Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Community

Pour encourager nous autres
May 30, 2023

Pour encourager nous autres

On reflection, I’d add one more thing to Ari Weinzweig’s definition of Good Profit:

“Good Profit, I will now say, appears when multiple ecosystems are all benefited at the same time:

  • Our inner ecosystem
  • Our client’s inner ecosystem
  • The ecosystem of the organization in which the profit is produced
  • The ecosystem of the community of which that organization is a part 
  • The greater ecology of the planet”

That makes some Bad Profits easy to spot:  sell addictive and harmful substances, wrapped in plastic, powered by lithium and destined to litter the streets, to people who are desperate, or bored.  Vapes, alcohol, gambling, ultra-processed food, toxic social media.

These industries are clearly making Bad Profits at all levels except perhaps one: “The ecosystem of the organization in which the profit is produced”.  Even this is questionable – how must it feel to work for one of them?

Business making Good Profits are not as easy to spot, perhaps because one aspect of Good Profits is that they tend to be lower (which is also Good, because too much money in the hands of too few people distorts the system). So it’s important that we share them when we find them, so they can grow.

Here are a couple of examples I know:

  • New Dawn Traders:
    • An alliance of regenerative producers, sailing ships, allies at small ports and like-minded customers.  Customers buy from port allies near them .  The port allies place orders with the broker.  The sailing ship collects cargo from the producers, cares for it at sea, and delivers it to the various small ports.   Everyone gains – producers are paid better, access new markets, ships earn extra income, broker and port allies get their share and customers get top quality at fair prices. Nobody’s exploited, the earth is cared for, almost no carbon is released. Every ecosystem is nurtured.
  • Earth Runs and the 1% club:
    • People get active, trees get planted. The right kind, where needed. Carbon is captured, jobs created.  So far they’ve “planted over 130,000 trees, got over 1,750 people active, provided 1,900 days of fairly paid work for our tree-planting communities and kept the equivalent of 783kg of unwanted medals out of landfill.” Every ecosystem is nurtured.

 

You know some small businesses making Good Profits.

Please share – “pour encourager nous autres”.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Good profit, bad profit
May 25, 2023

Good profit, bad profit

The idea of ‘de-growth’ is often presented as a backward step for us, a return to a life that would be ‘nasty, brutish and short’.  What would happen if we no longer had industry making new stuff, or businesses could no longer make profit?  It all seems pretty negative.

No wonder people aren’t rushing to change their ways.

So I was really pleased to read Ari Weinzweig’s newsletter today, in which he splits ‘profit’ into ‘good profit’ and bad profit’.

“Good Profit, I will now say, appears when multiple ecosystems are all benefited at the same time:

  • Our inner ecosystem
  • The ecosystem of the organization in which the profit is produced
  • The ecosystem of the community of which that organization is a part 
  • The greater ecology of the planet”

As I’ve said before, we had businesses, markets, and profits before we had capitalism, and for sure some of those profits were bad. I’m not advocating a return to feudalism.

But what this tells me is that there is a way to think about addressing the climate crisis that can fit with our needs as small businesses.

Simply strive always to make Good Profits – that actively benefit as many of these ecosystems as we can.

I thoroughly recommend Ari’s newsletter.  The Zingerman’s Community of Companies is an inspiring and interesting ecosystem, that has thrived by going their own way.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Circular economies
May 23, 2023

Circular economies

Humans have lived in circular economies for an awfully long time, and recognised that fact in their art, thinking and rituals.  The ancient Egyptians knew that dung beetles ensure that every day, the sun rises on a world in balance, neither knee-deep in dung, nor barren rock.

It’s only since around 1500 CE that we fell into the living linear trap required for the perpetual growth of profits – take, make, consume, waste.

Perpetual growth of what really matters – health, wellbeing, community, creativity, ingenuity, beauty, equity etc. etc. – the possibilities are literally infinite – is best served when we think in circles and eco-systems instead of  assembly lines and machines.

We’ve done it before, we can do it again.

How much better could we do it knowing what we know now?

Many people, businesses and organisations are already finding that out.

What are you waiting for?

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Dead space
May 22, 2023

Dead space

This weekend my husband and I crossed another thing off our ‘to-visit’ list.  We went to Canning Town and had a bit of a wander.  Steve was looking for where the Bridgehouse used to be (a pub he used to visit for  live music in the 70s) as well as the housing development site he worked on as a student in the late 80’s.  The pub is long gone, but the housing is looking nice, low-rise, semis and terraces with neighbourly gardens, set on the edge of the park that replaced the old victorian streets.

While we were there we took a look at the shops in Barking Road, then down to City Island, a brand new development nestled in a loop of the river Lea.

What struck me was the contrast between the two.  Barking Road is scruffy, some might say run-down, but lively and full of little independent shops (including a Portuguese shop and cafe that made its own pasteis de nata) and some impressive former local authority buildings.   City Island is brand new, high-rise, colourful, but samey.

And strangely dead.

A pedestrianised area goes through it, and there are shops, restaurants, a yoga studio, nursery and gym, with typical ‘city’ planting.

The space looks public, but isn’t.

The shops and restaurants are almost anonymous, the only branding the London City Island E14 logo.  The windows are dark, so you can’t see in, or tell whether they are open.  It’s a sunny lunchtime, but nobody’s around.

There are green spaces, but nowhere to sit in them, and certainly nowhere to play.  The last thing the landlord wants is to leave money on the table, and it shows.  Like a theme park, every experience is predetermined, everything is ‘provided’, but only at a cost.

“They’re just warehouses for people,” my husband said, “you’re only really meant to sleep in them, handy for your job in the city.  They’re not for living in.”

I’ve noticed the same about a lot of new places in London – Canary Wharf, Canada Water, Woolwich Arsenal, the South Bank, Elephant Park, Deptford.

The marketing literature likes to call these places, ‘Vibrant‘.

Hmmm.

Pretty bleak, I’d call them.

I know where I’d rather live.

Unicorns
April 25, 2023

Unicorns

For investors, a unicorn is a business that is capable of becoming a monopoly, a monopsony or something close to either.   Think Google, Amazon, the ‘big four’ supermarkets – the ‘big four’ anything.

Companies like these control so much of the market that they can pretty much set their own prices and guarantee high profits for a long period.

Monopolies, monopsonies and oligopolies are very good for investors and top managers.

They are very bad for free markets, innovation and consumers.

Why then would we want our governments to spend money nurturing them?

I’d rather they spent it nurturing zebras instead.

A recommendation
March 29, 2023

A recommendation

If you’re interested in both what it means to be human, and how even in the sciences, we are trapped by our biases, I highly recommend the Radical Anthopology Group at UCL.

They run ‘London’s longest running evening class‘, for free.  You won’t always agree with them, but you’ll certainly learn something interesting and new.

Sign up on eventbrite for upcoming talks, and watch previous ones on their Vimeo page.

I’m going for this one next.

De-growth
March 28, 2023

De-growth

‘De-growth’ is a word bandied around like some kind of bogeyman, to frighten us into accepting the status quo for a little longer.  As if giving up on fast fashion, disposable vapes and bottled water is the end of civilisation, the dawn of a new dark age.

The irony is that we already spend much of our time in ‘the safe and just space for humanity’.  We just don’t recognise it.

Take a look around at all the things people in your area already do to make life worthwhile for themselves and others: repair shops, special riding schools, non-league football clubs, befriending groups, charity shops, quilt groups, allotment gardeners, art clubs – the list is endless.

What these all have in common is that they are regenerative and distributive, mainly focused on enriching lives through human interaction rather than extracting value.

All we have to do is make those kinds of activities the drivers of our economy instead of profit for profit’s sake.

Then growth can be good again.

Schismogenesis
March 27, 2023

Schismogenesis

Throughout our time on earth, far more often than we realise, people have self-consciously created societies defined not according to some positive criteria, but by negatives.  Not who they wanted to be, but who they didn’t.

Protestants defined themselves by the beliefs they rejected.

Pirates organised their own ships in direct contradiction to the way things worked in the navy.

My friend Carl French created The Endless Bookcase to be everything a traditional publisher isn’t.

Sometimes it’s easier to describe what you’re not than what you are.

It has the added advantage that it allows you to envisage possibilities that are truly new.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

What are you not?

Lottery
March 15, 2023

Lottery

For an Athenian man who didn’t want to be an idiot, the answer was to put yourself forward for public office.  Appointment was by sortition – a lottery.

The Athenians built lottery machines like this kleroterion to ensure selection was random, because a) they believed all men were equally capable of making decisions with others, and b) they valued the diversity of perspective that diversity of occupation, status, and income would bring.

They also knew that the best way to preserve the Athenian Promise of Value, was to ensure maximum active participation in maintaining it.

Of course they left some people out – women and slaves didn’t count as citizens.  But the mechanism was fair and very explicit and could easily have accommodated this kind of social change, given time.

We small businesses (and modern states) can learn from the Athenians, without making their mistakes.   If everyone in our business believes in the same Promise of Value and knows how to Share it, Keep it and Improve it like a ‘Boss’, from their own and others’ perspectives, we can trust each and every one of them to do the right thing for the people we serve.

That doesn’t just lighten the load for us.  It improves the experience for our clients and our teams.  And most importantly of all, it keeps our businesses truly alive, thriving and able to adapt to whatever new perspectives come next.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Ask me how.

Idiot
March 14, 2023

Idiot

Idiot: ‘from the Greek noun ἰδιώτης, idiōtēs a private person, one who holds no public office.’ (Chambers 20th Century Dictionary)

In other words, someone who doesn’t need to think of anyone but himself.

Sounds remarkably like our modern ‘homo economicus’.

No wonder we’re all in such a mess.