In Bo Burlingham’s magnificent book, Small Giants, he talks about a special type of company.
A company that evokes a human connection. A company which, as per the subtitle of the book, chooses greatness over size.
At the heart of these companies leaders have “deep emotional attachments to the business, to the people who worked in it, and to its customers and suppliers—the sort of feelings that are the bane of professional management.”
I’ve genuinely always loved the teams and organisations that I’ve been lucky to lead.
Yes, loved.
It’s not about the spreadsheet.
If you’re more concerned about the kind of company you build than its multiple, your exit, how large an EBITDA it has… if profit and cash flow are essential, but not the goal… if, like the leaders of these companies, you’re open to “the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create [and …] hadn’t accepted the standard menu of options as a given”…
… if you, like me, believe to your core that business needs to be about humanity, then you could do far, far worse than read this book.
It’s one of the books I’ve gifted most often to business leaders who want their businesses to be more than numbers. If you buy it from here you’ll be supporting local independent bookshops, and we’ll put any commission into a microloan through Lendwithcare for women business owners in developing countries.
And if you want to hear some of the stories, Bo very kindly agreed to be on the #KarmicCapitalist podcast. You can hear it from our podcast page, where you’ll also find the links to the podcast on various platforms.