Businesses that pride themselves on being practical will say “profit”. Without a healthy bottom line, they argue, there can be no grand vision, no great purpose.

But, the days of easy pickings are long gone. Every business today needs highly motivated, focused stuff, capable of exercising initiative. Its profit margin depends upon executive decision making that demands responsibility and creativity. Some of these qualities cannot exist and none of them can be sustained without a sense of greater purpose.

Having a sense of greater purpose requires a highly developed sense of corporate identity. A corporate identity requires a set of shared values. Shared values arise out of near-frictionless internal communication. Near-frictionless internal communication turns a business into a tribe.

Every tribe needs a leader. Leaders lead by having a vision as to where they are heading.

All of this is connected. But the connections, to work, have to happen in the right order.

How does your business stack up?

The world is changing. Not overnight and not all at once, but it is changing nevertheless. In my talks to corporate groups, CEOs, VPs and industry leaders I gleam insights of how this change is happening. What evidence exists. Why some things happen and not others and how we can best take advantage of it all to do better. In Observations I catalogue it all. Brief, to the point and open to discussion.