Whether in business or politics, the familiar world with its seemingly predictable developments is disappearing. Many theories and methods no longer work ‒ but new approaches often don’t work either.
This pushes founders, experienced entrepreneurs, managers and politicians to their limits. Politics, business and entrepreneurship are probably facing the most significant transformation in history.
The balance is no longer right
The balance is no longer right because we are neither far-sighted nor prudent or considerate. Investors bet on start-ups like horses at the races – the “creation of sustainable benefit” in business ideas hardly plays a role. The classic set of values frequently only serves as a fig leaf.
The greed for quick money is constantly shortening the lifespan of companies. Originally, a peculiarity of the corporate world with its fetish of quarterly results, this greed has spread like cancer to the start-up scene and thus endangers the basic understanding of entrepreneurship.
The problem is reflected in the failure rate: according to Eurostat, only 46 per cent of all new businesses in the EU exist after five years, and in Germany even less, only 38 per cent. Only 10 to 20 per cent reach 10 years of existence.
Instead of making a long-term contribution to the world based on ideals like solid entrepreneurs, today it is almost all about making a quick buck.
As a result, we are experiencing an enormous waste of material and immaterial resources.
Charles Darwin and the collateral damage
Not innocent of this, in my analysis and opinion, is Charles Darwin’s (1809-1882) famous but often fallacious theory of evolution, written in his rage against God. In my eyes, it is full of gaps, errors in thinking, ambiguities and contradictions.
It is fatal that the studied theologian Darwin deliberately declared war as the original state of nature.
But a close second look shows that nature is not, first and foremost, a system of opposition, but above all, an impressive symbiotic system, a system of cooperation!
Darwin’s erroneous maxim of ‘survival of the fittest’, which we are witnessing up to the outgrowth of ‘the winner takes it all’, has mainly fuelled unregulated turbo-capitalism and often warlike competitive behaviour. In the process, most actors have no regard for their surroundings, the environment or the planet’s limited resources. Collateral damage is accepted. However, it is forgotten that in the end, we and future generations will have to live with the damage we cause.
Values as North Star
There is only one fundamental problem among others: eventually, democracy can neither be stabilised with turbo-capitalism nor with a planned economy.
We need a new world view and awareness of which measures and investments are sensible and sustainable
All this puts us under pressure: even where there is a willingness to rethink the economy, there is a lack of helpful orientation. Thus, it is not always only the will that fails, but also the not-knowing-how.
Therefore, all the more in a time of uncertainty, where a decision horizon of five years seems like an eternity, we should orient ourselves to classical values, wise principles and principles of permanence.
This orientation could give us the vision for value-based action – like a North Star for intergenerational sustainability. Everyone should cultivate this to rely on a robust backbone of enduring stability.
Practice breaks theory
This includes foresight, prudence and consideration. These show us the way. It is about foresight in the sense of thinking ahead. It is about circumspection for looking at the present: what is happening to the left and right of us right now? And it is about consideration for all those around us, including the environment.
Unfortunately, this is also where politics fails with its often intemperate actions. Decisions are made that may be exemplary, but overburden people in their possibilities if the ‘how’ is not right, for example, due to high costs, bureaucratic hurdles, time pressure or a lack of alternatives. Keywords: “energy supply, heating, electromobility”.
Values-based entrepreneurship is the solution tothe puzzle
Sustainability and value-based entrepreneurship are always crucial, even more so in times of change. We need a new world-view and awareness of which measures and investments are sensible and sustainable and where we are dealing with money burning.
Also, the mainstream regarding the understanding of innovation is no longer correct. Too many pseudo-innovations are a central stumbling block, appearing at first as bombastic solutions but then often being the cause of even much bigger problems. Because in today’s hectic pace and speed, things are hardly ever thought through carefully to the end. And therein lurks the danger.
It is time to rethink many things, even outside the well-trodden paths. We should make foresight, prudence and consideration the maxim of our actions. True values, not fast money, should be our guiding currency.
In this way, we would also do justice to the school of thought of the US economist and pioneer of modern management theory, Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005): “None of our institutions exists by itself and is an end by itself. Every one is an organ of society and exists for the sake of society. Business is no exception. Free enterprises cannot be justified as being good for business. They can be justified only as being good for society.”
Reinhold M. Karner, FRSA, is an entrepreneurship and start-up evangelist, multiple chairman (e.g. AP Valletta), corporate philosopher, entrepreneur, author, university lecturer and fellowship connector of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) for Malta and Austria.
This article was first published in German in The European (www.theeuropean.de).