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“We cannot departmentalize our thinking. We cannot think of economic principles and ethical principles. Underneath all our thinking, there are certain fundamental principles to be applied to all our problems.”

Mary Parker Follett

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Ethical creation is the intersection between what one thinks and what one does in the pursuit of value creation. It is that liminal space in which a person, who has received stimulus – knowledge, business objectives, management direction, resource availability, etc. – and they are ready to make a decision or choice. Maybe its better said to suggest it is the space between sensemaking and choice making (apologies to Daniel Schmachtenberger because I believe this mangles his much deeper thinking on these topics). It is where what you end up creating is shaped by, well, what one views as right or wrong. The reason I see its importance residing between value creation and progress/velocity is because if an organization crafts a concept with high value, absent of ethical creation, and it moves on to the next phase and gains its likely velocity the concept shifts into high gear only amplifying its lowest aspect – lack of ethical value. In other words, velocity amplifies value whether it is created ethically or not.

To me this means the business of the future needs to embrace the idea that value creation has external consequences simply beyond sales, revenue and profit. With ethical value embedded its value carries an intrinsic benefit almost immeasurable in value. To be honest, most businesses never notice the absence of ethical value nor even recognize any value in ethical creation. To quote Futurama: “when you do it right, nobody notices.” Yet. Unnoticed, it has an impact in the home, community and society. Ethical creation is structural lift in which the value will not be found in dollars & cents, but rather a more ethical society which will end up seeking more ethical products & services as a reflection of who & what they are.

Now.

Let me be clear. I have never been a fan of Business Values statements or any simplistic desire to define ‘good behavior.’ My belief has always been to establish some principles and let people do the right things and they will invariably bend their behavior toward doing the rights things. My belief certainly lends itself more toward McGregor’s “Y” than his “X” in combination with Mary Parker Follett’s view on values and morality:

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“Morality is never static; it advances as life advances. You cannot hang your ideals up on pegs and take down #2 for certain emergencies and #4 for others. The true test of our morality is not the rigidity with which we adhere to standards, but the loyalty we show to the life which constructs standards.”

Mary Parker Follett

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Regardless. This does not mean ethics and ethical behavior should be ignored. In fact. I believe one of the outcomes of a well-implemented future business model is better ethical behavior.

So, let’s talk about “well implemented.”

From a human perspective I will not invest any energy explaining people’s desire to act ethically other than to say I believe 98% (I made that % up) of people in the workplace, left to their own devices, would act more ethically than most businesses act now. That alone would be progress.

This leads me to technology because algorithms play a significant role in the future organization business model.

While ethical creation is unequivocally a byproduct of human actions and behavior it would be absurd to neglect the role technology has in influencing or impacting human actions. As Marshall McLuhan said decades ago “a technology creates an environment” from which people will inevitably takes cues to think and do.

Yes. Technology plays a role. It plays a role because it amplifies. It is here that I will suggest that morality, ethics and empathy needs technology. Yes. I just said that. The destiny of all those things are dependent upon technology. If that is so then I imagine I could say society’s fate resides in the hands of technology. That may seem backwards in that all of these things reside in humans, not technology. Well. They do, but technology will either flatten, amplify or even extend the reach of all. I am certainly not suggesting that technology will guarantee morality or ethical behavior, but I would suggest improving ethical-ness of technology increases the likelihood that morality and ethical behavior becomes more pervasive (expansive) all of which are integral to a healthy culture.

That said. I will speak of technology’s role on ethics and ethical creations as an indirect consequence. At the core of the business model idea is conceptual thinking and at the core of conceptual thinking is better pattern recognition, better critical thinking/assessment and better knowledge (the more you learn the more ‘wise’ you get). The outcome of all of this is actually better behavior. It offers a person a broader perspective of things and consequences of not only what they do but what they think. It is the thinking version of “in and of society.”

There are dozens of thinktanks tackling the issue on ‘coding with conscience”.

• ** note: my personal favorite is The Ethics Centre in Australia. Simon Longstaff discusses ethics in this podcast with Mike Walsh: Ethics in the Age of Smart Machines  and the Ethics Centre  ‘Ethical By Design: Principles For Good Technology’ manifesto is a good place to begin the discussion

That said. Where I differ from many of these thinktanks is that they focus on the design and I am dubious this resolves the issues. Why?:

• Software is designed by humans who will all have some bias which will either overfit the code to some ‘ethical design’ or underfit based on the same criteria. In other words, any ethical design guardrails will be imperfect
• Imperfect code tends to amplify at scale
• Tools are designed to measure what the tools are designed to measure. In other words, well intended design is not crafted to measure bad intentional usage
• Algorithms focus on symmetrical resolutions and people are asymmetrical behavior machines or, as Brian Christian said: “When computers guess they are alarmingly confident.”

Ethics are not absolutes. Your ethics, or values, may not be mine <so maybe we should seek empathy toward other’s feelings and beliefs>. Yet. We must demand our algorithms have some absolutes in order to kill off the bad or evil we know exists. Maybe technology should be seeking what someone called “approximately moral.” This can be done in the actual outputting software (inputs to people), but it is possibly even more important in the ‘constraints’ software – the spies spying on the algorithm spies.

It is the latter point which I believe ethical technology’s hope resides. The spies spying on the algorithms. Just as diabetics have wearable tools to adjust blood sugar in real time, technology should have tools developed to attack and adjust the, well, tools. On a grander scheme, the internet as a whole, this certainly looks like a daunting task. On a smaller scheme, say a business level, it appears less daunting. Business behavior can be defined in ways to insure parameters on unethical use of knowledge and in actual practice.

I also believe the starting point for technology ethics is simpler than we tend to make it. Back in 2010 I designed an online global educational initiative directed toward 3-8 year olds and in it I suggested the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a reasonable foundation. Interestingly, in Flynn Coleman’s fabulous 2019 book, A Human Algorithm, she suggested the same thing:

“.. using established international human rights declarations as our model for how to preserve human rights as we incorporate intelligent technology is a good starting point.”

I like this because technology includes not just software design, algorithms, but data usage as well as all artificial intelligence, all of which should be seeking to not only not infringe upon people’s rights but actually seek to augment positive behavior (morality).

Others will focus on how to demand accountability for software design, I will focus on how an organizational Knowledge Sharing software system, through algorithms, can encourage ethical behavior because, inevitably, if I am suggesting technology augments people than we should seek to augment their better business angels, i.e., responsibility, accountability and empathy with regard to consequences of choices & doing something outside the auspices of the actual business and creator.

To be clear. No algorithm will ever solve any human ethical dilemma. Period.

But an algorithm can certainly influence how one thinks about that ethical dilemma. This does not absolve software engineers of moral responsibility, it simply does not ignore the fact people are responsible for sensemaking, choice making and the consequences of things they actually do.

In other words, everyone at every level has a responsibility and of everyone is ethical, or acts within an agreed upon ethical framework, that in totality we increase the probability that ethical decisions are made and ethical doing is achieved.

I admit. I get tired of all the negative discussion with regard to artificial intelligence. I believe, developed well and used well, it feeds positive progress – not just for business, but for humans and humanity.

It seems like people don’t speak often enough about the positives of algorithms and what they can make (isolated crowd or tribe aspects) it can actually unmake. It is possible to take apart larger unhealthy ideologies, or beliefs, so that new more healthy ideologies or ways of thinking can be constructed. Algorithms can be used in a variety of ways and if we elected to create a conceptual thinking community/organizational/societal mindset embracing ethical creation at its core, it can be done – even in a competitive finite ideology world.

That said. I view a checks & balance system as not only a check on bad use of AI, but rather also an iterative positive progress mechanism. I envision a looped ethical creation system to constantly check, and place constraints, on unintended negative consequences or unethical output or use which actually frees up the type of conceptual thinking that benefits people, business & society simultaneously.

I believe this is a reasonable way to think about this mostly because:

• One need not be prescient to envision future unethical behavior
• One capable of envisioning future unethical behavior has the ability to design to manage/constrain it
• One only needs to see constraint design as an ongoing progress commitment

• ** note: “Don’t fear superintelligent AI”: Grady Booch, Tedtalk

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“I do not think we have psychological and ethical and economic problems. We have human problems with psychological, ethical, and economic aspects.”

Mary Parker Follett

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Ethical creation, therefore, is never dependent upon one check, but rather people, humanity, AI, output and results, are looped and iterative in terms of its feedback. I believe this thought demands some emphasis because humans really do not have a chance against the onslaught of algorithms. They are often smarter than us but, more importantly, all are embedded with behavioral trigger mechanisms to tap into our mental models to encourage us to do whatever it is they desire us to do.

• ** note: what if, for businesses who seek a more measurable evaluation of ethical creation, an algorithm were designed to measure activity based on a score developed from Triple Bottom Line, Freer Spreckley, components? I envision an open source measurement feedback code which can be slightly adapted to each business’ focus/vision/purpose. For example a business focused on environmental responsibility will weight those components in its Ethical Creation value assessment versus a business which desires to focus on use of specific material resources.

I do believe the key to ethics in technology is to recognize it as a connective decision or initiative and not a specific task initiative.

I say this because I envision the conceptual thinker of the future will be connected not only to those in the group, but the organization, the cloud (knowledge and data of other unmade, ethical or unethical, humans) as well as community and society (as one’s concepts become reality). Things made cannot be unmade from an ethical standpoint – they ripple out almost infinitely. Let me say it another way. Buyer beware is unacceptable in a future business world grounded in algorithms. It cannot be.

Somewhere within my writings I have reminded everyone that the cloud, and access to knowledge, doesn’t make people smarter. While the cloud represents an almost limitless pool of ever growing knowledge and data I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that the cloud, in and of itself, can be just as stupid, if not stupider, than any one individual. More knowledge, used poorly, simply makes one stupider rather than smarter. The collective knowledge is only as good as who uses it. This is also true of ethics.

Individuals, and small groups of people, within an institution (augmented by the cloud collective knowledge) get more ethical iteratively (even if they misuse knowledge because they learn from mistakes). Conceptually they actually get more ethical than the cloud due to understanding of context.

Now.

Let me remind everyone of a slightly contrarian assessment with regard to morality I said earlier before I move on to business being in, and of, society: Morality needs technology. Yes. I said that. Technology is not going away so discussing morality in the absence of technology is a fool’s task. This means, without technology continuing to progress, morality will bend toward bad rather than good. A static technology machine will most likely degrade humanity rather than improve it – morality included. If I could ever argue for ethics in technology, this paragraph would be it. Think about ethics and morality as you ponder Marshall McLuhan’s words” “we shape our technology and our technology shapes us.”

In the end (part 1: technology).

Ethics in technology is a given. We should stop discussing and start doing. The one thing business could teach the technology ethics people is that it will never be perfect and success is rarely found in what is initially created or offered, but rather how well what is developed improves as it faces new unforeseen contexts. Embedding ethics INTO software development, algorithms and technology, at minimum, embeds ethics into value creation at a structural level. From that point on, ethical creation is in the hands of the conceptual thinkers – the people.

In the end (part 2: people)

“Ethical is a polysemous word in that it can refer to process, outcomes, and values. The process refers to the internal procedures that are adopted by the firm to guide decision making on product/service design and development choices. The values aspect refers to the value set that is both adopted by the organization and those of the public within which the product/service might be deployed. This can include values such as transparency, equity, fairness, privacy, among others. The outcomes refer to desirable properties in the outputs from the system such as equalized odds across demographics and other fairness metrics.”

State of AI Ethics, Montreal AI Ethics Institute

We can discuss ethics and technology until we are blue in the face, but I will always, inevitably, come down to people. People doing the right things. Creating the right things in the right way. It was, once again, Mary Parker Follett who can guide us toward the right future using her own words as she described ‘Right’:

1. We do not follow right, we create right;
2. There is no private conscience;
3. My duty is never to “others” but the whole.

“Morality is not the refraining from doing certain things – it is a constructive force” (Mary Parker Follett). Far too often we view morality and ethics as limiting. We should not. ethical creation is freeing and a constructive force. We should stop thinking of principles as things meant to tell people what to do or how to act or even manipulate them, but rather to offer touchstones for agreed upon behavior that benefits value creation – to the individual (ethically and in meaningfulness), the community and society.

Give people some guidance for how to act in choice making situations or ethical dilemmas, not because they determine outcomes but to use as an energy to guide all elements as they face ‘the law of the situation’ (contextually what I best in that time and place which will endure in a positive way in terms of consequences).

Ethical creation for business should be a given. Ethical creation benefits people, business, home, community and society. Ethical creation increases value as it progresses and gains velocity. And, maybe most importantly, ethical creation, well done, actually embeds meaning, and meaningfulness into the people actually creating the value.

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“Once the inner connection is grasped, all theoretical belief in the permanent necessity of existing conditions collapses before their collapse in practice.”

Karl Marx: Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann (July 11, 1868)

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“Chance favors the connected mind.”

Steven Johnson

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The truth is in today’s shopping world a business, and its brands, maximize its value not through consistency, but coherence. This creates a somewhat tenuous inner connection of things wherein nothing can collapse; except within more of itself. What I mean by that is there is no one thing that creates the value, but a number of things linked which can shrink in on itself without nurturing. What this means is to nurture one must find ‘selective consistency’ (the structural value embedded within) and tie it to agility (the ability to be malleable to accommodate individual buyer preferences). This is where a Human Algorithm (or algorithms driven by a behavioral data lake) offers a unique opportunity. We often don’t think of a behavioral data hub or AI design as part of experiential value consistency, but we should. Often the core is not a shared strategy, but a shared engine.  And, yes, through that distinctive engine you can create a distinctive “shareable” brand asset. It was Mark Ritson who suggested every brand should have codes or distinctive assets which create links to customers of a brand. He mostly suggested so with consumer brands, but we would suggest it is even more important in B2B in that it creates mental availability AND value association. What it does is create simple Mental availability, grounded in value offered, as a key driver for success to customers.

Which leads us to Data has always been a tool, now it’s a brand asset.

Data has always been a competitive tool in B2B. CPG companies effectively used data for years to increase facings, gain shelf positioning, negotiate promoting in store and acquire orders with grocers & retailers. Car manufacturers did the same with dealers and, well, wander an aisle of any retail outlet and you will most likely find a manufacturer, or owner of some brands, who dominate that aisle simply by use of data. That said. For decades large businesses with multiple brands have struggled with how to embed the manufacturer brand value within each of the individual brands. In the past we would see “manufacturer coupon events” on an annual basis where companies like P&G or Nabisco or almost any CPG company would have huge ads with coupons for all the brands in their purview or maybe there would be an insert showcasing all the brands. The hope was that at least once a year each of the brands would get a one-time structural value lift through association. Technology has changed all that. Now data is the glue and the fact that all the brands within a CPG portfolio can combine all their shopping, and shopper, data in a behavioral hub permits each of the brands to gain some agility in the marketplace (through knowledge) and, yet, maintain some linkage to all the other brands. What technology did was hone the tool and what algorithms did was made it an efficacy weapon – targeted efficiency and effective shopping experience tool. A mature behavioral data hub wielded with a well-designed algorithm offered a holding company the ability to not only tie their brand portfolio together strategically, but also enabled an enhanced value structure to all brands. What we mean by enhanced value is a historically coherent data transaction accumulation created a solid foundation to apply learning from one product/service transaction journey to another – lateral, or adjacent, thinking in algorithm form. It stops stratifying behavior – siloed bounded behavior – and enables incremental iterative progress from one brand to another.

This is brand coherence and the data hub offers some structural value lift. It permits individual brands to scale tied to core value. The database becomes a multiplier advantage to each individual brand. Correspondingly, it becomes a multiplier in value to the distributor/seller as it offers coherent positive experiences, of value, across multiple brands.

Which leads us to the reality that businesses with a full portfolio of brands are always in a tug of war between “I” and “We.”

At the core of this tug of war is, strategically, the agility of a brand alone to capitalize in its market segment versus collective power of portfolio to offer some structural value. Philosophically, this is self-interest versus collective interest (and, yes, a brand within a portfolio pursuing its own self interest can do so to the detriment of the greater portfolio whole). This tug of war is common and natural in that brands inevitably deem distinction, and/or differentiation, as the key to maximizing value in a specific segment. This is true, yet, this tug of war runs the risk that the parts ‘grow’ to the detriment of the whole. The intent of any brand portfolio owner should be to find ways, or a way, to raise the value of the ‘whole’ so that all the parts rise in value WHILE permitting individual brand agility. This is structural value creation, but more importantly it means each brand/product can pursue self-interest (agility in niche), but the center holds offering value to all.

Which leads us to experience coherence through a Human Algorithm.

When we experience something in the physical world, we absorb a wealth of information in front of us to help build a picture and form an impression of what we perceive, taking in the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures. A Human Algorithm needs to sense the preferences for all those things to create the optimal shopping experience. Often this is created through what someone ‘feels’ which is where a robust behavioral data hub offers its greatest value advantage in two ways:

• Transactional coherence.

Cadence. Every shopping experience has a cadence. A rhythm it seems to work to. Now. It isn’t just one cadence, but a coherence of cadences. What we mean by that is there are patterns embedded within patterns and each shopping experience has a subtly different cadence of its own. The effective AI design cadence accommodates each sub-cadence. It is like a dance similar to one of those huge ballroom things where partners get exchanged at different points in the dance. It isn’t always seamless but, yet, the dance (viewed from overhead) has a sense of coherence and cadence.

Anyway. Everyone just should accept the reality that every shopping experience has a cadence driven by the shopper, but also is a reflection of how the system works. It is, in essence, what we generally feel. The danger resides in the failure to acknowledge this ‘vibe’ is a complex mix of pacing and cadence dynamics – fast, easy, slow and thoughtful. Even a Porsche engine has slow moving, even solid, pieces in combination with pieces moving at rates almost invisible to the eye. To be clear. Cadence is difficult to ‘see’, but with a mature behavioral hub and well design AI interaction system cadence occurs. Cadence is latent value.

Gravity. Every shopping journey has gravity. What we mean by that is left to its own devices a shopper will end up on the ground. A great shopping experience is one in which the AI sees and senses the shopper gravity in order to (a) fly or (b) simply keep things from crashing, i.e., end up in a place where preferences & expectations are not optimal. Here is the tricky part. This center of gravity is good important because, in its conserving energy, it keeps all the expended energy from flying off into chaos, albeit it can also be bad important in that it sacrifices progress in doing. Gravity keeps the shopping experience grounded, but the danger resides in that the experience only has the feeling of speed and achievements and all the while it’s just one huge hamster wheel, i.e., the shopper is spinning their wheels getting nowhere to their desired outcome.

To be clear. Gravity is difficult to ‘sense’, but with a mature behavioral hub and well-designed AI interaction system gravity is effectively navigated. Gravity, well navigated, is latent value.

• Structural coherence.

Each of the things highlighted above point out the transactional experience, but what about shared experience among all brands when a behavioral hub undergirds all brands and all transactional journeys?

Well, going back to cadence, a shared behavioral hub has a cadence; a rhythm. That shared rhythm among all brands creates a subtle consistency offering coherence to all brands interacting with the hub. We would be remiss if we didn’t point out that this cadence expands out to the retailer and, over time, shoppers also gain a sense of “what it is like to interact with them” which is part of overall value and creates a subtle shared value experience throughout all brands.

As for gravity, successfully navigating gravity translates into shopping experience progress – which is often overlooked in the value equation when assessing ‘buy satisfaction.’ As noted upfront, people don’t buy experiences, they buy value, and the experience is simply an accumulation of value interactions. Once again, navigating this gravity expands out to a retailer as in “they didn’t rush me” or “they let me explore some of my preferences without wasting too much of my time” or any number of valued ‘customer respect’ touchpoint moments. It is a subtle shared value experience among all brands.

Which brings us to subtle little things translate into non-subtle larger experience.

The purpose of coherence should serve the purpose of the business – to benefit people. In benefiting people everything in the experience gains value. In other words, subtle, well applied, creates experience coherence which increases final transaction optimal value <if not highest value possible>. Human Algorithms subtly shadow people offering value behind the scenes, but that value outcome appears in real tangible achievements – higher sales, higher velocity of sales, higher satisfaction.

Which brings us to subtly improving everything.

The reason this depth of discussion over algorithms and AI is important is because in an algorithm driven business world everything has a goal in mind, but the consequences are often unseen. Business goals are usually innovations and sales/revenue/profit, but in the pursuit of those there are a variety of externalities created or affected that inevitably are not only of importance to the economic effects of AI but to societal effects. AI is inherently an iterative innovation itself and one that triggers cascades of complementary innovations. Each of those things have externality effects to, well, humans .. either by creating opportunities or closing doors on opportunities – both of which have real world consequences to the lives of humans. This entire paragraph is a rationale for why subtly improving everything is important – either thru intent or in reality. And because this piece is about coherence that is where we will end. Subtly improving everything maintains some inherent ‘goodness’ coherence which will fundamentally engage some sense of coherence for everyone and everything. In a world in which people are feeling increasingly uncertain and everything feels increasingly fragmented, this coherence action will prove invaluable not just to some business who embraces it, but to society as a whole.

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“From where you are you can hear their dreams. The dismays and despairs and flight and fall and big seas of their dreams.”

Dylan Thomas

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“No machine can replace the human spark: spirit, compassion, love and understanding.”

Louis V Gerstner Jr.

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The most insidious aspect of “it’s just work” is that it strips away dreams. I am certainly not suggesting that every workplace aspire to fulfill everyone’s dreams. Its just that if you strip it away as an option, I can guarantee one of two things:

• An employee will invest their ‘dream energy’ elsewhere
• An employee will feel, to some degree, that their work doesn’t have meaning or that it matters

So, let’s start with dream energy. The business world has invested a lot of energy focused on efficiency and ‘skill development’ for quite some time. In doing so they ignored the consequences, or, the truth that in doing so it came at the expense of something else. Efficacy would leave some room for dreams and imagination and potential which, if business would get its proverbial head out of its ass, are the intangibles which offer value creation – expansive not reductive. Dream energy, in business, is, and always has been, a proportional system of pragmatism and possibilities. The trouble is that business sees it as a zero-sum game that if “I encourage you to pursue your dreams it comes at the expense of my profits/efficiency/objectives.” I imagine in an objective/milestone/KPI driven world that zero-sum game thinking may be true. Unfortunately, that zero-sum game isn’t what it is best for business and surely not the best for people. When you let people’s dream energy die in the workplace, well, energy dies. That is not good for business. Ponder.

Now its time for meaning and mattering. The business world, even in today’s world with lots of hollow words about Purpose, has invested a lot of energy suggesting how a worker define meaning/mattering is in terms of KPIs with bonuses and objectives tied to them as a tangible way of measuring meaning/mattering. As a correlation they see meaning/mattering as an intangible (unmeasurable). The challenge is that even if meaning/mattering was intangible (and its not) that intangible has immeasurable value in terms of productivity and intrinsic energy. But meaning/mattering is measurable – through contribution and benefit. I don’t care if you are a maintenance person in a plant, someone who washes cars or even works on a garbage truck, if someone points it out to you, you don’t even have to squint to see the measurable, tangible, ways that what you do contributes to another person at some point. Maybe not all the time on everything, but no one’s job does that, just at some point, with some action, you will have directly contributed to bettering someone else’s life. You have made a contribution to the business, to the job, to society and to a person. If you strip that away, or do not acknowledge it, a worker will only be encouraged to believe (a) they don’t contribute, (b) they don’t matter and (c) how they do what they do doesn’t really matter that much (unless it has some extrinsic KPI-ish reward). When you let meaning/mattering not mean anything or matter much, well, energy dies. Ponder.

All that said.

If you listen closely and you can hear people’s dreams die, you may as well accept the fact it means our business dreams have died.

Ponder.

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“The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”

Charles Dickens

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Sometimes happiness can be found in the nuance or the distinction in thought.

Some people are good at constructing.

Some people are good at creating.

One is not any better than the other.

Both are to be, well, ‘loved’ in Dickens terminology.

Both make people happy because both are grounded in (a) doing and (b) outcome.

That said. In a binary world it seems like we too often try to put a higher value on one versus the other <and it depends on your perspective on which you put a higher value> where it becomes an odd-ish competition if not an unhealthy “us versus them” narrative.

Businesses, in particular, seems to try and assess value to each end of the spectrum constantly swinging back & forth with such force your stomach roils and you want to puke.

I sometimes worry we do the same with kids and what we tell them.

Regardless.

We need both.

And we need people who love construction and creation and, in a utopian business and world, each should love the other.

Ok.

But we do not have a utopian business world <mostly we eye each other with a certain feeling of disdain … maybe sympathy> so, realistically, let’s just say ‘you can do no wrong if you place yourself as close to the enemy as possible.’ <paraphrasing Admiral Nelson for business>

Let’s just say that in a great business environment the culture can find chemistry in the conflict.

The combination, and friction, between creators and constructors is positively powerful. Equal as ‘enemies’ and in value.

For a great idea, creation, is meaningless <i.e., less than great> if it never gets constructed let alone of it gets constructed poorly.

As a corollary, a lovingly constructed shitty idea is simply a Potemkin. A movie set. Looks beautiful but empty behind the facade.

Look. I tend to believe we would love each other <well … okay … certainly respect> if everyone would leave us alone to do so.

If businesses would stop trying to put value on one versus the other.

If parents didn’t always suggest “you need to be realistic”.

If life would stop suggesting if you are one you have less value than the other or even that you need to be both <which, oddly, in a binary world SHOULD be of the highest value but yet it is of no value because you haven’t chosen a side>.

Let me say this.

The reality is most likely a person loves to construct or loves to create.

Sorry.

Just saying the truth.

Which leads me to a wonderful thought from a young blogger:

“I’d rather pour myself into a world I love and understand than try to make something up out of nothing.”

Rainbow Rowell

What a wonderful thought and kind of a human truth before we all get battered by what society, or business, starts telling us what is right or what we should do.

It’s not about being a dreamer versus a doer.

It’s not about ‘doing something you are passionate about’.

It’s about pouring yourself into what you are good at in an environment, a culture, you love <once again, not doing something you love>.

Just as an example.

I found a career not DOING something I loved. I found a career where I was IN a world I loved surrounded by smart curious restless people. Some were creators. Some were constructors. But in that world all were smart curious people.

Oh.

And restless.

I never had to create something from nothing. I was in a world, a business environment, in which I could simply reach out and grab something wherever I looked. I imagine I share that because we tend to currently live in a world where we want to define things and people and slot them and say ‘what are you passionate about.’

Well.

Maybe we should be discussing <more often> “what environment would you love to be in.” Not ‘what do you want to do.’

I know … that is crazy talk.

But I am also the guy who would build a business around a culture and character rather than a 5 year strategic plan.

Yeah.

Give me some restless curious learning people and I bet we could figure out how to both create and construct something in an industry we elected to drop ourselves into.

Yeah.

Now THAT is crazy.

Ponder.

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Creating a company takes more than an idea. It demands a vision. And visions are more difficult to sell than products. Because a good vision isn’t easily attainable but still remains worth reaching for.

Great visions are grounded by the practical pragmatism of what it takes to reach a destination which is often located somewhere over the horizon … unseeable but imaginable.

Visions should be lofty and grounded.

Simple yet reflective of a complex world.

Pragmatic & practical yet not the status quo.

A combination of pragmatism and possibilities.

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This is about having a vision, vision statements and thinking of a ‘place to go’ and a place to aim for in business.

Let me state upfront.

I think quite a lot of business activity – is desperate to prove the efficacy of what it itself does. To me this answers, generally speaking, the question of why so many businesses are buying into the overall Purpose bullshit and ‘start with the why’ silliness. The proving efficacy’ issue has garbled the entire discussion between the purpose of business, Purpose in business and whether “Vision” has a role in this new world. To be clear. I believe business has focused on efficiency, growth and squeezing margins out of the ‘least’ to such an extent that not only has value decreased in the marketplace but people – inside a business and outside – are questioning the actual value a business offers <this ‘questioning’ bleeds into a discussion of what the purpose – not Purpose – of business actually is>. As a consequence of that fairly abhorrent misguided activity, I think the pursuit of something better has become increasingly important to an increasing amount of people. There beget the seeds of “Purpose’. And while I began this longish paragraph with ‘desperate to prove efficacy’ let me say this is also true of Purpose. Richard Shotton, in The Choice Factory, does a spectacular job of dismantling any ‘value of Purpose’ evidence discussed in Stengel’s famous book “Grow.” Once again, to be clear, I love the discussion of Purpose but it should be done not to prove efficacy of a business, but rather to prove the business wants to benefit people. And before I move on, I should say that I believe the ‘purpose’ of every business is “to benefit people”.

Anyway.

I am an admitted vision guy (not Purpose) and, in particular, a ‘hope vision’ type guy.

The vision statements I write and the visions I gravitate to almost always have some ‘bigness’ to them, always strive for aspirations and attempt to offer a sense of hope — as in hope for something better in what we offer, maybe make things better in Life, certainly give people hope for something better.

This can be small hope <if I make nuts & bolts my hope is everlasting strength … of something else>.

This can be big hope <if I am remaking how everyday healthcare is conducted my hope is enabling people to live a better, fuller, Life>.

Specificity. Be bold in vision, but not broad in intent. What I mean by that is business is in the business of doing business – create something of value, sell something that has value. I cannot think of any business that shouldn’t desire to offer something that benefits people and, in doing so, it benefits the world, i.e., making it better as a consequence.

Visions should be actionable, not just feel good. Your people SHOULD feel good about it, but they should also know how that gets imbued in what they actually do. It should permeate not just attitudes, but behaviors. Why? Because then the Vision has meaning and the work THEY do becomes more meaningful. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that is organizational value.

Regardless.

Let me get the practical ‘what is a vision statement’ crap out of the way first.

To be clear. A vision statement shouldn’t be confused with a mission statement.

• Mission statements are present-based statements and reflective of your external existence. A mission statement answers the question “why does my business exist?”

• Vision statements are future-based and internally focused. A vision statement answers the question “who do I see myself as in a bigger picture <and where do I see my business in this bigger picture?”

A well crafted vision statement should communicate the company’s goals in a single sentence, uhm, or a few concise paragraphs, uhm, or in a tightly knit manifesto. Yeah. No formula. Just make it inspirational with specific intent.  … excepting it should inspire. Make it stretch the imagination as well as offer some construct for direction and culture. A good vision statement will help inform direction and set priorities while challenging employees to intrinsically grow INTO the vision. Lastly, develop a good vision and I promise you a good strategy will follow <note: strategy never leads to a vision>.

Now. The problem is that some vision statements consist of one vague statement which, frankly, anyone could say. Some are too long, unstructured and wandering reflecting not only a management’s lack of understanding of what a company really does, but also reflects a lack of understanding for meaningful aspirational direction. There is something called the Golden Bull award “for excellence in gobbledygook” for which many visions could be nominated. Let me unequivocally state I would rather have no vision then a bad vision.

Yet.

Creating something that whispers ‘be dynamic beyond your purpose’ in everyone’s ear can become one of a company’s cornerstones.

This is a fairly important discussion because according to a Harvard Business Review study up to 70% of employees do not understand their company’s purpose & strategy <that is a bad thing>. It’s bad mostly because failure to understand your company’s position typically leads to poor decision making <that’s the practical side> and leads to thinking commodity-like thoughts about your company <that’s the ‘value’ side> and, finally, doesn’t lead to any ‘wow, I am part of something big & purposeful & meaningful’ <that’s the aspirational side>.

Anyway. I like a business aiming for something in the future. Shit. I like aiming for something in the future. I like an organization that feels like it is doing something more than making something or providing some service. I like that the people making and doing the business stuff actually feels like they are doing something more than just making and doing business stuff. I like that a vision aims for some “what”: as in what could be & what do we want to happen. I like a vision that is so big that it is compelling, not only to everyone else, but to me. I like no matter how big that vision gets it is still very specific in outlining who you are as an organization.

Now. That last point may sound obvious but, this may sound crazy, but I have seen dozens upon dozens of companies who have not taken the time to define themselves … or … define themselves so broadly it is meaningless … or … the worst … create a bunch of beautiful words and then behave in a completely different way. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out many “Culture” people point to this as ‘unauthentic’ or something that suggests a business is a fucking hypocrite. They are right.

Look.

Here is what I know.

Your vision is your dream. It is your company’s north star. And while its primary objective is to inspire and create a shared sense of purpose <not Purpose> throughout the company inevitably it sets the direction for new products, company culture, future decisions, hiring, incentives, and, well, everything.

It should be, well, dynamic beyond your own purpose so that you, as an individual, can fulfill your Purpose.

Anyway. I will end with where I began:

Creating a great company takes more than an idea. It demands a vision. And visions are more difficult to sell than products.

Because a good vision isn’t easily attainable but still remains worth reaching for.

Visions are difficult mostly because they are difficult to ‘sell.’

Sell to yourself as something practical and worthwhile <because Life has a nasty habit of suggesting there are more important things to focus on> as well as sell to others <because people have a nasty habit of being scared of big things>.

I would suggest to truly be happy in business, you should demand the business have a vision and encourage you to attempt to fulfill an individual Purpose toward that vision.

I would also suggest stop trying to ‘sell’ anything when it comes to a vision. Shit. Do you think the night sits down every day wondering “how the hell am I gonna sell all those people own there that this star is the one that points North?” Direction & vision feels right. It doesn’t need selling. And maybe I end there because it sure as shit sounds like a bunch of people are suggesting you need to ‘sell Purpose’ and that is absurd. Almost as absurd as a business not embracing a Vision.

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“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

Plato

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“A person who can think differently and truly on his feet will always find it difficult to sit and fit as an employee in a workplace, for his attitude & approach towards the work will often hit the ego of most co-workers.”

Anuj Somany

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“If u want to work in Corporate, then u should know how to play Chess.”

honeya

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Ok. I was asked recently about a past job I had where I had struggled to be successful. After hemming and hawing a little <I have never really been sure what hemming or hawing was> I answered “the position required a dedicated navigator with navigator skills and I am a sledgehammer with some navigator vision.”

<note: I didn’t understand that until actually into the role & assumed responsibility>

Yeah.

I am a sledge hammer. Always have been and I assume I always will be.

I respect navigators, but they are too slow for my tastes, far too often worried about political correctness and always too skewed toward what is important politically versus ‘what is the right thing to do.’

Ok.

Let me explain navigators and sledge hammers.

In business, there are just some people who see office politics <which all organizations have whether you like it or not> and they have the skills and vision to navigate them to get shit done <they also tend to benefit personally with this skill>.

In business, there are just some people who want to get the right shit done and believe if it is right then … well … it is better to just say ‘damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead’ rather than screw around with navigating people’s feelings and politics.

Now.

That doesn’t mean that sometimes a navigator isn’t more effective and that a navigator, which is tightly associated with someone who can play office politics, is always a corporate whore.

That also doesn’t mean that there aren’t navigators with good moral compasses because there are a shitload of ‘navigator managers’ who are skilled organizational politicians who do not showcase questionable behavior or even distasteful ‘sucking-up’ behavior.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that pretty much any leader worth a shit takes a realistic approach to managing around workplace politics. This does not mean they are ‘political’, per se, or want to play the political game it’s just they understand that you have to navigate competing interests, whatever resources may be available, the nuances of what is viewed as authority <and who has the authority which is most typically “enough to hang yourself’>, the bendable organizational rules and whatever information is available.

And, to be clear, the best of the navigators have a sledge hammer in their tool box <and use it on occasion>.

And, to be clear, the best of the sledge hammers have either some navigational skills or, at minimum, navigational vision <i.e., they can ‘see’ the politics and organizational rubble affecting your path>.

Me?

I am a sledgehammer. I like to get shit done.

Always have and always will.

Okay. I like getting smart shit done. And I really like getting smart ‘right’ shit done.

The nuance between that stuff is clear because if all I did was get shit done, smart & right being set aside, politics and navigating would become almost irrelevant. Because then you are simply a doer <not a thinker or a thinker/doer>. But even as a sledge hammer you recognize that whether you hate it, admire it, practice it or avoid it, office politics is a fact of life in any organization. And, like it or not, it’s something that you need to understand to insure not only your professional success, but the success of the good shit you want to do.

Yeah. Sure.

“Politics” certainly has a negative connotation. It most often refers to strategies people use to seek advantage at the expense of others or the greater good. In this context, it often adversely affects the working environment and relationships within it.

<and sledge hammers abhor this type of politics bullshit>

I hesitate to suggest there could ever be something called “good office politics”, but some organizational expert asshats believe that is the kind of crap you do which helps you fairly promote yourself and your ideas <they call it networking and stakeholder management – I call it the ‘necessary bullshit you just have to suck up and do in order to get good shit done’>.

As a sledge hammer I realized that there were some things that a navigator was good at and I should learn if I wanted to be a more effective sledgehammer.

About the only thing I truly value in a navigator is “social astuteness.” This is the ability to read and anticipate situations – allows you to prepare, adapt and tailor your behavior based on the people and conditions around you.

In my words this is being aware of the people and what they believe in combination with understanding the context and the situation and, ultimately, bending all existing resources to the situation at hand.

Let’s just call this “360degree context” <at least that is how a sledgehammer views it>.

Now.

Being aware is different than acting upon it. Being aware meant that it prepared me, and my groups, to manage the carnage or consequences of slamming your way straight thru a maze.

As a sledge hammer it pays to understand the real map, or maze, of the organization. I believe we all know that internal politics, more often than not, has little to do with the real organizational chart they give you when you sign on. Informal networks are usually the engine, the real power, that makes any organization work.

Someone outlined this important crap to be aware of really well:

    Who are the real influencers?

    Who has authority but doesn’t exercise it?

    Who is respected?

    Who champions or mentors others?

    Who is “the brains behind the organization”?

As a sledge hammer I realized there were absolutely some things that were in my control as I bashed my way through the middle of the maze getting to where I believed an idea, or the business at large, should go.

But, as a sledge hammer, I also recognized I needed to manage my own behavior <this lesson took some time … and learned thru some painful trial & error>. Through watching others and some painful trial & error you learn what works in your organization’s culture.

But you learn really fast … as in REALLY fast … that as a sledge hammer you invest exactly 0% of your time and 0 energy on:

• Gossip & spreading rumors: you learn to shut up and even when you hear something you wait and assess the credibility
• Interpersonal conflicts – you avoid “like/dislike people” discussions and certainly do not get sucked into arguments
• Integrity above all: this is a sledge hammer mantra … be professional, do not cut corners, do things right and always remember the organization’s interests
• No complaining: a sledgehammer accepts it will not be easy and you don’t whine about the tough path you have chosen <because it is the path you have chosen>
• Confidence: a sledgehammer is assertive not arrogant, proactive maybe edging on aggressive without ever sneaking into aggressiveness
• Never personal: a sledge hammer has only one thing in focus … the good of the organization and business outcomes <it is NEVER personal>
• Transparency:  assume everything is gonna be seen anyway so you may as well share it all

Look.

Here is what I know.

When you are a sledgehammer and everything goes right it is not only the best in the world for you but organizationally everyone kind of goes “whoa, that was something.”

<which is kind of cool and makes it all worthwhile>

I will admit.

Being a sledgehammer is a lonelier way to conduct business than being a navigator. It isn’t that you are not liked nor does it mean you aren’t viewed as a team member at the table, but navigators, I tend to believe, are just more social human beings & employees.

But sledge hammers have one thing in common — we are all homesick for an organization where we can not think about anything but getting good smart shit done.

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“I am homesick for a place I am not sure even exists.

One where my heart is full. My body loved. And my soul understood.”

(via lipstick-bullet)

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“Life is always sweeter when the dice are still in the air.”

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“Life, even at its best, is a gambler’s game.”

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This is a little bit different than dancing on the icy brink, this is more when the game is afoot and certainty doesn’t exist although there will be a certain outcome at some point. This is a finite space and event. These moments are shapeless yet have shape. Things exist within the time and space when the dice are in the air, it’s just that the outcome is unclear. But. There is a beginning (the toss of the dice) and there is an end (the dice stop tumbling).

But before I get to my main point let me say this.

As soon as the dice are tossed there is an inevitableness and uncertainty of which that combination is not everyone mentally thrives, i.e., they don’t think life is sweeter in this moment. As a consequence some people will (a) refuse to believe dice are ever in the air and over-control everything or (b) refuse to actually throw the dice for fear of what happens when tossed. The former believes everything is controllable so no dice should have to be thrown and the latter simply fears the every day chance that weaves its way through any business. to both I say “pick your poison.”

Which leads me to gravity.

Gravity is inevitable. Dice do not remain in the air and eventually gravity brings them to a standstill.

Now. Before gravity takes over the space is actually in a state of oscillation.

Oscillation is a natural state between good & bad, better & worse, righter versus wronger.

That said. As a counter to the oscillation is the fact that all things, left to their own devices, will “irrevocably slide towards a state of maximum entropic dissemblance.” (Metamodernist Manifesto). Therefore, unfortunately, gravity, in & of itself, is ‘worse’. Conceptually this suggests ‘better’ needs to exert some force greater than gravity to not only achieve lift off but to also maintain some velocity/momentum against natural gravity. I imagine I am suggesting vigorously throwing dice in the air is possibly better than begrudgingly dropping dice. Am I suggesting doing so increases the odds of a better result? Not really. But air is air, movement is movement, tumbling is tumbling, and the longer the dice remains in the air theoretically positive oscillation can occur. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that if the dice are never thrown there is no oscillation therefore atrophy is setting in.

That said. Everything in business, process/systems/outcomes, gets compounded in the oscillation. Assuming oscillation exists in the ‘infinity’ loop ‘better’ is at larger risk in downward loop sections as gravity, as gravity does, snatches momentum & drags it down.

Wait.

It gets worse.

Ponder the dimensions of gravity:

• entropy (natural state to stagnate)
• attitudes (failure begets stronger belief of future failure)
• the natural order that there are more ways to fail than succeed (which is somewhat like a gamblers odds in Vegas).

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“Negative things are real enough to be managed, we are bad at predicting positive things for ourselves (even with the help and wisdom of others), and we all create our own spice in life that makes things work for us in our own way.”

Zat Rana

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This means fighting this gravity is:

• a desire for happiness (which most of us view in a misguided way)
• a desire for success (which most of us view in results/achievements rather than progress)
• a lack of desire to gamble with our Life (yet, no risk, no return).

Well.

That’s a depressing formula.

Regardless.

Despite natural gravity, 99% of us do not find simply accepting chance, or bad, results acceptable. Despite all the depressing thoughts I just shared, 99% of us ‘get on with getting on.’

Despite having tossed the dice, 99% of us will seek to impact the oscillation in some way to increase the odds of a good toss.

Well.

Let me continue being depressing.

Unless you can change the dimensions of the dice themselves, i.e., maybe weight a side, all of your attempts to affect the oscillation of the dice is meaningless. The probabilities of any specific numbers arising do not decrease or increase no matter how hard you try and effect the dice while they are in the air.

This is kind of an important point because unless you are just starting out, you have tossed the dice before. It brings in something called the ‘disjunction effect’ or, in other words, how you think about the future tosses of the dice are affected by what happened on previous dices tosses.

Imagine that you have just played a game of chance that gave you a 50% chance to win $200 and a 50% chance to lose $100. The coin was tossed and you have either won $200 or lost $100. You are now offered a second identical gamble: 50% chance to win $200 and 50% chance to lose $100. Would you (a) accept the second gamble or (b) reject the second gamble? Whether they have won or lost in the first gamble, a majority of participants accept the second gamble. However, they are likely to do so for different reasons: In the win scenario, they reason that they can easily risk losing half of the $200 they have just won. In the lose scenario, however, they might take the second gamble as an opportunity to make up for their previous loss. In these two cases, while the choice is the same, the reasons for making it are incompatible. Thus, when participants do not know what is going to be the outcome of the first bet, they have more trouble justifying the decision to accept the second gamble: The reasons seem to contradict each other. As a result, a majority of participants who do not know the result of the first gamble reject the second gamble even though they would have accepted it whatever the result of the first gamble. The authors tested this explanation further by devising a comparison that had the same properties as the one just described, except that the reasons for making the “accept” decision were the same irrespective of the outcome of the first gamble. In this case, participants made exactly the same choices.

(Tversky & Shafir 1992)

My point here is people toss the dice for any number of reasons but they all do so hoping for some reward or prize. The dice don’t care. And that’s the mental game. Its not risk (if you have elected to toss the dice you have accepted in some form or fashion risk). Its chance. And chance is just not something that business is comfortable with. But the truth is that all uncertainty has at least some element of chance. And while chance is a universal characteristic of almost everything in business, business chafes at this thought and will encourage everyone to attempt to manage the oscillation of the dice in air in its attempt to eliminate chance, or, as Talleyrand suggested:

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“The art of statemanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.”

Talleyrand

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Well. The dice are in the air. For that period of time your fate lies in the hands of chance no matter how hard you attempt to manage the oscillation. Uh oh. Chance is the turn of events that cannot reasonably be foreseen and over which we have no control. And while we business folk hate to admit it, there is a constant potential for chance to influence outcomes in everything we do. Like, well, all the time. So, maybe my point is life is sweeter when the dice are in the air, but most of us, in business for sure, only have a sour taste. Yet. The dice don’t care. Ponder.

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“The corporate ideology of the 1920’s contended that the consumer society would meet and neutralize the political opposition to capitalism. Utilizing the promise of material wellbeing, conscripting the notion of industrial democracy, capitalizing on the degeneration of traditional local authorities, corporate America associated itself with the tasks of the most critical forces within society – its opposition – while at the same time attempting to tame those forces.”

Captains of Consciousness

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‘In complex ways that no model will ever capture, the system feeds back on itself, magnifying slight variances, communicating throughout its networks becoming disturbed and unstable—and prohibiting prediction, ever. Iteration launches a system on a journey that visits both chaos and order.’

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“Society, community, family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability, and to prevent, or at least slow down change. But organizations are organized with the intent to destabilize. Because its function is to put knowledge to work – on tools, processes and products; on work; on knowledge itself – it must be organized for constant change.”

Peter Drucker

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Businesses, at their hearts of hearts, contrary to what Peter Drucker said, are stratifying conserving institutions. To be clear I believe Drucker said this as an aspirational statement and a belief in it is what makes a business effective WITHIN society <the juxtaposition of a non-conserving always evolving entity and a conserving societal infrastructure creates the successful tug of war necessary for a society-in-progress>. That said. Businesses shouldn’t be conserving in nature, but they have become institutions in and of themselves and inherently, increasingly, embracing of conserving rather than ‘constant change’. Time after time, decision after decision, most business institutions have elected to stratify their business and how they went about their business. I purposefully use stratification as a code word for – efficiency, replication, best practices, shared value & whatever characteristic of something exhibiting tightly consistent attitudes and behaviors within a tightly defined system. That said. Stratification encourages a type of bounded awareness, bias & compartmentalized thinking/belief systems which increases the tendency to exclude relevant information from common decision-making by placing arbitrary (or institutionally intentionally crafted) boundaries around the definition of the task/issue at hand. Bounded awareness enables systems failures at worst and, at minimum, creates the lack of highest potential of a system. That said. What bounded awareness does do is create a resilient functional replicable mediocrity which, in turn, prevents most people within the institution as seeing the institution as nothing more than an effective functional entity (not a moral one). To be clear, I am not suggesting functional and moral are oppositional in nature just that within the Will of an Institution one can become subservient to the other, i.e., functional effectiveness to reach the objective is the driving force in behavior within which the moral constraints get stretched to accommodate the functional necessities. In other words, winning the game supersedes interest in how you play the game. Now. You can debate me on the edges, but at the core I am speaking some harsh truth about businesses and particularly larger business institutions <albeit many mom & pops take on some characterizations because they view stratification as the way to solidify efficiency and ‘culture’ that enables that efficiency>. Business institutions, generally speaking, embraces replication above all as the path to sustaining success and resilience in dynamic markets <albeit that is flawed logic>.

Which leads me to the will of an institution and the institutional will.

Institutions are inherently constructs of ideas. And while there is a difference between the Will of an Institution and the Institutional Will what binds them together is ideas, or, the ideas that ground that particular institution’s idea of ‘the business of doing business’. That said. The Will of an Institution is driven by the idea of how it believes it makes its money. I purposefully use ‘believe’ because the wealth/profit outcome is typically a consequence of a set of beliefs or ideas, on how that wealth/profit is created. What that means is set aside ‘Purpose’ and even culture and get down to the brass tacks of how it makes its money and this includes desired behavior of people to make that money.

• ** note: It may be a mistake on my part but I see behaviors as not culture, but rather indicative of culture. And I see culture as reflective of what a business permits/encourages. That said. Because this is business, I believe business is principally about ‘doing.’ Therefore, culture is always grounded in what you do, how you do it, how you speak about doing it and the coherence/symmetry between systems, humans, Will of the Institutional and, well, doing. That may sound a bit simplistic but doing begets profits and while profits may corrupt the mindset it will inevitably be the doing that will corrupt the culture.

This is important in that it leads into the Institutional Will – this is the ‘will’ of the institution to forge whatever mindset, attitudes and behaviors necessary to match the Will of the Institution. Once again, this is typically a process of stratifying ideas within the organization. This is usually done by ‘imposing its will’ <thru a variety of carrots & sticks>, but most major companies seek that the Will of the Institution be inculcated through all aspects of the business – process, intentions, attitudes, behaviors and even language. This can edge into cult-like or expand out to a more positive autonomy acting in coherent fashion. Circling back please note I began with ‘mindset.’ I point that out because one of the more insidious aspects of Institutional Will is propagating an ‘accepted mindset’ as part of culture <who we are as a business> which inevitably becomes code for who belongs and who doesn’t.

To be clear. The fundamental truth of business is that Institutions are powers and they decide how they want to wield that power AS they wield their ideas like blunt axes. We would be naïve if we didn’t understand that the most basic moral principle that governs any institution – a business, a government, a religious organization, a university – is its own survival. Since ultimately an institution, regardless of its claims of benevolence or at least compassion/empathy toward employees, must perpetuate its own survival. Therefore, the Will of the Institution means everyone who lives within its sphere of influence must actually “commit themselves to the survival of the institution.” Fundamentally each person with a relationship to an institution is expected, at least to some degree, to sacrifice himself or herself to the perpetuation of that institution, i.e., the idea, and ideas, OF that institution.

This suggests that organizations, traditions, corporations, nations, and all other powers, while ideally should serve humans and humanity by providing various social structures, will stratify their dynamics to the pursuit of survival and the Will OF the institution – not humans & humanity.

The Will of the Institution, if willed into existence, insinuates itself in the place of, as an example, God or faith in some form or fashion, or – eschewing religion analogies – any grander narrative vision, thereby subverting the thinking and actions of each moral being toward the Will of the Institution. The justification of humans within the institution is defined, or determined, by their commitment (or surrendering of) their “life” <I use this term in an expansive way> literally sacrificing themselves during work to the survival interest, grandeur, and vanity of the institution. This has even larger repercussions in a world in which work isn’t just an 8-hour day, but also expands out to a 24/7 ‘hustle culture attitude.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this is the antithesis of the belief that capitalism, or business institutions, rather than people/humanity being served BY the powers of the institutions <benefit from> they actually find themselves in servitude to the institutions.  The reality is most people within the existing systems do not flourish or optimize their potential because the institutions, while expounding on their virtues to & of humans, sell themselves as providers of meaning, hope, life and security – but in exchange for nothing less than worship/servitude while engaging in a relentless suppression of intrinsic individual purpose and meaning. Ultimately, the institutions have created a system which seeks to deceive people into thinking and acting as if the moral worth or justification of the person themselves is defined and determined by commitment or surrender TO the Will of the Institution. This inevitably leads to two types of corruption:

• Corruption of self: your own ethical compass and even self-interests have become diverted to that of the institution. That does not always translate into ‘not being in your self-interest’ or even poor ethical decision-making, it’s just that your self-determination toward the good has been corrupted through some subservience to another ‘greater’ good.
• Corruption in the Institution: institutional corruption exists when the institution formalizes and stratify a set of policies and practices that inevitably weaken the fabric of society. Even if no law is broken society actually begins to institutionalize that corruption as a ‘way of doing and being’ thereby distorting, corrupting, the fabric of good societal attitudes and behaviors.

In the end I imagine the Will of the Institution as what do I want to subvert mindsets to grasp in order to make the institution prosper and Institutional Will is what framework, with disincentives/incentives attached, I want to put people in to ensure the Will of the Institution is met. And while it is behavior it actually comes down to principles of behavior – the principles are important because within principles the organization careens between “how you play the game matters” versus simply “winning the game is all that matters”. Which leads me to say that I cannot think of one business which doesn’t have a ‘game’. You either play the game they want you to play or you start gaming the system to subvert it to your own self-interest. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that many informal networks are created by likeminded people seeking to ‘game the system’ (sometimes to the benefit of the business and sometimes not).

Which leads me to the economy <within which an institution attempts to survive>.

Simply stating that the economy is simply the process by which society is materially provisioned is a meaningless statement unless one states how that process is identified in relation to psychological and behavioral aspects of the people. Broadly speaking it is a choice between the perspective of business considering the economics of development & survival versus as a socioculturalist <kind of a different version of socioeconomics> which is how the institution shapes the weave of society, in my words, the social contract. Regardless of where you begin your thinking inevitably there is a fundamental truth: the economy at all levels of material existence is a social process of interaction between people and their environment.

I believe it was Marvin Harris who posited ‘the economy has no Surplus’. What this means is that institutions, by themselves, will very rarely develop any surplus for a society. And what that means is consumer sustenance is an irrelevant demand reference point and satisfying scarce means is by no means the way to measure satisfaction. Criteria, once again in a very cold hearted view, is simply exploitation of the market to meet the Will of the Institution and its ‘wants’ <above its needs>.

To be clear. This is class exploitation with no real objective existence other than the institutional wants, what a business desires, not what people need. This puts the Will of the Institution on a slippery slope of societal relativism. Societal needs is not the priority or a function of a business, but rather the world is defined by the producer’s decision with regard to people’s livelihood and the business’s profits. I say this so starkly to say society’s economic destiny is played out in relation to the institutional pressure, or business pressure, applied to household economies <not the reverse>.

I would be remiss if I didn’t suggest here that ‘supply’ doesn’t just have to do with resources or even output, but also knowledge. Most institutions parse out knowledge almost believing if it is in too much surplus it clogs of the machine of productivity. They see intelligence as domination and therefore distribute knowledge as a means of power dynamics or to suit the will of the institution AND implement the institutional will.

Anyway. This type of thinking about economics and the Will of an Institution hearkens back to Marx’s belief of infrastructural determinism which refers to the mode of production as consisting of forces of production and relations of production. Once again, I lean back into stratified systems in that, within such a system, the forces of production dictate the relations of production. In other words, the Will of the Institution dictates the Institutional Will and how it is applied toward any sociocultural dynamics of an organization.

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“We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.”

Derrick Bell

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Which leads me to self-interest versus collective good. I have no doubt, absent any system, while people certainly have self-interest, they will continuously act within a mental framework of being part of a larger collective (society) kind of like a natural system of reciprocity.

The issue is we are not absent of a system and to the degree the system is stratified into, well, pick your group <subordinate/ordinate, economics, political, etc.> is the degree in which reciprocal exchange is prevented. This suggests that the power of the individual has limits within a system. In other words, an individual’s desire for reciprocal exchange may lack the necessary strength to reshape the system or the society. As a consequence, the stratified system increases the likelihood of conformity in behavior desired by the institutional system, not the natural inclinations of the individual <as well as human dissatisfaction driven by unsatisfactory exchange between parties>. And by declining the exchange of reciprocity the entire concept of societal reciprocity gets the oxygen sucked out of it and suffocates. Yes. Circling back to my earlier corruption point, responsibility at least partially rests upon the people within the institution who unknowingly permit corrupt, or corrupting, institutions to perpetuate. The path to changing it almost always begins with awareness and informed understanding, but almost ends with a wicked path where one has to run a brutal gauntlet of Institutional Will in order to change the system.

Which leads me to informal structures <networks>.

Informal systems create learned responses which play an important role in the evolution of not only social life, but culture. Now. “Culture” is a tricky word, but the truth is there is nothing that mysterious about culture. It does not come about into existence through some design, but rather it emerges as a by-product of the evolution found within multiple complex human connections and connectivity.

What this mean is a balance must be struck between the continuity and discontinuity of emergent forms and processes. Or sometimes I have suggested that effective emergence is actually a successful combination of divergence AND convergence <ponder that>. I sometimes believe we significantly underestimate how much culture is an emergent property. Culture emerges from a combinatorial effect of accepted behavioral innovations that are valued.

                          ** note: culture is not simply behaviors, yet, an organization’s behaviors reflect its culture. There are things a person will do, and things he/she will not do. It’s that complicated, and simple. The Will of the Institution typically creates the parameters for the doing/not doing. In other words, culture is typically driven by a combination of organizational business priorities (growth/profit/etc.), “how the game is played” (is how one plays the game subservient to winning) and rewards/incentives.

—-

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this is actually a looped relationship in which when the valuable becomes of no-value the culture will discontinue <or continue ineffectively if the Institutional Will is brought to bear on the continued use of no-value behaviors>. I hesitate to call this ‘behavioral reproductivity’ but it seems to represent culture and the idea of divergence + convergence + emergence. Circling back to my first point on stratification, informal networks that enable cultures within the Will of an Institutions tend to do so by enhancing values through social economics or even just simply meeting Institutional wants. I say that last point simply to point out these are socioeconomic consequences of a centralized industrial mode of production and productivity <under the guise of Institutional Will>.

Which leads me to Institutional Will and control.

Most institutions do not like informal networks despite the fact informal networks are most likely to be just the things making the Institution itself successful. While I could list a variety of reasons business institutions do not like them let me settle on this. The fact that social+functional groups (informal networks) drawn from a vast variety of a population, i.e., diverse, have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to acquire every conceivable aspect of the world cultural inventory. In other words, they accumulate the diversity into a formidable sub-culture – one that could easily challenge the ‘desired culture’ as stated by the Will of the Institution. Well. That is if the Institution were to permit it to be so. While, in principle, culture can change and evolve independent of simple ‘survival feedback’ the reality is within an Institution, and its Will, the evolution can be created (purposefully) by institutional feedback. Reflecting on that feedback thought probably accounts for many of the control-ish attributes we see in institutions today and a general reductionist attitude toward, well, everything. The point of Institutional Will is, and will almost always be, driving response alternatives to the smallest possible number of things compatible with the Will of the Institution <which they will suggest is ‘meeting desired culture’ objectives>. Yes. Institutional desires actually are a constraint on natural behavioral scale. In other words, the institution seeks to constrain a range of possible behavioral responses thereby suffocating the emergent aspects, by crushing the divergent aspects in the equation, so everything is ‘finely’ convergent.

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“It is the moment when what was chaos is now seen as having a center of gravity. There is a shape where a moment ago there was none.”

Peter Elbow

Which leads me to unifying.

Unifying is different than uniting. We may not like to talk about it, but leadership comes from the bottom up. What I mean by that is ‘unifying’ is when people, and small groups of people, emerge in a common purpose with similar goals. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this concept is terrifying to most senior leadership wherein the power resides in the people, not the ‘leader’ or even the system. Which leads me to, on the other hand, unity is a socially constructed process in which social systems coalesce around some common abiding truths. What this means to an Institution is that these ‘truths’ are not constructed by some leader (or politician), but rather represent an agreement, maybe a collaboration, on an idea or ideas <of which values, if ideas or principles behaviors, can be included>. It’s not consensus or even an agreement, but it is an acceptance. I sometimes call this a coalition of the interested. Why interested? Well. Vision, Purpose, BHAG or any of the traditional leadership tricks are actually worthless unless people are interested in them. The only way to circumvent existing construct, and systems, is to actually have people interested in something enough that the existing system becomes irrelevant and they create a new system to support what they are interested in. as a corollary, the only way to activate an existing construct, to its fullest potential, is to actually have people interested in something enough that the existing system IS relevant to them. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out 90+% of the time Institutional Will has little interest in what the employees are interested in, but rather what the Will of the Institution is interested in.

That said, within an institution this unifying can happen in a variety of ways, but today I am discussing how it doesn’t happen. This is kind of a derivative of my piece called “Decentralization and Stop Signs” in which I point out that encouraging autonomy is more about placing stop signs in appropriate places. I mention that because if the Institutional Will is intended to free people, not cage them, it is a combination of removing stop signs <an unnatural action for most institutions> as well as placing some stop signs in places they do not naturally think of placing them. When done well it creates layers which limit the fear of destabilization or debilitating consequences. That said. One has to accept the unevenness and lack of single organizational pacing to accept the benefits of this type of layered system. I shared this thought about unifying because in today’s business world the Will of the Institution is mostly directed to ‘unity’ in some unhealthy ways for individuals, but to the benefit of the business institution <or so they believe>. Suffice it to say most businesses do not seek unifying, but rather seek unity and believe freedom can only exist if the cages, the freedom is given within, are secure enough to insure the Will of the Institution.

Which leads me to people.

Everything I have written to this point can sound bleak, but the future is not determined. The Will of the Institutions, the cages they have constructed, that dominate the business world are not absolute and the direction they seek, the Institutional Will, is not inevitable. The Will of the Institution is inevitably dependent upon a willing, or consenting, or compliant, conformity of people who support it. Without this support, no matter how blunt or strong the Institutional Will, it cannot go on. If enough people refuse to support the Will of the Institution and create a new path, there is actually hope for a new and better way. Just as we are all citizens which constitute a nation, we are all also citizens of an institution and, in fact, we are all leaders – if we elect to be. The truth is the community, the workers, hold the power whether they know it or not. I say this to focus our attention to power and authority in the individual, their values, rights, and responsibilities. I state this purposefully as a counter to an existing Will of the Institution universe in which we find ourselves more led than free, more consumers/workers than participants, more fearful/reactive than engaged/aspirational. Far too often we turn over our power and authority to others in the belief that they will always act in our interest and in doing so we have shrunk our vision not only of what could be, but also as humans with self determination of our fates and spiritual being.

“We have shrunk our vision. We have covered up our sensitivities in a drastic way. I will call everything multivalent because we find ourselves in a realm that after 5 billion years has not stopped unclothing itself and revealing yet another splendor. And, yet, in our conviction that we know what it is, namely, material to make into throwaway products, we are destroying it. we are destroying it because we are not aware of its infinite depths.”

Brian Swimme

To be fair to people, The Institution brings all the power in its Will to shrink us <under the guise of expanding us, i.e., “your growth”>. While the Will of the Institution and the Institutional Will seems to intersect with people, it does so with some fairly flawed beliefs. Generally speaking, institutions see people as of finite, not of infinite, depth. They seek to mine the finiteness through, well, its will. I imagine the first step in breaking the hold of its Will against us is to recognize the infiniteness within us and stop accepting a finite life.

Which leads me to where we can go from here.

Most people are simply going along with the Will of the Institution or being forced to go along for the ride <and, yes, many people do not have a choice>. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t people attempting to create alternative institutions but, well, embedded institutions hold on to power with ragged claws – they are conserving institutions. It has been said that great evil requires great resistance. I am not suggesting all Wills of all Institutions are evil, but I am suggesting they may not be in the best interest of the people. Just as with almost anything societally meaningful, this institutional shift will demand the best of people. But maybe the important point is to recognize our need to overcome motivated blindness. What I mean by that is Institutional Will can often be brought to bear through reward/incentive mechanisms thereby motivating blindness to the less-than-ethical or undesirable everyday behaviors necessary to meet the Will of the Institution. We need to open our eyes, become self-aware and decide to do something.

“Moral commitment alone and organization alone do not build breadth. Shared delight, heavy laden with creative signs of a coming alternative future—this is what invites the many, encourages them to stand up in new solidarity to powers that rule by their spectacles of terror.”

Mark Lewis Taylor

The reality comes down to this; choose to stay as we are or to take responsibility for our business world and become willing to take action. Our “no” to this hollow business existence should be based upon our “yes” to a substantive meaningful working life which helps create a meaningful society.

Lastly, because I am a Hope person, I believe that resisting the existing Will of the Institutions and systems that destroy the earth and crush the meaning out of people and its subsequent poverty of social values & value, hope will arise. As we withdraw our consent to these powers, practicing noncooperation while finding or creating meaning-generating alternatives, what has seemed impossible becomes possible because we are willing to pay the price to make it so. But we need to play, or, as someone said, “only when we ourselves enter the game and bind our own life inextricably to the game’s outcome does hope arrive.”

Today’s business world driven by the existing common Will of the Institution, imposed by Institutional Will, is crushing society one person, one employee, at a time. Its time to push back and crush its Will and recreate it in a more positive form.

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Authors’ Note:

This is a purposefully bleak view of business institutions and I can already hear the cacophony of voices highlighting exceptions and aspects where less bleak things are happening. The point of this piece is to make people think about those exceptions, as exceptions, and think about how dimensions of this bleak ideology are embedded with almost every global institution and many non-global businesses. Lastly, I am a cynical optimist who believes in HumanKind, but I find it helpful to paint the bleakness so as to never underestimate the challenge upon those of us who seek a better business world.

A special thanks to Fiona Tribe who read this in draft and made me think a bit harder on some things.

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“Society, community, family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability, and to prevent, or at least slow down change. But organizations are organized with the intent to destabilize. Because its function is to put knowledge to work – on tools, processes and products; on work; on knowledge itself – it must be organized for constant change.”

Peter Drucker

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“The boundaries, structures and goal states of social systems are not defined physically, but rather by contexts of meaning.”

Werner Ulrich

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Two business topics I have always struggled with are ‘communities’ and ‘leadership.’

I believe a business is a quasi-community, but more often a system of mini-networks <mini-communities?> working in a coherent fashion within a larger system/network.

I believe anyone can lead within a specific context/situation, but not anyone is good at consistent leadership of an entire business <which is about coordinating people and resources>.

But today I tackle both to discuss power and who has the power in a business.

I use community as a reflection of people and systems. Communities, inevitably, are people, yet, they are peoples within people which are systems within a system. Networks, networked, I don’t care. People and systems (hopefully) working in some coherent fashion. Which leads me to leaders and leadership. I believe every community has a leader. I cannot think of one community, even within a democratized organization, who does not have a ‘leader’ or people they would turn to lead in times when it was felt leadership was needed.

So.

Given that, I have some beliefs about leaders:

Leaders are OF a community

Leaders derive power by how well they understand what needs to be done

Leaders need to empathetic to the needs of the community more so than of the individual

Leaders make decisions as mostly determined by forces beyond their control (bounded), but, free to carve out success within what is bounded.

Leaders are dependent upon how well they make this apparent, and useful, to the community.

In other words, the community holds the power whether they know it or not.

Which leads me to free will and determinism.

Organizational free will, embodied in a community within a corporate vision, suggests success is a result of our choices. It also suggests the business is free of constraints as if choices dissolve constraints. Conversely, determinism does not mean the community is completely determined by forces beyond its control, but rather that the situation, or the terrain the business is established on and where it is, bounds its success and organizational life. In other words, business reality is shaped, and lived, within constraints limiting options to make the most of possibilities presented to the business. I would argue that most businesses reside in a deterministic world (for the most part). Yes. People will throw exceptions at me, but the reality is a significant majority of business is determined by the place it exists (geography, community, people) and its reason for being (intent/vision/benefit offered that earns profit). I imagine I am suggesting organizations, and communities in a business, do not actually act with free will. Much of what happens is determined by circumstances.

** note: some people may call this organizational bias.

To conclude this thought I had this scribbled down <without a source>: “free will exists, but the menu from which we choose is determined, and, for most of us, there is no ordering outside of the menu.”

Which leads me to community and communities.

Communities are driven by necessities* (see footnote for how I arrived at necessities). I purposefully use necessities because it more than simplistic survival or needs. Yes. Survival is at the foundation, but the way a community survives can almost be as important to the cohesiveness of the community than survival itself. And while individuals do matter (communities are collections of people) the truth is that in business <and in society>, communities can shift the necessities and desires of individuals. I imagine that last thought nudges a community from survivability to thriveability.

Which leads me to ‘community capital.’

A community owns their ‘capital.’ I believe it is called social capital <“resources embedded in a network, accessed, and used by actors for actions”>. Therein lies their power as they attempt to apply their free will in a deterministic construct. Circling back to necessities, I would argue that we ignore all the organizational mumbo jumbo and ponder the concept of necessity as what drives community even moreso than individuals. I bring that up because absent of any leader it would behoove us to understand the role of that social capital and how the community elects to, or doesn’t elect to, apply that social capital. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the community social capital can be applied begrudgingly, halfheartedly, or with its full force.

Which leads me to leaders.

Communities are represented by a wide array of arrangements in which people organize themselves. And within their distinct structural organization there are countless ways to organize them. Regardless of the structure or how organized I would suggest they are all similar in one way- they have leaders. How leaders are selected, what power they have and how they can use it varies widely, but in the end, all communities have leaders.

This then leads us to the ultimate leadership question – are leaders simply “agents of community necessity” im­posed on them or are they free to take their com­munities where they deem a destination worth leading to?

I would argue leaders are a function of the community they represent and all decisions have to be grounded in the necessity of the community, constrained by that reality, in order to be an effective leader. I imagine I am suggesting a leader is borne of community necessity.

This flies in the face of the ‘determinism’ belief that a leader controls events. My argument is that leaders have some influence on minor issues, but they are trapped on major ones.

** note: I am not “anti-be-nice-to-people” or anti-psychological safety or even anti-empathy, it’s just that I believe all of those things have to be subservient to the necessities of the community, therefore, in service to. If they aren’t you, or a leader, simply becomes a therapist, not a decisionmaker for and of the community. I am pro-necessity or ‘needs fulfiller decisionmaker’. I do worry, on occasion, that happiness, or engagement as a broad concept, is being tied so tightly to organizational success that it is suffocating the larger perspective – influencing events to the benefit of the business.

In part what I am suggesting is that a leader is almost irrelevant except as an agent of the community (operations are necessarily necessities to the community, but of importance to the business itself not). They do what they have to do within the context that exists – or in other words, you really do not have as many options as you may think. Any leader could do that. The tighter the context constraints the easier it is to lead. The more necessity the community exhibits the easier it is to lead. The good leader understands the constraints – all of them – under which the business, community and resources operate and in understanding them makes decisions and takes actions. Conversely, not taking action on the part of the community necessities absolves them of leadership status because failure to do so does not meet the needs of the community. This doesn’t mean a leader doesn’t have some discretion on the details or even indulge themselves on what often seems to be an infinite number of minor issues, but, on the major issues of community, the necessities, the community dictates the action – or the leader ceases to exist.

Which leads me to power.

The more a leader understands the disciplines of ‘rule’ and the realities of the business, the more pow­erful they become. Power does not free leaders to be arbitrary, but drives them to understand what they must do. Reality, or context, creates leaders and then they serve that reality. I believe Machiavelli said something similar in that “a prince can govern only if he understands what he must do and is good at doing it.” Leader power is in under­standing of what needs to be done. Without that understanding they would not have had power. In fact, the deeper the understanding and the more the business seeks to funnel that understanding into the gestalt of the business itself, the more power the leader gains. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out this could be good or bad.

Regardless. This does not mean a leader does not have personal beliefs, but those beliefs are subservient to the community. They can be aligned with community beliefs <this can be good or bad depending on whether the community has good intentions or bad intentions> or their beliefs can be simply power <which can be good or bad depending on whether they seek to steer a good community to good or subvert a community to nefarious or dubious objectives>.

But I think it is absurd to suggest a leader is objective or indifferent to the world in order to make the best decisions. A leader is subservient to the community and the context, therefore, their power is only in serving the situation, the context, to the benefit of the community** (see footnote on community versus shareholders).

The corollary to all I am suggesting is that if a community is misguided with their understanding of what will benefit them, they will likely find a leader who will exploit this.

In the end.

After thinking about this a bit, it seems like the business world has things turned upside down. We make leaders and leadership heroic and captains and suggest most communities are some versions of sheep. The truth is that communities have the power and leaders, and good leadership, is using the power they do not have, the community’s, to the benefit of the community <the business>.

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“Order exists because a system of beliefs and sentiments held by members of a society sets limits to what those members can do.”

James Q. Wilson wrote in The Moral Sense

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*necessities: Necessity, or necessities, is a tricky word and concept. It spans a spectrum between require, lack, need and want. That said. From a mindset standpoint, as in from a community perspective, they are all grounded in ‘essentialness.’ Buried within all is a sense of “essential to me” in some form or fashion. I bring this up because in this sense the difference between need and want is almost irrelevant. The difference is important; but its relevance to the relationship in understanding the community is almost irrelevant.

Which leads me to yearn.

Yearn points to an inclination that is continually present as a gnawing feeling of a lack of something – either for a clearly defined object or for something more abstract. In understanding the community, in terms of leadership, understanding what they yearn for may be just as important as what they need.

Which leads me to primary versus secondary.

I sometimes refer to this in terms of ‘minor versus major’ but the reality is more secondary versus primary. A community will inevitably have primary ‘necessities’, across the full spectrum, which need to be addressed while an organization itself can generate secondary issues which need to be addressed to thrive in the larger market place. I word it this way to suggest secondary issues can be ‘organizational survival issues’, i.e., very important, and yet not be community primary issues.

**community versus shareholders: Leaders always reside in a liminal space between internal organization and external market (this can include shareholders). I would suggest, for today’s discussion, if a leader fosters the community as an agent of its necessities the shareholders will benefit as an outcome. That does not always mean community outcomes will always equal shareholder desires, just that shareholder desires are not community necessities and using them as one is a recipe for leadership disaster.

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“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
Thomas Paine

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“We must hold to a rigid accountability those public servants who show unfaithfulness to the interests of the nation or inability to rise to the high level of the new demands upon our strength and our resources.”
Theodore Roosevelt

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Theranos and that Holmes woman.

Throw the entire book at her, everything in it, send her to jail. For a long time.

Hear me out.

There are a bunch of us who talk about creating a better business world. Our topics run the gamut – community, culture, autonomy, bla, bla, bla. Nowhere do I see us railing on the shit leaders who do shitty things and the consequences for their shitty behavior. Why does it matter? Well. If there are no consequences, what are we telling the next generation of workers?

That’s numero uno.

Second is if you like being a business person, like working, believe your job is in some form or fashion is a reflection of you, well, then you should want to hang anyone who depreciates your existence – and that is what they are doing.

Third. Theranos is a particularly egregious business case. It wasn’t just about defrauding investors and lying about the business, it was actually going to harm people. What the fuck. Pay a fine? Guilty of some money issues? Go fuck yourself. Throw the book at her, with everything. Not all egregious activity is created equal, hers is like a business spinal tap 12.

This isn’t just about her.

That WeWork douchebag? Yeah. He needs some consequences. He was only a business Spinal Tap 7, but he deserves some other consequences than a gazillion dollar buyout payday.

Zuckerberg? Well. He hasn’t broken any laws; he just makes business people look like to be successful you have to be a shitbag. I’d just slap him with the book you slammed Theranos Holmes with and suggest because Facebook is the largest country in the world when he does suffer some consequences his will be library-sized.

In general, I believe people who have money who have made their money by being a shitbag shouldn’t be able to walk away with a lot of money. Period. If you are worth 100 million dollars and pony up a 10 million dollar fine, well, you still have a good 90 million tucked away. That’s bullshit. Its bullshit because the person who has a million-dollar business and gets fucked by these people and loses everything has to start with scratch, zero, zilch, when they start again. Its nuts and its wrong.

So that’s why I want them to throw the book at her. Make her pay and not because I want to make her an example, but because she was a business shit who just didn’t fuck over investors and other businesses, she fucked with people’s live <not just their livelihoods>.

Lastly.

She should never be allowed to run a business again. I am not suggesting she can’t work, just not permitted to run a business. Maybe forever is too long, but say she can’t for 20 years. Why? She lost her business leadership card. Period. And you know what? I’d treat all these business shitbags the same way. Be a shit and lose your business card so maybe you have to “reskill” or whatever bullshit we suggest the ‘common worker’ has to do when they lose their job.

She’s a shit amongst other shit business people and they should all have the book thrown at them. business has to make accountability count because if we don’t, well, then there will be a shitload of business shots who don’t give a shit about being accountable. And that is not only bad for business, its bad for everyone.