The ethical EBITDA

It's hard to understand. And it takes a while.

Two years ago, at an event promoted by a radio media outlet, our CEO-General met up with the CEO of an important food company who, years before, at the inception of the Prisma agency, when it didn't yet belong to MIG, had been one of our clients. At that time, he was running another, even more important, company in the real estate sector. A good relationship was forged between them while they worked together.

When that company went bust – overnight, no less, taking over 3,000 jobs with it – our company suffered a severe economic blow as a consequence of the non-payment of almost six months of services and media campaigns that our agency had advanced. It's a story many of us know, some colleagues currently working at MIG lived through it, others have learned it when they remind us that today you can be here, tomorrow you might be there, and therefore success is ephemeral, as it doesn't even depend on you., Resilience is perennial.

It was the mad years of 2008, the era of 180-day promissory notes, the end of the "Spain is doing well" party, of the world doing even better. A bubble burst, causing a cascade of defaults and bankruptcies. But let's go back to that conversation.

'Why didn't you warn me about what was going to happen? You kept hiring right up until a week before you knew you were going to declare bankruptcy,' our Director asked him.

– I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. We didn’t see it coming, nor did we know how to react. We always thought the banks would back us, that they wouldn’t let us go under.

'And why?' he insisted.

Because it wasn't just our problem, it was theirs too.

– And did you learn anything?

– That the profit and loss account always proves you right.

…

This story always comes up whenever we internally consider drafting the Corporate purpose, to transcend the mission (to drive the organisational transformation process of our clients blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah) to proclaim our commitment to all company stakeholders and the pursuit of the collective good.

The conversation usually ends quickly. They stress to us that there is no greater, better, or more ambitious purpose than to promptly pay a fair salary to as many people as your business allows, of the highest possible amount without jeopardising the future viability of the organisation and its collective; to do so equitably, regardless of age, gender, or origin; demanding in return always the maximum possible effort and zero excuses, from yourself, from the person next to you, from everyone; to do so ethically, responsibly, without shortcuts, without harming third parties through your malpractice or lack of diligence; to do so by committing ourselves as far as we are able to the resolution of - or at least, not worsening - universal problems: inequality of all kinds, the destruction of the planet, and human stupidity.

Internally we use a concept, ethical EBITDA. On second thought, perhaps we do have a purpose.