All businesses have, depending on their positioning, natural fallacious myths they believe in. These fallacious myths cover weaknesses companies have but are unable to deal with.
That is why chronic diseases of institutions have to be considered as characteristics because they are protected by the fallacious myths they have developed. The universal fallacious myths of small companies are the “justifications”. All what they do is justified because they are what they are.
“Small is beautiful” has been a motto used to justify the incapacity for growth. The size has nothing to do with the revenue. What defines if it is a small company is its critical mass. There can be a leader in a niche market that, having low revenue measured in absolute terms, is not small. Small implies assuming no responsibility in a market.
Small is a business attitude. The justification to avoid growth can be found in the following fable:
A hound dog found a bone and held it tightly in his mouth. He growled and scowled at anyone who attempted to take it away. Off into the woods he went to bury his prize.
When he came to a stream, he trotted over the footbridge and happened to glance into the water. He saw his own reflection. Thinking it was another dog with a bigger bone, he growled and scowled at it. The reflection growled and scowled back.
“I’ll get THAT bone too,” thought the greedy dog, and he snapped his sharp teeth at the image in the water.
Alas, his own big bone fell with a splash, out of sight, the moment he opened his mouth to bite!
But why did the dog made the wrong decision?
Because instead of looking for bones in the market he was viewing his own illusion in the mirror.
Small companies’ growth implies a big change which means leaving things behind, investing to build a critical mass, and then collecting the growth.
Victoria’s Secret and Mc Donald’s are stories that demonstrate that businesses might be intrinsically expansive but the attitude of the owners is what defines if there is a possibility for growth when they are small.
Small businesses disappear naturally in crises or with their founders. They grow when they begin to fight for the bones that are “unavailable” in the market. The man in the mirror kills businesses.
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Peter Belohlavek
NOTE: The Unicist Research Institute is the major research organization in the world in its specialty based on more than 3,500 ontological researches in complexity sciences, developed since 1976 until September 2010, applied to individual, institutional and social evolution. The applicative researches are based on the discovery of the Ontogenetic Intelligence of Nature and the consequent Unicist Ontology of Evolution.