Personal

Milton Friedman's idea of shareholder supremacy asserts that the function of a business is to simply maximize its profits. This idea lends itself to a certain language.

Charts, graphs, and numbers become our primary communication methods, while emotions, sense of purpose, and connection are left in the dust.

Friedman’s ideas sound much more scandalous when translated into a personal setting: 

“The function of any relationship is to maximize the gain from it.”

While this idea makes our skin crawl, we accept it in business because business isn’t personal.

But business is personal. No matter what language we use to muddy the waters and remove responsibility from ourselves within our organizations, every interaction at its core, is with an individual.