What business are you really in?  This question pops up time and time again to spur our leadership thinking.  In fact, do as I did today and Google the above question in quotes – you'll come up with over 32,000 results.  That shows its perennial relevance.

Put another way, who are your real customers?  Is it people and organizations in the marketplace that has a need for what you offer?  Or is it a group of stakeholders closer to home?

Winning Workplaces Best Boss Mike Faith, President and CEO of top headsets retailer Headsets.com, coined the phrase "Customer Love," so his real customers must be those who need quality headsets, right?  Not if you ask Mike.  As he shared in a panel session at our 2007 annual conference, what matters most to him is his employees' livelihoods – their ability to continue to put food on their tables, pay their mortgages, educate themselves and their children, and pursue their personal interests.

Customer Love is a means to that end, the real reason he's in business.  If you read our Success Story on Headsets.com, you'll find a lot more of our coverage devoted to workplace team building practices inside his organization than on outward practices that underscore Customer Love.

Other, even much larger companies are making this distinction – and in some cases doing so quite publicly.  Summarizing the London Times' weekend inteview with the CEO of Indian IT firm HCL Technologies, Vineet Nayar, SmartBrief on Leadership frames Nayar as unabashedly calling for other companies to "Put employees before customers."  (A requirement of this, SmartBrief notes, is managers maintaining a laser focus on employee engagement and satisfaction.)

While I don't think there's one right answer to the above questions – CEOs in firms in divergent industries are going to feel differently – I do think it's worth noting that even in these tough times where every new customer is almost worth his or her weight in gold, we continue to hear from leaders in our network that finding and keeping the right people is a top priority, followed closely by a desire to do what they can to keep their communities vibrant and healthy.

To what extent are you in business to serve your employees?  I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Image credit: BT Internet Rangers