FHC #9 – Membership [2 pages]

Concerns of “Historical Beings”

Education, Money, Career, Membership and World

As we have already seen, human beings are not capable of surviving, adapting or living a good life alone or without help from the goods and services others are able to produce.  A fisherman can’t also refine oil into gasoline to run their boat, make clothes for their children or make antibiotics. 

This is a fact of life businesspeople exploit to make money.

We all need help coping with or taking care of the concerns, situations, capabilities and strategies we find ourselves having to deal with in order to fix or avoid breakdowns that will thwart our intentions or cause us to suffer.

This drives us to create communities of businesses and markets we can go to for help we need coping with our concerns, situations, capabilities and strategies.

This is why every human being finds themselves living in multiple communities that nest inside and are connected to one another in many ways and for many reasons.  And each one uses different ambitions, language, moods, intentions, distinctions, interpretations, commitments, practices and outcomes.

When we go to our doctor’s office he or she is connected to many communities.

When we call on a customer, work with a colleague, hire an employee or buy something from a vendor, we are always working with people who are connected to and nested inside multiple other communities.

Because businesspeople use computers and the internet this is especially important, strategic and competitive.

Membership is “historical” because communities, and the language they use, exist before we can join them.

If we start our own community as businesspeople do when they form “Aji Groups” they begin building their history of intentions, commitments, moods, practices, identities and outcomes at the same moment.

Membership in different communities is a “Source of Power” or a place from which businesspeople are able to continually increase their “relative power” to produce superior offers, practices, narratives and strategies.

Membership is also its own “Domain of Action”. 

We speak, think, learn, commit and act with others in communities. 

They open and close possibilities to make money strategically and competitively.

They can increase our relative capabilities to make highly valued offers, practices, narratives and strategies.

And they extend our reach and scale making it possible to be connected and work at longer distances and larger sizes than is possible for individuals or for businesses of any size.

Membership is “existential” because it is necessary for our survival, ability to adapt to life’s changing situations and live a good life.

Because we are linguistic selves, however, all communities are not equally powerful.

For example, when businesspeople belong to IR#3’s Networks of Convenience or when they work with IR#3 businesspeople who are pretending they are “fine” when they are not, their membership thwarts their financial, career and business intentions because of the language, intentions, practices and outcomes they are able to produce.

When businesspeople join a group of serious businesspeople who are always learning to increase their competitive capabilities and advantages, productivity, value and income, or an IR#4 Network of Capabilities, their capabilities and incomes increase.

Membership is “strategic” because IR#4’s Networks of Capabilities increase businesspeople’s strategic and competitive capabilities to execute action plans, improve them and design and execute new ones.

It is “competitive” because different communities can be used to increase all sorts of competitive capabilities to design steady streams of fresh, new offers, practices, narratives and strategies that can be used strategically and competitively to increase productivity, value and incomes.