We are not biologically equipped to live a consumer world.
A very long time ago, our ancestors were living in dangerous surroundings, struggling to find food and shelter. Every possession was something that could help them survive, and thus reproduce and transmit their genes. These genes are those we have right now. Immediate pleasure was then a condition to survival : natural selection has given us the same brain-activation as those long gone ancestors. The thing is, we don't live in need anymore, if we want food we'll buy it at the next door stores, which in cities are open 24 hours a day, all week long. We have all the clothing that we need to feel warm, we build houses that (mostly) doesn't break under a storm. However, we still crave for more, searching for the thrill of immediate pleasure, that's how our genes build our brains.
There are visible consequences to this : if I can reach food every time I want it, but am not able to be satisfied with a reasonable portion, I will grow fat. If I buy expensive housewares every time I feel the need to, my hard earned money will be gone in a blink. If I borrow money to buy a house too big for my income, I'll have to contract a debt... The list goes on and on, and the more my brains are flooded with "positive" chemical, the more I'll want to reproduce the processus, growing fatter, broke and in debt.
Since the world changes faster than our biological elements, the easiest way is probably to count on another lust : a long waited desire is usually worth the waiting. The good old cold shower of the financial crisis might have awoken the part of the world that had forgotten that. Companies might want to learn this fast : their clients won't be ready to support them in a direction that lack meaning. The world is going to change, it's already changing. At the borders, these changes are highly noticeable; it is also moving in the center, with less clues. Changing a company will be a lot smoothier and faster than trying to change mankind into something that fits in its business plans.
Technologies are at help at that, like in knowing to whom your trying to sell, what their real needs are and where you could fit in them. Or even knowing the very people your company is composed of. Because, well, yes, your company is nothing but people. Human beings with aims, dreams and capacities, that are fit (as their ancestors were) to collaborate to survive. Are you sure that your goals in work are the same as your subordinates ? Can a system be efficient if its components are trying to do opposite things ? It is true for the people working together, it is also true for companies that do the same thing. Since we can't survive alone as individuals, companies can't either : two working together are always more efficient. Life is not a jungle, commerce is not a war : (I am going to use a cheesy image, I'm sorry for that) If you just go on at trying to drown the each others, the odds are you're all going to disappear. if you hold hands with your competitors, you might all survive (well, at least the fittiest ones).
American Dream a Biological Impossibility, Neuroscientist Says
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/american-dream.html
Language: english
Par
Maryline Désirest