The Exchanges

Q relations are about power relations, and it's about one group imposing its will on others. And, and you, you explicitly want to teach people to think not in terms of power relations. This business is not about getting a better deal. It's about creating value together. Uh, did you, do you find that in society there's people who, who approach that differently and it causes problems with you in business?

A Oh, it's, I mean, this is our, the biggest problem in the world and it always has been this, uh, uh, what Nietzsche called and, and Victor Franklin called the will to power. And that is, ah, this top-down approach that, because I'm smarter than you, or I want power over you, ah, to approach it that way. A command and control system. And, and what, what the principles of, of human progress teach, the principles in the Declaration of Independence teach, is No, you don't want power over people. You want to empower people, because you want everybody to, to be finding their gifts, as I finally found after 20 years of struggle. We'd like to accelerate, help people accelerate that so it didn't take them so long, but help people find their gift, develop it, and using it to contribute to others. To help people improve their lives. And, and so that is the opposite of this top-down approach that is increasing, and not, not just in government, but we see it in, in business. We see it in, in education, in communities, throughout society. Increasingly this top-down power over others, and what we find It makes people's lives better, and improves society, improves well-being, and leads to progress, is empowering everybody to contribute. That is going from, ah, forcing people to do things, motivating them to find their gift, believe in themselves, have a purpose, and And contribute.

AI assessment note: “Oh, it's, I mean, this is our, the biggest problem in the world”

Q and so, so, so when you created this philanthropic and policy network, you've, you've brought hundreds of families together, and you apply this to helping scale nonprofits. There's also a policy angle. What, why, why are, why are there such fierce critics? What are, what are they, what are they missing, or what don't they understand? Because you obviously have a lot of critics the last, the last 20 years.

A Well, I, I, I, as the, I forget who said it, but, uh, if you, if you try to change things, if you want to make enemies, try to change things. Uh, and, uh, ok, there, part of it is misunderstanding. Uh, part of it comes from misunderstanding. Part of it, people, uh, rather than have the will, uh, to meaning, have a will to power. So what we propose threatens people who want power over others, threatens their power position, uh, or, or they may have a special interest. They may Be into corporate welfare, and we're opposed to corporate welfare, and that undermines equal rights and mutual benefit. So we get that, but, but, but, but what we, what we find is that, is that these attacks in many ways help us, because they call attention to what we're doing. So people are interested in finding out, and when they find out, Uh, they, they find that what we're doing is the opposite of what we're attacked for.

AI assessment note: “what we propose threatens people who want power over others, threatens their power position”

Q we scale businesses. And I, I've scaled some businesses to pretty decent size, but what you've done here is just extraordinary. So it's a big, one of the biggest businesses in the world. How did you keep the principles in place as you got bigger? Didn't you have bureaucracies and people just ignoring it and it gets to be so big. How do you possibly keep these principles in place?

A Just, just for the audience in case some of them didn't study a lot of thermodynamics as, as I did, but the second law of thermodynamics Uh, uh, says that, uh, and, and I'll, I'll take some license here, that, that in a closed system, entropy is always increasing. And the only way that you can reverse that is by bringing in energy and, and knowledge from the outside. So, so what, what we do is, ok, based on the principles, we develop practices and models and stuff, and then periodically examine them. How are these given, and as circumstances change, and our needs for our business change, then they become ingrained, these practices, and they're no longer following the underlying principles. So what we do is we, we continually look at the gap between the principles and what our actual practices were, And, and we always find, as we do that, that we can greatly improve, and when we get back closer to applying the principles, then we, we have a burst of improvement and growth, and then as we slack off, entropy pulls us down, and we become, uh, uh, lackadaisical, entitled, all these things we shouldn't, and then we'll jar ourselves up, and And get it back on track.

AI assessment note: “we continually look at the gap between the principles and what our actual practices were”

Q This is what, this is what you call self-actualization, which is the term Maslow coined, right? Right. And, and, and you say, so you find that mutual benefit society lets more people self-actualize and then, and, and, and, and explain how is that, how is that good for your business? Why is that really important for business?

A Well, that's critical to, to our business because Our, our, our vision and, and for our business and our, started leading our five dimensions is to start with, ah, what capabilities we have that, ah, would, would, ah, enable us to, to do things, create products and services that other people would value. In other words, how do we create value for others? And then, where are the best opportunities for that, given our capabilities? And who would the best customers be? That is, it would create the most value for it, and then they, in a spirit of mutual benefit, would want to reward us for that, because that would be in their benefit to have us do more of that for them. And then, continually improve and add to those Capabilities, which then leads to additional opportunities, which calls for us then to build additional capabilities, so on, in never-ending cycles of improvement, growth, and, and, and mutual benefit.

AI assessment note: “they, in a spirit of mutual benefit, would want to reward us for that”

Q You don't like doing that. You know, you do measure some things like that, no?

A Well, but, but we do it to empower people. We give people the, well, first of all, we get people in a role that fits their aptitude and, and, and, and their passion, And we apply the Division of Labor by Comparative Advantage, and we, every supervisor's first job is helping their employees self, self-actualize. And the way you do that is you, you create the Division of Labor by Comparative Advantage, get everybody in a role that fits them, their passion, they get passionate about, then you give them the, the mentoring and the tools and the technology To help them become more entrepreneurial, and when we get that right, the innovations, I mean, people worried, oh, you're left behind these technologies. No, we find, we get many of our best ideas, particularly in operations, from operators or mechanics, and they, they, because they become aware of this, oh, we can use this technology, and we can, here, we'll do it this way. When you empower them and you, you charge them with this to challenge and come up with ideas and whatever we're doing can be, do it better. And we've got to do this to survive and grow. Then they get turned on and they say, wow, I didn't know what you meant by self-actualizing, but now my job's fun rather than boring as hell.

AI assessment note: “Well, but, but we do it to empower people. We give people the”

Q from you on building organizations now in the, in the policy and philanthropy realm as well, because I, you know, I'm building my own policy organizations, very active sister Institute. You've, you were behind creating a lot of important organizations in the policy world that have impacted a huge number of people. Can you tell me a little bit about organizations you've built and lessons you've learned in that area?

A I think, um, Frederick Douglass said it best, and he was referring to the Declaration of Independence. I mean, this, this is something for somebody who's been enslaved and tormented and tortured to have this, his kind of belief in the Declaration of Independence, but it was a system of equal rights and mutual benefit and, and, and self-actualizing that he was talking about. He didn't use those, all those terms. But he said, these principles are saving principles. Stand by them. Be true to them in all occasions, in all places, against all foes, against, uh, all foes at whatever cost. And that's what we need to do, because with all the pressure, all from top-down organizations, people pushing power over others, uh, this is the temptation to just go with the flow. So you've got to have, and you're, and, and you see, uh, philanthropies doing that. Just, okay, whatever's current in choice, whatever's politically correct, we're, we'll do that. And a lot of that is destructive, and so you've got to, you've got to dedicate yourself, as he said, to these principles, and stand by them and be true to them, whatever the cost. And that's the first thing for any philanthropic or social change organization to do. These principles of, of human progress, of human fulfillment, empowering the individual so every individual can have a life of meaning and contribute.

AI assessment note: “that's the first thing for any philanthropic or social change organization to do.”