(Cross-posted from http://www.thechiefgood.com/2007/06/04/ready-fire-aim/)

This past Memorial Day weekend my only child, my daughter, got married. In the days leading up to the wedding I tried to imagine what it might be like to escort her down the aisle. I envisioned us both dressed up as we've never been before with teary-eyes and racing hearts. I next tried to imagine what thoughts and feelings I would have, what exactly would be going through my head? While I found it to be incredibly powerful to do these visioning exercises, nothing could have prepared me for the actual experience; I just had to live it.

Buddhism makes heavy use of “pointing-out instructions”, descriptive processes by which a master may lead a disciple to uncover the true nature of mind. The term more casually implies that instruction can lead to experience, but is incapable of describing the experience itself. One of the primary things that changes one's world-view is the process of having experiences, as opposed to just thinking about them. This is true of all of areas of life, including business.

The management adage of “ready, fire, aim” alludes to the value of practical experience in the world over prediction. Brian Robertson incorporates this idea into Holacracy with his emphasis on Dynamic Steering; I've always leveraged Nike’s brilliantly simple slogan of Just Do It .  Regardless of what one calls it, the wisdom is the same and that is that nothing trumps experience. The art of good business is practicing the skills to keep moving forward and adjusting for actual experience all while staying within specific tolerances and limits that could otherwise lead you to kill or cripple your organization. Jumping off a building will certainly give you good hard data (pun intended) about the concrete below, but you won’t have much resource (life) left to put that new information to use.

When I model a business I move quickly estimating variables and using best guesses. I firmly believe the model doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be close. Why? Because the initial model isn’t meant to be a detailed simulation of the business, that will naturally come over time as more and more accurate data is integrated. The first implementation of the model should primarily be used to reveal the variables that have the greatest impact on the business.

All this can be summarized by the following advice: a ready, fire, aim style is great for moving quickly and avoiding analysis paralysis, but it requires that you also deeply understand the system of your business enough to avoid catastrophe and accidentally stepping off a cliff!

(Cross-posted from http://www.thechiefgood.com/2007/06/11/getting-rich-is-not-a-goal/)

Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki want you to be rich. Let's all get rich! Isn't that why we are in business? Let's all make a big pile of money so we can, so we can, so we can....what? Then what? Of the four P's: people, profit, purpose and planet, I think profit should follow the other three, though I personally still find myself sometimes joining the lemmings march toward riches and the dream of "someday".

Are you in business to get rich? If so, you may be reading the wrong blog. I'm interested in helping you become wealthy which is vastly different from getting rich. Getting rich is not a goal; it's as meaningless as gassing up a car with nowhere to go. Wealth on the other hand, is comprised of both interior and exterior attributes like happiness, health, well-being, meaningful relationships, and experience in addition to financial integrity. We all know that money can't buy happiness. Once most basic needs are met additional money does little to increase happiness. There's a lot of buzz about about discovering what exactly does lead to longterm personal satisfaction, and that trend doesn't seem like it's going anywhere soon. Yet, almost nowhere do we see these ideas being applied to business. The market and most companies still focus solely on financial profit as the metric to determine the success of a company.

Could this emphasis on profit over the other three P's be the root cause for much of the ecological and cultural destruction seen in recent years? If so, is it possible to re-frame what success means in the business world so that an organization is ranked on more that just its profits? I think so, and as a great leader once said, I believe that one of the most powerful ways to facilitate this transformation is to embody it in one's self first.

Consequently I'm doing a personal sustainability audit. It is fair to say that my life, like my physical body, is a little soft around the middle. It is time to deal with both those issues. I plan on trading in my Lexus GX 470 for a hybrid, but until then I'm buying carbon credits for driving and flying. I'm looking at the food I eat, the stuff I buy, and of my habits and how that all relates to my happiness. More importantly, I am investigating the price that these life choices have on me, others and the planet. It is becoming obvious that I've been sloppy in recent years, and for that I'd like to apologize to my fellow beings. I think I'll find that I can achieve the same level of wealth, and perhaps even more, through a smaller footprint on the planet. The same return, or greater, with a smaller investment. That's just good math!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not moving into a cave and giving up good Scotch. Far from it, but I am looking into the science of both happiness and savoring, and asking questions about where there is waste in my personal and business lives. After doing some of the work for myself, I hope to assist others in doing the same so that they too might have an easier time pursuing sustainable happiness. One of my client's slogans is "giving, it's the new getting." I hope those words become valued in the worlds of both individuals and businesses soon.

Money is fuel for business in the same way that gas is fuel for a car. In the end, aren't both really about where we want to go and how we want to get there, and not about the fuel? We can use this vehicle of business to serve ourselves and our world and assist all of us in the pursuit of happiness. As Americans this is our legacy. Our founding fathers wanted us to have the freedom to pursue happiness, or what I might call The Chief Good. That is the true wealth of a nation. Somebody tell Donald to call me.

[Cross-posted from http://www.thechiefgood.com/2007/06/19/cataclysm-and-wonderment/

Let's do a thought experiment.  Imagine a white board that is divided into two columns.   The heading of the left column is titled cataclysm and lists potential world-wide catastrophes like global warming, species eradication, health care crisis, meteor impact, peak oil, Ebola etc.  Usually when I do this exercise with a group they quickly list twelve or more natural and human caused disasters.  Now, in the right hand column of this imaginary white board we are going to create the opposite list.  What would you title this column?  Don't feel bad if you can't immediately think of a word, most people can't.   As a culture we seem to have a constant underlying angst about disaster, but we are weak on holding energy towards massive optimism.  Let me help.  

We could label the right column "godsend" or "miracle", but both these terms suggest that there is a supernatural being that is granting, or withholding, these glorious outcomes.   We could use the heading "boon" or "fortune", but these words seem to relate more toward financial riches than the awe of a global windfall. I'm sure there is a perfect word out there, maybe in Sanskrit, but for now I suggest: "wonderment".

Naming the right side column is the easy part, the hard part seems to be listing ten or more positive world changing events?  Take a moment and see how well you can do.  For most people creating this second tally is difficult, if not impossible. If we truly co-create our reality through our thoughts, then we might try thinking more positive thoughts on a big scale.  I was inspired to produce this thought experiment after regularly meeting with some of the most brilliant and conscious minds on the planet.  In those meetings I was surprised to find that most of these thought leaders seemed to have an underlying apocalyptic mindset.  Could it be that as a culture we believe that imagining the worst can somehow steel us for misfortune and that dreaming too big will just cause us to have our hearts broken.  How's that working for us so far?  Here's a list of some miracles I thought up:

Top 10 World Changing Wonderments

1. Cheap, clean, unlimited and massive energy source discovered
2. Cure for some or all illnesses including AIDS, cancer and mental illness
3. Instantaneous travel through space and/or time
4. Undeniable proof of higher order compassionate beings
5. Outbreak of global non-violence
6. Verification that thought directly impacts the physical world
7. Unrestricted and limitless food and water access for all
8. Biodiversity as an unintentional consequence of human existence
9. Intelligent communication with other species
10. Free, ubiquitous and immediate access for all to the Internet

How does that list sit with you?  Does it seem like science fiction, religious nonsense and New Age drivel?  Do you find yourself more inclined to embrace the possibility of global horrors than astonishing good fortunes?  My point is that many of the businesses I interact with are trying to make the world a better place and I applaud that, but many also come from a deeper mindset of global despair.  Yes, we can do a much better job of taking care of each other and the planet, but let's do so from a place of optimism.  The power of positive psychology, goal setting, and visioning has recently been deeply explored in the areas of personal transformation.  We've yet to see these tools used for business or culture at large; maybe it's time! Change the world and change your business by first changing your mind.  Blessings!

[Cross-posted from http://www.thechiefgood.com/2007/06/26/competing-for-money/]

This is a long blog, but I urge you to read the whole thing. - Steve

My vision of MANAGEMENT BY HAPPINESS continues to develop. While theoretically the concept of valuing a business by the well-being it brings into the world feels right, there are still some execution obstacles including the realities of financial statements. Accounting practices are well defined and generally accepted, but little exists in terms of standardized measurements and reporting structures for sustainability and well-being. As a consultant, my activities seem to always come back to a dollar discussion. I’ve had an instinct of late that our culture is unnaturally focused on money. My friend Dick Wagner says, "money is the most powerful and pervasive secular force on the planet." Lynne Twist asks us to notice that while we once identified ourselves as citizens of this great nation, we now call each other "consumers." What's going on with this? How did money come to have such a powerful influence on our culture and selves? Recently I stumbled upon a possible answer from Bernard Lietaer that led to one of the biggest ‘ah ha’ moments in my life.

I've heard Bernard lecture a few times at Naropa and I am reading a pre-publication copy of his new book: Of Human Wealth. (Bernard Lietaer & Stephen Belgin. 2006. Of Human Wealth: New Money for a New World. Pre-publication Edition Version 4.1. Citerra Press. Boulder, CO, USA.) In this new book, his previous book(The Future of Money), and in interviews, Professor Lietaer outlines how he believes that our money system shapes our behaviors. He states in an interview:

“While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money - using markets and resources to do so.”

Or as he states elsewhere in this article:

"The monetary system is programmed -- albeit not deliberately -- to cause certain behavior. It promotes competition and short-term thinking; it forces economic growth; and it undervalues care, education and tasks crucial to maintaining a society. Economics theory teaches us that people compete for markets and raw materials; I think, in reality, people compete for money."

We must then ask ourselves why people and businesses compete for money. The root cause seems to be the interest component of our money system. The dollar is designed in such a way that there just isn’t enough to go around. In another article Lietaer says:

"Interest on money constitutes one of the most systematic causes of our destruction of the global environment. Consider as metaphor, for example, the life of a tree (or any other living resource): Because of interest, the net present value of any income far away in the future is negligible. So, it literally pays to cut down a tree and put the proceeds in a savings account instead of letting it grow for another decade or century."

While my undergraduate degree is in Economics and Finance, I didn’t really understand until just recently how interest causes scarcity. Consider this simplistic example: when the Fed puts $1000 into the money system. Those dollars can be put on deposit at Bank A. Bank A is then allowed to loan out $900 (assuming a 10% reserve rate) that end up on deposit at Bank B, which can then loan out $810, and so on and so on. Most of us have been taught that the expansion of the money supply comes from the fact that banks can make loans. In this example the original $1000 the Fed put into the system results in approximately $10,000 in the money supply, all of which is based on loans that are charged interest. The total to be paid back across the system is in excess of $10,000, so in total there literally isn’t enough to pay back all the loans and thus money becomes a scare resource. We are all competing for money because of the way it is designed. This competition causes people and corporations to constantly be inventing new ways to lure money away from others and to hoard it.

Could it be that our collective unconscious is keenly aware that we have created an economic system that pits us against each other every day? What maladies might be attributed to this constant pressure to compete? Over-consumption, over-eating, the unequal distribution of wealth, and maybe even mental illness? The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way, which I'll be posting on in the near future.

For now let's close with another quote from Bernard Lietaer:

"My conclusion is that greed and the competitive drive are not inherent human qualities. They are continuously stimulated by the kind of money we use. There is more than enough food and work for everyone. There is merely a scarcity of money."