By Bill Caswell
Special to Ontario Construction News
Virtually all conflictive human endeavours, including business concerns, can be explained by the simple decision between the philosophies of: Is this action about me or is this action about us? Did you know that such a choice has a beginning within the human cell at a gene called TP53?
Human physiology
We humans have been blessed with 30 trillion cells co-operating with one another to coordinate our ability to walk, to see, to think and do all the human marvels possible. Within each of those 30 trillion cells is a DNA string with 3 billion base pairs, broken into 23,000 genes of which the gene, TP 53, deserves our attention when we talk about the concept of co-operating.
TP 53 functions as an information collector about cellular activity. (Other genes, for example, orchestrate your hair activity: colour, rate of growth, baldness, etc.) TP 53 actually helps regulate multicellular co-operation.
If a cell has an increased number of mutations or aberrant protein flow, TP53 judges a problem and the potential for a lack of cellular co-operation. Then TP 53 either triggers some form of DNA repair or the destruction of that cell. Humans have two TP 53 genes in each cell, one from mom and one from pop.
Unco-operative cells
Entities that don’t co-operate are usually quite selfish. They cheat to serve their own purposes. Cheaters prosper by hogging resources, by building up like friends or armies, and attacking weaker members. They take advantage of cooperating neighbours; they break the rules set up by the group; and they disrupt the harmony that makes the community viable in the first place. Within the cell fraternity, these cheaters are called cancer1.
They take advantage in the ways noted above, as well as by over-proliferating and monopolizing nutrients. With only two TP 53 genes, humans are not well-equipped to defeat the cheaters, so our defence to aggressive cancer is augmented by an external medical response.
It is interesting to note that elephants (who have 40 such TP53 genes in each cell compared with our two TP53 genes per cell) rarely have cancer.
The power of co-operation
We humans have discovered the power of co-operation. One thousand people co-operating can build a 60-story skyscraper whereas one person alone is not likely to be able to do so. Our mega-million population cities are nothing more than testimony to many people choosing to co-operate.
Wolves, whales, and hyenas co-operate to hunt down faster, larger, or more fearsome, prey. Our human cells discovered the value of co-operation over life’s evolution of 500 million years and now each of us has 30 trillion co-operating entities with the full infrastructure to make it work.
Bacteria (simple, single-celled creatures) co-operate with humankind both inside (digesting our food) and outside (protecting our skin), and number 10 times our own cell count.
Just as it is ‘normal’ for cells to cheat, it is ‘normal’ for some humans to cheat. Most of us cheat if we feel we can safely get away with it – whether it is failing to wash our hands in the lavatory, sneaking that small gift past customs or forgetting to make a claim on our tax submissions – places where such degrees of cheating are often viewed by us as acceptable.
CCCC Approach
The CCCC approach, while detailed in a 12-volume book set, can be summarized by its effort to introduce co-operative methods and supply the discipline (that most humans seem to lack) to keep that co-operation strong. It should be no surprise that CCCC has an average increase of performance of 34 per cent for clients in CCCC’s first year of intervention – as recorded over a 10-year history.
Not only does CCCC increase co-operation; it also gets rid of the cheaters by two methods. The first one is passive: The Team-of-Two program of CCCC encourages cheaters to voluntarily depart the company because they do not wish to be held accountable for their performance. The second method of CCCC is to actively identify cheaters as well as the ‘how’ and the ‘cost’ of their cheating and set about to get the cheater to change or to depart.
Corruption
Corruption, especially prevalent in third-world countries, is nothing less than an instrument for the survival and prosperity of cheaters at the expense of those who are co-operating. The cheater’s view about ‘me’ is well above his concern for ‘us’. This explanation applies to criminals as well.
Religions
Most religions by their very nature are cheaters: “My religion is the right one and yours is the wrong one.” “We, of this religion, are the chosen ones; you are not.” All of their attention is towards our religion, none of it is towards the elements of the other faiths. How many religions are willing to co-operate with other religions – and to what extent?
Anger
Anger is about viewing my position as preferable to yours. “You are bad; I am good.” I will not co-operate with you unless you come around to my way of thinking.”
Marriage
A cheating husband is not all that uncommon, but more common are cheating spouses who do not take their role in the union seriously, leaving one partner carrying most of the matrimonial burden. Such cheaters often start out seeking a partner they can take advantage of.
Wars
“The evil empire of Saddam Hussein has to be corrected by us,” said the U.S/U.K-led coalition. This was not about arriving at a co-operative solution with Iraqis. Today, 20 years after the invasion, Iraq is still a political and social mess. Very few constantly warring (i. e. unco-operative) countries can claim success in their societal stories.
Racism
Some white people grandly believe they are superior to black. Wake up! We all began as black people about a million years ago; white skin is an aberration from black. Reported salary and social care difference in the U.S., for example, can be viewed as white people cheating the black people. Mutual co-operation of its population, while often claimed by modern countries in these enlightened times, is frequently, an ongoing hypocrisy.
Politics (Left vs. Right)
Left-leaning politics wants to share the world’s blessings with everyone (that is to co-operate) whereas right-leaning politics tends to view each person as responsible for themselves (co-operation under the right circumstances). Over time, humans have become more and more left leaning.
Medicare, once viewed as a left extreme option, exists in most of the leading countries of the world. The more extreme version of this two-politics viewpoint is explored below (Communism or Fascism).
Communism or Fascism
Communism is defined as a philosophical, social, political, and economic movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes. For left-leaning Germans living under Hitler’s buildup of fascism, communism was a logical and highly desirable alternative.
Germans, then, in great numbers, formed communist groups and for a dozen years, fought Nazism in Germany and around the world in co-operation with communist friends, associates and groups2.
The breakdown of communism occurred because it has no built-in system of checks and balances so that cheaters like Lenin, Stalin and Putin gained ground over those trying to co-operate. The cheaters modified the structure of communism to serve their own tastes – a quantum difference from its original intent. Without checks and balances, any system is bound to fail because in the end, power corrupts.
Fascism is defined as a form of far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy. It came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I, before spreading to other European countries. It is opposed to liberalism, democracy, and Marxism. The fascists’ rejection of many other political viewpoints is anathema to the idea of co-operation. Thus, if co-operation is the fuel for achievement, fascism will always be doomed to fail.
Conclusion
So where does business stand? Where should business stand? The conclusion to this paper is that co-operation builds prosperity. Every Earthly endeavour that succeeds over the long term does so because of co-operation. Yet the co-operative enterprise must have its checks and balances. Business, has, for the most part, as its checks (and balances): the profit constraint3 as well as overseeing governments. Fortunately, success, through co-operation applies to all aspects of life. The problem lies in our lacking the discipline to consistently apply and ensure co-operation4.
Bill Caswell leads the Caswell Corporate Coaching Company (CCCC) in Ottawa, www.caswellccc.com or email bill@caswellccc.com.
1Dr. Athena Aktipis, “Malignant Cheaters”, Scientific American, January 2021
2Ben Macintyre, “Agent Sonya”, Penguin Random House Canada, Toronto ON, 2020
3Profit constraint: The most successful companies in the world (posted each year in the Fortune Magazine list of 500) collectively achieve between 3% and 8% profits. CCCC tallied the top companies over 10 years (5,000 companies) coming up with an average profit of 5.6%.
Since these are the most successful enterprises of all, what about the less successful enterprises? CCCC calls this factor the ‘profit constraint’ that all businesses have to work with: If you make large profits others will jump on the bandwagon at a lower price than yours (how else can they compete?), thereby dropping the prices back nearer to the 5% level. Below 5% profits, the business becomes too risky. Thus, profits on the grand scale, stabilize near the 5% level. (Companies able to hold a monopolistic power, however, live in a different world.)
4 Co-operation is a particularly heavy topic as noted by the length of this paper and by the need to add the note that individuals working alone and making solo decisions form part of the success equation – as long as they are not working against their fellow humans. Historically speaking, when we apes decided to abandon the forests for the wide-open spaces, we knew we were competing for food with carnivores and others who had long ago adapted to the plains. We could not match the strength, the ferociousness, and the speed of the carnivores, so that in order to survive, we had to bring something else to the table. We brought endurance, our big brain along with the decision to cooperate so that we could compete with the established order. To this day, we get a hit of dopamine, the feel-good chemical, to our brain every time we cooperate. That is, we feel swell when we say ‘yes’ and we feel guilty saying ‘no’.