Community – Page 7 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

May 13, 2022

TIAAA

How often have you been told ‘It must be this way’, ‘This is just how it works’, ‘Things have always been like this’, ‘There is no alternative’?

There is always an alternative. More importantly, there are always alternatives. Always have been throughout human history. Always will be throughout whatever future we have left. Alternatives we’ve designed for ourselves as a counter to what’s on offer.

It’s just that history is told by the victors, and alternatives – especially those that work – are hidden or misrepresented by the people who benefit from the status quo.

So maybe part of our job as owners of purposeful, sustainable and humane businesses is not just to find those alternatives and explore them. It’s also to share them. To show them. To enable people to make up their own minds on which they’d rather choose.

Our models of the world are stories we tell ourselves.

Let’s not get ourselves trapped in just one.

May 9, 2022

Being an ancestor

As I get older, I am more conscious that I am not immortal. It’s quite hard to imagine my life 20 or 30 years from now.

But then, I never did think that far ahead – not even when I could reasonably expect to have another 30, 40 or even 70 years ahead of me.

Would I have made different decisions if I had?

It is of course impossible to foresee the future, so the question would have to be about impact and ripple effects rather than concrete, specific results, but ancestor questions are well worth asking, of one’s self and one’s business:

“What impact do I want to make on my generation?”

“What impact do I want to make on the next generation?”

“What impact do I want to make on the generation after that?;

“And the one after that?”

…

We can’t know how they’ll live.

We can know whether we have made living harder or easier for them.

And it’s not too late to change what we do. Especially if we change together.

May 6, 2022

Do you believe in the lifeworld?

I’ve been trying to get my head around the work of Jurgen Habermas lately. It’s interesting.

Simply put, his theories state that we humans operate in and across 2 spheres of existence:

One: the ‘lifeworld’ – where we operate in our capacity as human beings, members of communities at different levels – family, friends. communities and society; and two: the ‘system’ (or systems) where we operate as economic agents or as citizens of a state.

Freetrader, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

So far so good.

The lifeworld is something we create ourselves, through what Habermas calls communicative action, a constant adjustment of norms, preferences, values and desires between ourselves and others. Adjustments we choose to make ourselves in discourse with others. We are never alone in the lifeworld. You can’t be human without other humans.

In contrast the system is created by others. We don’t get much of a say in how the economy or the state works. We don’t get to choose how we act as consumers or employees, or as clients or citizens.

We could live just in the lifeworld. As humans we did so for millenia, coming up with all sorts of creative adjustments to enable human flourishing.

The problem is that as humans we are also good at creating systems that crush that flourishing. Not necessarily intentionally. Systems that make us less than human, that sometimes run away with us.

We can’t live just in systems. So maybe, part of our job as business owners is to keep the balance weighed in favour of the lifeworld, not the system.

Luckily I think that comes naturally to most of us.

May 3, 2022

Connect – your way

There’s been a lot of talk about leaving Twitter over the last few days. To be honest, I’ve contemplated it myself.

Yes, it’s increasingly shaped to serve the agenda of those with money and power, but Twitter, like all social media, is a tool, like any other. We don’t have to use it the way others want us to.

Perfectly illustrated this weekend:

On Saturday, we ventured into unknown parts of London in search of roads that share our surnames. Boxall Road is in North Dulwich, not far from the Picture Gallery, while the much more impressive-sounding Gibbs Avenue is in Upper Norwood. An interesting day’s walk, that just left us with the question ‘Why?‘

A quick post on Twitter, and sure enough, the answer came back in seconds. A certain Robert Boxall kept the old ‘Greyhound Inn’ nearby, and having made a bit of money, decided to go into property development.

Thanks Dulwich Society!

The point of this story?

Social media is a tool like any other. You choose how you want to use it. And the best way turns out to be the way we use any other means of communication – to have real conversations with real people – to make connections, not break them.

April 29, 2022

We are many

A quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead today:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Imagine what we could do if we all got together?

April 22, 2022

Every day is Earth Day

Today’s image is NASA’s ‘global selfie’ for Earth Day 2014.

It’s a reminder that we are all part of a global ecosystem. We affect it as individuals. Even more so, we affect it through the social systems we build on top – some of which take on a life of their own.

Some of our effects are benign, or at least harmless. Others are malign – diminishing, depleting and damaging. Making the planet a less hospitable place for others and ourselves.

It’s not too late to switch to having only benign effects.

Any difference we can make individually, will help. But we’ll make a bigger difference when we get together.

Our social systems are just that – social. We made them up. We can make up new ones, different ones, better ones. That enrich and nurture people and planet.

But where do I start?

With yourself, your family, your friends, your workplace, your street, your block, your town, your county, your country. You get the idea.

Find the others.

Then do something together.

Happy Earth Day.

“The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make and could just as easily make differently.” David Graeber.

April 5, 2022

What capitalism wants

All capitalism wants is a money-machine.

Machines aren’t good places for humans (or anything that truly lives) to thrive.

One of them has to give.

March 15, 2022

Sending and receiving

When sending and receiving, asking and getting an answer, happens asynchronously, it takes more work to get to a point where things can move forward.

This work is often invisible until you try and capture it in a Customer Experience Score.

At which point, it’s a good idea to ask: “How much of this can I make synchronous instead?”

Over the last 10 years or so, we’ve got so used to tech that allows us to operate asynchronously that we default to it.

Now we have tech that makes it much easier to operate synchronously too – even across time-zones. Perhaps that should be our new default?

March 3, 2022

Friends

Our modern world is built on treating people like strangers. That means we can concentrate on things, on the transactions through which we acquire things, ignoring the human being(s) behind them.

That makes life very convenient, but it also makes it unsatisfying.

It also makes it dangerous. It’s easier to attack a stranger than a friend. And when you’re used to ‘unseeing’ people, even those you’ve lived among for decades can easily become strangers.

How lovely then to be working with clients who want to build a global enterprise based on mutual benefit and trust. On people, not on things. Between friends, not strangers.

How lucky I am to be their friend too.

February 17, 2022

Co-creation

I heard part of an interesting ‘teach-out’ yesterday.

In the old days, students were ‘members’ of the University – they were part of it, and contributed to its purpose, which was to create public good. Now they are expected to be merely consumers of the ‘student experience’ it offers them.

The interesting thing is that despite the fees they pay, and the debt they incur to get to university, students don’t want to be passive consumers. They want to participate. They want to help co-create the public good.

The same is true of many other people. Your clients and customers included. Witness the enthusiasm with which people volunteer to help deliver the Olympics, support the vulnerable in a pandemic, carry out scientific research in their spare time, have their gardens dug up for archaeology.

How can you help them co-create the public good(s) you both desire?

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Community