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Aji Fundamental Knowledge

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  1. The Fundamental Human Concerns and Their Existential, Strategic and Competitive Utility
    15 Topics
  2. The Fundamental Business Concerns and Their Financial, Strategic and Competitive Importance In IR#4
    25 Topics
  3. The Fundamental Marriage Concerns
    17 Topics
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Concerns of “Selves”

Dignity, Situation and Spirituality

The next set of fundamental human concerns are those that appear because we are “Selves” with identities i.e., what we think about ourselves and those that exist in the World as gossip.

The practical identities businesspeople produce with their family and throughout the marketplace about their trustworthiness, value, authority, leadership and overall dignity at home with their spouse and children, with their finances and at work,

… open and close businesspeople’s possibilities and opportunities

… to fulfill their Life, Financial and Business Ambitions, or their financial, career and business intentions.

* See page 398 in the book, Aji, an IR#4 Business Philosophy.

FHC #11:  Dignity

Everyone judges everyone else’s Dignity…even if they don’t know the word.  It’s that important or consequential, practically, to people and society.

“Dignity” is a social assessment about our integrity and value in a community, marketplace, business or family.

Assessments about businesspeople’s Dignity affect more specific assessments about their trustworthiness, value, authority and leadership (TVAL). 

It is the people in our communities and businesses who assess our dignity from their point of view and the cultural standards that exist in an unspoken “background of obviousness” at the time.

Pride is often confused with dignity, but they are not the same distinctions.  Pride is the antithesis of Dignity and worked in IR#3 when businesspeople worked with and around single-purpose tools.

It does not work in IR#4 because it shuts down businesspeople’s willingness to accept help, which they always need, and their ability to create competitive Networks of Capabilities.

Dignity is much more powerful, satisfying and rewarding, but it requires being serious, disciplined and knowledgeable about life.

Adults who do not grow themselves up, or who are “arrested adolescents” because they decline to take satisfactory care of their adult concerns, lack dignity.

Prideful adults, or those who lack dignity in their marriage, with their children and their household finances, and at work, find themselves shut out of social groups who are serious about making enough money to take care of their spouse and children.

When people are “prideful” they reserve the right to assess their integrity and value their way even if they are mediocre, sloppy and dishonest.

They say, “I think my integrity and value are just fine, thank you.”  Unspoken is the additional declaration, “And I don’t care what you have to say about it unless you agree with me.  Then we will be good friends.”

This makes prideful businesspeople untrustworthy from other people’s points of view and makes it impossible for them to produce assessments that their trustworthiness, value, authority, leadership and dignity are superior.

Integrity

The “integrity” people are concerned with when they speak about Dignity is that people’s spoken words and actions are “whole” and “complete” so they work as intended, and as others require so they can take care of their concerns.

That’s one reason why businesspeople who casually forget about and betray their marriage vows and their commitments to think and act as an adult with their children, rather than as an arrested adolescent, lose their dignity.

Integrity exists in many domains but always it means something is working as intended because it is complete and coherent with reality’s operations.

Accepting the facts of life, including how long we are likely to live and the new financial truths and obligations it generates, is part of businesspeople’s integrity and Dignity.

A bridge’s structural integrity, a strategy’s operational integrity and a household’s or business’s financial integrity are all fundamentally the same. 

They are said to have integrity when they work as intended, promised or required.

This produces Dignity because it takes care of everyone’s social and financial concerns, including society’s.

Businesspeople’s integrity includes everyday speaking and commitments from lunch meetings to monthly savings contributions.  When what people say and the way they act are not “whole” and “complete”, or when they pretend, bullshit or lie about their financial situations,

… it means they are not trustworthy and lack integrity and Dignity

… no matter how much they pretend they are serious and everything is “fine”.

Dignity is judged by others from their point of view to assess trustworthiness, value, authority and leadership generally, rather than in specific domains. 

The criteria and standards to judge Dignity include everything society cares about with their family and their household finances. 

And, yes, spouses and children judge dignity, too, even if they do not know the word.

Assessments of people’s Dignity include their actions in public where people are trusting them to do as they’ve promised, as well as in their private lives, which includes their household’s finances and how they take care of their spouse and children. 

Dignity has no privacy laws.  It’s everyone’s business.  It’s social.

Everything and anything about businesspeople that reveals their integrity and value is used to make assessments about their trustworthiness, value, authority and leadership.

When businesspeople decline or fail to fulfill their marriage vows, forget them, or speak and act as if they do not exist, raise children who are unable to take care of themselves and contribute to others, or blow off earning and saving “enough money” to afford 25+ years of unemployment during their old age,

… they lose their dignity.

And, as we all know, many businesspeople have forgotten their marriage vows and are jerks with their spouse, children, finances and careers. 

This means they are not married and, at best, on a long date.

They lack the dignity that comes with being serious about keeping one’s marriage vows and replace it with pride and pretense. 

They try to hide their marital, parental and financial betrayals, sloppiness, casualness and lack of seriousness for as long as they can by pretending and speaking dishonestly.  But the truth and the outcomes it generates always outlast their pretentions. 

When their spouse, children, friends and communities eventually discover the truth, and they always do, their lack of dignity, or integrity, subtle and not so subtle disrespect from others is shoved in their faces from all directions and never relents.

Value

Businesspeople’s “value” to their communities at home and at work is also part of their Dignity. 

This is why learning how to design steady streams of fresh, new OPNS that are “highly valued” builds businesspeople’s Dignity in the marketplace.

When IR#3 Businesspeople behave as prideful lone rangers or arrested adolescents at home and in the marketplace to justify irresponsible financial behavior, when they decline to learn how to think and act so that they are valuable to others, their importance, utility and worth are insufficient to produce Dignity.

From society’s point of view  — at home with one’s family or in the marketplace —  people’s value is essential to everyone’s ability to fulfill their own intentions to survive, adapt and live a good life. 

When businesspeople don’t obligate themselves to be helpful to others and to always maintain their integrity and value, they lose their Dignity and anyone who is able to find other people with whom to socialize or work.

Dignity is of “The Self” because it is a social identity. 

It is a linguistic assessment people make, or speak, about their own and others’ integrity and value.  Specific standards for Dignity in a community or business are historical but they are always the same, fundamentally.

We all understand that life is hard, even when it is very good and that we can be distracted by challenges, emergencies, illnesses, etc., in ways that make it difficult for us to be present or helpful to others…from time to time.

Nevertheless, we live in a World with others who have their own human, financial, marital, career and business concerns.  And in that World, everyone needs help because that is a characteristic of our species and not because anyone is falling short in some way.

No one can afford to carry others or even have them hanging around being themselves, doing their thing and misbehaving when they feel like it because it chips away at, or thwarts, their intentions to survive, adapt and live a good life with their family and career.

Dignity is “existential” because it is practical and human beings are social and fragile.

Without dignity, or when those in our communities and businesses lack it, our ability to survive, adapt and live a good life is diminished.

People who know what is going on and see that people lack Dignity because they declined to act with integrity and value, including with their spouse and children, resent the undignified behavior and withdraw their affection, loyalty and help.

Dignity is “strategic” because the more Dignity businesspeople have,

… the more colleagues, employers, employees, customers, vendors and even competitors respect their integrity and value,

… the more able they are to execute strategies, improve their strategies and design and execute new ones.

Dignity is “competitive” because it is loaded with marginal utilities that are highly valued and scarce relative to demand. 

The “virtues” required to have Dignity in the marketplace are demanding and challenging, such as knowledge, maturity, courage, strength and compassion.

This is why people respect and value people with Dignity. 

It’s why family members, customers, employees, employers, colleagues and vendors, admire and love them, trust them, accept their offers and help them fulfill their intentions.