The Rise of the Cult of Profit & the Loss of Business Purpose (An Opportunity for Localism)

What are the basic requirements for people to flourish as human beings and live good, meaningful lives of purpose and value? The simple answer is a person needs a few basic goods and services such as food and water, shelter and sanitation, along with education and health care. A person also needs the freedom to pursue his or her own unique goals and dreams and the opportunity to be respected as a valued member of their community. When so simply stated, it follows that work in organizations is an effective way to satisfy these basic needs and flourish as human beings. 

            This answer also illuminates why people need meaningful work to thrive. We discover three reasons why we need to work: one, to earn the income to acquire the basic goods and services we need to live a good life; two, to develop the talents and abilities to exercise effectively the freedom to achieve our dreams; and three, to make a lasting contribution to the wellbeing of others and become respected and valued members of our community.

            A business then, whether for profit or nonprofit, is an organization of physical and financial assets, people, and knowledge, brought together in order to satisfy our need for work and to produce the goods and services we need to prosper. So we can state the purpose of business as four-fold:

1.     To produce profitably some good or service that benefits someone who wants them.

2.     To pay employees adequately so they are able to purchase the goods and services needed to live well.

3.      To develop the capacities of people so they can effectively exercise their freedom to make a difference.

4.     To contribute to the larger community, which both supports and is supported by the business in an interdependent relationship of society and economy.       

A successful business must effectively balance these four purposes. A business cannot be imbalanced for long without doing great damage to the people and world around it. It cannot neglect any one purpose for the sake of any other purpose, nor can it privilege one purpose at the expense of any other purpose. To do so harms the business, harms the people in the business, and harms society itself. The art of management is to balance the four-fold purpose of business and create the conditions for people to flourish as human beings. It seems obvious that we are failing.

Why are we failing? Our current “recovery” is pretty much a jobless recovery, as have been the last few economic periods following recessions. The jobs that are created tend to be part-time and/or low paying jobs, so people end up being underemployed and see their earnings and benefits shrinking. Since the 1970’s even though worker productivity has risen, middle class working families have seen their incomes stagnate or decrease, and poverty has risen to a 17-year high. Today the gap between the top 1% of income and wealth holders and the rest of us is greater than at any other time since the Great Depression. Yet, while most working families are barely hanging on to economic survival, CEO pay has risen 725 percent and now the ratio of CEO pay to average worker pay is 354 to 1.* By any objective reflection, this is neither wise nor sustainable.

Two great organizational thinkers, Charles Handy and Peter Drucker, both of whom are very much pro-business and could never be considered anti-capitalist, recognized this dangerous trend back in the 80’s and 90’s. The pursuit of profit and the enrichment of the individual at the expense of everything else was becoming the driving motivation in business practices. The cult of profit had enslaved the economy. As a young man in the 1980’s, I remember speaking with my friends, and all we could talk about was how to make a lot of money quickly and with little effort. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was a popular TV show of the time and characterized the ambitions and attitudes of many. In an essay entitled, “The Lure of the Zeros,” Handy said:

Money is not the root of all evil; St Paul was careful to say that it was the love of money which was the problem. But I wonder if you really can see straight with all those zeros in front of you, still disentangle right from wrong, above all still be true to yourself in spite of the numbers.

Drucker said way back in 1974 in his book, Management, Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices:

The profit motive and its offspring maximization of profits are just as irrelevant to the function of a business, the purpose of a business, and the job of managing a business. In fact, the concept is worse than irrelevant: it does harm.

Of course, there is nothing wrong or evil with either profit or wealth. As Drucker pointed out, profit is a necessary measure of the validity of a business, but when it becomes the sole purpose, everyone suffers. Similarly wealth is both desirable and good, but not for its own sake, only in so far as it contributes to a meaningful life of purpose and value, which is possible even without great wealth. 

We could begin in our management councils to measure the performance of our businesses against the four-fold purpose and strive to find a balance. Sadly, it might just be that big business and large corporations are too committed to the cult of profit to adjust their business practices. It just might be that most CEO’s are too attached to the self-enrichment mindset to reign-in their exorbitant salaries. It just might be that our political system is too polarized and inefficient to make a meaningful difference. Yet there still might be a silver lining to the ongoing economic insecurity and hardship faced by the American middle class and workers around the world. As they see the wealth gap only increasing and their opportunities only decreasing, they just might realize the solution to their ongoing plight is to build business and economic security at the local level.

At the local level we can form businesses that will respect the human need for work and realize an authentic balance between business’s four-fold purpose. At the local level we can begin to produce the basic goods and services we all need to live well. At the local level we can create meaningful opportunities for people to develop their talents and abilities and contribute to the wellbeing of their neighbors. At the local level each person can be recognized as an esteemed and important member of the community. So we can continue to stagger on hoping without reason that big business and big government will save us in our current economic troubles, or we can seize the opportunity to recreate economic prosperity for all beginning at the local level.

*  Sources – U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey.” Money.cnn.com/2011/02/16. Stateofworkingamerica.org. huffingtonpost.com.

The Promise of Localism and Peter Drucker’s Post-Capitalist Society

Peter Drucker, who passed away in 2005 at the age of 96, was one of the wise persons of the twentieth century and certainly its most influential organizational consultant. In a book published in 1993, called Post-Capitalist Society, he argued that every few hundred years societies go through difficult transitional periods resulting in a new society with new values, new beliefs, and new political and economic practices. He believed the world was going through just such a sharp transformation that would end about 2020 with a rearranged global society. The driving force of this transformation was the knowledge worker, and the new society that would emerge around 2020, he called the Post-Capitalist Society.

            Drucker was quick to point out that Post-Capitalist Society would not be anti-capitalist or non-capitalist. Free enterprise would still be the key to integrating economic markets, but the old Capitalist means of production of land, labor, and capital would be replaced by knowledge as the crucial resource. Knowledge does not function the same way and so cannot be managed the same way as land, labor, and capital, hence this new society would be Post-Capitalism but not post-free enterprise. He did not specify exactly what the new society would look like, but he did persuasively argue that something new was in the process of being born, which would be characterized by new values, new beliefs, and new political and economic practices.

            Capitalism in the twentieth century led to the emergence of big business and big government, both of which are now failing to meet the needs of the vast majority of people, whether workers or citizens. They are neither nimble enough nor wise enough to manage knowledge workers, but in fact treat knowledge as if it were just another version of the old means of production. The challenges we face today around the world, whether climate change, conflict, poverty, health care, or full employment can be successfully met, but not by either big business or big government, and we will waste valuable time if we continue to look there. Just how might Post-Capitalist Society look and how might it successfully solve these problems? As Drucker realized whatever emerges will be a function of what the conditions in the environment allow and of the choices we humans make.

            The conditions we face today are both positive, which will make certain choices possible, and negative, which will constrain certain other choices. For instance, knowledge workers have brought us 3-D printers and vertical farming, which are examples of positive conditions that, along with other new and innovative technologies, will soon make possible self-sufficiency at the local level. In the near future, the food a community needs and the tools to farm it can be produced at the local level.

Examples of negative conditions, which constrain our choices, are climate change and the growing disparity of income and wealth between the one-percenters and the rest of us. So relying on distant resources will become less and less sustainable and meeting our basic needs will better be found in solidarity with one another at the local level, not by waiting for assistance from those “above” us and far away. Given the possibilities and limits of these conditions, we must be very thoughtful about the choices we make – the choices that will give shape to Post-Capitalist Society.

I believe our best hope to create a prosperous and joyful future depends on guiding our choices by the five principles of Localism as already set forth in this blog – the principles of responsibility, reduction, replacement, regeneration, and reconnection. (See post dated Monday, August 6, 2012) Following these principles the center of gravity for the new values, beliefs, and political and economic practices of Post-Capitalist Society will be our local communities. Given the knowledge worker and the new technologies of Post-Capitalist Society, a new social contract is possible, where we care for both the environment and our fellow human beings at the level of our local communities. Given the failures and impotence of both big government and big business, we must engage knowledge and the knowledge worker at the local level if we want to flourish in the twenty-first century. The promise of localism is that we can best care for others, our community, the world, and ourselves and experience deep connection, kindness, hospitality, and a greater sense of the joy of being human with one another at the local level.  

If you want to be happy – don’t seek happiness – at least not for yourself

Happiness is all the rage, and why not, we all want to be happy. I love what the brilliant German playwright and philosopher, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said in his epic poem, Faust, “Only in the present is our happiness.” If you think about it, this makes sense. After all, we only exist in the present moment. We do not live in the past or in the future, but only in the present. If we are going to be happy, then we must be happy now. Unfortunately, we often allow our regrets and guilt about the past or our worries and fears about the future to rob the present moment of happiness. When we do come back to the present it is usually to feel inadequate and dissatisfied.

I have known too many people who procrastinate the day of their happiness. They imagine to themselves that they will be happy when they finally graduate from school, or when they get that great job, or when they finally get married, or sometimes, divorced, or they will finally be happy when they own their dream home, or have a new car. The conditions for future happiness are infinite, and they will never be satisfied. Happiness is something we experience in the present moment or not at all. “Dare to be happy,” as Goethe challenged his nineteenth century compatriots. Yet, how do we “dare to be happy,” or how do we choose to be happy right now?

One problem is it is difficult to identify exactly what happiness is. Of course, there are many different conceptions of the meaning of happiness. Essentially happiness does seem to be a subjective state in which we experience wellbeing. What exactly this wellbeing might be, however, is often debated. Some identify it with pleasure (hedonists and utilitarians). Others believe it is the absence of desire (Eastern philosophies). And there are those who say it is a state of character (Aristotle). Most likely, they are all right in their own way and from their particular perspective.

Two of my favorite definitions of happiness are as follows. The first I found in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick:

But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

It’s that last phrase that speaks to me – the eternal mildness of joy. Melville was expressing that such calm joy can be experienced deep within us, even when surrounded by turbulent adversity. That seems to me to be a perfect statement of happiness. The second is my own creation. I have come to appreciate and understand happiness as the confident expectation in the goodness of the present moment.

I should make you aware of two more key aspects of happiness. Both could be considered paradoxes. They are:                                    

The Hedonic Paradox: You can’t directly choose happiness. The British philosopher, John Stuart Mill in his autobiography said,

I never wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, or on the improvement of mankind…. Aiming thus on something else, they find happiness by the way.

Mm, now I’m getting closer to where I want to end up, given the title of this post, but not just yet.

The Happiness Paradox: Most people report happiness with their life as a whole (what we might call “life assessment”), but experience dissatisfaction in the present moment (what we might call “emotional wellbeing”). A famous study in 2010 by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton discovered the above two different measures of wellbeing or happiness. The first they called life evaluation or assessment of one’s life as a whole, and the second they called an everyday emotional wellbeing, where one has more positive emotional states than negative states throughout the day. They discovered that the more money a person has increases his or her life assessment indefinitely, but after a certain income level (they pegged it at $75000) an increase in pay will show little affect on one’s daily emotional wellbeing.

I guess the key question to ask is where does a person live their life, in the daily moments of life or in the abstraction of their life assessment? If a person is wealthy then it makes sense that as they look over their life they assume it most be a good life, yet in each moment they discover money doesn’t necessarily lead to authentic relationships to self, others, community, or world. Most people, I believe, are interested in the cultivation of happiness in the present moment, or at least in addition to leading, over all, a pleasant quality of life, each of us also desires the eternal mildness of joy in our daily emotional states.

There is a great story about Diogenes the Cynic and Alexander the Great that illustrates another dimension to this question of happiness. According to ancient legend, in 336 B.C.E. Alexander comes to visit Diogenes in Corinth. Alexander finds Diogenes lying naked in a discarded barrel in the street. You see, Diogenes had complete disregard for external goods such as honor, wealth, or reputation and chose instead to live according to the dictates of his own whims. It was said he was truly happy and content. Standing over him, Alexander asks Diogenes if he could do anything for him; grant him any favor he might choose. This might be like if the richest, most powerful person in the world were to come up to you and offer to give you anything you wanted. What would you ask for?

            Well Diogenes, without even looking up at Alexander, simply said, “Yes, you could move out of the way, you’re blocking the sun.” One legend states that the men around Alexander were so infuriated at Diogenes insolence towards their powerful king that they wanted to kill Diogenes, but Alexander stopped them. Then he famously said, “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes!” When I ask my students what Alexander might have meant, they point out that Alexander recognized how truly happy Diogenes was, compared to himself. While Alexander possessed great power, wealth, and reputation, he wasn’t really happy. Alexander’s great wealth and power could not bring him the happiness and contentment of Diogenes genuine independence.

I guess one way to look at this story is to say that one way to be truly happy is to be completely, and I do mean totally, independent from others, living a solitary and self-sufficient life, without any obligations that arise from family, work, or community relationships. Do any of us desire to live such a life? For many it is too late as we find ourselves already embedded in relationships of family, or friendship, or work. We have to find happiness in ourselves, in the present moment, while embedded within these important relationships. But how?

In some sense, our lives are but a sequence of moments, of present moments. The quality of our lives will depend upon the quality of those moments – how we choose to be in those moments, and how we choose to respond to what occurs in those moments. Will we choose to determine the quality of that moment for ourselves, or will we allow the moment to determine us? Diogenes could determine the moment for himself because he could care less for anybody else, but what if we do care about others, our relationships, and how other people feel? How do we determine the moment and not be determined by it, no matter how difficult or pleasant, and experience happiness?

            I find the wisest counsel in the words of an 8^th-century Buddhist scholar, Shantideva, who said:

All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.

Wow, that’s cool! I have found this to be true. When I focus on my own happiness, it eludes me. The harder I concentrate on it, the more it recedes from my grasp. Yet when I focus on others, not trying to make them happy, that would be tragic and impossible, but when I concentrate on giving others what I desire for myself; namely, respect and kindness, I discover happiness and joy in the present moment. Funny, when I seek it, it is not there. When I don’t seek it, but instead focus on serving others in the present moment, it appears. So if you want to experience happiness in the present moment, to determine for yourself what the present moment will be, don’t seek happiness for yourself, but seek to help and serve others, and your own happiness will arise without effort. Of course, don’t take my word for it, or even Shantideva, instead try it for yourself. Let’s go and do it today!

Thoughts on changing the world by first becoming who we are

I love the twentieth-century architect, Louis Kahn, who brought together in his architecture both the clear lines and geometry of Modernism with the monumentality of ancient buildings. He brought the past into the future in extraordinary ways. His life has lessons for us. In the midst of incredible adversity and bad choices of his own, he continued to create. He maintained confidence in himself and resilience in the face of extreme difficulty. Kahn once said, "how accidental our lives are really, and how filled with influence by circumstance." It will only be the force of our character that will keep us from surrendering to circumstance.

We all know that life can be difficult. Our existence as human beings is fraught with unknowns, contingencies, vulnerabilities, and the absurdities of good and bad luck. Each day we experience a mixture of gain and loss, praise and blame, pleasure and pain, acceptance and rejection, but the uncertainty of it all often brings about feelings of doubt and fear. Add to these experiences, our bad habit of measuring our own success and failure by comparing ourselves to others, and the result is most of us are constantly fighting the anxiety that we are not good enough, that we are inadequate. This fear and anxiety about our own inadequacies distorts our relationships with others; makes us feel alienated from our communities; and can give us a sense of insecurity in our world.

Given the existential state of our human condition, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a constant companion who was a person of great self-confidence, so he or she could help us remain calm in the face of adversity? Wouldn’t it be great if our constant companion were a person of strong emotional resilience, so he or she could help us cultivate positive feelings and thoughts regardless of the external circumstances we found ourselves in? Wouldn’t it be nice if our constant companion were a person of love, so he or she could help us be kind, forgiving, and patient both with ourselves and others we encountered each day? If our constant companion were self-confident, emotionally resilient, and loving, then I imagine he or she would also be joyful and cheerful and so could help us experience happiness each day. 

Of course, we do in fact have a constant companion. It is we, ourselves. We are that person whom we are with 24/7. We can never escape ourself. Wherever we go, there we are. We can never leave ourself, depart from ourself, but are for an entire lifetime welded to ourself. What kind of a person are we? Are we a person of great self-confidence? Of Emotional resilience? Of Love? Of happiness? Do we possess the character of the person whom we’d want to be with 24/7? Would we like to become that person – a person of confidence, resilience, love, and joy? We can’t control the character, or even the behavior of the people around us, but we can control our behavior. We can choose our character. We can determine who we will be.

The Greek philosopher, Socrates, taught that living together with others begins with living together with ourself. Only the person, who is able to live happily with him or herself, is able to live happily with others. We need to learn how to care. To care is to cultivate with love. To care is to nurture and grow what is already present in ourself, in our relationships to others, in our presence in community, and in how we dwell upon the earth. Think of a beautiful garden overrun with weeds; you cultivate it by removing what isn’t garden! Michelangelo was once asked how he could carve such a beautiful and life-like statue of David from a block of marble. He reportedly said it was easy. He simply saw the figure in the marble and then removed what wasn’t David. We already possess within ourself the confidence, emotional resilience, and love in order to experience joy in each moment of our life. We just need to cultivate it. We need to remove what isn't us. We need to recover our true identify.

There is a fable that tells of a very hungry and very pregnant tigress who pounces upon a flock of goats with such ferocity that she causes her own death and the birth of a baby tiger. When the goats see the dead tigress and the baby tiger, their maternal instincts kick in, and they adopt the baby tiger and raise it as one of their own, a goat. The tiger grows up believing it is a goat. It learns to talk like a goat, to eat like a goat, to act like a goat, but even then it doesn’t make a very good goat. One day, after the tiger has become a miserable goat, another, older tiger comes hunting the goats. The older tiger springs upon the goats, and they scatter in fear, but the young tiger just stands there and bleats like a goat.

The older tiger stares at the younger tiger in amazement and ask, “Why are you living here with these goats?” To which the young tiger just bleats, “Maaaaa.” The older tiger roars at him, but he just responds with goatish sounds and returns to his goat behavior eating grass. So the older tiger takes him and leads him to a still pond. The younger tiger looks into the pond and sees his own face. For the very first time, he sees himself for what he truly is, a tiger, not a goat. The older tiger puts his own face next to the younger tiger. “You see,” he says, “You’ve got a face like mine.” “You are not a goat.” “You are a tiger like me.” “Now go and be a tiger!”   

I love this fable. It seems that I often live like a goat; I think like a goat, I talk like a goat, eat like a goat, and behave like a goat. That is to say, I often live a life less than fully human, less than my full potential as a human being. I imagine you’re probably a lot like me. It is time we see one another and ourselves as we truly are and as we can become. It is time to become who we really are. We each need the tiger experience.