Jeremiah in Iceland

Jeremiah Josey

Author: Jeremiah

  • Learning to Fail – What It Is All About

    So, where are we at?

    Socialism came in with a bang in Russia in 1917, and went out bust in 1991.

    China’s dictatorial social experiement morphed into a quasi controlled market economy that allows a form of social freedom.  As the boundaries between the state and human desires clash, the government will fail or morph further – there is a lot of wisdom in 5,000 years of contiguous society.

    Capitalism’s slow burn grew into a raging furnace that is now fizzing and sputtering in all regions of the world.

    Consumerism; sustainable growth; materialism: oxymoronic terms that deny simple truths like finite resources, the importance of biological diversity and the quality of living.

    Governments – groups of people who volunteer to work together to do the low paying jobs, providing the services that society needs but doesn’t value – are buying into private institutions with funds intended for social infrastructure, not balance sheet support.

    Argentina just “socialised” the largest pension funds of that country – some see it as a grab for cash to fund the next 2 years operations, their unions are celebrating the increase in “security”, private pension fund workers are protesting that 1,600 jobs are now at risk.

    Corporations grew into mega-corporations and workers became more an more marginalised.  Minimised.  Thinking stopped, questioning stopped, waiting for the paycheck became the most important task of the working week.

    What has happened?

    We forgot that we’re human.  We know we like to work in small groups.  We know we like to talk, socialise, discuss ideas, share, laugh, dream.  That’s what the web is all about. This blog. All the other blogs out there.

    That’s what we forgot for, what 50, 60, 80, 100 years?

    The two largest experiments in society coordination – socialism, and capitalism – both denied these basic human attributes.  They both viewed a human as a part of a larger unit, an element to be adjusted, trained, indoctrinated, made to work hard, motivated and so on.

    And one can say pretty convincingly, that both have failed.

    So what will take their place?  A combination of course.  A new mix and mash of trial and error – what we’re all about.

    Semco type companies, companies that manage people as people, forming an agreement that suits both the needs of the business and the needs of the people.  These companies will emerge and continue into the future.  It won’t be a big thing.  It will just happen.

    We learn to walk by falling over thousands of times; to speak by sounding like an imbecile for years.

    When we are young we are forgiven these errors, and now and in the future we will again be patient while someone learns a new skill, understands a new idea, remembers a new phrase.

    That’s where we are going.

    Jeremiah Josey

  • Semco Summary

    From Maverick, 1993, by Ricardo Semler.

    Semco is more than novel programs or procedures. 

    What is important is our open-mindedness, our trust in our employees and distrust of dogma. 

    We are neither socialist nor purely capitalist, but we take the best of these failed systems and others to reorganise work so that collective thinking does not overpower individualistic flights of grandeur; that leadership does not get lost in an endless search for consensus; that people are free to work as they like, when they like; that bosses don’t have to be parents and workers don’t act like children. 

    At the heart of our bold experiment is a truth so simple it would be silly if it wasn’t so rarely recognised.  A company should trust its destiny to its employees. 

    No, Semco isn’t a model, with programs to be followed with precision, so many recipes for participation, productivity, and profits. Semco is an invitation. 

    I hope our story will cause other companies to reconsider themselves, and their employees. 

    To forget socialism, capitalism, just-in-time deliveries, salary surveys, and the rest of it, and to concentrate on building organisations that accomplish that most difficult of challenges: to make people look forward to coming to work in the morning.

    Jeremiah Josey

  • Does Genius Bring Any Social Responsibility

    My response to a recent question on the Mensa group at www.Linkedin.com

    The Question:

    “I am going to assume that those in Mensa are geniuses. That might be stretching it, but, as a definition. 🙂

    I try to live by the motto, whom I don’t remember said it, and don’t care to look it up:
    Talent does what it can, genius does what it must.

    Is that a true statement, esp the last part?

    If so, should we be trying to do more to help find solutions to some of the major crisis currently affect the world? There are many problems that aren’t just a US or European problem, but world problems.”

    My answer:

    It is pure “processing power” gives us our ability over the majority of people (98% of the population – by the entry rules for Mensa), and when applied to wider issues gives very clear logical conclusions to all that is about us: the “why” of things happening.

    It is the ego – and following along closely behind emotions – that often interfere with logic, clouding judgement and giving false, inappropriate results.

    It doesn’t mean we are cold, hard and emotionless, but Mensarians are by right in the best position to be the spokespeople for the earth – we can see what is happening, where most others cannot.

    However, being the messenger is never an enviable position – denial, protectionism and maintaining the status quo (ego driven processes) often will overwhelm logical discussion – and often “kill” the messenger.

    Remember two things: a healthy ego can kill a healthy human being (“he worked himself to death”), and the word “democracy” is the best worst form of government that is presently in use (the “best average” person is voted to the top). These two aspects feed each other and inevitably lead to collapse.

    So, do we have a social responsibility?

    Yes and No.

    Yes: simply do what we do best: think and discuss our thinkings.

    No: because the messages are read only when the majority are ready.

    We do what we do because we enjoy it, and getting on with it is all part of that game.

    Jeremiah Josey

  • The What and Why Applied to Business – Implicity Semco Style

    I posted that last story because it always reminds me to ask the “why” about everything.

    I find that asking “Why” often enough will eventually reveal the “What” of the “Why”. The reason for doing something then becomes very clear. If there is no “What”, then most likely what ever is being discussed does not need to be done!

    This is how a company running the Semco model operates: the key focus is “What?” and “Why?” The “How” is not important and so it can adapt and change to suit the circumstances.

    The many businesses that focus on the “how” are unable to explain the What or the Why of their organisation. Their rigidity maintained by piles of procedures, rules and policies do not allow room to ask “Why”.  If it is asked the answer will be: “We have always done it that way”.

    What the company actually does, and why it does it. What it does best, why it does things a certain way. No body really knows.

    That’s what will make the difference between a company for the 21st century and one that remains in the 20th.

    Our world is changing rapidly, information is more readily available than ever before, challenges now affect the entire world.

    Adapt or perish!

    Jeremiah Josey

  • A Story About a Habit

    A newly married couple were in the kitchen one Sunday. The wife was preparing a piece of lamb for roasting and the husband was preparing the vegetables. The husband observed as the wife placed the piece of lamb onto the chopping block and promptly chopped 4 inches from each end, discarded the pieces into the bin. She then placed the lamb into the center of the large baking tray, around which the husband began to place the vegetables.

    The husband asks, “Why did you do that darling, that looked like perfectly good lamb you threw away?”

    “Oh, I never think of it”, she replied. “Mother always did it and that’s what she taught me. We can ask her when we visit her for roast dinner next Sunday.”

    So, that next Sunday they visited Mother for her Sunday roast and were served roast lamb and vegetables. Looking at the roast they could both see clearly that the ends had been cut off.

    The daughter asked, “Mother, why are then ends missing from the roast?”

    “It’s because… I honestly don’t know”, replied Mother. “I’ve always done it that way, just like my mother taught me. She is visiting next week so come for dinner again and we can ask her”.

    So, another week passed and they were all seated at the table for Sunday roast, this time Grand Mother is present. And, like last week, the roast with its ends removed appears from the kitchen.

    “Grand Mother,” begins the husband, “I’ve seen both your daughter and your grand daughter cut both ends of a perfectly good roast before they cook it, and I was wondering why you taught them to do it that way.”

    “That is a very good question Grand Son.” says Grand Mother. “For many years when my daughter was growing up, we lived in a small apartment in New York. In that apartment we had a very small oven with a very small door, and the only way for me to cook my Sunday roast was to cut the ends off so it would fit into the small baking tray I used to fit into the oven. I stopped doing that years ago, ever since I got a larger oven – after my daughter left home I recall. Why waste perfectly good meat?”

    Jeremiah Josey

  • An Obsevation on the World’s Financial Crisis

    The involvement of the governments in bailing out private companies means that the governments are selling their future earnings: That means they are binding themselves to the income from taxation from the people of their country.

    This will result in an even bigger collapse in the near future (say 15-20 years time).

    Why?

    There’ll be a revolt by the taxed few who are supporting the many.

    1) Infrastructure is in decline in all major cities of the world (except Tokyo, Singapore and Dubai!), that means lots of public spending needs to be done to maintain living standards (ride the subway in Tokyo, New York and London and compare the different management policies behind them).

    2) The aging – retiring – population means a burden on social services (and no tax being paid by those retiring)

    3) Lower birth rates across the western world means fewer people to pay taxes, so the taxes must rise to cover expenses

    4) The financial burden is now added to by this bail out – it has either changed a social transition from one financial, governmental system to another into a collapse of the present systems or it has brought forward a collapse of the present systems.

    Fewer people and higher expenses means higher taxes, which means less incentive to do more, better, innovate.

    Governments will spend more and more money trying to secure their tax income (more laws, more audits, bigger fines, more control of the population – protection of income).

    People who are smart enough to see what is happening will leave.  Those who don’t will stay, and because they stay it means they are not necessary that bright.  This then has an effect on the quality of the society that remains – it slides to…?

    The revolt will be a move: both fiscally and geographically.  People will move their businesses online and “offshore”, and they will move their bodies to other countries looking for neutral environments to live in.

    That will be the end of the industrial revolution.

    Companies running in a Semco manner (http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/) will thrive.  All others will grind to a halt… A brave new world…

    Those in their 50’s now won’t care.  Those in their 30’s and 40’s will dabble with it.  Their children will have to handle it. The children of their children will be born into it.

    Jeremiah Josey

  • The Key is…

    …to not give any unwanted thing much attention.  When it does’t feel good – turn your attention someplace else.

    Abraham-Hicks

    Jeremiah Josey

  • Where Does a Tree Come From?

    Suppose someone showed you the seed of an oak tree – and acorn.

    Then they showed you a photo of a large, mature oak tree.

    Then they asked, “where did all that tree come from?”

    What would your answer be?

    If you answered “the ground”, think about it.

    It came from the air…

    All that tree came from carbon dioxide – CO2.

    Don’t take my word for it.

    Google it.

    🙂

    Jeremiah Josey

  • An Interesting Conversation with a Christian

    I had a very interesting conversation with a Christian today.

    The opening question was: “what is your religion?”

    English was not their first language so I typed most of my answers on the screen in front of them (we were sitting at my desk).  Simple short sentences.

    “What is your religion?”

    • My own personal religion
    • There is more to it
    • God is considered a proper noun but not the case
    • god is a verb
    • Bob is a proper noun
    • Mountain is a noun
    • Tree is a noun
    • Eat is a verb
    • Run is a verb
    • Meditate is a verb
    • without god we are nothing – and god is a verb
    • Jesus was with god
    • Jesus was showing us how to be with god
    • god is a verb
    • believe in yourself
    • we all need a mentor

    Jeremiah Josey

  • Conscious or Unconscious?

    We are each responsible for our own creations.

    We do this either consciously or unconsciously.

    We are fully aware or we a fully unaware.

    With this knowledge we are then able to observe the unconscious creations – simply look around to see them.

    Decide to make your creations in a conscious state and create consciously.

    Jeremiah Josey

Jeremiah Josey