Discipline makes Daring possible.

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

Category: Humanity

Nodes
January 27, 2023

Nodes

Yesterday I learned two things from the same street in Soho.

The first was that when you try and force yourself into the box that society/the system has made for you, you may very well die.

The second was that when you design your own box, then connect it with those of other like-hearted people, you become a node, enabling yourself and everyone around you to be so much more than society/the system expects.

It might just be me, but it feels like the nodes are winning, in spite of everything the system/society is throwing at them.

Machines
January 20, 2023

Machines

“Prompt: “short, scrawny figure; hunched shoulders; weak, sagging jawline; thin, greasy hair; unkempt, unruly style; dull, lifeless eyes; lack of intelligence, confidence; wrinkled, sallow skin; excessive stubble; crooked, hooked nose; thin, pursed lips; flabby, untoned body; undefined, flabby muscles; exudes weakness, insecurity, unattractiveness; epitome of masculine ugliness; timid, self-doubting; air of nervousness, insecurity; truly a sight to avoid; unimpressive” via Midjourney v4, prompt generated by chatGPT after requesting description of the opposite of a perfect man“. Cameron Butler

“If the necessary reasonable work be of a mechanical kind, I must be helped to it by a machine, not to cheapen my labour, but so that as little time as possible may be spent on it.  It is the allowing machines to be our masters and not our servants that so injures the beauty of life nowadays.”  William Morris

Bottom up, inside out
January 12, 2023

Bottom up, inside out

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

Somewhere back in the 15th century, probably unintentionally, we remade our world, creating a system we now call capitalism.

This system is so good at reproducing itself  it now includes everyone and everything on Earth – and even beyond. Whether they like it or not.

We’ve trapped ourselves inside a system that is good for some, very bad for others and terrible for our planet.

It wasn’t always this way.   It doesn’t have to stay this way.    We can change the system.

But how?  Especially when the people at the top are those that benefit most?

Our small businesses are worlds we make and can easily remake.

Why not start there?   Build a tiny version of the kind of world you’d like to see:  democratic, participatory, responsibly autonomous, humane, non-extractive.   Liberating.

Bottom up, inside out.

Until one day, we are the new system.

What do you really want?
January 9, 2023

What do you really want?

What do you really want?

I’m willing to bet that it’s something like this:

  • Agency – to make your own ‘me-shaped’ dent in the universe.
  • Mastery – to learn and master (even teach) new capabilities and skills.  So you can grow as a human being.
  • Autonomy – to be free to choose how you make your dent.  To do it your way.
  • Purpose – to do this for something bigger than yourself.  Otherwise it doesn’t feel like much of a dent.
  • Community – to do all this with ‘people like me’.
  • Status – to know (and for others to know) where you stand in your communities.   That doesn’t by any means have to be at the top.  What you really want is recognition.

 

You can build a successful business by delivering this for your clients through what you give them and the way you do it.

You can build a sustainable business by delivering this for your people through the way that you enable them to deliver to clients on your behalf.

Do both, and you’ve sorted yourself out too.

Hoarding
December 6, 2022

Hoarding

Around 2,000 years ago, someone buried their cash. Did it do them any good that way? Almost certainly not. Could … Read More “Hoarding”

The politics of value
December 1, 2022

The politics of value

“The ultimate stakes of politics, … is not the struggle to appropriate value; it is the struggle to establish what value is. 

Similarly, the ultimate freedom is not to create or accumulate value, but the freedom to decide (collectively or individually) what makes life worth living. 

In the end then, politics is about the meaning of life.” David Graeber*

 

When you start your own business, you get to decide what value is.  And as long as you can find enough people who agree with you, you can grow.

That’s how we small businesses change the world, without even realising it.

Imagine what we could do if we did it on purpose!

 

*from ‘Toward an anthropological theory of value – the false coin of our own dreams.’

 

 

Where energy goes
November 30, 2022

Where energy goes

As humans, we spend our energy and our creativity on the things that matter to us.   For you, as the boss, that’s your business.   For your team?  Well, they may prefer to grow perfect peppers.

So the challenge for a business owner is how to infect the people you work with (and indeed the people you seek to serve) with the same enthusiasm as you have.  Because that’s the only way they’ll agree to put in anything like the same energy and creativity.

Coercion doesn’t work.  Reminding them that they are dependent on you for survival doesn’t work either.  Money doesn’t work that well once people have enough, and giving them less than they need or what seems fair just dampens any enthusiasm.

So what does work?

Giving them the means to achieve what they really want as human beings in work as well as outside of it:

  • Agency – to make their own ‘me-shaped’ dent in the universe.
  • Mastery – to learn and master (even teach) new skills.
  • Autonomy – to be free to choose how they make their dent.
  • Purpose – to do this for something bigger than themselves, that has meaning beyond the sale.
  • Community – to do all this with ‘people like us’.
    • Status – to know (and for others to know) where we stand in our communities.

All the things you wanted when you set up your business then.

Make everyone a boss.  Blend yourself in.

Autumn Statement
November 17, 2022

Autumn Statement

Economics is not a science.   How could it be?   It works with and on and around human beings.

It’s an art.  That used to be called political economy.  Until economists with certain politics decided to change that, to make it sound more scientific.

Nevertheless, economics, unlike physics (whose laws will be true even when we are no longer around to observe them), remains a purely human construct.   Something we make up to explain how the world works.

That means it can be wrong.   There can be alternatives which explain things better, or produce different results.   It all depends on the politics and the assumptions that politics makes about human beings.

So, if you’re interested in alternative economic constructs, here are some books I recommend:

  • The Deficit Myth
  • Doughnut Economics
  • 23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism
  • The Joy of Tax
  • The Production of Money
  • Poor Economics
  • The Value of Everything
  • Everything for Everyone
  • Capital in the 21st Century and it’s companion Capital and Ideology.
  • Principles of political economy and taxation
  • The Wealth of Nations
  • Capital

They’re all wrong of course.

But depending on what you’re trying to achieve they may be more helpful.

And at least you can make up your own mind.

 

 

 

Cut off
November 11, 2022

Cut off

My internet was down all day yesterday.    I felt so cut off!  Disabled even.

As if the only alternative to doing stuff online was to do nothing.

Which is ridiculous.

I’m just out of practice in the real world.

I need to get out more.

Maybe we all do.

Who fancies a coffee?

The sound of the sea
October 19, 2022

The sound of the sea

I’m back.  After 5 days of walking, 4 days of talking, and 2 days of chilling and walking.  In places where the lanes are narrow, the sea is everywhere and it’s often impossible to get a signal.   A short holiday in a remote location, followed by a conference in an even more remote location.

What have I learned?

That gathering ‘the news’ intermittently via intermittent access to twitter is good enough.

That gathering people together to share how they’re changing a system far bigger than themselves is amazing.  When everyone realises they are actually doing it, the changes just get bigger.  And more people join in.

That the sound of the sea is a good thing to fall asleep to.

It’s great to be back.