The Next Century of Business

The reason that postmodernists believe that there is no central, underlying narrative at the core of our culture is that our culture has become antagonistic to our nature. The central, underlying narrative that is the foundation of human civilization is the Hero’s Journey, and the Hero’s Journey is an archetypal narrative about conscience, integrity, and the optimal expression of human talent. The heroic myths and legends take that foundational place at the center of civilization because, as Joseph Campbell said, “Myths are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life.” Human potential is unleashed on the path of conscience, integrity, and the optimal expression of human talent.

Modern, western culture is centered around the Friedman Doctrine, and the Friedman Doctrine has a built-in disdain for conscience, integrity, and the optimal expression of human talent. The Friedman Doctrine says that a business exists to maximize shareholder value. What Milton Friedman did not understand is the fact that human beings will sacrifice everything for their highest priority. In this case, the corporatist acolytes of Milton Friedman will sacrifice conscience, integrity, and the optimal expression of human talent on their way to maximizing shareholder value.

The acolytes of the Friedman Doctrine have laid off millions of workers in order to meet their financial projections and collect their bonuses. They have shipped millions of jobs overseas, and gutted the middle class in order to maximize shareholder value and collect their bonuses. Corporatists have given us a culture where whistleblowers “commit suicide” at times that are maximally convenient for the corporate entities that under investigation for unlawful and unconscionable activities. Then results are no further investigations, and certainly no prosecutions for the malfeasance or for the deaths. Remember that the archetypal narrative at the foundation of our civilization is one of conscience, integrity, and the optimal expression of human talent.

All of this is right out in the open, and the defenders of corporatism and the Friedman Doctrine ask why workforce morale, productivity, and loyalty have dropped to all-time lows. They ask why our culture has been overrun by postmodernists who deny the existence of a central, unifying narrative. When you try to reconcile the fact that every story you’re told while you’re growing up is focused on conscience, integrity, and the optimal expression of human talent, and you work in an environment that denies the value of all three on a daily basis, of course you will be tempted to deny the validity of the stories.

Here’s the thing: all of this is imminently fixable. It’s a matter of definition and priorities. A business exists to solve a problem. The better the solution, the more profitable the business. By prioritizing the optimal expression of human talent through conscience and integrity, a business will produce more innovative solutions, and thereby optimize profit. The quest for profit is not what broke modern, western culture. The quest for infinite profit growth at the expense of conscience, integrity, talent, and innovation is. A business that prioritizes solutions that create flourishing for its customers will more effectively achieve that goal through conscience, integrity, and the quest for the optimal expression of human talent. A business that prioritizes innovative solutions through the expression of human talent can comfortably sacrifice maximal profit for optimal profit.

If you own a private business that has no obligation to maximize profit at the expense of conscience, integrity, and human potential, you have a massive competitive advantage. Corporations are trapped in a death spiral, because they all reach the point when the market is saturated, and they can’t increase profit by increasing revenue. At that point, they have to sacrifice the quality of their products and services for the following year’s 10% increase in shareholder value. They are doomed to eventually produce solutions of such poor quality that nobody wants them anymore. Then they have to sell off the parts for one last cash grab before they go out of business.

As a private business owner, you also have a marketing advantage over your corporatist competitors. By maximizing attention to conscience, integrity, and the optimal expression of human talent, you can maximize your appeal to customers and workers, and you can optimize the profit that you generate and reinvest in your quest for innovative solutions through the ongoing development of human talent. If you own a private business that prioritizes the quest for more effective solutions through conscience, integrity, and the development of human potential, you own a business that is sustainable for the next century.

For those who are thinking that this is some radical, new theory of business that has no evidence for its efficacy, you need look no further than the decades prior to 1970 and the Friedman Doctrine. During that post-war era, America built the middle class and an unprecedented level of prosperity and human flourishing by prioritizing innovative solutions and the optimization of profits, and that allowed for investment in the development of the human talent that would deliver the next generation of innovative solutions.

The next century of business will be dominated by privately owned businesses, because the profit maximizing, corporate business model is inherently self-destructive. A corporation can scale faster than a private business, but that is a moot point, because a corporation is forced to destroy itself through endless cost-cutting and reductions in quality in search of the infinite profit growth that has never, and will never exist. The slower timeline to scale for a privately owned business is actually a competitive advantage, because it allows time for the development of the workforce’s talent. The business can grow when the workforce is ready to support that growth, and that added level of effectiveness allows the company to optimize it’s profits for the long-term.

If you want to restore American prosperity, keep your business privately owned, and focus on delivering innovative solutions by transforming talent into skill and peak performance.

Now, let’s get to work.