A corporation is blind to moral interpretations

Franchisees do not help their cause by attacking the individual: franchisor, banker, lawyer, politician.

There are thousands of highly trained, morally-bankrupt MBAs willing to take their place.

Their boot will be just as heavily felt on everyone’s neck.

But I’m not above some the occasional morale-boosting shot.

– The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, 1972

When a franchisor becomes a cultural laughingstock

You are what you eat.

Doug Powell over at Barfblog presents an interesting item in Runs from the border: Taco Bell is mystery Mexican-style restaurant chain ‘A’ 155 sick across US since April.

It’s amazing what $154.6 million over 5 years won’t buy you in the form of brand CEO management.

Franchisees are a tribe

Franchisees need their own rites, ceremonies to navigate their experiences.

Violence is a natural consequence of a breakdown of a functioning myth.

The tribal ceremonies of birth, initiation, marriage, burial, installation, and so forth, serve to translate the individual’s life-crises and life-deeds into classic, impersonal forms. They disclose him to himself, not as this personality or that, but as the warrior, the bride, the widow, the priest, the chieftain; at the same time rehearsing for the rest of the community the old lesson of the archetypal stages.

Joseph Campbell 1904-1987

Franchisees can be man-eaters

Attorneys/corporate types/bankers/hedge fund weasels are the prototypical old world man.

Professions of rationality, knowledge, and individualism. A monopoly on reason. An air of smugness bordering on open contempt.

Just like the 17th century Jesuits in New France.

Franchisees are indigenous peoples; experts in the local landscape.

Jean de Brébeuf‘s career is a case in point:

Attaining sainthood

However, the Iroquois began to win their war with the Hurons. They destroyed a large Huron village in 1648 and on March 16, 1649, 1200 Iroquois captured the mission of St. Ignace and then a few hours later captured another Huron village where they seized Brébeuf and his fellow Jesuit Gabriel Lallemant and brought them back to St. Ignace. There they were fastened to stakes and tortured to death by scalping, mock baptism using boiling water, fire, necklaces of red hot hatchets and mutilation.

According to Catholic tradition, Brébeuf did not make a single outcry while he was being tortured and he astounded the Iroquois, who later cut out his heart and ate it in hopes of gaining his courage.

Going Postal: Self, family then workplace violence (not if but when)

I had covered what Erving Goffman defined as a Total Institution earlier:

…a place of residence and work where a large number of like-situated individuals, cut off from the wider society for an appreciable period of time, together lead an enclosed, formally administered round of life.

Franchised business models can become so intrusive, demanding and dysfunctional as to create an environment that breeds workplace bullying.

Intimidation leads to violence, just as predictably as you see in other “hermetically sealed” institutions such as prisons or non-voluntary psychiatric wards.

I worked at a provincial psychiatric hospital (St. Thomas, ON)  for 9 months as a medical audit coordinator just after my Ivey MBA in 1985. I reviewed hundreds of inpatient and outpatient medical case histories: about 1/3 including the most serious crimes you can imagine that can fall under a Lieutenant-Governor’s Warrant. I interviewed many partners and children and their abuse always, always, always was much earlier, pervasive and shame-filled than the subsequent police and justice system intervention.

I came to appreciate the fragility of mental health and the origins of family violence.

Franchisors set the business model: they are almost 100% responsible for the way humans try to survive an, at times, inhuman situation.

That franchisees can be managed into a situation where they are baited and then  go postal would not be a surprise to any mental health care professional I have ever known. Any minimally competent human relations professional would know that a primary truism in human psychology is: behavior is caused, it very seldom arises from no where.

Workplace violence starts with aggressive thoughts — then — verbal threats and in extreme cases, will manifest itself in property damage and physical assaults. Way before any visible signs (chairs through windows, managers fearing for their safety), the bullying target has become to a danger to “self and others” in their secret places: in their family.

To control a man’s livelihood is to control his life.

When senior management flagrantly bullies a group’s informal leader, this aggression is processed as an assault on everyone that supports that individual. That behavior is beyond the executive’s legitimate authority and is therefore he or she is personally responsible for their actions under the law.

A corporate culture of entitlement, unjustified superiority and arrogance often manifests itself in a preoccupation with form over substance (ie. it’s easier to spin a crisis rather than fix it). When managers push and push and push for no valid business reasons, the most vulnerable (families: partners and children) suffer the most.

Workplace violence is more likely the more management views the target group as a “problem” or as even subhuman (ie. lacking in intelligence, weak mind/strong back).

Individuals who control franchise systems should conduct themselves in a lawful, just and appropriate manner if they happen to be viewed by others.

I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet

I’ll miss newspapers when they’re gone.

McLuhan said you didn’t read a newspaper, you step into one, like taking a bath.

President-elect Obama will be visiting Canada soon. The Toronto Star reports that CBC Radio is holding a poll to select some songs to give to the President as a gift from all Canadians (CBC shuffles Obama’s iPod).

Here’s one of our best. A quirky, abridged version but Is it possible to to hear too much of The Voice?

I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Democracy, Leonard Cohen

It’s coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It’s coming from the feel
that this ain’t exactly real,
or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.
From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

It’s coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin’
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
It’s coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It’s here they got the range
and the machinery of change
and it’s here they got the spiritual thirst.

It’s here the family’s broken
and it’s here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

I’m sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can’t stand the scene.
And I’m neither left or right
I’m just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I’m stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I’m junk but I’m still holding up this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate

Unused verse:

It ain’t comin’ to us European-style,
Concentration camp behind the smile;
It ain’t comin’ from the east
With its temporary feast
As Count Dracula comes strolling down the aisle. (source)

Argot: words in the secret service of a subgroup

1. argot n. the jargon of a group or class, formerly especially of criminals Canadian Oxford English dictionary

2. argot noun – (plural argots)

1. A secret language or conventional slang peculiar to thieves, tramps, and vagabonds.
2. The specialized informal vocabulary and terminology used between people with special skill in a field, such as between doctors, mathematicians or hackers; a jargon.

Example:  The conversation was in the argot of the trade, full of acronyms and abbreviations that made no sense to the uninitiated.
Synonyms

1. (secret language): cant, jargon, slang
2. (specialized vocabulary): jargon Wiktionary

The recurring themes that I see are:

• secrecy [need to conceal from others],
• language at the service of self-interest,
• degree of criminality although not necessarily (ie. see list of drug world argot, prison argot, Prostitution-related jargon),
• words with multiple meanings (to insider versus outsider, uninitiated),
• enables credentialing for evaluating new potential ingroup members, and
• allows connecting and linking diverse user groups, networks and markets, all around the world.

Franchising argot is a communication system widely understood among Big Franchising’s participants, yet it is largely hidden from mainstream culture. A necessary prerequisite to support modern franchising as a confidence game.

There is a need for a language resource to translate franchising words into plain English. I have started by defining terms and collecting examples of industry behavior in the Information Sharing Project.

• My next contribution will be to write a dictionary of franchise terms.

A book similar to Fowler’s Modern English Usage: a style guide to explain mom-and-pop franchise investing. A doubter’s dictionary.

Monomyth: The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell suggests in The Hero with a Thousand Faces that there were 12 steps in a hero’s journey. A similarity across cultures that reflect a deeper understanding that all humans share a common experience: a collective unconscious.

He believed that almost all nominally exterior journeys or trials ran along these lines.

Campbell thought all individuals should Follow your Bliss: say yes to you life’s unique purpose or destiny. A failure to say a hearty yes is the source of most individual pain. Everyone is called to be a hero in their lives.

Mythology or large stories or narratives provides clues to how we are to live our lives. Free will allows us to choose a life-giving or a life-taking philosophy.

• There are real costs (manifested in physical and mental pain in your ordinary life) if you refuse your adventure or get “stuck” along the way.
• I have seen many people in franchising refuse their life-task  (secular vocation from the Latin, vocatio, vocare: a call) because of their fear of death.
• They end up losing their life in the eternally mistaken self-deception that economics or the majority view will preserve it.

I like Christopher Vogler‘s  explanation (below) although this animation is nice too.

The Hero’s Journey

1. The Ordinary World: Potential hero senses that something’s wrong and he might be able to do something about it.  A general uneasiness. (You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson.)

2. A Call to Adventure: It becomes clearer that you have to do something.

3. Refusal of the Call: The natural fear of something different causes you to resist changing anything.

4. Meeting with a Mentor: You are provided what seems to be supernatural aid to move you along in your trip. (At last.)

5. Crossing the 1st Threshold: Move in to a different world. The preparation has been done; now it is the start of doing. (We’re in.)

6. Test Allies & Enemies: You experience the new world; what you can eat and what will eat you.

7. Approach: Getting ready to face the big battle. Rehearsal. (Guns; Lots of guns.)

8. Ordeal: You face your biggest fear. You face and deal with your death. Test.

9. Reward, gifts  if you Survive: A new awareness. A re-ordering.

10. The Road Back: Call to come back to the ordinary world or face annihilation. Often a chase scene. (He’s beginning to believe.)

11. Rebirth, resurrection: You face death once again but in a more final, deeper way. Tested on your understanding of the lessons the journey has manifested to you.

12. Return with the Elixir: It’s all worthless effort if the prize is not returned for everyone’s benefit. (ie. Golden Fleece, Holy Grail, Star Wars, Fisher King, The Matrix: personal change but profiting the group by affirming and restoring life).

Franchisees: master storytellers caught in a literate machine

Franchisees have primarily retained their geographically-specific, oral culture. As a species we have survived because of our ability to listen to and tell stories (a narrative), appropriate to a specific narrowly-defined physical landscape.

• We’ve never needed to be that smart at rational decision making, especially if time and complexity are added.
• We’ve evolved to look for dangers in certain places only.

The most vibrant research is coming out of the fields of behavioral finance, social psychology, law and economics, neuroeconomics, etc.

• Basically, we walk around scratching ourselves with a belief that our rational brain (neocortex) is in charge, while in fact, 90% of what we do is caused or strongly influenced by our reptilian brain or the limbic system. [We think Spock is in control but we behave as if we're Lucy Ball.]

Mankind has evolved primarily as a member of tribal structure within a hostile natural environment. Only since the industrial revolution,  has a phonetic alphabet gained its ascendancy in the West.

Our culture (Literate Man) views oral or tribal civilizations as more primitive, backward. Voltaire’s Bastards worked very hard to stuff the native genie in the bottle and they were extremely successful in doing so. There were some unintended consequences (externalities) though with this world view: slavery, theft, genocide, arms race, environmental collapse…

The printing press was the technology that revolutionized Western civilization. It brought with it many impressive and life-enhancing benefits. These, through a rational, Literate Man’s eyes, make them superior to the older, oral traditions.

The Gutenberg Galaxy (phonetic literacy) is an infinitely repeatable, homogenous and repetitive juggernaut. Franchise agreement is an example of an archetypal, industrial revolution machine. It is a colonial instrument intended to be used to control the savages (see indentured service).

A new technology (electronics) came along and now we in the West are in a postliterate age. And this scares the hell out of the self-identifying rational Supermen (ie. the franchise bar). They can hear the drum beats over at Blue MauMau.

• All the franchisees have to do is to cast off their own blinders and assume their rightful leadership role via internet information sharing.

We know how to flip the switch, notwithstanding the huffing and puffing.

— Modern Times, Charlie Chaplin

Franchisees are similar to an indigenous people

The basic premise of franchising only works when local owners are more experts in their own business “landscape” than some would be some far-removed head office or franchisor.

• In hardball economics, they must be able to drive their sales higher, faster,  AND at a higher margin while at the same time more than compensating for the increased costs of being a franchise (tax drag). If this local competitive edge is missing, there is no economic justification for buying a franchise. Period. End of story -30-

Expansion through franchising and a scorched earth military-style strategy are oxymorons. Thinking that you can destroy in order to save, is as much lunacy in franchising as it is in Iraq or non-traditional military actions. Killing insurgents willy-nilly, today, alienates those who you must co-operate with tomorrow.

• Franchising was created to embrace, to utilize local diversity.
• The top-down, legalistic cookie-cutter mentality that has taken over franchising is what is killing it.

I remember, with over 10 years hindsight, distinctly when my hints of a latent spatial strength, my geographic nature, came forward.

1. It was manifested in the fear I saw in my franchisor’s face.

Larry the franchisor had just told me that I should get my 68 year-old mother to sign over another $50,000 so I could pay my “debts” to the head office. (Long boring story…)

I rose up from my chair (we were seated in my office in house; actually in the house I was raised in) and said:

• “Larry, that’s it. Do what you want: I’m going to be right here next year.”

I didn’t mean it as a threat or anything; to me I was just predicting that I’ll be right here and you won’t be. Until then, I did not appreciate how isolated, fearful and mechanical most franchisors feel.

2. I saw the same phenomenon when Nutri-Lawn’s lawyer (Mr. Tonu Toome) had to show up to my local Courthouse to plead their “irreparable harm” motion to enforce their non-compete clause. Nutri-Lawn had failed to specify that they owned my customer list and at that stage, I was not prepared to just hand it over.

Mr. Toome was asked by Justice Paul Herminston several questions to which this experienced Toronto lawyer could not easily answer. (Note to Other: It’s not that litigators can’t read. It’s just that they get used to not having to).

Since I represented myself at the two-hour hearing (this is why the injunctive hearing had to be heard on my home turf), I was thumbing through my pretty well-organized papers just in case I was asked the same question.

• Justice Herminston asked me if I could answer his 2nd question as it appeared I was prepared.
• After that, he asked me all the questions.

Justice Herminston decided that I pay the product tab but let me continue on in the lawn care business long enough to get to trial (over the winter and 9 months later).

• When I look back, I think geography and time (my social equity) had something to do with being given the chance to live to fight another day.

I did not know Justice Herminston and never talked to him before he died. I suspect, however,  that I knew some people he did (very close degrees of separation in  a 50,000 population city like Barrie).

• Relationships (blood, kin, community, adopted, group, nation, etc.) and land (franchising is all about real estate) are the very essence of the North American aboriginal experience.

Canadian First Nations have suffered over the 400 years because their culture (personal and group identity, language, culture, self-image, sense of confidence, leadership, myths, etc.) were changed to a foreign model.

• Franchisees, whether they care to admit it or not, share in those types of experiences.