6 Degrees Of Integration - Clients

dragosroua (74)in #life • 8 years ago

This is the sixth article from the series 6 Degrees Of Integration. There is a list of all the articles that are part of this series at the end of the post.

Value Is Context Dependent, Intention Has Inertia

In the first posts we discussed how value is entirely subjective, context-dependent and how context has an inherent inertia. Our intentions to modify the environment will always need a certain time to manifest and that time depends on the value we have and how adapted that value is to that specific context.

The only thing that we can modify instantly is how we feel and what we do about our current situation, which obviously won’t change the situation instantly, but it will shape the value we create in order to change our experiences in the future.

We realized that we function on flawed hardware and software (our body is decaying every second and we can't understand something if didn't learn that first). So the basic approach to our daily interaction with the world should be: don't believe everything you see and don't believe everything you think.

The first insertion point in the outside world is family (in the sense of the context in which we are brought up). We observed that at the child level we are completely dependent on what we are taught by our parents. At the adult level we use our partner or spouse to make ourselves accountable, and once we get old we reaped what we sowed.

The second insertion point is represented by friends, which are both helping create value (by offering support and validation) and act as a partial context for the value we created.

The third insertion point is represented by guilds, or professional circles. These guilds are helping us to calibrate our skills and complement our services.

Let's move to clients.

The Elusive Place Where All The Money In The World Is

After years of entrepreneurship, dozens of failures and a few successes, I discovered where all the money in the world actually is. It was a very important discovery. As entrepreneurs, most of the time, we stumble in the dark, hoping we will find money somewhere along the path. But this discovery made me realize with absolute certainty that money is in one place and in one place only.

That mythical, elusive place is called "other people's pockets".

I'm not kidding.

Money is always in somebody else's pocket and the whole process of "making money" is, in fact, a way by which you make that money travel from that person pocket into your own pocket. What fools us into thinking money is in many places is the diversity of actions by which we can generate that money trip. For instance, you can cheat that person, you can lie to him or her, you can use force, you can convince, you can do pretty much everything you want.

Most of the time, though, we wrap these activities in a process called transaction. We give something for something else.

And the end result is that some value from that person will come to you.

Limitations, Expectations, Liabilities and Contracts

Now, back to our example: how can we make sure we maximize the value we create in this process and how can we be sure the value is adapted to our context?

Surprisingly enough, the answer to that question, at least for me, pointed in the direction of limitations. If we want to generate a socially accepted transaction, we first must be very clear about what we don't sell. What we can't offer. What we can't deliver.

There is this fundamental flaw of human behavior called "expectations". We all experience it, in various contexts and with various intensities. Expectations have the biggest tainting potential for a transaction. If one part of the transaction has different expectations, then the transaction will fail. Money will remain in its place, regardless of the exchange of skills (services, products, etc). Expectations, if not properly managed, will break any transaction.

So, the first and most important part in dealing with clients is setting up the limitations of our common actions and leveling up the expectations of all the parts involved. That's what contracts are for, basically. A contract is a frame for what can and cannot be delivered in a transaction.

That's only the first level, though. On top of it comes the next level, after we set up our limitations and expectations: what happens if we don't deliver? What are the risks? Who is liable?

And that opens the door for liabilities. We use the same tool for describing liabilities, the good ol' contract. Only this time we don't talk about what we sell and what we receive, but we talk about what happens if we don't deliver.

Our current society is very risk averse. Over many generations, we built layers and layers of relative certainty and we don't accept any change without incurring some penalties to the part provoking that change. If we don't show up in time at work we have to pay somehow. If we don't get what we want from our friends, we frown at them. If it rains when we want sunshine, we're sad.

This behavior is completely unnatural. There is no certainty in our current reality. Or, put it differently, certainty extends only as far as our control extends. And, as I pointed out many times in this series, the only two things we can control in this world is how we feel about what happens to us and what we do when something happens to us.

From that point of view, contracts are increasing the toxicity in our relationship with the clients. They don't take into account the uncontrollable. Or, if they mitigate the risk in some way, they do it very vaguely and always try to protect somebody from somebody else. Which, at the most subtle levels of interaction, means confrontation, polarization, guilt and shame.

A much more reliable approach towards interaction with the clients is to acknowledge the inherent limitation of our current universe and strive to do our best.

In my ideal world, the ideal contract will have only one clause about risk mitigation:

"The two parties agree they will do their best in fulfilling this contract."

That's it. Nothing more.

Now, some of you may argue: wouldn't this open the door to cheating? If there's no coercive consequence, then the natural human behavior will be to take advantage of the other.

In order to answer to this question, I would like you to go back to the previous levels (described in the previous articles of this series). If all the previous levels are treated correctly, there won't be any need for mitigating risk. If everybody understands that we function on flawed hardware and software and we live in our own projected dream about reality, then we will take things much easier. If we will be raised in families that are doing their best, if we will create a reliable circle of friends around us, if we will work constantly with other guilds members, there simply won't be any risk that is not previously accepted and assumed by all the involved parts.

Does this sounds utopian to you? Probably.

But if you look back in human history only 2-300 years ago, a world without slaves was considered utopian too. And yet, this entire concept of humans being a slave to somebody else disappeared. Just 2-300 years ago, having and using slaves was the normality.

Now, having contracts which are enforcing liabilities instead of accepting the inherent uncertainty of the world we live in, well, that's the perceived normal.

It doesn't mean it will always be like this.

In the last post I estimated that we spend around 35% of our time in the last 3 circles: guilds, clients and the world. From that percentage, I think we're about 20% in the clients area all the time.

Which means every 5th action of our lives is geared towards a transaction of some sort.

What was your last one about?

All the articles in this series:

1. 6 Degrees Of Integration - Introduction
2. 6 Degrees Of Integration - You
3. 6 Degrees Of Integration - Family
4. 6 Degrees Of Integration - Friends
5. 6 Degrees Of Integration - Guilds

I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.