Sociopathic Business Models

In the land of Bizkat whether you are depressed, hedonistic, or qa sociopath means nothing. He assumes a level of psychological diffraction from the norm at all times. What is important is to categorize what the aberration makes the individual do. For example, a sociopath will relentlessly pursue his own little road to destruction regardless of the collateral damage.

The Kat knows that standing in the way will only bring destruction, but also that it is not easy to stand aside when you do not realize until the gun goes off that you are the target, along with everything around you. It is a strange feeling to wake up and find yourself with your head in your hand, put there by someone you trusted, admired and assisted. Who knew up to the last minute that the revenge was more important than the whole infrastructure and that the dismantling was the sole objective of the enterprise.

The remarkable thing behind the ruin is that it is inevitable because the sociopath does not know why he does what he does. In a book called the sociopath next door you learn that four percent of the population are sociopaths, that means that any medium sized company has a number of these people. Because they are usually smart and sociable, they levitate to the top. When they go they do more damage than when the damn cat heads to his litter box.

Do what Bizkat does when confronted with one of these animals, watch them carefully and keep them from leaving their holes. Then stay as far away from them as you can get, they can only damage and are unable to build.

Those Elusive Balls.

OK, it's all lined up, the ducks are waddling towards completion, contracts risk getting signed, everything appears to be on track, said the Kat. "We got them by the balls," he said with a smirk. "But between reality and the truth there are more than a handful of balls."

You see just because your "client" told you exactly what he had and what he wanted there was an ocean of misinformation. The collateral for the seed money, that seven million dollar piece of land, is actually an old town dump under heavy EPA review. The engineering review that promised a solid foundation for the concrete slab noticed that under the landfill gorf there is a swamp, which is why the landfill went in there in the first place.

A quick trip to Ripoff Report points out that your principal is an honorary member of the Ontario Parole Board, with a bullet! Them balls are starting to look a little soft, you may be dealing with the last of the castrati because all your questions are now being answered by "That's not exactly what I said!" even though you have the tape.

So Kat don't care again, you just call and desist, what was the client responsibility is now your problem.

The World

You can wake up in the morning, or at anytime if you are a cat devoting 70% of your allotted hours to slumber, with the firm intention of shaking up the world only to go back to sleep without even coming close to shaking yourself. In the spirit of changing everything you discover that the only change is within yourself, unless you are a cat, of course.
BizKat has noticed an immutable fact best expressed in French, plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme chose. In other words the more things change, the more they remain the same, or as we say SOS.
Why is that you ask, because of the power of entropy, things get more confused over time and the whole becomes unglued. So any effort to make a significant change will run up against an equal effort to block that change creating stasis.
This an ideal situation for a person who is both afraid of change and fearful of not moving ahead, and how many of us actually fit that description?

What comes around Comes Around

Used to be that one good turn deserved another, do unto others etc, was the norm.  But norm died a long time ago and we are now in the world of that was yesterday, what have you done for me lately? The cat knows that it's a dog eat dog world, and for some reason that's just fine by him!

Recently I introduced a number of people to each other in the solar world.  At the very least I sort of, kinda, hoped that somebody would remember my part in that dance, but no.  Three contracts and two job offers later everybody is doing fine and it is absolutely my fault that I am still on the outside looking in.  I worked diligently with a group up North on some major contracts and just when I thought I had it all nailed down, there has appeared a large black hole into which went every scrap of work.

The cat explains that the reason they toy with their mice before either letting them go or eating them up is simply a reflection on the worldwide philosophy that only the eaten prey counts, everything else is just foreplay.

What did you say?

Yoy get off the phone after a heated discussion and you realize, abiut twenty minutes too late that there were a number of ways you could have handled it better.  You lay it on the cat, discussing what you should have said, told him off, been more upfront or hid your agenda better.
Cat don't care, he learned a long time ago that what was said cannot be unsaid, words, like water, flow under the bridge and are gone. Then you discuss it with someone else, and slowly your shoulda done become did do. The conversation starts to twist and blend into what you really think you said. You become bolder, brighter, more in tune and more to the point. You are a genius, you carried the team, urged on by someone who was not even there.
Cat still don't care, he knows you were a kitten and wilted like a pussy in the snow.

Don't Play with your Prey!

Lessons from the backyard are hard to take sometimes, in this case we can all learn from the one that got away.  As we negotiate million dollar deals to enable project funding through complex financial structures, bizcat advised me that if you are hungry take the first one offered, dispatch it quickly and fill up right there.

I am working on several projects that are stalled at the gate because when the money was available there was always a reason for not taking the deal. It is clear that no offer is either perfect or eternal, but had I reacted at that time and scooped up the dollars to start the business, the business would be started and providing revenues or losses totally unrelated to the reasons why we did not pursue the money.

Clearly not clinching is the greater sin even though we constantly hear others advising us to be ready to walk away if it does not feel right.  That is the difference from a mouse on the deck and bowl full of cat food.  The mouse means work, the bowl means food, but both mean an end to hunger.

Also the longer the cat plays with his food the better the chance of the meal walking off, so as advised look at the deal from the point of view of not finding reasons to walk away, and accept the fact that there is much good in eating it now.

Never get caught nappin!

How many times have you arrived just too late because you put off taking a key step assuming that you had the time to get it done? Happens more often than you might think.

Lawyers have the right idea, never ask a question to which you do not have the answer, it may trip you up at the worst possible moment. In a high level business meeting, asking your counterpart questions about his company will usually only demonstrate your lack of research, and sometimes your lack of sense.  For example, asking an Italian if the proghetti in his company name comes from the Proghetti family business. He will be forced to stifle a laugh and reply that it means projects, just as in English the name manufactturing at the end of your company name does not come from the Manufacturing family. This happened and it underscores that using research in advance of meetings is crucial.

But what if, as Basil the cat points out, you are caught napping.  How do you go from dead stop to full alert quickly enough to counter you rmistake. In his case a swift claw takes care of many things, in our case deflection works better. And humor of course, instead of looking silly, accentuate to the ridiculous to avert further damage. With the Proghetti situation the senior executive could simply have said that he missed that lesson in his language course, anything but hanging his head and as they say in Holland he stood there with his mouth full of teeth.

Of course, sometimes a catnap is just the thing you need to sharpen up for the next test.