Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

Business

Is It Fair To Profit Off Of A Sick Person?

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Apart from the political implications, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare is rich in life, business, moral, and economic lessons. Since this Minute was recorded in November 2009, an erroneous and displaced argument continues to be frustratingly waged in a legal, economic, social, political, and medical firestorm. It seems, however, that there is a deeper moral question at work here.

On-Purpose Business Minutes aren’t political in nature. They’re intended to get you below the surface to strategic issues that touch our lives and inform our thinking. By design, my goal is often to disturb your thinking in a manner that gets you closer to the root of the matter — to the purpose. Until you know the purpose, you can’t align your life to be on-purpose. This Minute will likely deliver on disturbing thinking!

My jaw dropped in stunned amazement as I heard Florida Congresswoman, now Democratic National Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz make the following statement on the November 22, 2009, ABC News broadcast of This Week With George Stephanopoulos. The following quotation from Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz’s comments can be found in context at this link in the show transcript.

“I hope we can all agree that we have to get rid of the profit-driven, insurance company-driven health insurance system that we have, where it’s insurance company bureaucrats, Senator Coburn, that are getting in between patients and their doctors.

“To suggest that this (healthcare reform) bill will put government in between patients and their doctors is really disingenuous …”

What has changed since 2009? Her comments are important because they reflect the crux of so much of the misplaced debate in the U.S. over healthcare reform. The failure to address core principles is a classic case of arguing sentiment over underlying values and structure that make their way into policy. Read between the lines of what she is saying here about free enterprise, economics, and so forth when she calls for “get[ting] rid of the profit-driven, insurance company-driven health insurance system.” Ask yourself if her comments represent healthcare reform or a reflection of an underlying philosophy of socialism or ignorance of the free enterprise system that created the amazing medical standards of care in the United States?

Here’s where I fall out on the matter … Yes, it is not only fair to profit off of a sick person — it is essential to the health of the individual and greater society. When the business side of doctors’ practices, insurance companies, hospitals, and medical supply companies are healthy, then the people are healthy. Free enterprise tends to increase access to healthcare, raise the standard, and make it more affordable to all. Legislation by definition comes between people’s relationships and behaviors. This burdens the delivery system with additional costs of compliance and drives up costs.

The debate over access to health insurance is a straw man argument. The true question to ask is, Can a sick or injured person gain access to healthcare? Yes! That is not a problem thanks to the Hippocratic Oath and community-based hospital systems that allocate dollars from revenues generated to care for the indigent. Persons in need are not denied healthcare. “The Emergency Medical and Treatment Labor Act (EMTLA) passed by Congress in 1986 explicitly forbids the denial of care to indigent or uninsured patients based on a lack of ability to pay.”

Health insurance is simply a means to pay for services on a shared risk basis that opens up more options to policy holders who choose to participate with their dollars. When every person has access to healthcare, why must every person have health insurance? The moral argument is basically settled. The ill and informed are cared for whether theyHealthcare debate can afford it or not. Society has deemed that to be essential to the well-being of the nation.

Access to healthcare is a right. Health insurance, however, is a choice — not a right. Choice, however, is the essential element of a free market economy. 

Choices come with consequences. Many a time I can look back at my choices and wish I had chosen differently. But I live with my choices and learn from them.

To the original question, the profit motive fuels the engine of creativity and innovation across all sectors of the economy including bio-medicine and healthcare. Entrepreneurs and business people are like economic ants swarming to find a strategic, market, or price advantage crack to gain access to and serve customers. In some minds, this behavior is seen as being unsavory and “disingenuous” and greedy. On the other hand, the profit motive fuels cost reductions, stimulates product/service enhancements, and drives down costs to the consumer in total. Free enterprise creates freedoms in a free society. Within the free enterprise system the legal system catches and punishes those who violate the law. Profit, however, is not a criminal act.

Purpose, however, is an even greater force than profit. Purpose can lightly be thought of as the inherent desire to contribute to the well-being of another person, what is often called “Making a difference.”  Purpose is service. When service and profit are integrated then the heart and the head come together to produce high and noble outcomes that profit us all.

Profit with purpose is a reason the USA has the greatest medical delivery system in the world. It is also why the USA is the wealthiest nation in the world. This combination of moral clarity, technical excellence, and business acumen provides remarkable strategic advantages.

Reform is needed, but to radically alter the course of the socio-economic sanity is the greatest threat to the health of our citizens, country, and the world — especially the coming generations. 

 

How to reduce the costs of healthcare for yourself and the country?

Here’s the Kevin W. McCarthy Solution: 70% of Americans are overweight. Let’s encourage every American to get to a healthier place — to take personal responsibility for what they eat by making healthier choices. The rising cost of the healthcare crisis will end. Doctors will be able to practice acute care medicine instead of wasting their time and talent patching up and medicating our self-inflicted “wounds.”

The true culprit to our the healthcare crisis is a nation’s collective choices of unhealthy habits and lifestyles. Personal responsibility matters deeply in one’s health and well-being. Dumping the cost of one’s unhealthy decisions onto our neighbors isn’t loving them. It is asking our neighbors to underwrite the consequences of our poor choices.

The greatest “pork” in ObamaCare isn’t in the bill itself — although it is massive. The real “pork” is in the people who are weighting down the economy with the mindless self-selecting of diseases like Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, gout, cholesterol, and more. These obesity-related diseases lead to strokes, heart attacks, cancers, premature disability, and death — an ironic and discriminating form of Darwin’s natural selectionLove your country, but a waste of human life by any measure.

Do you love your country? Then, get to a healthier place! Stop the slow killing of yourself starting today. If you can’t do it on your own, then get help. There’s no sense giving away your hard earned “profits” when you can gain health and lower the full costs of your healthcare.

Your comments are appreciated.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

P.S. Need assistance? Ready to see “the waist” go away? Talk with the Health Coach who forwarded this message to you.

Need a health coach? Talk to my wife, Judith. She can help you get to a healthier place. Go to www.ahealthierplace.com or call her at 407.927.1642.

Facing A Decision? Got A Decision Making Process?

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Facing a DecisionAs a person or an organization matures, decisions need to be distributed across the team to those closest to the choice. In the absence of clearly articulated and communicated values (and a 2-word purpose) even the most well-intended person makes ungoverned decisions — typically on emotion rather than values.

Where is the root responsibility for such “ungoverned decisions?” If values are not “articulated and communicated” plus reinforced regularly, then leadership, not the person, has failed.

Consider the sheer number and importance of decisions made every day by every person associated with your organization. Every line item on your income statement reflects a decision. Ask: Do we have a specific decision making process in place that is introduced at orientation and is a regular part of our corporate conversation and storytelling?

The highly likely answer is, “No. In fact, with everything else I need to get done, this hasn’t even been on my radar.” The problem is you’re too busy making decisions that could be better done by someone who is closer to the problem who is trained, tested, and trusted.

Experience tells us that this leadership “oversight” undermines sales and profits by 25% annually. Run the numbers — now you know the price of poor leadership!

Better Decisions = Better Business

Values seem well below the surface of the daily waves of activity. In fact they are on the surface of every decision made by every team member. Coming to terms with this hard reality in the busyness of the day can be a daunting, humbling, task for the leader.

On-Purpose Partners helps clients to define, share, and activate their purpose, vision, mission, and values (PVMV) so better decisions are more consistently made across the company.

Follow our 3-step ACE decision making process to align and improve the decision making quality, speed, and effectiveness:

  1. Articulate: Purpose, Vision, Mission, and Values (PVMV). These “On-Purpose Statements” can typically be identified, refined, and written in less than a week for most organizations. For smaller businesses they can be completed in less than a day.
  2. Communicate: Find authentic stories within the organization that reflect the values. Create an open dialogue to introduce them to the larger team so ownership of them spreads into the hearts, minds, and guts of those who engage.
  3. Exercise: Put your On-Purpose Statements to work by creating decision matrices across the organization. Here are just a few places decision-making is improved using On-Purpose Statements:
    1. Strategy & Planning – It is easy to get mechanical and analytical about strategy and planning but your PVMV keep it real on a human level.
    2. People – Employment, engagement, and retention of team members are profoundly influenced by PVMV. This is where “The Tingle Factor” comes from. See The On-Purpose Business Person to learn more about The Tingle Factor.
    3. Financial management – Complement the ROI, NPV, or IRR analysis with your PVMV analysis.
    4. Vendor/sub-contractor selection – Does the vendor demonstrate similar PVMV? Have you shared what you value as a part of right business performance?
    5. Operations – Are the people and processes informed and aligned with the PVMV to create the performance needed to grow the business? If not, then you’re producing a flawed product.
    6. Marketing & Branding – Truth in advertising matters. What, however, determines “truth”? Your PVMV keep the company true to what matters most.

The power of On-Purpose® is profoundly relevant to execution and profitability — but only when the CEO or leader decides it is. Otherwise, it is business as usual.

Business as usual or business on-purpose? Now you’re facing a decision!

How Convincing Are You?

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We’ve become a contentious and polarizing culture. What place is there for hard edges and righteous attitudes in the course of civil conversation?

Does convincing work? No!

Is it more important to be right or to be in a right relationship? This doesn’t mean that you become a doormat for others to wipe their waste on your thinking or person. Rather it means that you maintain your dignity and decorum as others debate and argue. You need not be defensive or offensive, simply be an adult who doesn’t get drawn into the fray unnecessarily.
Conversing

To influence another person’s thinking there must be a basis of some trust and respect, period.  Those qualities of leadership only come within the context of relationship where conversation, not convincing takes place. Stop convincing. Start conversing!

This approach is much easier said than done. A great technique is to say to someone, “Look, I know I’ll never convince you to change your position, nor you mine; but I would appreciate understanding your rationale, perspective, and opinions on the matter.” Then sit back, ask questions, and learn what the other person is thinking. Then sincerely thank them for sharing and walk away better informed and prepared to understand a different point of view. Build the relationship!

 

How to Make Money?

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Regardless of whether you have a job or own a business, today’s On-Purpose Business Minute invites you to explore three aspects of what it takes to make money and make even more money. 

Make Money TreeDo you have the mindset, the multiplier and the mechanism in place to make money?

For most people, how much money they want to make isn’t the challenge … it is making that amount of money that presents the real issue. So let’s revisit this classic On-Purpose Business Minute and explore some simple elements to making money.

Study the people who made or make big money — Sam Walton, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Stephen Jobs, or whomever comes to mind — and you’ll find the three essential M’s are present and to the creation of their wealth in a socially responsible manner and in a way that is meaningful to each person.

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Do you have a favorite quote about money and wealth? Share it in the comments section. Here are some that I found valuable.

Abundance consists not alone in material possessions, but in an uncovetous spirit.

                Charles M. Sheldon

 

Those who condemn wealth are those who have none and see no chance of getting any.

                William Penn Patrick

 

That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich; and is hence just encouragement to industry and enterprise.

                Abraham Lincoln

 

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What Do You Do Best?

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As A New Year Rolls Around: What Will You Do Best in 2016?

The On-Purpose Business Person
Here’s the new cover to The On-Purpose Business Person since this classic OP Business Minute was recorded

This simple, yet highly clarifying question from this Classic On-Purpose Business Minute carries strategic value and importance to every aspect of your business and life. Your answer matters. Don’t get hung up on the perfect answer. Have a written answer that is in the ballpark. That alone will powerfully direct and clarify many decisions you face today and will face in the New Year.

The subtitle to The On-Purpose Business Person provides an important strategic statement that is so simple that one might miss the power and potential to transform your career and/or business. 

Consider the centerpiece of the subtitle: Doing More Of What You Do Best More Profitably. It can transform your life, career, and business.

Have you read The On-Purpose Business Person? You’ll learn how to do more of what you do best more profitably.

 

Why Do I Need to Align & Integrate My Business?

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Within our business advisory firm, the single greatest “request” we get is about sales growth or income generation. There are lots of quick-fix remedies to tweak sales. There are marketing strategies, too, that can position the business for improved selling opportunities. Business strategy examples can only take you so far. Be specific. Worse, you’re selling your business short of specificity when you copy what others do. Your business is unique, so the business strategy and model need to capture that.

What you need is a universal tool to address your unique needs — that’s The Service Model (below). Here you have both a tool to create and build business strategy as well as analyze and improve what exists. Regardless of whether you are the CEO of a major corporation or a commissioned salesperson with a territory, you have a Service Model by either default or by design.

At On-Purpose Partners we help our clients assess the underlying strategies, structures, and systems — the foundations of an organization found at the bottom of the Service Model (Purpose and Plan). Slight misdirection here only gets amplified throughout every line item on the P&L and the corporate culture through the People, Processes, and Performance.

Service Model 1-page worksheet & instructions

Most clients call because they have a “Performance” level problem — such as not enough revenue. So they’ll do the quick fixes to performance or dig a bit deeper into the Process area (Marketing). Or, they’ll gin up the sales team with incentives to meet current objectives at the risk of sustaining the relationship.

In other words, they start where the problem appears and try to fix it there. There’s merit to this, but if there are persistent problems, then this doesn’t address the root cause. In fact, it tends to create a frenzy of latest gimmicks. It becomes almost addicting activity.

Addressing Process matters such as Marketing or Training looks at systems for solutions. This is a smart move because if the system has flaws then the Performance will suffer. I’ll venture a guess that 98% of most consulting work is hired in the Process and Performance level.

The challenge, however, is that the Purpose, Plan, and People levels are too often neglected or assumed to be properly working. Here’s why. The responsibility for these levels falls to the leadership and management of the organization. It is hard to self-assess. Much like a fish doesn’t realize it is swimming in water until it is out of the water, leaders and managers rarely have the perspective to see their own context.

What To Do:

Define your Target Audience (Customer). Then, remodel your business by starting at the bottom of the Service Model and work your way to the top one level at a time.

Call it business alignment or getting everyone pointed in the same direction; the bottom line business objective is sales growth and profits. When the people and business strategy are confused on the inside, the customer or client experience is diminished. Losses mount in profits and people. It can get ugly!

Here’s how to create a better result for your organization. Know that alignment works but it stops short. Start with your goal or a vision, pare to the core, create alignment, and continue working on the business and with your team until all are more fully integrated.

Step 1: Setting the goal or writing the vision is typically the easy part. It may take time and some thinking and noodling with your brain to clarify it in writing, but get it done in writing.

Step 2: Alignment comes in many forms. Here are a few:

  • The On-Purpose Principle: This is the purpose of the person aligned with the purpose of the organization. If this alignment doesn’t exist, then everything else is manipulation or feels like manipulation. Work must be a meaningful expression of one’s life.
  • Strategic alignment within the business means, for example, that the business strategy informs the marketing strategy which informs the sales strategy and provides for tactical direction. Social media in particular needs to align or it is just a waste of time. Use the Service Model to guide you.
  • Customer alignment means the business is highly designed, built, and oriented to serve the customer while uplifting the team.
  • Project alignment means that the team players seek a common outcome or objective.

Alignment is an important and solid step but it falls short of what is needed. Business process engineering or re-engineering efforts are directed toward business alignment. When a business is missing its core strategy then there is no cornerstone for aligning and building.

As a business advisor, I consistently see money poured into tactical execution (Performance) when the strategy is deeply flawed. The waste of money and effort is monumental. Worse, I see good money chasing bad business designs time and again.

Websites provide a great example. So you’ve finally gotten your website launched and you’re waiting for the visitors to start finding you thanks to your investment in SEO (Search Engine Optimization and Google AdWords). It isn’t happening, so you invest even more money in your SEO and AdWords campaign. But what if the website, itself, isn’t welcoming or fails to present a call to action? Much of the investment in SEO and advertising dollars is wasted or hopelessly inefficient.

“Getting the business aligned” is often heralded as the cure for what ails the business. It is important, but it stops far short of what is really needed.

Step 3: Now that the goal is set and the strategy and structure are in place, turn to the relationships. Does your team understand the purpose of your organization? Have you clarified and communicated the purpose? Do they have a sense of call and contribution that allows them to get beyond the inevitable personality and preferential differences? Do they see their individual and collective contribution as so important that they can work as a team toward the greater good?

The higher level concept is integration. Strategically, purpose is the point of integration. Alignment deals with tangibles and direction. Integration deals with the people plus the intangibles and tangibles to create a wholeness to the organization. It provides a fabric to the culture and brand of the business that translates to the customer experience being extraordinary.

Work on alignment, yet remember to go the next step to create integration of the business beginning with the purpose, plan, people, process, and performance. Integration gets you to the gestalt of business where it works effectively and efficiently.

Do you need some one-on-one work on your business? Do you want me to help you create the path to being on-purpose? Contact the office to arrange an advisory relationship. Small Business Advisory Packages are available for one-on-one help with me (Kevin). Need more information? Call: 407.657.6000 or email us at info@on-purpose.com.

Is a Startup Business a Smart Career Move?

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Are you unemployed, underemployed, or just plain finding that your corporate job is slowly sucking the life out of you? Are you gasping with this suffocating sense of being stuck with just enough air to breathe, yet barely enough to thrive? Is some combination of your income, lifestyle, family relationships, and health suffering because of dissatisfaction and frustration with your present work situation?

Start Small. Keep Your Overhead Low. Work Hard. Pray Unceasingly.

Starting a business isn’t just for people with business degrees and experience. Motivation, hard work, and a willingness to learn serve any budding entrepreneur.

Plan ahead for starting your business off right. In time, you’ll ease into the transition. Sometimes it is thrust upon us from necessity. Regardless of whether it is a retirement, layoff, job elimination, or simply what you want to do, starting a business is a smart move.

Here’s my list of 10 compelling reasons for starting a business:

  1. Escape the rat race. Get out of that corporate job and transition to more meaningful and enjoyable work.
  2. Personal expression. A business can be a creative outlet for a hobby or passion.
  3. Independence. Set your own hours, decide who you want to target as your customers, and don’t have a boss.
  4. Retiring to work. Retirement looms in a few years so growing a business represents a smooth transition and new sense of work identity.
  5. I need the income. Your small business may provide extra income to cover the bills for braces, college, and vacations. As it grows it can replace your current salary and become full time.
  6. Tax breaks. A small business is a vehicle for deducting some existing expenses from your tax return. Consult your CPA, but when the business picks up a fair share of the bills, it can ease the household budget.
  7. Ambition. A small business can become a big business! Put your ambition to work.
  8. Change the world. A business can be the means for you to truly change the world with your business idea, invention, or service.
  9. Plan B Security. A sour economy can be a ripe time to start a business. In such times it may be the means to provide for one’s family and self in the event of a job loss or cutback. Security matters.
  10. I can do better. Many businesses have begun because the founders knew they could do better than their employers or what was offered on the market. I’ve seen women-owned businesses blossom simply because the founder wanted equal pay in parity with men and to do better for her family.

Do you need to be the next Elon Musk of PayPal, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Steve Jobs of Apple, or Bill Gates of Microsoft?

Not really … but what if you could be? Are you ready to trust your dream? Starting a business may be one of your smartest moves yet.

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin