Different psychology - employee vs. business person

If you have been working in a big corporation long enough, you probably agree with me that most than half of white collar worker gets the job by having the right credentials and connections and then gets ahead by pleasing his or her boss. This worker might have a fancy education, a fancy suit, a smooth demeanor, and a political sophistication, but know nothing about making a profit or pleasing customers. The shareholders want profits, but the employee wants a raise and a promotion, things that can be most easily obtained by sucking up to the boss. It is very difficult to change this kind of employee mind-set or employee psychology. Once it sets in, refocus employee thinking about customers and profits takes tremendously energy.
A business person is one who has held profit-and-loss responsibility. This means that the person was in a position to determine the total profit earned by a company or a division and received compensation based on that profit, not based on what his or her manager thought. The key to the business person's psychology is an intuitive feeling for what is going to make the customers happy and get them to keep coming back and paying.