The Sobering Rarity of Truly Beautiful Organisations

In my prrevious post, I discussed how true beauty in software comes from serving human needs and improving lives. This sparked reflections on what defines a truly beautiful organisation. However, a sobering observation is that few organisations even give a passing thought to aspiring to beauty.

Core Purpose

At its core, a beautiful organisation exists to create value for society – actively making the world better through its purpose, products, services, principles and practices. Yet for most companies, this seems an afterthought at best compared to conventional metrics like profits, market share, shareholder returns, and executive wellbeing.

A beautiful organisation has a clearly defined higher purpose to positively impact humanity, not just make money. But how many companies today can succinctly articulate such a purpose that authentically guides all actions and decisions?

The solutions pioneered by a beautiful organisation work to solve real-world problems faced by people, communities and the planet. Sadly, too many organisations avoid grappling with society’s biggest challenges, focused principally on insulating themselves.

Attending to the Needs of All the Folks That Matter™

These rare organisations serve all the Folks That Matter™ – employees, customers, suppliers, owners, and communities – with close attention to their needs, such as respect, equity and dignity. They cultivate diverse cultures of psychological safety where people thrive. Yet most organisations still struggle to move beyond lip service on values like inclusion and general wellness.

Continuous Innovation

A beautiful organisation innovates responsibly in a virtuous cycle of identifying human needs, creating ethical solutions that reveal new needs to address. Compare this to the narrow innovation priorities of most companies centered on products no one needs.

Unlike most firms optimising solely for profits, a beautiful organisation balances success holistically across societal impact, environmental sustainability, stakeholder value creation and financial returns. But how many corporations truly hold themselves accountable to anything beyond the bottom line (in itself a fiction of the first order)?

Comprehensive Transparency

With comprehensive transparency, a beautiful organisation even owns its harmful side effects, those arising despite best intentions. Such radical transparency is unheard of when you consider how most companies obfuscate or greenwash.

Summary

Ultimately, a beautiful organisation is both an exemplary force for good and a successful, profitable business – values and value creation in harmony. Yet this ideal seems an esoteric aspiration most companies comfortably ignore in favor of business-as-usual.

While no organisation is perfect, we might draw inspiration and hope from those rare few striving to improve lives, society and environment through their core purpose and actions The species would benefit from having a greater number of beautiful companies with the vision and courage to embrace this model of making the world better, not just making money.