The two biggest mistakes an owner and/or manager of a company can make are: one, to believe that that there are no 'brains' at the bottom of the organization; and/or two, alternatively, not to care if there is or there isn't.
In other words, mistake number 1 is to run a company unilaterally. (i.e. all the power comes from the top).
And mistake number 2 is to run a company narcissistically (meaning people in the middle and at the bottom of the organization essentially 'don't exist, and usually in conjunction with this, all the money tends to flow to the top of the organization and only 'scraps' and 'dribbles' of it flow back down again.
(The polarity of the 'top-heavy' pathological company is the 'bottom-heavy' pathological company where either there is not solid leadership from the top and/or for example, 'pathological unions or agents' undermine and sabotage the overall health of the organization. This too, might be a factor in some cases for manufacturing companies choosing to abandon America in search of lower labor costs on foreign shores. No extreme labor unions to deal with).
The healthier alternatives are to:
1. Run a company dialectically meaning that as ideally as possible, the top embraces the bottom of the organization and gains valuable feedback from the input of the bottom -- and middle -- of the organization.
2. A humanistic-existential, ethical owner/manager knows that a company needs a healthy profit to sustain itself and to stay competitive in the industry, but he or she does not believe in 'exploiting' or 'gouging' or 'juicing' or 'disrespecting' either the people within the organization -- and/or the people outside the organization, namely the suppliers and the customers/potential customers. In exchange, the people at the bottom and the middle of the organization tend to show greater respect and harmony with the 'Humanistic-Existential-Ethical-Dialectic' (HEED) leaders at the top of the organization flow chart.
From a DGB perspective, these are the two most important factors in distinguishing a healthy, vibrant organization, from an unstable, unhealthy one.
-- DGBN, November 27th, 2008.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are still in process...
