Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Humanity

Where power is
May 4, 2023

Where power is

“We may not like to admit it, but most organizations–even those with “nice” cultures–are authoritarian by design“ – from Michele Zanini’s post yesterday.

Of course they are.

Because they are founded on a fundamental asymmetry of power.

If an employable person doesn’t work, they starve.   That’s not true for their ultimate employers.

Enclosures, Poor Laws, Vagrancy acts and witch hunts were the weapons used to bring about this asymmetry, following a hundred years or so of peasants getting ‘above themselves’ after the ravages of the Black Death.

‘Austerity’, ‘inflation control’, ‘reforms’ to education, healthcare and the welfare state are being used to reinforce it today.

Now, we’re not even allowed to protest about it.

It’s why government doesn’t really like small business, despite what they say, because small businesses are often more equitable (because here, employer and employee are more or less in the same boat – if they don’t work, they starve).

The good news is that this puts power in our hands.  Because as small businesses we can choose how we grow, and so start to tip the balance back again, by growing differently.

Purpose-led.  Equitably organised and rewarded.

The way we naturally want to be.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

Services
April 17, 2023

Services

One of our case studies at London Business School, involved a company that supplied rags to industry.   Rags – textiles at the absolute end of their useful life might seem to be the ultimate commodity.  Almost worthless.   How could a business supplying them ever hope to create unmissable value for it’s customers?

Simple.

By surrounding that commodity product with deep layers of service.

By getting under the skin of it’s clients; understanding where and how they used the rags and what the problems could be.  Then making sure they more than met every rags need in the way they sold, delivered, collected and disposed of them for the client.

By maintaining that intimacy with their clients through the people they interacted with – the people who delivered and collected, so that every new need could be anticipated and added to the service.

In those days, adding service meant adding people, because people are the only way to create value for other people.

That’s still true, even if nowadays your first thought would be to build an online platform.

Technology doesn’t create new value overall, it can only make it cheaper for a particular business to deliver its service – until another particular business catches up or overtakes, or undercuts (Ever wondered why hand car washes have replaced the automated ones?  Cheap (slave) labour, makes machinery unprofitable).

So if the key to profitability is service, and service means adding people to deal with people, maybe we have an answer to the climate crisis?

Stop making things, use what we already have (e.g. enough clothing for 3 times the global population), and pay people well to support other people – regenerating our environment; housing; education; health; repair and recycling; art; music, entertainment… the list is endless.

We wouldn’t be short of work, and we might well be happier.

After all, this is how we did things for most of our existence on this planet.

One day we might realise we don’t even need money to make this work.

Uncertainty
April 3, 2023

Uncertainty

“Where the future is uncertain, people and organizations have the freedom to influence what it becomes.” Vaughn Tan ‘The Uncertainty Mindset’

Whose idea of the future is your business shaping?

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.

Never be ashamed of reading fiction
March 23, 2023

Never be ashamed of reading fiction

I’m never ashamed of reading fiction, and I read a lot of it, usually multiple times – everything from detective stories,  myths and legends, 18th-century epistolary novels to sci-fi and historical romances, with children’s fiction and classics along the way.

Fiction teaches me at least as much, if not more than non-fiction.

I put myself in another’s shoes, see things from multiple perspectives, hear the same things said in a plethora of different ways, experience new and different worlds I’d never encounter in real life.

Non-fiction is great, I love the new information and ideas it gives me, the different ways of interpreting how the world works.

But it’s fiction that gets me practicing the empathy and imagination I need to apply my information and ideas wisely and humanely.   Almost withour realising it, because I’m having so much fun.

I’ll never be ashamed of reading fiction.

Long may I be able to do so.

Human capital
March 22, 2023

Human capital

According to the minister at yesterday’s funeral, if you were to turn an average human body into usable products, you’d end up with goods worth about £10.

The minister’s point was that trying to put a monetary value on a human life is silly, impossible, even blasphemous.

But we do it all the time – when we set a wage or salary level, when we decide how much support to give someone in need, when we decide that non-earners are not worth saving in a pandemic.

The irony is that it’s the infinite potential of living human beings that gives money capital its value.

For tens of thousands of years, we lived perfectly well without looking at the world through dollar signs.  We could again.

Discipline makes Daring possible.

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.

Game theory
March 13, 2023

Game theory

One of the recurring ‘complaints’ voiced by presenters of shows like The Great British Bake-off, The Great Pottery Throw-down, The Great British Sewing Bee etc.,  is that the contestants insist on helping each other – right down to the final.

Our natural instinct it seems, is to play an infinite game with our peers.

Of course it is, because that’s the only way to make the real gains –  new skills, alternative perspectives, increased self-confidence and a bunch of lifelong friends.

We only really win if everyone wins.

Impacting Earth
February 17, 2023

Impacting Earth

Of course your business doesn’t just impact the people immediately involved in it.

It also impacts Earth, therefore other inhabitants too.   Possibly in ways you can’t currently see.

You may not be responsible for the entirety of the impact, but perhaps you contribute.

Just as, by outsourcing my accounting to an accountant, I don’t employ someone directly, but contribute to the employment of the people who work for my accountant, so, by using a laptop and mobile for my work, I contribute to the pollution and oppression created by a lithium mine.

The point is to be aware.  Then to ramp up the positives and minimise the negatives.

That might mean changing how you do business, or even what you do, to play your part in creating a safe and just space for humanity here on our planet:

 

One thing’s for certain, you won’t be short of work.

Discipline makes Daring possible.