This is my tuppence worth on how to approach corporate matters - going on my experience in the industry and in general . This is written mainly during 2009 - during the economic crash - with some parts added in 2010 . I will update it where I get time . Appologies for me having an opinion - most people do , they just don't say it .

We are very much in a time where , for our own survival , let alone what we should normally be doing , we need to stand outside of the box , have a look around , see where we are and where we need to go , and make fundamental decisions . This is a thing that is easy to do during good economic times - such as in the 70's - but is very difficult for a lot of people to do in our current economic times . The fact is until we do this we won't be heading out of this economic mess - the problems are a lot more , and a lot more fundamental , than just a lack of money supply and until we face that the problems will just continue . If one looks at the history of the 30's and 40's and at the massive cultural changes that produced the post war boom that gives some idea of what we need to do , but without the war . The assumption that the economic situation will just fix itself up is wrong - the external environment has to be right - to encourage , enable and facilitate - not to inhibit and limit . It has to be very supportive of true diversity .

There are five things happening in our current times :-

Firstly :- the debt crisis - this has also been brewing since the mid 70's . It is basically a case of too much investment moneys chasing too little safe investment placements . The imbalance started out several decades ago . This generated further imbalances - bubbles - down the line . It also generated a culture , by design , of debt . It's the classic case of having only two people in the country - one has a £1B and the other is debt free and has £100K in holdings . So how much can that £1B actually earn ? and how much is it actually worth ? - that's the problem . How does the person with £1B make any money on his investment ? What he does is he encourages other people to take on his investment moneys as a loan . He gets to the point that in order to be able to place his investment moneys he lends to more and more riskier people . Then the economy goes down and the market collapses and the £1B is reduced to , say , £100M and the balance is restored . Bubbles occur when the value of money becomes cheap - investments are bought at an overprice then they crash adjusting the value of the money down towards , or past , it's true value .

We are currently going through a massive re-balancing exercise in all aspects .

There are certainly other , equally important , co-incident factors in our current economic situation . There is certainly too much debt in the Western World and this is part of the decline of the Western World and the converse is part of the rise of the Eastern World . In many respects the Western World is shooting itself in the foot - it's being irresponsible - it's not dealing with the issues and it's certainly not adopting the sense of urgency that it should . However , in many ways the debt crisis is symptomatic rather than just causal .

To ask the question whether the UK and the USA are largely liable for the economic crash is not actually the correct question to ask . Granted the regulatory systems in the UK and the USA allowed the crash to occur from sources in those countries , particularly the USA , and granted they were particularly lax in their regulation . However the finance industry is very international and can locate in many parts of the World - ie. if not in the UK and the USA it could have been in a number of other places just as easily . The fact was the UK and the USA made themselves particular targets .

Public debt : The money that the government is spending is our money . If they - we - are in deficit then whilst they - we - borrow it is someone else's money but , ultimately , it's our money because we have to pay it back from our taxes .

That money exists - irrespective of where it is . If it is in government hands then the government gets to decide where to spend it . If it is in our hands then we get to decide where to spend it . If , however , we do not borrow the money then that investment money - for the debt - still exists and it has to be placed somewhere . If no one will take it on as debt then it might just be placed in investment in industry in Britain .

So if the government reduces the level of public debt right down it reduces the taxation overhead for all of us and it moves the investment moneys into generating new business which generates new taxation that further pays off the debt . Win Win situation .

If , however , the government increases the debt the money that it is using is not tax generating money but it is tax consuming money . As such the cost to us all increases and the level of business - the level of tax generation - decreases . Lose Lose situation .

Secondly :- We are currently in the economic cycle between Corporate Capitalism ( top down ) and Democratic Capitalism ( bottom up ) where the Corporate Capitalism side is greatly overpowering the Democratic Capitalism side - the economy is out of balance . There should be a dichotomy . Further Corporate Capitalism - monoliths - build into themselves the seeds of their own destruction . What we are seeing at the moment is the Corporate Capitalism side destroying itself and the Democratic Capitalism side rising . The Corporate Capitalism side started on it's 'road to destruction' in the mid 70's - when it switched from a dichotomy to a monolith - from bottom up ( eg. 'what do the customers want ?' ) to top down ( eg. 'let's manage the customers - CRM' ) approach . Among the problems that corporations have is that they tend to build dysfunctionality into themselves . Dysfunctionality , on a personal basis , is the inability to be able to initiate and \ or maintain relationships . Within corporations it is a more complicated issue and it often results in cultures that do not deal properly with the working relationships - they avoid dealing with the issues and impose damaging measures . It varies from company to company . Some companies do brilliantly , others have all sorts of problems , some of them endemic . Corporate Capitalism distorts reality . Corporations - monoliths - are prone to mass extinction events . Democratic Capitalism allows progressive evolution to occur .

Corporate wise the change occurred when corporations changed from bottom up affairs - eg. find out what the customer wants - to top down affairs - eg. manage the creative talent and manage the customer . At this point the damage started and became compounded . We are now suffering from this and will continue to until basic business methods are returned to .

The USA and like countries - such as Britain , France , Germany , Italy and Australia - were founded on the basis of Democratic Capitalism - this is what is enshrined in the constitution of the USA which , itself , has roots in Britain in the Magna Carta . Democratic Capitalism was re-introduced after WWII at the Bretton Woods Conference ( regulated international trade ) , the Glass–Steagall Act ( regulated the banking and finance industry ) , the media ownership laws ( limited media ownership ) . Similar laws were introduced around the world . It is this Democratic Capitalism that produced the recovery from the Great Depression and WWII . We've gone into a situation of imbalance where the Corporate Capitalism greatly overpowers and dominates the Democratic Capitalism . What has happened is that the Corporate Capitalists have shot themselves in the foot - they have failed to understand that the dichotomy must exist in order for them to survive .

In general terms : It's a lesson that China has learned a lot and is continuing to learn and it's a lesson that the USA has forgotten . China after many decades of dumb thinking is finally , over the last few decades , thinking reasonably smart . India is also doing a lot of things right . Both have a long way to go , both are very much going in the right direction , but not with all things . In general terms : They are focussed . They have a clear grip on reality . The USA , like Britain , is , in large parts , all at sea - poor grip on reality , going all over the place . The big problem in Britain , in the political area , is a large scale distortion of truth combined with massive corruption of the system . Things will settle down and improve .

Thirdly :- there has been a large amount of socialisation around the World ( including the USA ) . Socialisation is where people pass the responsibility for things that they would normally be responsible for - often internal things - into the external sphere .

Often people socialise their emotional security . This means that they pass their emotional security into the external sphere . They then often try to control those externals - usually by trying to control those people to whom they have passed on their emotional security . There are situations where they actually lose control or don't have control .

It is not uncommon for people to socialise their thinking . This results in group thinking - where everyone supposedly thinks the same . In practice this results in lowest common denominator thinking and it also results in a lack of diversity which means that the company is not able to progressively evolve and is liable to mass extinction events . Socialisation of thinking , within the corporate environment , is one of the toxicities within corporate monoliths .

It is also not uncommon for people to socialise their morality - their moral judgement . This is the most insiduous and dangerous of socialisations as it gives rise - gives power - to dictators and to the evil that they can bring in . The socialising of morality can be on an organisational basis or on a national basis or a combination of both .

Socialism in the terms of a social democracy is a very important thing - it is vital to provide a social safety net . Socialisation , however , is a completely different thing . Ultimately it is the handing over of responsibilities to external agencies . This means that :-

1. a lot of inefficiences are built into the society - all of a sudden things that people would do for themselves for free are done by paid people . There are also time inefficiences introduced .
2. the people to whom responsibilities have been socialised up to have the responsibilities and are , correspondingly , given the controls to manage those responsibilites . What this means is that socialisation results in totalitarianism - it's an ipso facto .

The opposite of socialisation is self responsibility - self sufficiency . This is a cornerstone of Democratic Capitalism and is one of the key reasons why Democratic Capitalism is so important .

If one looks at societies that have been based on socialisation such as the USSR and fascist societies such as Naziism ( different beast than communism but some same basic principles in extrema ) one can see where they clearly fall apart . One can also see what one needs to do in order to survive .

A further problem with socialisation is that people often end up with a very narrow focus . In terms of themselves - their approach - they don't address - aren't conscious of even - issues such as life ( how people operate , philosophy etc. ) and morality . They don't see the bigger picture . The fact is one cannot divorce oneself from these issues . They don't just go away . If anything if they are not watched and dealt with these issues go off the rails .

What the socialisation does is it legitimises dysfunctionality and it designs society on a dysfunctional basis . As such society becomes dysfunctional . The solution is responsibility and morality . That's where the discussions as to what is moral commence . In traditional terms morality is much more easily understood . Unfortunately in our modern times it's become a little confused .

One of the core elements of Socialism is that it is about adjusting externals , rather than internals . One of the things that this results in is that it greatly distorts life . It creates artificial situations . Reality , of course , catches up and disaster then results .

Another issue that is very much a part of the European scene , but certainly also occurs within corporate structures , is that of having mature adult relationships . So often these political and commercial situations - these monolithic situations - work against having mature adult relationships - this , I think , causes us huge problems . It's a matter of doing the mature adult thing and it's a matter of being responsible - a thing that a lot of people avoid .

Fourthly :- our current times are a time of extremes . We have lost the balance in a lot of things . In order to fix things up the balances will have to be restored . Extremes - imbalances - cause very damaging side effects . Balanced positions we all can live with .

Fifthly :- in getting to our current times we have had a lot of cultural changes . These have produced a lot of problems . One of these has been an attack on profesionalism - professional approach - with this being replaced by an emotive approach . This emoting - courtesy of people basing their emotional security on externals - is the genie that has been popped out of the bottle . Putting that genie back the bottle will be very necessary and difficult . There will be a number of very necessary cultural changes that will have to occur in order to fix up the mess and respond to the crisis . The restoration of a professional & objective approach being a very necessary one . Unfortunately a lot of people won't see this and , as such , the road to recovery will be long and painful .

When a country or company is on the way down people are disimproving themselves - they are pulling themselves down and those around them and their country and company - they are doing a build down . When a country or company is on the way people are improving themselves , supporting improvement in people around them , in their country and their company - they are doing a build up . At the moment in the West we have been in the disimproving part of the cycle for the last three decades plus . Over the next decade hopefully things will turn around .

The situation with the software industry is that it is very much like the early days of the car industry . Back in the 19 th. century engineers were very productive - by being intelligent , innovative and wise - but also correspondingly more highly paid . In software - engineers and programmers are not as productive and are not as highly paid . As such - where as a well paid engineer may do the work of 10 people and , although well paid , would be very cost effective - these days the 10 people are employed and the amount of work continually increases - problems are often not designed out . A classic case in point is the Linux operating system - it requires experts to work on it , things often go wrong often for obscure reasons , it's very difficult to get good documentation - good technical information - on it . The software industry does need a revolution to sensible , cost effective and cost efficient ways of operating .

We live in times that will rapidly become very changing . The changes have been building up and they will soon threaten to overwhelm . It's very important that we are as aware as possible as to what those changes are and that we are prepared for them and that we can take best advantage of them . We are moving up the upswing but , like the 30's , it will take time for parts of the economy to catch up .