Community – Page 9 – Discipline makes Daring possible.

October 22, 2021

Seeing ourselves

We humans are used to thinking of ourselves as self-aware, or self-conscious.

Except that most of the time we aren’t. We work on auto-pilot, following our habitual paths, working through habitual behaviours without consciously reflecting at all.

We do have moments of conscious awareness – when we’re thinking, or working out a problem – but these really are moments. 7 seconds on average.

Except when we are in conversation with other humans. In conversation, we think, we reflect, we are fully self-conscious. Sometimes for hours on end. You might even say that conversations with other people are where we fully realise ourselves.

And of course, you can’t have a proper conversation without being fully conscious of the other participants too.

You can’t be seen until you learn to see. Not even by yourself.

October 19, 2021

Old possibilities

For more than 40,000 years, human beings have been imagining and re-imagining new possibilities for how we live in the world.

We can’t stop now.

We can do better than this.

October 6, 2021

A plea for sparrows

Just round the corner from me, a builder has grubbed up around 30 metres of privet hedge that used to surround the plot. It was a lovely hedge, even when it got untidy, but more than that, it was home for dozens of house sparrows.

You might not think that’s a problem, but homebody house sparrows don’t move when their home habitat is destroyed, they just die out.

That’s why house sparrows are now on the red list of conservation concern. London lost 60% of its sparrows over just 10 years from 1994 to 2004. Gardens are still being paved over, hedges and shrubs grubbed up.

Sparrows aren’t exotic, or glamorous, but they’re becoming rare. I for one would hate to lose them.

September 10, 2021

Questioning

When you’re stuck, questions can be more helpful than answers.

As I found at Like Hearted Leaders this morning.

Why not give them a try?

September 6, 2021

Greeding

When, as kids, we had scoffed our own sweetie allowance, and wanted more, we’d have a go at appropriating the shares of our younger siblings. This rarely took the form of outright theft. We knew that was wrong. So we’d find other less obvious ways to achieve the same result.

We cajoled, we pleaded, we promised swaps. When that failed we bullied.

My parents called this behaviour ‘greeding’ – manipulating others into giving up their share, so you can have more.

We grew out of it, but it feels like an awful lot of greeding goes on in the grown-up world – beyond the obvious thefts, ponzi schemes and cons.

Banks put small businesses into debt with ‘recovery programmes’, taking over their assets once they’ve gone bankrupt. Firms force individuals to sell their homes for needed healthcare, raid pension funds to pay private equity loans.

Seed companies patent f1 hybrid seeds, forcing small farmers around the world into destitution. Soft drinks manufacturers negotiate first call on local water supplies, leaving ordinary people to pay more for less.

Manufacturers shut their eyes to child labour, slavery, invasion and habitat destruction in their supply-chains.

All so they can build up the means to do more of the same.

It’s called accumulation by dispossession. It’s happened throughout human history, of course. But not everywhere, not all the time. For the last 500 years we’ve relied on a system that can’t work without it.

And that can only end in tears.

September 1, 2021

Tension and delight

Of course, inspiration on its own isn’t enough. Inspiration needs a starting point, a constraint, something to bounce off, spark to or rebel against.

The maker of this ‘crazy’ quilt was already constrained by the assortment of odd-shaped leftovers they had. Perhaps also by the limited colours they’d been given. They decided to impose another constraint – the nine square layout. The result isn’t random. Nor is it purely functional. It satisfies more than the need to keep warm at night.

Why would someone do this?

We humans like order as much as we like wildness. We desire both certainty and uncertainty, rules and license. Pulled by these opposites, we find the tension between them uncomfortable.

So we turn it into the most delightful thing of all – art. Capturing a fleeting, but satisfying moment of balance between the two. The ‘right’ balance is elusive, every time we try, the result is different. That’s what keeps artists in practice. The ‘right’ balance is also personal. That’s what gives each artist their own style.

If you want your business to feel human, it needs to be a place where art can happen.

You can’t dictate the artistic solutions. But you can create the required level of tension, by imposing rules, order and constraints.

If those constraints are designed around making and keeping your promise to the people you serve – if they define a floor, but no ceiling – you’ll have created a safe, exciting and human space for everyone.

Especially you.

August 19, 2021

Customer-centric

Last year, at the start of the pandemic, eight staff at the Anchor House Care Home moved in.

They spent 56 nights on makeshift beds, isolated from their own families, to protect their residents.

The result? Nobody in the home even caught Covid-19.

Anchor House is a small care home, in a lovely old house in Doncaster. The only one owned by it’s parent company Authentic Care Services Ltd. According to the CQC it ‘requires improvement’.

Hmmm.

Perhaps the CQC isn’t designed to measure what really matters.

August 3, 2021

Resisting Commodification

What do we mean when we call something ‘a commodity’?

It means its substitutable, interchangeable, you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all.

It means we don’t have to think about it. It’s just there. To hand when we need it, otherwise invisible.

I no longer use ‘commodity olive oil’. Mine comes from Marije in Portugal. I’ve seen her family harvesting the olives. I’ve seen the designs for the special ceramic bottles it can come in. I’ve seen the ship ‘Gallant’ sailing to pick her oil up, and sailing back to Penzance to drop it off. I know the names of many of the people involved in making that happen.

And every time I use my oil, which is every day, I think of them and all the work that’s gone into getting olive oil to my table. I feel connected to a network.

My olive oil is not a commodity, I pay well above average price for it, and it’s worth every penny.

Commodification is not inevitable. We can choose to be different, as buyers, producers and middle-men.

As a community.

July 15, 2021

A different flywheel?

What if a business became a place where people co-operate to create value, in the form of products and/or services that will help their clients to live in the just space for humanity ? A business makes a profit of the money it receives from those others more than covers all the costs of delivering the goods.

So far, so good.

And?

Why does this kind of business need to make a profit? So it can expand.

Why does this kind of business need to expand? So it can help more people to live in the just space for humanity.

This could be a flywheel that doesn’t lead inexorably to self-destruction.

Or one that we might even decide to stop.

Shouldn’t we be switching to it?

July 14, 2021

The flywheel

A business is a place where people co-operate to create value, in the form of products and/or services that others want. A business makes a profit of the money it receives from those others more than covers all the costs of delivering the goods.

So far, so good.

But.

Why does a business need to make a profit? So it can expand.

Why does a business need to expand? So it can make more profit.

For the last 200 years this flywheel has driven everything that humans do.

Last year, we saw it slow down a bit, and caught a glimpse of what we’re missing.

Are we sure we want to get back on it?

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Community