The Ugly, Yet Elegant Truth About Business Success — 
Greg Kilgore, Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Let's start at the end: Business success is not achievable.

Success does happen. Desired outcomes do occur. Preferred results can manifest. You can be cause to some effects for sure. Yet, it's an illusion that you were ever the ever-present, all-powerful, master-of-all-possible-variables architect of the successful end game.

With the exception of the sciences and technical disciplines governed by apparent absolutes of the laws of physics and mathematics, and even then there is still room for rogue factors, games of business, human relationships, group dynamics, market forces, consumer trends, microeconomics, and macroeconomics are all too variable to ever really be predicted with a reliable degree of certainty. Every game in business, from high-finance to the enumerated production of widgets in a well-honed, scalable manufacturing process is still a game of chance.  Perhaps you could term business as games of risk rather than chance because you can endeavor to mitigate the risks and stake as many desirable outcomes as possible, but still then the unpredictable, unanticipated, and ultimately inexplicably unexpected can happen. The worldwide banking debacle is evidence. And if the "science" of manufacturing was reliable, we would never need automobile or appliance warranties. There are always really too many variables to ever predict success let alone 100% or 70% or even 50% defect-free outcomes.

So why do we play as if we can prepare, anticipate, expect, depend, and hope for any particular outcome? The ego. Ego is a perseverant aspect of our human nature. It's an energy that can be source to drive, motivation, ambition, and zeal. Yet, when left to run on auto-pilot such that it influences or governs reason, then ego will overshadow awareness, presence, attentiveness, creativity, intuition, acceptance of the world as it is, and peace of mind that the world is already as it should be. Ego creates confidence in the false reality that you can ever (or lead others to) perform enough of the just-so causes to ensure just-so effects. Most of us live with ego in auto-pilot mode. Another way of putting it: Ego lives your life when you are not paying attention to your life.

The ego of the typical banker, investor, marketer, sales director, and manufacturing line supervisor deludes the business person into believing that awareness, presence, attentiveness, creativity, intuition, and acceptance of the world as it is can be side-stepped for application of models, systems, and processes. "I can be saved from the unexpected and the risks. The world is safe and predictable. All I have to do is [model, system, and/or process here] to achieve my goal," the business person tells themselves. And yet, some estimates suggest that seventy percent of projects fail. Most businesses fail before they ever become profitable. For that matter, an inexorable number of marriages are dissolved in the free world. Is anything really ever true to forecast or prediction?

What is there to do then? If you can't be guaranteed that reproducing a franchise's business model to spec or implementing the best-seller's "10 steps to success" will produce the same results as it seemingly did before, then what's the point in trying? Actually, there is no point in "trying." Enough of the double-speak? Ok, then what's the point in "doing" this or that in the hopes of expecting any this or that to come of it? It's really not double-speak to say that the "point" still isn't what matters either. Then why work or not work? Why start a business or not? Again with the "why"... Like "point," the "why" doesn't really matter either. You can make going to work or running a business or making an investment matter for any reason you choose. And it's helpful to the human psyche to choose a purpose for inspiration. That's all well and good. But the reasons, the point, the matter of the matter isn't where a game of business is actually played.

What's really available is that each of us simply gets to choose.  Personal empowerment or group or organizational momentum simply starts and sustains from the space of choice. Choice is the non-point point of it all. It's just that you get to choose. So, choose or not. If you do choose to move forward with a business venture or a project or an investment, then what you know now is that it is about having a choice—or another way of putting it—having a vision and a commitment to that vision. Some people call a commitment to vision a mission.

Now, if you do choose to fulfill on a commitment to a mission, just because the choice is what has just been available to you all along, then you experience the most non-ego space to play at business that you've ever experienced. You are free to exercise and explore awareness, presence, attentiveness, creativity, intuition, acceptance of the world as it is, and peace of mind that the world is already as it should be... And assess, strategize, plan, implement, measure, assess, adapt, strategize, plan, implement, measure, assess, adapt... All the while choosing again and yet again to maintain your commitment to your mission. I sometimes call maintaining your commitment to your vision sustaining "alignment" with the mission.

Then success is a simple premise... If you can sustain alignment to the mission until factors you can influence *and* all of the factors you cannot influence converge to yield a preferred result, then success happens.

Theoretical scientists and researchers practicing pure scientific research have been intimate with the true depth and complexity of variability and utlimate uncertainty of life for some time. These practitioners are practicing a state of egolessness that allows a relentless pursuit of possibilities without knowing what the possible applications could be for as yet unknown discoveries.

So, what is business with integrity, true to the complexity and variability of life, perhaps "enlightened business?" The game is: Choose. Envision. Define mission. Sustain alignment with mission. Play like convergence can happen. Be present when convergence happens. Enjoy. Repeat. That's really what's going on in business. You know you are out of touch with what's really going on in business when work feels serious, tense, dreadful, angry, or disappointing. I've heard it said that expectations are resentments under construction.

If you want to be present when what's possible occurs and able to enjoy it when it happens, then simply choose to sustain your commitments and stay in the game: assess, strategize, plan, implement, measure, assess, adapt, strategize, plan, implement, measure, assess, adapt... Don't get hung up on absolute expectations or arrogant certainties of expectations and forecasts. Be open to the possibilities, and be present when convergence happens. Enjoy. Repeat.

If this article has resonated with you, then you may have come to realize that the Truth about business is not ugly at all. The truth about business is elegant. Choosing the context of that elegance, you are an enlightened business player. It was the ego's illusion of business scarcity, win/lose, competition, greed, and supposed certainties that is the uglier truth after all.