There is a thought in the manuscript of “The Philosophy of Entrepreneurship” worth returning to when we talk about a company’s growth:
“The true measure of a company is not found only in how much it has grown. It is also found in the people who leave it, in the person who remains at its helm, and in whether its success had a soul or merely produced a result.”
Author’s reflection
Growth is something we can show. Higher revenue, more employees, new premises, more clients. All of that has value. A company has to operate, meet its obligations, and create the conditions to keep going.
But those figures do not answer every question.
What happened to the people who carried that growth? Did they gain knowledge, security, and room to develop? Could they say when something was not working? Or did they learn to stay silent to avoid trouble?
An employee leaving is not, in itself, evidence of a bad company. People change direction, outgrow a role, or seek a different life. How they leave matters too: feeling they have learned something and been respected, or needing to recover from the way they worked.
The same question should be asked of the person leading the company.
Has growth made that person better able to hear others? Is it easier for them to admit a mistake? Do they give responsibility to the people they have hired? Or does each new stage of success simply increase their need to be right?
Such changes rarely appear in a business report. Yet employees feel them in conversations, in how work is allocated, and in how problems are resolved.
When I say that success has a soul, I do not mean a company should be free of demands, difficult conversations, or decisions some people will dislike. I mean the way we make those decisions and carry their consequences.
We can demand results and explain expectations. We can acknowledge that something is wrong and accept our share of responsibility. We can part ways with someone without humiliating them. Humanity is visible when there is no easy solution too.
That is why I would add a few questions to a review of business results. What have people learned in this company? Which problem are they afraid to voice? What keeps recurring despite good figures? What am I, as the person responsible, willing to change?
The answers may be uncomfortable. But they can reveal something the spreadsheet has not yet shown.
When we look back one day, growth will be part of the story. So will the people who worked with us, the way we treated them, and the person we became while leading the company.
An excerpt from the manuscript of “The Philosophy of Entrepreneurship”, with an author’s reflection. More about the book
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