What kind of success? | Seth’s Weblog

“Who’s it for?” isn’t merely a query about your goal buyer.

Milton Friedman provided to allow us to off the hook–the one factor the work is for is to maximise shareholder worth, he stated. Nothing else is value measuring.

I’ve by no means met anybody who constantly believed this. There are people who discover it simple to permit cash to make their choices for them, however sooner or later, all of us transfer away from this empty path.

Work is an expression of ourselves, and an opportunity to search out that means as we make a distinction and earn a dwelling.

After we select to serve our clients, we discover a extra dependable compass as a substitute of solely following the cash. The purchasers are proper there in entrance of us, and we will see and really feel the outcomes of our work day-after-day. That is the physician who spends a couple of additional minutes with a affected person in want, or the employees member with a boss who rewards a customer-centric strategy, even (particularly) if it’s costlier within the brief run.

However how about artists who select to provide work they love as a substitute of these that can simply promote? This can be a completely different type of success, one which’s not measured in what number of clients one has, however in our pleasure and satisfaction with the work we create.

Some symphony orchestras wrestle with the journey of discovering a unified definition of success. There are musicians who’ve paid their dues, twenty or thirty years of follow and dedication. Lots of them need to play difficult work, with time to hone their craft. The aim of the work is to permit them to observe their artistic path, the viewers is only a strategy to obtain that. Others are desirous to play crowd-pleasing applications, discovering that viewers success rewards them much more than their very own definition of artistry.

The battle, in any group, is a problem. We’d like our crew members to make use of their finest judgment, to search out the satisfaction they search of their work. However what occurs when these definitions of success don’t align?

Too usually, administration merely conceals what they actually search, or lies about it. If “workers are our most essential asset” then why not act that manner?

Let’s be clear about who it’s for and what it’s for. It makes choice making extra productive and communication and measurement far simpler.

August 17, 2025