People who are used to act in power structures and power positions frequently respond to people who question these structures and this way of acting by saying: You are naive, you obviously do not know how this works in reality and what are the rules of the game.
Well, to some extent they are right, superficially seen: Their power structures and rules are a reality that outsiders cannot understand and play as well as they do. This is also like that, because this reality is one that they have created by their way of thinking and acting and using their particular strengths and capabilities. To use a drastic metaphor: This is a bit as if a strong, powerful man from the stone age would tell me: ‘Hey guy, obviously you don’t understand that game and you are not able to succeed, because you don’t hit the guy over there on his head to get what you want – and because you tell me that you can get what you want without doing this” (as heard – but what was said:” you can get what we need without….”).

Well… true for that era and the reality that he knew – however, as we all know, today’s civilization has emerged out of wiser insights and principles that were more successful long term (and please notice: They were outperforming pure force). Beating others on the head is today seen as something that does damage to the prosperity of the community. Individual force has been outperformed by collaboration. Monarchist power has been outperformed by democracy. But despite this overwhelming evidence, some people seriously still think that even within democratic structures the purpose of the game would be to grow the power of some few in order to allow them to impose their will to the rest. Obviously, that was not the idea… However, seriously, this is what some people think. And some who are acting in democratic political systems will tell me: You are naive, you do not know the rules. You will not be successful – they will say this until they are being voted out of their positions by the majority of people who do not longer agree that they impose the will of their few to all.

A lot of progress has been achieved, because somebody did not care about the known rules and went on with a better principle that finally established new rules. In modern times companies like facebook, google or what’s-app are frequently cited examples for a more successful way of doing business, if we believe business studies. They are acting differently compared to what were ‘the rules’ in the past. For example, they broke the rule (the framing) that a consumer first has to pay and then gets a service or product. They also broke the rule that you can only get rich with a company if your customers or consumers pay for your service. Giving things for free (or at least without a direct money transfer) was seen as irrational in economic logic, as a crazy thing to do for somebody who wants to make money. Well… it seems to work really well: What’s app just was sold for several billion dollars… while the service never had a price tag and while even the user data was never sold to others.

People who are used to act in power structures frequently also tell me: ‘You will not be successful if you try to move something here in our game with lower effort than anybody else who is currently in a power position’. This is certainly true, if I tried to get into a power position. If you stick to that principle (‘power is a precondition to reach what you want’), you certainly must go a long way of investing, convincing, intriguing, dealing, promising, compromising and argumentation to reach the level of a power position, doing a lot of busy work that will not always be meaningful or good work– before you can decide about the things that you really want to reach with you power (or is it the power already the final end that you really wanted to reach and nothing else more ‘idealistic’ behind that first needed step?). Well… in a new reality where power is not the key prerequisite needed to create things, to change things, to decide things and to get them where they are good for the community, for the things that matter at the end (prosperity, progress, a good life, better solutions…), I do not need to gain power first, any more – if I remove power-positions as a needed base to get what is needed, we then also do not need the efforts any more to fight for a power position and to defend it. That effort can go somewhere else.

The huge opportunity is to use this effort for the work on the subject matter, for the work towards the real purpose. Because power is just one possible means to reach the real purpose. Power is not the purpose. Effort invested in power is very probaly and very frequently a waste of time for the real purpose.

You are so naive… will they think again, and even more: You are a dreamer.

And yes, I am a dreamer – dreamers are those who explore a different reality with new rules, with better and more effective principles of acting. It starts in the thinking and continues in different action and different results, better results. Dreaming (or if you want to: Imagination free from the limitations and mechanisms of the current reality) is a precondition to break old rules and to establish new rules. The ‘realist’ will stop himself by locking his thinking into the limits of the given and so far known reality, already by saying: It is not possible, as you can see from current reality. He can’t imagine because he only accepts things as imaginable that can be seen somewhere in his reality now. This limits possibilities to what we have now – and that is a very narrow road with very limited possibilities. But in reality, the room of possibilities in is endless, in the future. We have choices, so many choices…

The biggest trap that makes us fail to realize the dream of new rules might even be to think that you must first follow the old rules (gain power) to be able to change the rules then, later. This is a detour that sucks all energy, that spoils integrity, that spoils the appeal of your vision, that makes us risk to get lost on the way and – above all – that is not needed at all: Establishing new rules starts by breaking the old rules – because this means to leave the (bad ) old dynamics that is not able to produce better outcomes and it means to stop wasting our time with that old stuff. It means to leave aside the limits and inefficient needs of the old rules in order to become more effective – immediately. Breaking the old rules sets a new dynamics into action that can inspire others and that makes old necessities obsolete, and different, better results possible.

So who is naive? Certainly, it would be naive to think that the old power-rules go away by themselves or that it could be easy to overcome tendencies to make them the dominating principle again and again. Certainly, there is ‘the gravity of the old system’. But also, thinking into a new reality in the future, it would be naive to believe that power will completely disappear from the scenery. I think that is not realistic. That would be naive, indeed. But what is really even more naive is to believe that a system of power (mainly ruled by the principle of power) is a good system and a good set of rules. It is naive to believe that this principle and these types of power-centric systems would be productive. They are not.

It would also be naive to think that they cannot be changed by something that works differently. It can, because other principles have proven to work better. Enough evidence is given already today. The strongest might be that we already live in societies and political systems where an inspiring movement of many individuals that all by themselves are not in any formal or informal power position, can throw the powerful out of their positions. This happens by applying the ‘new’ rules of ‘one-man-one-vote’ and ‘everybody can speak up freely’ (which is very different from: ‘The one/few ones who has/have the power decide what happens’.

Today, modern organizations – business organizations with the goal to provide monetary benefits to their owners – still are mostly power-ruled and power-controlled systems. It seems to make sense that the one who gave the money, who took the risk, who takes the responsibility and invests his life into a company does not want others to take away control and to take away the benefits that he made possible. That is the rather ‘capitalist’ perspective to it. As we know, communist and socialist literature have introduced the ‘counter’-perspective, that the employees also are investing their ‘capital’ in form of work and loyalty and an important part of their lifetime and that without this, business and benefits would not be possible. This is a well-known discourse that I do not want and not need to explore here (but I invite you to do a little research about what logical fallacies result from dogmatic viewpoints and motivations in this debate on both sides).

What I find much more interesting is the fact that there is this big naivety in modern top management teams that it would be possible to ‘rule’ and ‘control’ a big company into good results by the principle of power. This is naive. It is a view that cuts away two thirds of the reality as it is given around and inside the company and sometimes this hinders double digit growth opportunities.

The one ignored third are the customers: Customers are free to choose what and where they buy. And they don’t buy if there is no value for them in what the company has to offer – or less value than with the competition. And value is defined for them by their very own purposes – and not by the means ‘money’ or the result ‘company benefits’. They want to use their money to make out of their life what they like, what makes their life better and richer.

The second ignored third: Employees are free to choose where they work and how they work. Of course, the first freedom is not always given, by limitations of mobility, capabilities or short- to mid-term cyclical economic conditions – but it is given many times in many markets and regions, especially for the type of modern, prospering companies that are at the peak of progress. Also we can just now in this decade observe a long term effect of free employee choice that has its origin in new values of a whole generation: The young, high qualified and urgently searched people coming to the labor market today do not want to work in a company that is too much top-down power driven.

Also the second employee freedom – the ‘how’ – seems in theory not really free, too, but in practice it is to a large extent – or do you know any company where every movement, every action, every thought and attitude would really be under control of management power? Or do you know something like ‘top down directed creativity, that really brings best results? On my opinion, we won’t find examples worth mentioning, because these companies must all be bankrupt already. I can’t even imagine that they wouldmanage to even get one single productive day of production with 100% of command and control-principle and without willing, motivated, well skilled employees who use their intelligence and passion.

So let’s be really realistic and let’s not cut away two third of reality and see it as it is: If such power-controlled companies work and are successful it is because the principle of power has been reduced to a level that does not do too much damage and because it has been pushed back far enough behind the needs of an intelligently acting workforce and customers who want to see value for their money. That means: The principle of power does not rule, it just plays an important – and sometimes dominant – role today. In reality, already today a balance of interests and several other, better principles rules. And, please notice: Tendency (measured by what is most successful in producing value – for the real purpose of customers and consumers!) goes more and more in direction of less ‘power principle’ and more towards principles that help a company adapt to ‘customers choose what is value for them’ and ‘employees need good conditions to produce value’.

It is naive to believe that the future reality will be a reality ruled by the principle of power. We have already left that era behind us in the sense that this insight is no longer one that only a few rule-breakers cherish: We can build upon a broad acceptance and understanding and lots of good experiences with new, better principles: Democracy for societies, participation and distributed leadership and decision taking for companies, inspiration for a better future and a free, voluntary and self-responsible strive for self-fulfillment and a richer life for whatever human beings want to achieve.