If I’m a business educator and I’m trying to convince you that an MBA is worth two years of your life and AUD30,000, it’s in my interest for you to understand business as complex, difficult and arcane, isn’t it? The truth is (at least for the small and micro enterprises we deal with at Edgeware) that business is actually quite simple. It’s succeeds or fails on cash flow.

Starting up, emerging entrepreneurs need mentors, coaches and critical friends. We can think of these as the uncles and aunts to the growing baby. (Edgies so often claim they feel that their *business is their baby*, with all the frustration and heartache and untrammelled joy that infers.) 

From the blog Neuronarrative

Intangible values (e.g. brands, data bases, expert knowledge, leadership, productivity) are increasingly important in markets – at least if we use the instrument of stock market valuations rather than the those of accountants. How might we consider them in our planning? Tamara Plakalo suggests we can categorize intangibles in three ways – as ‘structural capital’, ‘relational capital’ and ‘human capital’. To download her whole article, ‘Untangling Intangibles’, go here.

“Doing good makes us feel good. Altruism enhances our self-esteem. It gets our eyes off ourselves, makes us less self-preoccupied, gets us closer to the unself-consciousness that characterizes the flow state”  (1).  

 In other words, caring for others creates a psychological momentum and a sense of self-competence that makes us happier.  Brown argues that giving buffers stress, and involves complex hormones, such as oxytoxin and vasopressin, as well as a brain-emotion-immune nexus.

 The evidence is quite consistent that altruism, so long as it is not experienced as overwhelming, is associated with happiness, psychological and mental health, better self-rated physical health and functioning, and (on average) longer life, after adjusting for the standard set of potential confounding variables. (Stephen G. Post, It’s Good To Be Good: 2010 Annual Scientific Report On Health, Happiness And Helping Others)

 (1)   Brown, S., Nesse, R.M., Vonokur, A.D., & Smith, D.M. (2003). Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it: Results from a prospective study of mortality. Psychological Science, 14(4), 320-32

It sounds counter-intuitive that, while a tree is rooted in the ground, it actually feeds on what it extracts from the air. I think this is a compelling metaphor for business (and life, if it comes to it): we need to be grounded, based, authentic, and at the same time we have to be aware of our environment, of the threats and opportunities borne along by capricious breezes (or cyclones)

 In this Age of Metaphor, love will be the signal of real. One of the ways we will know when a thing has passed from “as-if” to “is” is when it earns unalloyed love from humans. Kevin Kelly, As If

In the developed world we are increasingly trading in intangibles. Think of love marks, brands with which we develop a relationship that is intimate, personal and authentic.

And when we love, we give. It turns out that generosity is an intangible value which can have real impact on a company’s revenue stream. Baruch Lev has found consistent evidence that for firms in industries that are highly sensitive to consumer perception, corporate giving is associated with subsequent sales growth.

And it’s healthy:

“Doing good makes us feel good. Altruism enhances our self-esteem. It gets our eyes off ourselves, makes us less self-preoccupied, gets us closer to the unself-consciousness that characterizes the flow state”  (1).

In other words, caring for others creates a psychological momentum and a sense of self-competence that makes us happier.  Brown argues that giving buffers stress, and involves complex hormones, such as oxytoxin and vasopressin, as well as a brain-emotion-immune nexus.

The evidence is quite consistent that altruism, so long as it is not experienced as overwhelming, is associated with happiness, psychological and mental health, better self-rated physical health and functioning, and (on average) longer life, after adjusting for the standard set of potential confounding variables. (Stephen G. Post, It’s Good To Be Good)

(1) Brown, S., Nesse, R.M., Vonokur, A.D., & Smith, D.M. (2003). Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it: Results from a prospective study of mortality. Psychological Science, 14(4), 320-32

We think we make rational economic decisions. We don’t. Our decisions are driven by intangible values of which we may not be aware, or about which we may not care.

‘Radical accountant’ Baruch Lev, along with others, is proposing that accepted GAAP accounting has to evolve to evaluate and incorporate intangibles in a company’s accounts.

Can accountants count intangibles like happiness? The Kingdom of Bhutan is famous for its invention of a Gross National Happiness (GNH) metric. In Bhutan,

The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of sustainable development, preservation and promotion of cultural values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of good governance. (Wikipedia)

A Brisbane company, reinvention, has mapped the GNH to what they call GCH – Gross Company Happiness. It looks like this:

At Edgeware’s first Upload Young Entrepreneurs Camp (Jan 12-16, 2009) we tried out our first 3D Business Plan. Everyone selected materials and objects which represented elements of their plan, then arranged and connected these to indicate the dynamics of the business and the interplay of its various functions.

Just for fun, here are some thoughts from much better heads than ours …

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor kind of business. Henry Ford

After a certain point money is meaningless. It ceases to be the goal. The game is what counts. Aristotle Onassis

If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash. George Washington

If you can grasp the idea that money is not real, you will grow rich faster. Robert T. Kiyosaki

Money never starts an idea; it is the idea that starts the money. W. J. Cameron

The absolute fundamental aim is to make money out of satisfying customers. Sir John Egan

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. Warren Buffett

Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. Albert Einstein