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Basics of Business III
Understanding Power and the Order Of Needs If you want to understand the world around you, and why it is full of so much conflict, you must understand Power. If you want to understand the world of people (and in fact all living things), and why we act the way we do, you must understand power, what it is, what it does, and how all beings relate to it.
Power, in essence, is the ability to create change. This means many things. As an individual or any kind of group goes through the process of birth and growth, power will take many forms. All of the forms it takes will be various ways of fulfilling the needs of the one with the power, and will be determined by the level of those needs, their "rightness or wrongness", which really means their "appropriateness" when seen in the context of the entire matrix of relationships that exists.
So, we will always see those with power working to create change in the world around them in order to have their needs fulfilled, and the nature of the work they do to achieve that will depend on what needs they have, are aware of, and choose to respond to, wrong needs, or right needs.
At its most basic level, power will be used solely for physical survival needs, as in the animal kingdom. That is why the members of animal kingdom are so pre-occupied with "who’s got the power". The first thing members of a species want to know when they meet a colleague is "who is dominant and who is submissive". They all have their cute little ways of establishing this balance of power, anything from bodily gestures to a duel to the death. But before two animals can "do business" together, relate to each other properly, the balance of power must be established. One of them has to say "okay, since you have just beaten me in battle, and you are standing over me ready to kill me, I’ll be the one without the power (submissive), and I will acknowledge that you are the one with the power (dominant). You get to be the boss, and I get my basic need to keep breathing satisfied."
And so, in the animal kingdom, you have a successful "working" relationship, based on the mutual satisfaction of needs achieved through an acceptable balance of power, and that balance is determined by who holds the power. This is the origin of one of the truest maxims we have: "might makes right".
Just as every group of wolves, apes, and countless other species have a clearly established system for establishing a leader (power center), humans have all of their rituals and structures as well, appropriate to the human world, which includes dimensions not shared by the animal world (although humans share all the dimensions of the animal world). Humans call the rituals and structures of how they balance or distribute power "politics". You have "office politics", personal politics, "national politics", international politics", and so on. They are all various forms of power distribution systems. The first job of these power distribution systems will be to make sure that needs are met, and the first need, in the order of needs, is the need to exist, to live and keep on living.
And so, at its most basic level, the loss of power is seen as a threat to survival, the gain and maintenance of power is seen as an aid to survival. Power itself, therefore, has an inherent tendency to seek its own survival above all else, rather than to use or sacrifice itself for any higher, or expanded purpose. You can easily see this by observing any power structure, any company, governmental or religious group, or in fact, any individual, going through the process of "falling from power". You will always see a long string of actions (use of power) based on the desire to insure "self-survival", instead of serving the needs of others, even though serving the needs of others was what brought about the initial formation of the group, and the initial investment of power.
In fact, if you observe any group closely, you will see that rather than exerting the energy to fulfill a stated mission, its first priority is usually its own continuance. This is fine, up to a point, and that point is when the mission is actually lost sight of, and is no longer of consequence. Usually, the group (company, church, etc) does not even notice that its reason for existing has been lost, as it focuses on trying to continue to exist.
And so, we have the first law of power: power always seeks to maintain itself. Power never willingly sacrifices itself.
Never, that is, unless it does so in response to a higher need of an expanded self, an expanded self that acts within a matrix of recognized inter-dependent relationships. And this is why it is popularly said that "power corrupts", because we rarely see the deliberate and willing sacrifice of power in response to higher needs of the self, because most "selves" are not feeling those higher needs, they are too busy tending to the lower needs of the un-expanded self, maintaining power and gaining more power through the agency of one-sided relationships; relationships that are all or mostly "take", and little if any "give".
We see throughout history power collecting in the hands of various groups, leaders, civilizations; power that is hoarded and used to subjugate others, not an inch of it willingly given, and then we see that power violently wrested from the hands of the powerful. It is taken either by those seeking the increase of their own power rather than any appropriate balance of power (a conquering army) or by those who have been oppressed, and are balancing things in the only way available (the French or American Revolution). Of course, those who have taken the power, even if formerly the oppressed, will almost always become corrupt and begin to oppress others as well, unless and until an expansion of self takes place for enough individuals (the American Indian or African slave, and Marie Antoinette will attest to this!).
The Order Of Needs While humans have all the same basic animal needs, such as the need for physical survival, we also have "higher needs" in the order of needs. We need to acquire a sense of "self", or "ego", which is existence as a self aware psychological and emotional being. In addition to the need to love and be loved (shared of course by many higher animals), we have the need to expand the self. If the individual continues to develop into the higher levels of personhood, there will be the need to make the "trans-personal" connection, what is commonly called "making a difference in the world", and so achieve a life of meaning.
The desire and need for music and art in our lives is in itself a higher need, on the emotional, psychic, and spiritual level, felt by a more highly developed person.
Animals are guided by instinct; it determines and controls their needs. Humans have that interesting quality called "free will", and so, we can choose to accept or deny various aspects of ourselves, and consequently, accept or deny various needs we may have. We can choose to spend our energy on satisfying only our basic survival needs, and feel no real need to make a positive contribution to the world. If that is where we are at, then when it comes to business, or that thing we call "making a living", making money will be enough for us, we won’t even care how we make it, as long as we make it. Whether anyone’s needs get satisfied in the process, (including our own higher needs) or what those needs are, won’t matter much.
If we are developed enough to respond to our higher needs, then simply making money will not be adequate. How we make the money will be very important. To work "just for the money" will feel no different than being a slave, because anyone who works "just for the money" is, in fact, a slave, whether they know it or not. Money is certainly one of the needs of the "seller" in business, but a developed person will not be happy to have his or her need for money satisfied unless they know they are in return satisfying the needs of the one giving the money, whether it be an employer or a customer.
The 2nd Law of Power
While we have a choice as to whether we respond to our wrong needs or right needs, we do not have a choice about one thing: there is a law that governs the process of attaining and maintaining power, and we are subject to that law. It is this: if we serve our wrong needs, and the wrong needs of others, we will begin to degrade our power. If we serve the right needs of ourselves and others, we will gain power, real power. When power does not serve the needs of the Universe as a whole, the Universe works to shut it down.
While even bad people can gain a kind of power at various times and places in this world, they always lose it. And even the limited level of power they attain can only, at best, insure survival, it can never deliver happiness. Bad people, people whose actions always serve to increase suffering, and never serve the real needs of others, are never happy. Happiness is only available to human beings if they are able to make real connections with other human beings. Bad people can’t do this.
I don’t care who the bad person is; the leader of a country, a company, or a partner in a relationship. If they are abusing power, if they are not functioning from a state of recognition of inter-dependency, they are not happy, they can’t be. Smug, yes; happy, no.
Bad people are themselves the ultimate victims of their own actions. Their evil brings about their own end. On the other hand, if we take a look at everything that is wonderful and great about the world, the art, the literature, the music, the great systems of government and religion the world has managed to create and preserve in this grand procession called "civilization", it has all been done by "good people", people who have responded to their highest needs in the order of needs.
Of course, we should understand that most people are neither wholly good or wholly bad, we are usually each an interesting mixture. So, most of us fall somewhere along a spectrum in terms of the degree to which we are living and functioning from our "better nature". But, what is of value in this world is what is done from our "better nature", the part that is able to be real, to be honest, the part that recognizes its true state of inter-dependency with other people and the world in general. That is what makes us able to use power correctly, even when the right use of power means the sacrificing of power.
The 3rd Law of Power
The 3rd Law Of Power is an interesting one, it’s my favorite! Maybe because it is subtle, or maybe I just like the underdog, because it is certainly the least fulfilled. Probably, though, I like it because it is the most beautiful. It is what makes humans human.
The 3rd Law of Power is that power must be sacrificed (made sacred). And it must be sacrificed so that power of a higher order can be attained. The process of life, which is the process by which we have access to power, will always give us two things: the temptation to keep power, and the demand to release it. Those who pass the test, move forward, and gain a new level, and a new form, of power; those who fail the test, will lose what they have.
It doesn’t matter who or what you are, life will deliver you this challenge, over and over, in many forms, in every relationship within which you operate, in that "field of relationships" you call your "world". And the challenge will always have certain characteristics, no matter where it appears or to whom. It will always be frightening, it will always involve facing some kind of fear, and it will always require courage, which is the strength we receive when we face the truth. It will always require love, and most especially a love of truth, a love of "what is" because "it is". It will always ask you to do what is right and difficult, over what is wrong and easy. And that is why most people make the wrong choice, that I why greatness is rare, and mediocrity is rampant.
One of the most classic illustrations of this principle of the demand for sacrifice of power before coming into a higher level of power known to the Western World is the story of Jesus being tempted by the Devil before coming into His ultimate Power. He was offered ultimate power over the things of the earth, and had to consciously reject them, thereby proving himself worthy of power in the spiritual realms. The spiritual literature is full of similar stories of The Buddha and countless other saints and sages.
Pre-dating both Christianity and Buddhism, the Hindu Upanishads (the Katha Upanishad to be exact) tells the story of Nachiketa, who went down to the abode of Yama, the God of death, to learn the secret of life and death and immortality. Before Yama would give him the secret, he tested his worthiness by offering Nachiketa all the riches and pleasures of the world. After Nachiketa refused these as worthless compared to the supreme truth of life, he was give the secret of life and death. This story is the same as the story of Jesus in the Gospels, in an earlier time, with different names and faces. The truth being illustrated is the same: one level of power must be sacrificed in order to receive the next, higher, and more "spiritual" level of power.
But we don’t have to get so exotic, you will see the pattern and the process in your own life and everyone else’s if you simply look. In every relationship, you will always be tempted to hoard and abuse power, in dramatic ways or subtle ways (it is often hard to recognize, since so many people are doing it, it seems "normal").
One homely little example I know of involved a student I had many years ago. His name was Lance and I taught him guitar for a few years when he was a teenager. I met him years later when I did a workshop in a school district in which he had become a music teacher. He told me how happy he was teaching music in school, and that he really didn’t plan on it. In fact, he was floating around wondering what to do with his life for a number of years. He did not go to college, and worked in a pizza shop after high school.
He figured he would move toward something having to do with the world of music, music being about the only thing he could feel some passion about (I guess the pizza business just wasn’t "cutting it" anymore). He got a job in a large music retail chain, and got his first taste of "big business".
He found himself getting in big trouble because he refused to follow their orders and sell a certain expensive keyboard (that represented a high profit margin to the store) REGARDLESS of whether it was right for the customer. This was standard operating policy for the store.
A rather old woman came in to buy a keyboard, something simple just to learn on, and he was supposed to sell her some monster synthesizer as if she wanted to end up in a rock band! He was supposed to convince her that "this is the keyboard for YOU!" Lance, being a person of sufficient inner development, with a sufficiently expanded self, could not bring himself to abuse this woman for his own personal gain (keeping his job), and he responded to that feeling and that awareness. Of course, he got fired, and his anger and dissatisfaction eventually led him to go back to school, where he got the education he needed to become a music teacher. His response to his "right needs", his higher needs in the order of needs, delivered him from a craven existence that is no different than the life of a scavenger, living off the ruin and ignorance of other people, rather than serving real needs in a win-win context. Lance emphasized to me the deep sense of satisfaction he had about his life now and about himself as a person.
He was tested, he faced his fear, and received courage because he embraced the truth, and happiness was his reward. I am sure there are a lot of those salesmen still selling that keyboard in that store, but they can’t be as happy as Lance.
Those salesmen are not doing business with their customers; they are engaged in war with their customers. Copyright ©2002-2009 Jamie Andreas. All Rights Reserved.
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Philosophy Section
