Business philosophy refers to all the philosophies that help business leaders and practitioners run their businesses in a way that is best suited for them and their people.
Without this broad set of values, business leaders and practitioners can easily become trapped by a set of general principles that limit or even hamper them from being able to achieve their true potential.
Business philosophy helps business leaders and practitioners build the confidence to make the right decisions when dealing with conflicting ethical or legal demands that may arise, and it helps them plan for the future to know how to thrive in a dynamic environment.
What is business ethics?
Ethics is the ethical and moral stance a person takes towards a situation or issue.
If you’re involved in business, you are likely to encounter ethical dilemmas at some point.
A person’s business ethics can be related to his or her individual ethics, values, and beliefs.
What are my ethical and moral obligations? What are my moral and legal responsibilities towards others?
How can I positively contribute to society?
These are some of the questions that business ethics is all about.
In a business setting, ethics relates to how one conducts his business affairs, interacts with people and other businesses, the relationship he has with his employees and customers, and how he chooses to represent the company in different contexts.
Business philosophy can help you learn how to take responsibility for your business and ensure that your business stays in harmony with ethical and moral values.
What are my social responsibilities?
Social responsibility is the act of taking an active part in the management of people and resources in ways that promote and share their social value with other people and organizations.
What social responsibilities do I have to people? To society? To the planet?
What’s the purpose of my business and what do I hope to achieve from it?
Do I care about the health, safety, social and economic welfare of those who work for me, and the quality of life for those who are dependent on my business?
What is customer service?
A customer is a person or group of persons who pay an amount of money to a business for goods or services that are consumed by them.
What’s the first thing a potential customer asks a potential customer representative of a business? How can we better serve our customers?
What does this say about the potential customer? What does he or she value from a relationship with us? What are we missing?
There’s always a need to improve customer service and we need to figure out what we can do to enhance our customer service culture.
Customer service is critical to customer retention and advocacy.
The customer service culture at your business determines how the customer experience will be different from competitors.
What does this say about the customer? What does he value from a relationship with us? What are we missing?
What kind of training do I need to get?
Even if you have the most skilled and experienced employees on the team, you may still want to make sure that they have the proper education and training to be able to provide the best possible service.
When employees are given the proper training and education, they are more likely to give customers the best experience, which in turn, improves the relationship between your business and its customers.
What skills do I need? Training can also be considered as a form of investment in your people.
Training helps us improve our knowledge and expand our capabilities in several areas.
To perform as well as we could in our jobs, we need to make sure that we’re equipped with the right skills and knowledge to do that.
What skills should I be working on right now?
While we’re always looking to make improvements, our biggest asset as an organization is our people.
And how do we invest in the people who work for us? By investing in their professional development.
There are a lot of ways to do this, but the most common way is by providing employees with the right training and education.
Do I take into account the kind of company I want to be?
It’s great to develop a team of smart and dedicated people, but it’s equally important that the team shares the same beliefs and principles.
To ensure that we remain consistent with the values that we hold as a company, we have to set up processes and systems that will help us hold ourselves accountable.
What kind of culture do I want to create?
Organizations that want to make the best use of their people have to set up systems and processes that enable the team to give customers the best experience possible.
What kind of challenges do I have to overcome?
Creating a great company culture can be extremely difficult, but it’s also the best way to attract the best talent.
To attract the best talent, we have to be willing to invest time in our people, listen to what they have to say, and then deliver a company culture that is consistent with their beliefs and values.
The way we talk about our culture and our beliefs doesn’t just stay within the walls of the company but affects the way we interact with the people we work with and the customers we serve.
Some challenges we face as a business are:
- Who do I want to be as a company?
- What kind of an organization do I want to be?
- What is important to our customers?
- Do we always live up to our promises?
- Do we live up to our commitments to the people we work with?
- Do we want to be known as the company that provides the best service or the company that always finds ways to disappoint their customers?
