I’m forever mystified when someone tells me they really don’t care much about the good of the company they work for. “It can fall into the ocean as far as I’m concerned” was one especially memorable one I once heard.
“Hmm,” I said. “Your paycheck is gonna get awfully wet.”
Companies are made up of people. What happens to the company happens to the people in it. If you harm a company, it doesn’t harm the building it’s in. It doesn’t harm the computer systems or the products on the shelves. It harms the people. And if you make a company successful, it’s the people who benefit.
A company is made up of individuals with their own hopes and dreams and ideas of success. But it only becomes a company when all of those individuals come together to put the critical drivers of the company first.
I can hear it now: I do have my own hopes, you know! Well of course you do—we ALL do. But a rising tide lifts all boats. And when all those individuals put self-interest aside and focus on the good of the company, the success comes back to them in spades.
It’s not a contest between the good of the company and the good of you. One leads to the other.
Focus your work on the key results and critical drivers of the business—because the success of the business is YOUR business.