying to sucker consumers out of $13.90. Yes, they need the medicine, but the $4.99 package from Target will deliver exactly the same relief as the $18.89 package from Claritin.
• There are professional arguments against the sort of marketing that Claritin is engaged in. I have written about that here.

And yes, there is an economic argument in favor of Claritin’s pricing. From a strict economic perspective, they should charge what they can get. Clearly, some consumers are willing to pay for this product. They believe the extra $13.90 they are spending is worth it for whatever reason.

But I’m not here right now to make any of those arguments. Instead, I want to touch on another subject – one I have written about here. I am addressing myself not to some faceless corporation, but to you – an employee. An individual human being.

Let’s leave aside any moral question about price gouging. Let’s assume that it’s totally OK to hoodwink people into believing that your product is worth more than it really is. Let’s ignore classical pricing theory. Instead, let’s focus on a simple question:

Is this how you want to earn your living?

Do you really want to spend your working day – most of your waking hours – figuring out how to persuade people to spend $18.89 on something they could buy for $4.99??? Sure, there is an intellectual thrill involved in such work. Sure, there is a sense of accomplishment in separating people from their money with wit rather than a gun. But is that really how you want to earn your living?

There is another road you could take. Instead of trying to convince people that loratadine in a Claritin box is worth almost 4 times as much as loratadine in another box, you could instead focus your energies on creating, marketing and selling an offering that actually is worth 4 times as much. You could focus on the needs of others for life-changing medicines rather than on your own need for profit.

When you go home at night to your family and tell your kids what you do, what do you want to tell them? That you spend your day hoodwinking people or helping people?

When you’re lying on your deathbed and reflecting on the life you lived, what will give you more satisfaction? The number of people you cheated and the profits you earned, or the number of lives you improved?

Think about it.

I just came across this article on Volkswagen shutting off email to some employees in an effort to improve work-life balance.

I understand the thinking and feeling behind this action. People feel that the culture isn’t serving them but they feel powerless to change it. They want some powerful outside force (outside as in – not them) to intervene and make the problem disappear. I believe this will have some positive effect. Yet, I have mixed feelings about this and all similar policies and programs that mandate or outlaw certain behaviors in an effort to create desired outcomes.

On one hand, as I said, this will work (to some degree). I have advised some of my clients to do just this. To wire change into the system by making it the default and bypassing the need for people to understand, accept and internalize the desired behavior. Often, this just works faster. As the architect of an organization or as one accountable for results, this is often what you want.

On the other hand, I find this dehumanizing. What makes us human – what separates us from amoebae – is our will, our awareness of that will and our ability to think about and execute a plan of action to effect our will. In short, we can intelligently direct our actions towards our goals. What’s dehumanizing about slavery is not that it is physically uncomfortable. We do all sorts of things to ourselves willingly that are physically uncomfortable: we run marathons, we wear high heels, we dress in rubber and ask people to spank us (or so I’ve heard). No. What’s dehumanizing about slavery is that it hijacks the energies of a person and directs them away from that person’s will and towards the will of another. In doing so, it turns the person into an object not a subject, a means not an end.

In a way, that’s what VW is doing here. Sure, it’s doing so in an effort to be kind to its workers. So I guess it’s treating them not maliciously like slaves but benignly like pets. But it’s still dehumanizing. They are creating a system that renders human thought and intentional action obsolete.

I get it. It’s really hard to change the behavior of a single individual. It’s much harder to change the behavior of an organization. It’s even harder to create lasting organizational change.

But our nobility as humans lies in overcoming obstacles not running from them. It is worthwhile to marshal our passion, our wit, our charisma, and anything else we can draw upon to solve our problems. We don’t only benefit from the outcome. We also benefit from engaging in the fight and finding a way to win – I would argue that we benefit much more from that than from the outcome alone.

In a way, VW is cravenly capitulating to the less productive aspects of human nature instead of calling on our more productive qualities to improve our condition.

What do I propose instead? Leave the email system on. And if you get one after hours and don’t want to work, then don’t read it. Get together with your fellow workers and agree not to read after-hours emails. And if there are managers that penalize workers for not responding to after-hours emails then fire them. This puts the onus back onto people. It requires that they have courage. That they think. That they partner with other people. That they act like people.

BTW, I also find approaches like this objectionable on utilitarian grounds. Shutting down the email server doesn’t change what people value. It doesn’t change the way they think. It doesn’t alter their incentives. People believe these solutions are silver bullets. But without having changed hearts, minds, or skills, these solutions are unlikely to work for long. Sure, the emails won’t go through. But people can still call each other after hours. Managers can assign work at the very end of the day and require it to be complete first thing the next day. And so on. VW’s approach ignores the systemic factors that give rise to the behavior they want to change. People aren’t sending each other emails after hours because there’s a functioning email server. They’re sending each other emails because they have work to get done, they haven’t figured out a way to get it done during business hours and they believe email will help. Instead of shutting down the server, VW ought to look at how much work it assigns people, how efficiently they work, what kind of behavior their incentive system creates, the relationships between managers and employees, and so on. Understanding that system and laboring to make it work better is worthy work. Hitting the switch on the server – however well-intentioned – is lazy and shortsighted.

This weekend I experienced a truly awful and shortsighted customer experience strategy. I went with a friend to the Moncler store in NY. She wanted to buy a coat. When we got there, they told us that we had to wait before entering the store. Why? Well, they like to provide excellent customer service and with limited sales associates they can only handle so many customers in the store at a time.

I understand and respect the desire to provide excellent customer service. But this approach is simply awful.

So here’s a little advice for the good folks at Moncler:

First, don’t make your customers wait outside in the winter cold. Ever. Not for any reason. It’s bad humanity and its bad marketing. Bad humanity because…well that should be really obvious. And bad marketing because… well, because it’s bad humanity. Unless you’re the military or a physical trainer, don’t ever make your customers experience physical discomfort.

Next, think a bit more deeply about customer experience. Sure, you want to provide a great customer experience. That is laudable. But the experience doesn’t start when customers enter the store. It starts when they reach the door. (Actually way before that but we can talk about that another time.) If you tell people they have to wait outside in the cold, you’ve already delivered a poor experience.

Moncler: Let people in. Let them come in from the cold and warm up a bit. We all understand that you can’t actually engage every customer all at the same time. We know we have to wait. But making us wait outside in the cold is inhumane and it is certainly not the hallmark of excellent customer service.

I’ve worked for two large corporations as an employee and with several more as a consultant. Some I enjoyed, others were painful. But one thing that was true for all of them is that it was difficult to get anything done. Very difficult. This is one of the natural afflictions of a large enterprise – there are many people in many departments in many locations and their interests are not completely aligned. Because it is difficult to get things done, fewer things get done and often it is the easiest, not the best things that get done.

So how do companies usually address this problem? Mostly, they valorize and lionize the Hero – one who is able to find a way around, over, through or underneath the obstacles that the organization has designed into the System. Think about the absurdity of this approach. They end up with a small handful of Heroes whose natural ability allows them to adeptly maneuver through complex Systems while the vast majority of their workforce is stymied by unnecessary complexity.

I understand why this happens. It’s a lot easier to identify and reward Heroes than it is to actually fix the system. But this means that executives at these companies have simply thrown up their hands and said “heck, I can’t fix this mess.” That’s not leadership. It leaves a ton of talent on the table – all of those employees that could be doing wonderful things and creating value for the company and the world, are spending their time spinning their wheels. Worse, they become uninspired, demotivated and dejected.

We can do better. Rather than creating systems that are needlessly complex or counterproductive and patting ourselves on the back for managing to get something – anything – done in spite of them, we should take on the hard work of designing organizations and systems that just make sense. That actually facilitate the doing of great work rather than impede it.

Your employees make a choice every day about whether to continue working for you. So if you have an employee today that you’d like to still be an employee tomorrow, you have to re-recruit them. Every day.

Or, you can let them leave because they’ve found a better deal elsewhere, and you can go out and recruit a replacement.

The catch is that recruiting someone new is expensive. Keeping someone is much cheaper. They already know you and like you.

So what are you doing to recruit your existing employees?

I’ve got a friend who is in the midst of the recruiting process at a consulting firm. She’s had several rounds of interviews. Her last round seemed to have gone well. She followed protocol and sent a nice thank you note after the interview. And then, nothing.

For more than a week she heard nothing from them. Not even after she sent another note inquiring about the status of her candidacy. Total radio silence.

Sadly, this behavior is quite common. It is also quite foolish.

Recruiting is no longer an activity that is separate from the actual running of your business. It is very much part of running your business. Now of course it never really was separate. It was always a way of finding the talent that you needed to thrive. But recruiting was primarily thought of as an inbound activity – it brought people in. Today, it is as much an outbound activity – it is a means of telling the world who you are and what you’re all about. The people you hire – who experienced your values at work during the recruiting process – will talk to others about what they learned about you. And guess what? The people you didn’t hire – either because they rejected you or you rejected them – will talk even more.

In a sense, you are speaking to the world through all of the people that experience your behavior as a recruiter. What are you saying?

The company that is recruiting my friend is saying “We don’t care about people. We don’t empathize with people who are anxious to find out how they did in an interview. We don’t care that people might feel vulnerable during the process. We don’t care that our answer back to a candidate could affect their financial life and that they might really want to know what will happen to them. We don’t care.”

Is that what you want to say? And before you answer that question, think about this a little more. When you say that about how you recruit, do you really think you’re not also saying that about how you are in general? If you’re a callous jerk as a recruiter, don’t you think people might conclude you’re a callous jerk as a marketer, client, vendor, customer service rep, seller, manufacturer, etc.?

Oh and one more thing. In case your business doesn’t matter that much to you: Do you really want to be a jerk? Let me put this very plainly. If you don’t take 30 seconds to let someone know where they stand in an interview process – even if that means writing a quick email to tell them that you’re incredibly busy and won’t be able to get back to them for a week or two – then you’re a jerk. Plain and simple.

Don’t be a jerk. It’s bad for the world. It’s bad for you.