General

Human Superiority Complex

April 3, 2017 in General / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Cobots tagged Conceptual Psychology / Human Complexes / Superiority complex / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Evolutionary Approach by Peter Belohlavek

Superiority complexes are based on superior functional intelligence implying a structural different attitude. Their feeling of superiority is transformed into a complex when they begin to use their superior functional intelligence in fields that cannot be managed with that approach. But their need of sustaining their superiority forces to try to do so. The result implies blaming the environment for the paradoxical outcomes.

While inferiority complex drive toward inaction in order to deny the reality that affects self-esteem, superiority complexes drive toward aggressive active action to destroy the bothering object.

Superiority complexes are implicit in the decisions taken by anti-intuition in a fearful environment using the anti-intelligence to destroy the object that is threatening the self-perception of superiority.

Extremely talented individuals develop this complex while they live immersed in a mediocre environment. Mediocre environment are those that not include respect and admiration to the members of the group that have the capacity to add higher value.

When the relation with authority doesn’t include respect and admiration talented individuals become marginal. “Nerds” are some of the names that degrade the talent of an individual and transform a factual superiority into a personal complex.

On the other hand, talented individuals who perceive that their skill has no social value develop an inferiority complex if they are socially rejected.

To avoid destruction they become aggressive to the environment. The aggression might be active when it their complex is not integrated with an inferiority complex or passive if they perceive inferiority when dealing with other fields than the one (or several) they are talented in.

Characteristics of the Superiority Complex

It is based on a physical advantage
It influences all the activities of an individual
It creates a personal fictive environment to solve problems using over-simplifying analogical approaches based on their specific talent.
It is future focused to avoid the responsibility of present actions
It uses omnipotence as a driver to avoid the feeling of inferiority
It produces a selfish, envious and greedy behavior
It produces a dualistic, antagonistic, analogical approach to reality
It looks for the solution exclusively in the future
It produces an obsessive taking, not giving, attitude
It produces the distortion of the perception of threatening aspect of reality

The main difference is given by the fact that Superiority Complex driven individuals toward an active role in the environment. Thus they use to be aggressive using both active aggression and/or passive resistance as a way to attack the environment.

They do not work in teams. They are “solopreneurs”.

Peter Belohlavek

NOTE: The Unicist Research Institute was the pioneer in using the unicist logical approach in complexity science research and became a private global decentralized leading research organization in the field of human adaptive systems. It has an academic arm and a business arm. https://www.unicist.org/turi.pdf

Wisdom vs. Erudition: Wisdom is a pathway with many masters

March 24, 2016 in General / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Cobots tagged The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Evolutionary Approach by Academic Committee

There is an extreme confrontation of erudition with wisdom (but not vice versa). This was discovered in the research developed during more than 10 years in the field of Talent Development. The research was led by Peter Belohlavek.

Wisdom can be defined as the capacity of an individual to integrate idealism and realism with value adding actions. The characteristic of individuals who achieved wisdom is that they had multiple masters that had an authoritative role in their lives. These roles are still in force and the masters are still admired.

Admiration and functional envy are the concepts that allow achieving wisdom. Individuals who admire others’ achievements and deeds have the opportunity to achieve wisdom, but only if they pursue the objective of adding value in an environment. The functional envy drives individuals to achieve goals.

Individuals with conflictive relations with authority can never achieve wisdom. They might be extremely erudite, extremely efficient workers but they will never be able to integrate idealism and realism with a value-adding attitude in their environment.

The apparent paradox of wisdom is the need of multiple masters. It is said that disciples are those learners who overcome their teachers. But wisdom, defined as the space where an individual has been able to integrate idealism and realism with value adding actions, cannot be overcome. What is the difference between Wisdom and Erudition?

Wisdom

Wisdom is a state that requires focusing on specific aspects of reality using questions to apprehend their nature and having the necessary knowledge of the environment in order to generate value.

Wisdom cannot be overcome because the nature of some aspect of reality has been understood and can be influenced.

But it has to be considered that wise people do not compete with others to have a place in the world. They earned their place in the world. That is why they remain masters in the field in which they are wise.

Erudition

Erudition is an addiction that drives people to build a parallel hypothetical reality where they consider themselves wise. It is a frequent addiction of rationally gifted individuals.

They are driven by envy which makes them accumulate data they use to judge the originators of the data while they try to demonstrate to others that they are wise.

This allows them confronting with others in their hypothetical reality and feel that their judgments make them wise. They manipulate in order to ensure that their hypothetical reality prevails over actual facts.

Conclusions

Competing with an authority in a field where she/he is wise is a demonstration that the need to gain supersedes the need to add value. The existence of multiple masters makes wisdom possible.

Erudition is not analogous to wisdom; it is a fallacious version of wisdom. Wisdom implies action while erudition does not.

Achieving wisdom cannot be a goal for a wise person; wisdom is the consequence of the action of an individual but does not cause it. It is unwise to try to achieve wisdom.

That is why wisdom is a pathway with multiple masters. Masters are ordinary or extraordinary people who have achieved wisdom in some field. Look for them while you continue adding value.

To achieve wisdom you need to abandon your modesty and expand your humbleness. Wise people do not need to be right, they just have to be functional.

Academic Committee

Paradigm Shifts in Sciences change the World View

July 17, 2015 in General / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Cobots tagged Peter Belohlavek / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Evolutionary Approach / Unicist Paradigm Shift by Unicist Press Committee

The unicist paradigm shift in science opened the possibility of emulating the organization of nature in the real world. It is based on the integration of complexity sciences, which deal with complex adaptive systems with systemic sciences that deal with systemic systems where univocal cause-effect relationships prevail.

This implies using a pragmatic, structuralist and functionalist framework to approach complexity using the unicist double dialectical logic that allows apprehending the concepts that underlie facts and integrating it with the traditional empirical approach to manage the operational aspects.

Thomas S. Kuhn explains in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions:

Examining the record of past research from the vantage of contemporary historiography, the historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. Even more important, during revolutions scientists see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before.

The new world view

The paradigm shift in science, based on the Unicist Theory and sustained by the Unicist Epistemology, allows dealing with the nature of things which allows simplifying the building and management of complex adaptive systems and dealing with complex adaptive environments. It implies a conceptual approach to reality. This drove to the development of Conceptual Anthropology, Conceptual Economy, Conceptual Psychology and Conceptual Management.

We suggest accessing a synthetic description of this paradigm shift at: http://www.unicist.net/clipboard/

This simplifies processes by defining what is possible to be achieved. This simplification requires being able to apprehend the concepts that underlie facts. Unfortunately this is not the easiest way to face reality. Fallacies were, are and will be the easy way to perceive what needs to be perceived and blame reality when the results are not the expected ones.

The emulation of nature in business implies organizing by objects that has been adopted by multiple organizations in the world: Airbus, Amazon, Apple, BBC, Boeing, Dassault Systemes, Dupont, Ericsson, Facebook, General Electric, Google, Hilton, Honda, Hyundai, LinkedIn, Lufthansa, Mapfre, Mayo Clinic, Michelin, Novartis, Open Text, P&G, Pfizer, SAP, Siemens, Tata Motors, Toyota, Unilever, Walmart, Walt Disney World and Youtube.

The Unicist Object driven Technologies allow installing this approach in all the organizations that have achieved the necessary level or organizational maturity.

The Unicist Research Institute

The Trend of Organizing by Roles and Objects that Emulates Nature

June 8, 2015 in General / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Cobots tagged Object Driven Organization / Organization of Nature / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Evolutionary Approach / Unicist Object driven Technologies by Executive Committee

The Unicist Research Institute is leading the trend of organizing by roles and objects emulating the organization of nature. This allows managing the adaptive aspects of economics and businesses simplifying processes and minimizing the entropy of the systems where roles and objects have been installed.

Some of the companies that use business objects are: Airbus, Amazon, Apple, BBC, Boeing, Dassault Systemes, Dupont, Ericsson, Facebook, General Electric, Google, Hilton, Honda, Hyundai, LinkedIn, Lufthansa, Mapfre, Mayo Clinic, Michelin, Novartis, Open Text, P&G, Pfizer, Siemens, Tata Motors, Toyota, Unilever, Walmart, Walt Disney World and Youtube.

The evolution of communication and IT technologies provided the necessary environment to foster the trend of emulating the organization of nature by installing business objects and organizing by roles. In the business world, the organization by objects has always been the action of wise people.

The unicist object driven approach catalyzed the trend towards organizing by objects. The Unicist Theory, based on the discovery of the intelligence that underlies nature, made the organization of nature reasonable, understandable and predictable. It simplified the building of objects making their development accessible to professionals. http://www.unicist.org/repo

You can access the theoretical framework of the Unicist Theory at:
http://www.unicist.org/conceptual-thinking/theoretical-framework/

The comparison with alternative solutions in the field of complex adaptive systems can be found at:
http://unicist.info/sdc-en/competitors/

Examples

The emulation of nature in human activities is as old as humanity. Nature was emulated every time a human activity was organized by wise leaders. Nature, as all complex systems, is integrated by objects, which are interdependent adaptive systems that drive the evolution of the entity they are part of. The organs of the human body are an evident example of the organization by objects in nature.

If you look at the R&D function of Siemens, you will discover the functionality of a gravitational object. http://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/about-research-and-development.htm

If you analyze the organization of Walt Disney World, you will find the emulation of the American Archetype. https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/

XI International Unicist Conference 2015

The XI International Unicist Conference will honor objects in order to make them noticeable to the community and transform the emulation of nature into a benchmark to develop objects that simplify the organization of businesses and increase the value generation.

The Unicist Research Institute

Integrating Empirical and Conceptual Knowledge to Grow

May 22, 2015 in General / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Cobots tagged Conceptual Knowledge / Empirical knowledge / Strategy Building / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Evolutionary Approach / Unicist Strategy by Peter Belohlavek

Empirical knowledge uses analogical patterns to deal with reality. This suffices to develop all those activities that are within the limits of confirmed patterns, but generates fallacies when such analogical patterns are wrongly established, generating paradoxical results. Integrating conceptual knowledge to empirical knowledge is the key factor to have reliable knowledge.

The research mentioned by TIME in an article entitled “1 in 4 Americans Apparently Unaware the Earth Orbits the Sun” confirms that there are people who are not interested in having a reliable knowledge they cannot profit from:
http://time.com/7809/1-in-4-americans-thinks-sun-orbits-earth/

But when it is necessary to go beyond boundaries in business it is necessary to know “if the sun orbits the Earth or the Earth orbits the sun” (metaphor). To go beyond boundaries it is necessary to have conceptual and empirical knowledge to define what is possible to be achieved and how to achieve it.

Business growth requires, by definition, going beyond boundaries. That is why growth requires integrating conceptual knowledge with empirical knowledge in order to have reliable knowledge to define what is possible to be achieved and how to do it. The “deeper” the concept an individual is able to apprehend, the wider the boundaries s/he can manage.

Conceptual knowledge bothers all those who see the sun orbiting the Earth and can live with it. Their limits are the boundaries of their present activity and concepts are a meaningless abstraction.

The unicist strategy defines maximal strategies as those that happen beyond the existing boundaries of an activity and minimum strategies as those that happen within the existing boundaries. Maximal strategies require having structured conceptual knowledge while minimum strategies only require having confirmed empirical knowledge that manages the cause-effect relationships within the boundaries of an activity.

Therefore, the knowledge an individual has or can achieve is defined by her/his true goals in life.

Peter Belohlavek

Unicist R&D: Small Business Development

March 13, 2015 in General / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Cobots tagged Archetype of Small Businesses / Archetype of Start-up businesses / Small Business Development / The Unicist Research Institute / Unicist Conceptual Management / Unicist Evolutionary Approach by Peter Belohlavek

This synthesis is the conclusion of a research that has been done for more than 20 years dealing with more than 30 small businesses having a revenue between 1,0 to 20,0 million dollars in countries that included the USA, Italy, UK, Germany, Spain, Brazil and Argentina. The objective of the research was to find which technologies are suitable for small businesses and which are their limits for the development of these companies.

Revenue is the simplest way to define the size of a business, but its nature is given by its critical mass in the market, which is defined by the power of its brand. Small businesses are whether small, stagnated or start-up businesses.

The majority: The Archetype of Stagnated Small Businesses

Stagnated small businesses are such because their final goal is to appropriate as much as they can from the market justifying these profits by doing what they can, without considering what is needed.

Their actions are driven by their owners who exert their power to ensure survival and establish the subjective limits of the actions within the company.

These companies cannot grow, because growth requires delivering differentiated added value to the market which does not allow doing what can be done and demands doing what needs to be done.

These types of companies cannot organize their functional business processes because they affect the subjective environment to survive. They have no organized management and they work in what we named as “business feudalism” where the subjective leadership of the owner has to prevail over the functional needs of the business.

Stagnated small business can only deal in marginal low productivity niches. In competitive environments they tend to disappear. They do not the possibility of surviving after their owner dies. They are built “around” the owner like a feud.

These companies need to develop a subjective environment that allows building a parallel reality where the utopias of the future replace the functional data of the present.

They minimize the tools they use in order to allow the participants to develop their activities based on their personal way. The owners monitor them based on the cash-flow of the company which, in the short run, ensures their survival.

The minority: The Archetype of Small Businesses

A business is small when the CEO/Manager/Director has the intention and is able to influence personally the people that work in the company. This implies that small business have necessarily hands-on managers that have the capacity of leading the group through their actions.

They are centrally focused on profits and they do what is needed to obtain them. They are an adaptive entity that strongly depends on the capacity of the leader to understand what happens in the environment and transform it into business processes that have to be followed by the participants.

Small businesses are such because they intend to occupy a space in a niche or segment of the market, have an organization that is autonomous from the owner and have the capacity to learn from their mistakes avoiding their repetition.

Their weak point deals with the understanding of the critical mass they need to have to achieve their goals. That is why they frequently build the necessary justifications for their dysfunctional actions.

Small companies can assume a leading role, the role of a secondary leader or a non-influential role in the market. The role they assume depends on their capacity to influence the niches they work with.

Their growth capacity depends on the size of the niche or segment they work with and on the positioning of the competitors. These companies tend to be absorbed or disappear when the niche they work in becomes attractive for large companies.

They have a functional organization without definition of roles and they are users of operational tools that allow them develop the work processes that are basically driven by tasks while the objectives are monitored by the CEO.

The few: The Archetype of Start-up businesses

Start-up businesses are such because of their capacity of generating differentiated value for the segment they work in. These businesses are focused on a niche where they have a superior level of knowledge and value generating capacity. They supersede competitors based on their market orientation and technology.

Profiting is a secondary goal in these types of companies. That is why it is frequent that the participation of investors, who believe in the business model, introduces an upgrade to their profit orientation in order to move them from a small company to a medium or large organization.

They begin by having the same characteristic of any other small business, meaning they have the business separated from the owner and they know they have to do what is needed in order to be able to grow.

Start up businesses work as an entrepreneurial venture but have, deep inside, the values that allow them become an organized enterprise. They are extremely focused on the market which includes a superior learning capacity to adapt their possibilities to the needs of the market. They are a learning organization that feels proud for the value they add to the environment.

The separation of the role of owner from the role of CEO is basic in this type of companies. In the early stages of these companies this separation might require that the same person works as a CEO in the company while he sits as an owner at home.

They have structured functional roles and organized processes in order to be able to learn from the environment and sustain the differentiated value they add to the market. But it has to be considered that, while they are small, they are CEO dependent.

Conclusion: Turnaround of Stagnant Small Businesses

During these years we had the opportunity to deal with 5 stagnant small businesses (the names are confidential). The results of this process demonstrated that it is extremely difficult to transform stagnant small businesses into adapted small or medium businesses.

Fortunately this was possible in one case. Two companies left the market and 2 others are still struggling to survive. The nature of stagnant small businesses does not fit into the central business world. It only fits as transitory opportunity in marginal niches of low cost products and services.

Stagnant small businesses are necessarily over-adapted which means that they try to work in an environment they dominate, where they submit to the needs of the customers while they oppose to all things that endanger their position or works as a mirror of their real positioning.

Changing stagnant businesses is an extreme change for the owners, which requires that they change the personal relationship they have with “their” company.

There is no separation between the business and the owners of these types of businesses. The separation of this role implies that the beliefs of the owner need to be replaced by the needs of the market.

The change of these companies requires changing the collective intelligence of a company that is only possible by absorbing it by another company that has the necessary values.

This change is possible when the company is absorbed by a start up business which includes it as a division of the new company. This absorption requires that the owner is replaced by a CEO who might or not be also the owner of the company but the subjective environments is replaced by a functional environment. When it is absorbed by a medium or large company the small business disappears.

The greatest difficulty to deal with these companies is that their members can only listen to those who share their subjective opinions and there can be no room for aliens in this parallel world because they endanger their existence.

Peter Belohlavek