Prioprietary Interest and Metabolic Reaction

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Question:

Isn’t what you’re saying about “implementing proprietary interest” really just about using proven, common sense business practices to improve a business?

Answer:

There is no doubt that implementing proprietary interest will precipitate the adoption of successful business systems or “best practices.” While that is a benefit – and an immediate one – it is only a trace of the revolutionary effects of building proprietary interest into every aspect of an organization.

Something additional and profoundly powerful happens.

What occurs is metaphorical to the action of an enzyme in a metabolic process. According to the Science Desk Reference, an enzyme is “a protein that acts as an organic catalyst, affecting the speed of a metabolic reaction.”² A single change acts as a catalyst to affect great change at an accelerated rate. Similarly, the power of proprietary interest is it not only motivates people to adopt “best practices” it acts as a trigger to fully unleash their ability to innovate even better practices through new ideas, new knowledge and new projects!

The old model of minimized proprietary interest (Stated at its nadir as: “Do a good job or you won’t work here anymore.”) is exponentially weaker at fostering innovation than the model of maximum proprietary interest. It is weaker on the level of the individual and it is massively weaker in an organization of many individuals because the deficit compounds geometrically.

Any traditional organization can decide to adopt “best practices” or “re-engineer its processes” but without providing employees with a proprietary interest in the goals behind those efforts, it will fail to unleash the massive metabolic reaction that remains dormant without this powerful catalyst.

Any employee can be put on an incentive plan. But a plan is just that – a predetermined template; usually a template that comes from someone else’s perception of what is possible. The truth is, it is impossible to prejudge what any employee is capable of. Potential innovation is in everyone, everyday! Adopting the revolutionary business model of using a platform of proprietary interaction not only unleashes the creativity and innovation of each individual, it multiples the permutations of innovation by the number of individuals within the organization! Yet despite this explosion of innovation, every single individual has an acute interest in the exact, specific goals of the organization itself – a proprietary interest!

1. Here, “proprietary interest” is defined as: Compensation in proportion to the value created by the ideas and actions of the individual.

2. The New York Public Library Science Desk Reference 1995 (Macmillan, New York)

Proprietary Notice: The ideas in this article are those of the author(s). If you choose to act on these ideas it is a condition of the author(s) that you  do so in a moral way; by communicating acknowledgement to the author(s) and  to others. Moreover, these ideas offer only a hint of the further ideas and valuable products that flow from them. Those ideas and products will only be shared with parties who act morally. The author(s) steadfastly intend to always make it more profitable for anyone to use these ideas morally than to use them without acknowledgement. If you request permission to excerpt or reprint this article you will almost certainly receive it.

© 2002 Volitional Partners and Peter N. Sisco