Why the good guys always win
by Britton LaRoche · 05/10/2008 (1:58 pm) · 11 comments
Some one once said "the way of love and truth will always win." ((Gandhi) And I'd like to take a moment to reflect on this solid fact. I've been around in the business world and started my own company. I've been a consultant for 12 years now in the software industry. I'd like to share Britton's laws for ethical business practice and doing well in business.
I'd like to shed some light in this blog on the whole good vs evil thing and the way it plays out in the real world of business. I could go on for ever as to why its the right thing to do to be ethical and good in business, but I'm not going to tackle this from a moral point of view. I'm going to tackle it from a purely scientific point of view.
People who are doing really bad things are usually only focused on the money. I'd like to propose a simple truth about making money in the real business world. It follows the same laws that everything in the universe follow. Lets start with the first few laws of thermodynamics.
Thermodynamics
------------------------------
1. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. The amount of energy lost in a steady state process cannot be greater than the amount of energy gained. The sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero.
2. The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. Left alone most systems go from an ordered state to a state of chaos.
3. As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum. When all the heat in a system is gone nothing changes.
---
Lets translate these laws to the business world. Translate heat into time and energy invested and the "work" of a system as the results, the output or "money" if you will.
---
Business
------------------------------
1. The sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero. What you get out of your efforts is what you put into it. If you do not add value to your consumers you will not make money.
2. Left alone with no effort or input (no work on your part) your business will go from order to chaos. If your business gets bigger and you don't properly manage it, you will get some unwanted "fat" overhead. People on your team may fail to pull their weight, but wont fail to cash their paycheck. If you stop putting energy into your business system, it will begin to fall apart.
3. When no heat or energy is put in long enough the business will make absolute zero dollars.
Evil = Entropy / Chaos, Short Term Gain with out adding value.
I've seen lots of people in business to some really terrible things trying to cash out and make a quick buck.
I've seen companies cut costs and layoff people in times of record profit hoping to sell out to another larger company. This strategy always fails. Recently I see this strategy everywhere.
One of my clients ran a report from SAP and found they were losing 4 million a month in there business. They decided to save money by cutting costs and got rid of a bunch of employees. Employees = work. Reduce the heat in a system and what happens in the laws of thermodynamics? Well you are putting less heat in so less work gets done. I told them that this was a very bad idea with the above logic.
Guess what. They went with the SAP report. My client saved 8 million in two months, but they failed to meet the software deliverables. The penalties for not meeting the deliverables on time in the contracts with their customers was 50 million dollars. Net loss = 42 million.
Did they learn the lesson? Not from a moral point of view, but they did hire a lawyer to review all the contracts before they cut anymore employees.
Lets put this to the test. I can tell you that Garage Games is filled with good guys that add value. I can also tell you that they will win. Its the simple laws of good business in my opinion. If you add value, your work has value and its worth something. Over time people will discover this and pay money for the value put into the product. I see lots of value in garage games. Good business, hard work, ethics and morals equates to making money.
I'd like to shed some light in this blog on the whole good vs evil thing and the way it plays out in the real world of business. I could go on for ever as to why its the right thing to do to be ethical and good in business, but I'm not going to tackle this from a moral point of view. I'm going to tackle it from a purely scientific point of view.
People who are doing really bad things are usually only focused on the money. I'd like to propose a simple truth about making money in the real business world. It follows the same laws that everything in the universe follow. Lets start with the first few laws of thermodynamics.
Thermodynamics
------------------------------
1. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. The amount of energy lost in a steady state process cannot be greater than the amount of energy gained. The sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero.
2. The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium. Left alone most systems go from an ordered state to a state of chaos.
3. As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum. When all the heat in a system is gone nothing changes.
---
Lets translate these laws to the business world. Translate heat into time and energy invested and the "work" of a system as the results, the output or "money" if you will.
---
Business
------------------------------
1. The sum of net heat supplied to the system and the net work done by the system is equal to zero. What you get out of your efforts is what you put into it. If you do not add value to your consumers you will not make money.
2. Left alone with no effort or input (no work on your part) your business will go from order to chaos. If your business gets bigger and you don't properly manage it, you will get some unwanted "fat" overhead. People on your team may fail to pull their weight, but wont fail to cash their paycheck. If you stop putting energy into your business system, it will begin to fall apart.
3. When no heat or energy is put in long enough the business will make absolute zero dollars.
Evil = Entropy / Chaos, Short Term Gain with out adding value.
I've seen lots of people in business to some really terrible things trying to cash out and make a quick buck.
I've seen companies cut costs and layoff people in times of record profit hoping to sell out to another larger company. This strategy always fails. Recently I see this strategy everywhere.
One of my clients ran a report from SAP and found they were losing 4 million a month in there business. They decided to save money by cutting costs and got rid of a bunch of employees. Employees = work. Reduce the heat in a system and what happens in the laws of thermodynamics? Well you are putting less heat in so less work gets done. I told them that this was a very bad idea with the above logic.
Guess what. They went with the SAP report. My client saved 8 million in two months, but they failed to meet the software deliverables. The penalties for not meeting the deliverables on time in the contracts with their customers was 50 million dollars. Net loss = 42 million.
Did they learn the lesson? Not from a moral point of view, but they did hire a lawyer to review all the contracts before they cut anymore employees.
Lets put this to the test. I can tell you that Garage Games is filled with good guys that add value. I can also tell you that they will win. Its the simple laws of good business in my opinion. If you add value, your work has value and its worth something. Over time people will discover this and pay money for the value put into the product. I see lots of value in garage games. Good business, hard work, ethics and morals equates to making money.
#2
So, being the devil can sometimes be a lot of hard work, but hard work doesn't make things right...
05/11/2008 (1:29 am)
Also, some gangsters put a lot of work and funding into creating new drugs that are more powerfull and harder to detect...So, being the devil can sometimes be a lot of hard work, but hard work doesn't make things right...
#3
05/11/2008 (4:54 am)
I can't agree with that at all. If you want to succeed you need a strategic mindset, wether you are "good" or "evil". And being strategic in order to grow comes down to putting others out of business or join with them to gain a greater market share.
#4
It can cost the same money whether or not your employees are pulling their fair share of the load.
Everyday there will be those that pull up the slack to cover those that are slacking.. the dead weight takes care of itself.. those slackers eventually cause reason to be fired, and in doing so makes room for those that are seeking work and will start as a new employee for less pay.
The ones that take up the slack are often never satisfied with their current pay rate and will try to acheive a balance for themselves.
From an Insiders view:
Work done equals same pay check but the bonus is hope to achieve more pay.. usually does happen.
Slackers often will show up late and do poor work, collect a check on payday and always seek a way out of their current employment.. they generate their own karma.. they usually get what they seek which is a new job, less pay and more chaos.. it's what they live for.. they revel in it.
As an ex-business owner: My costs for materials was high, I passed that along to the customer.. I also planted a money seed in the form of free services that made my company stand out from the others. It regenerates it's self in the form of new customers to a point that I hired employees who shared the same mind set.
The law of physics says that a thing at rest tends to stay at rest:
There is the Positive side and the Negative side both absolute and both need the other for existence.
As for Wal-mart being evil?.. depends on your perspective.. for some.. Wal-Mart is a god send that feeds their families while for others Wal-Mart is the evil demon that always stays hungry and will take anything it can get. Again this all depends on your perspective.
As for me.. I always say: Perception is Reality... Those people that believe something is evil, will always believe it.. even when it's not factual and no matter how you try to persuade them.
Another example or Perception is Reality:
Red traffic lights may look another color to a person we deem as being color blind.
For that color blind person, that Red Traffic light is Yellow or perhaps Green.
All in all, i enjoyed this blog post, Thanks Britton
/smile
05/11/2008 (7:45 am)
From a business point of view: It can cost the same money whether or not your employees are pulling their fair share of the load.
Everyday there will be those that pull up the slack to cover those that are slacking.. the dead weight takes care of itself.. those slackers eventually cause reason to be fired, and in doing so makes room for those that are seeking work and will start as a new employee for less pay.
The ones that take up the slack are often never satisfied with their current pay rate and will try to acheive a balance for themselves.
From an Insiders view:
Work done equals same pay check but the bonus is hope to achieve more pay.. usually does happen.
Slackers often will show up late and do poor work, collect a check on payday and always seek a way out of their current employment.. they generate their own karma.. they usually get what they seek which is a new job, less pay and more chaos.. it's what they live for.. they revel in it.
As an ex-business owner: My costs for materials was high, I passed that along to the customer.. I also planted a money seed in the form of free services that made my company stand out from the others. It regenerates it's self in the form of new customers to a point that I hired employees who shared the same mind set.
The law of physics says that a thing at rest tends to stay at rest:
There is the Positive side and the Negative side both absolute and both need the other for existence.
As for Wal-mart being evil?.. depends on your perspective.. for some.. Wal-Mart is a god send that feeds their families while for others Wal-Mart is the evil demon that always stays hungry and will take anything it can get. Again this all depends on your perspective.
As for me.. I always say: Perception is Reality... Those people that believe something is evil, will always believe it.. even when it's not factual and no matter how you try to persuade them.
Another example or Perception is Reality:
Red traffic lights may look another color to a person we deem as being color blind.
For that color blind person, that Red Traffic light is Yellow or perhaps Green.
All in all, i enjoyed this blog post, Thanks Britton
/smile
#5
05/12/2008 (3:47 pm)
"The greatest evil is the indifference of good men."
#6
good = hard work and creating something of value.
bad = taking with out contributing, or reducing the amount of work put into a system and charging the same price.
bad = short term gain, disastrous future.
Is stand by it as universal law. Should garage games sell out to a larger company, and all the employees quit, and they charge more money for the torque game engine... say $2,500. Is this a good thing? What would be the future of the Torque Game Engine?
Applying the laws above it would reduce in value until it reached absolute zero. Fact look at Atari.. Look at Sierra, Vivendi, Watch em drop to nothing. Tell me it ain't so. Wanna short a stock? I predict the ACTIVISION BLIZZARD will be the biggest money loser of all time.
Its a universal law as solid as gravity.
quote.yahoo.com/q?s=ATAR.PK
www.sierra.com/en/home.html
www.sierra.com/en/home/news/corporate_news/120207_-_activision-blizzard.html
05/12/2008 (9:20 pm)
Perhaps I should put it this way: good = hard work and creating something of value.
bad = taking with out contributing, or reducing the amount of work put into a system and charging the same price.
bad = short term gain, disastrous future.
Is stand by it as universal law. Should garage games sell out to a larger company, and all the employees quit, and they charge more money for the torque game engine... say $2,500. Is this a good thing? What would be the future of the Torque Game Engine?
Applying the laws above it would reduce in value until it reached absolute zero. Fact look at Atari.. Look at Sierra, Vivendi, Watch em drop to nothing. Tell me it ain't so. Wanna short a stock? I predict the ACTIVISION BLIZZARD will be the biggest money loser of all time.
Its a universal law as solid as gravity.
quote.yahoo.com/q?s=ATAR.PK
www.sierra.com/en/home.html
www.sierra.com/en/home/news/corporate_news/120207_-_activision-blizzard.html
#7
The deal above smells like the good old buy spin and shut it down to milk a short term profit. Don't trust me, don't believe me... just look at the results 3 years from now.
05/12/2008 (9:27 pm)
Not going to edit this post. But I want to spell it out. Blizzard sold out. World of War craft will hence forth begin to suck. Lay offs and cuts, and evil accountants who reduce energy in the system are already at play. Sure there is a lot of good in the system, so it will take time for all the energy to dissipate, but trust me it will.The deal above smells like the good old buy spin and shut it down to milk a short term profit. Don't trust me, don't believe me... just look at the results 3 years from now.
#8
quote.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ATVI#chart3:symbol=atvi;range=2y;indicator=volume;char...
05/12/2008 (9:35 pm)
Dec 2 2007 is when the deal struck, Short term it will make gains... but by 2011 it will have dropped to nothing, thats my belief and we will watch it. Lets put it to the test. I picked it because its done nothing but go up in the past year.quote.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ATVI#chart3:symbol=atvi;range=2y;indicator=volume;char...
#9
www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-681316081.html
Vivendi's video game sales sank 28% to about $700 million last year and the company reported an operating loss of $250 million. A year earlier, Vivendi had posted a profit of 7 $77 million.
The problem: a lack of hit games.
Blizzard spun its self off... lets see what happens. (NOTICE IN THE ARTICLE BLIZZARD DODGES CUTS)
The point of all of this rant is this. Working employees = energy in the system = good. Cuts = no energy in the system bad.
How can anyone say otherwise?
05/12/2008 (9:44 pm)
Here is a nice post on Vivendi back in 2004,www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-681316081.html
Vivendi's video game sales sank 28% to about $700 million last year and the company reported an operating loss of $250 million. A year earlier, Vivendi had posted a profit of 7 $77 million.
The problem: a lack of hit games.
Blizzard spun its self off... lets see what happens. (NOTICE IN THE ARTICLE BLIZZARD DODGES CUTS)
The point of all of this rant is this. Working employees = energy in the system = good. Cuts = no energy in the system bad.
How can anyone say otherwise?
#10
www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=170688
05/12/2008 (10:02 pm)
enough said... SIERRA is dead... more deaths to follow as energy is taken out of the activism blizzard system. Its all about money and not about games or anything good.www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=170688
#11
And like mindless zombies out for a snack they will stagger on looking for more money to consume...
Well when the dust settles, something new may come along...
12/23/2008 (4:50 am)
They will milk the cow dry and put it down...And like mindless zombies out for a snack they will stagger on looking for more money to consume...
Well when the dust settles, something new may come along...
Torque Owner Mark
Default Studio Name
Adding value to customers. I'm not really sure about this. You got the food companies feeding people absolute garbage. McDonalds, Burger King, etc. Not saying the consumers aren't to blame for this as well, considering they are always looking for shortcuts to every aspect of life - and fast food should be the crowning example, but I don't know. Giving my customers something that's unhealthy for them isn't really my idea of adding value to them. The value these people put in customers? What's in their pocketbook and how much they can give them.
Now I'm not suggesting every corporation is a repugnant pile of buffalo feces...(maybe) but when you look around, you have to admit, it's the assholes, the bastards, the morons, the ungrateful... the people we all hate most that are marching along just dandy.
Now reading your story above, you are clearly a person of success. But one thing I have noticed, it's not unusual to see someone attatch this MAGIC to their success story; like it was some devine universal secret that got them to where they are. You can watch YouTube videos of people that were born in rich families and living in wonderful homes saying "I watched 'The Secret' and it is so true! It's WORKED FOR ME!" - - Then you watch another video of someone living in a run down house in a low socio economic neighborhood with a crap family saying " 'The Secret' is total, utter bullshit."
IMO - evil prevails... nice guys finish last, aka, the day they die.