NY Times reported today that the EU is getting ready to bring antitrust charges against Amazon “accusing it of using its dominance to damage smaller rivals.” The U.S. is also scrutinizing Amazon for “squashing competition.” 

But are we not taught that “successful” businesses should kill their competitors? 

The fact is our business culture encourages and even glorifies these warlike behaviors. No wonder the energy of most business today is fighting and warlike. Check out this quote from a well-known business celebrity: 

“Business is war. I go out there, I want to kill the competitors. I want to make their lives miserable. I want to steal their market share. I want them to fear me and I want everyone on my team thinking we’re going to win.” —KEVIN O’LEARY, INVESTOR ON THE TV SHOW SHARK TANK

We need to make up our minds: Is business war, or not?

 Let’s go deeper…

According to Warfighting, the US Marine Corps’ basic manual:

“War is a state of hostilities that exists between or among nations, characterized by the use of military force. The essence of war is a violent clash between two hostile, independent, and irreconcilable wills, each trying to impose itself on the other. Thus, the object of war is to impose our will on our enemy. The means to that end is the organized application or threat of violence by military force.”

Now let’s apply the same description to competition in business and add customers into the mix, changing a few words as needed.

“Business is a state of hostilities that exists between or among companies, characterized by the use of corporate manipulation. The essence of business is a violent clash between hostile, independent, and irreconcilable competitors, each trying to eliminate the other. Thus, the object of business is to crush our competitor enemies in order to dominate markets and impose our will on customers. The means to that end is the organized application or threat of annihilation by corporate manipulation.”

What is your first reaction to this warlike description of business? How does it square with your beliefs? We often act and talk like business is war and think that’s okay. But when we look at how war is actually defined, do we really have a sound analogy? Do you want to go into work every day and tell your people to treat competitors as the enemy to be annihilated? Do you want to impose your will on customers with predatory intent, hostility, and violence?

[Note: This is an updated excerpt from A Short in the Hardwiring: How We’ve Adopted a Business as War Mentality, a chapter in my new book, The Amare Wave: Uplifting Business by Putting Love to Work.]

The truth is, we often don’t even recognize we’re steeped in a mentality that treats business as war. It may start with common and seemingly innocuous language, such as talking in terms of battle plans and capturing market share. In the daily grind, you may compromise your own ethics to look better to your investors, or lose sight of the real reason your business exists, allowing key decisions to become misaligned. You may likewise put out some slightly misleading marketing messages to increase sales and hit your monthly numbers. All of this can devolve into dehumanizing people—treating employees as commodities, customers as prey, and competitors as enemies. Some businesses take their warlike mentality a step further: Do whatever it takes to maximize short- term profits without regard to how others are affected, even delighting in watching the competition go down. These attitudes, language, and behaviors of the “business as war” paradigm have become so ingrained in our culture, they are not only tolerated or accepted,

Now imagine, imagine a business world where love is the driving force. Business as war is in the distant past; all the fighting, violence, greed, and suffering it entailed is a collective memory that serves to remind us of what we have willingly abandoned. Business as love feels good and nourishes humanity.

The good news you can choose paradigms – “Business as War” or “Business as Love.” How and why to do that is the essence of a framework I call the Amare Way, detailed in my new book: The Amare Wave: Uplifting Business by Putting Love to Work. I hope you’ll read it and spread the message that there is a better way to prosper in business.

Learn more about The Amare Wave: Uplifting Business by Putting Love to Work.