The Two Biggest Mistakes An Owner and/or Manager of A Company Can Make

The two biggest mistakes an owner and/or manager of a company can make are: one, to believe that that there are no 'brains' at the bottom of the organization; and/or two, alternatively, not to care if there is or there isn't.

In other words, mistake number 1 is to run a company unilaterally. (i.e. all the power comes from the top).

And mistake number 2 is to run a company narcissistically (meaning people in the middle and at the bottom of the organization essentially 'don't exist, and usually in conjunction with this, all the money tends to flow to the top of the organization and only 'scraps' and 'dribbles' of it flow back down again.

(The polarity of the 'top-heavy' pathological company is the 'bottom-heavy' pathological company where either there is not solid leadership from the top and/or for example, 'pathological unions or agents' undermine and sabotage the overall health of the organization. This too, might be a factor in some cases for manufacturing companies choosing to abandon America in search of lower labor costs on foreign shores. No extreme labor unions to deal with).


The healthier alternatives are to:

1. Run a company dialectically meaning that as ideally as possible, the top embraces the bottom of the organization and gains valuable feedback from the input of the bottom -- and middle -- of the organization.

2. A humanistic-existential, ethical owner/manager knows that a company needs a healthy profit to sustain itself and to stay competitive in the industry, but he or she does not believe in 'exploiting' or 'gouging' or 'juicing' or 'disrespecting' either the people within the organization -- and/or the people outside the organization, namely the suppliers and the customers/potential customers. In exchange, the people at the bottom and the middle of the organization tend to show greater respect and harmony with the 'Humanistic-Existential-Ethical-Dialectic' (HEED) leaders at the top of the organization flow chart.

From a DGB perspective, these are the two most important factors in distinguishing a healthy, vibrant organization, from an unstable, unhealthy one.

-- DGBN, November 27th, 2008.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

Are still in process...

An Important Dialectic Split: Entropy and The Status Quo vs. New Action and Change

Fear and anxiety dictate much of human behavior.

There are some people who thrive on change, and opening new doors.

But there are probably considerably more who don't.

When we are talking about serious change in our lives,

Anxiety and fear can reach terrifying proportions.

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If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche


You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche


He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
Friedrich Nietzsche


The doer alone learneth.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Entropy is stifling, freezing, cementing...often, the older we get, the more entropy sets in and stifles change...meaning the less we want to change, the more we fear change, and/or the less passionate and courageous energy we have for 'gazing at the abyss' in order to propel us forward into change...


If we have a solid job and/or career, we are afraid of losing it; if we are making enough money to pay our bills, then we are afraid to take the lunge that might propel us downward rather than upward...down towards the abyss...

However frightening or boring or alienating or crushing our present job may be,

As we gaze into our 'psychological abyss',

The 'economic abyss' can be ten times more terrifying and immobilizing,

Better to be an automaton, a robot, a puppet on a string, a scapegoat for organizational failure, a man or woman without feelings, a man or woman without a conscience, a monster, a cutthroat, a manipulater, a victim or a victimizer, a 'backroom' player,

Than to be a man or a woman without a job,

Or dropping to a job that doesn't pay the bills.

And thus entropy sets in,

Entropy conquers all,

Entropy reigns,

While creative genius,

Silently flows away in a pool of existential blood,

Or freezes up in our own internal tombstone,


Thank God for hobbies...


Or creativity might never get out...


DGBN, November 26th, 2008.

David Gordon Bain,

Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,

Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations,

Are still in process...

'Good' Capitalism is Not Rocket Science...

Good Capitalism is not rocket science...

It is capitalism with integrity.

It is capitalism with reciprocity.

The silver rule.

Don't do unto others what you would not want them to do to you.

-- DGBN, Nov. 24th, 2008.

David Gordon Bain,

Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,

Dialectic-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations...

Are still in process....


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Anectdote about Alfred Korzybski: 'The Map is Not The Territory'

One day, Korzybski was giving a lecture to a group of students, and he suddenly interrupted the lesson in order to retrieve a packet of biscuits, wrapped in white paper, from his briefcase. He muttered that he just had to eat something, and he asked the students on the seats in the front row, if they would also like a biscuit. A few students took a biscuit. "Nice biscuit, don't you think", said Korzybski, while he took a second one. The students were chewing vigorously. Then he tore the white paper from the biscuits, in order to reveal the original packaging. On it was a big picture of a dog's head and the words "Dog Cookies". The students looked at the package, and were shocked. Two of them wanted to throw up, put their hands in front of their mouths, and ran out of the lecture hall to the toilet. "You see, ladies and gentlemen", Korzybski remarked, "I have just demonstrated that people don't just eat food, but also words, and that the taste of the former is often outdone by the taste of the latter." Apparently his prank aimed to illustrate how some human suffering originates from the confusion or conflation of linguistic representations of reality and reality itself.[1]

The Hegelian Evolutionary -- and/or Tragic -- Life-Cycle

Life is a pendulum swing between 'balance' and 'unbalance', between stretching in different degrees towards one particular brand of extremism, before reaching a point of judgment where one decides that one has had enough of that, and then swinging back again towards the middle, if not past the middle point and out towards the opposite polarity. This pendulum process of life never stops.

This is the Hegelian (or post-Hegelian) 'life-cycle' of thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis -- then start the whole process over again, ideally at a higher state of experience and wisdom but that is certainly not guaranteed because man has a high propensity for narcissism, greed, love, sex, jealousy, envy, hate, unilateralism, power, revenge, imperialism, 'tit for tat', destruction, and self-destruction. These factors inevitably undermine the 'ideal' element in the Hegelian evolutionary life cycle, undermine the 'learning from history' factor -- and, indeed, add a very common 'tragic' element to the whole process -- life and death, evolution and regression, continually hanging in the balance of man's individual and/or collective, reason and/or stupidity.

There is no way of predicting whether man will learn -- and/or not learn -- individually and/or collectively -- from his or her earlier acts of transgression and/or narcissistic/righteous stupidity.

This adds an 'existential, free-will' component to any Hegelian thought of 'predictable historical determinism'.

-- dgb, Nov. 9th, 2008.