116-2008-07-18

We Are What We See and Experience
By W. Owen Thornton

You’ll have to forgive me if I continue writing about mirror neurons but the implications for what they mean to us as human beings, and what they mean in regards to human kindness is enormous!  For a background, please read the introductory portion of article 114: Teddy Bears and Mirror Neurons.  This time I want to address mirror neurons and their impact on the human condition in the business world.  If what we’re beginning to suspect is true about mirror neurons, we do a great deal of damage to human kindness in our work places.  The kinds of actions I’m about to describe, should alarm us all and therefore I’m suggesting they must stop as the cost of continuing to operate in the following manner is too costly to our society and our collective psyche.

The tale I’m about to tell is about a real industry, but I’m not going to highlight it specifically.  I’m going to make it about the automotive industry because it is an international business most of us have a bit of knowledge about.  I caution you that I do not know the specifics of this story, but I do not need to know them.  I do not need to know how many people are laid off when one business buys out another.  We all know that buying companies is done to reduce staff, increase profit, and to round out product lines and other such benefits.  What I want to examine is the enormous, hidden, human cost of buying out companies: hidden because until now we didn’t comprehend the dire impact created by mirror neurons.  We didn’t know about this impact because we didn’t know about mirror neurons. 

While I cannot know what I am about to write is true, if what we have thus far learned about mirror neurons is true, than what I write must be true.  Be cautioned. The first sentence of this paragraph makes a vast leap!  What we know about mirror neurons in short is that A: when we see an action, we experience as though it happened to us.  Place me in an MRI looking at a picture of a smiling person and the same part of my brain reacts in the same way as the brain in the person who is smiling in the picture.  And B: when we see an action, we feel compelled to copy it, but our pre-frontal cortex part of the brain prevents us from having to copy everything we see … but we still “want” to copy everything we see.  Therefore, since this is a scientific fact, every negative consequence in a business is felt by every employee who witnesses it or learns of it, and I will state that I believe because they desire to copy witnessed activities, it grants them permission to commit them on their own in other situations.  I’m working on the natural phenomenon that what’s good here in the business world, must be good over here in another aspect of our lives.   So now, welcome to my mythical universe, which in so many ways, must parallel the real one.

Big Auto Line Limited (BALL) and Small Car Corporation (SCC) are the two principle auto manufacturers in the world producing approximately 95 per cent of all the world’s cars.  BALL has been on a roll for years, gaining market share, but cannot make a dent in the small car market.  Seeing the environmental-writing on the wall and thinking that they will soon lose market share to people wanting smaller cars due to increased petroleum prices, BALL acts before it loses market share and it buys SCC.

Now let’s consider what most of us expect will happen.  Profits should rise as a result.  BALL gains plants to build small cars and it is saved.  BALL gains technology and egress into an entirely new market.  Many administration positions are cut due to duplication.  Older, inefficient plants can be shut down.  Economies of scale will be even greater which should shave more costs off parts etc.

Executives look like stars.  Shareholders are happy.  But before the offices are amalgamated, people live with empty offices next door where fellow employees used to work.  We know the first problem we have with this atmosphere.  Survivors are left wondering when the plug will be pulled on their jobs.  The company didn’t care about Dave or Jan next door (who is no longer working for us) and we’re betting that they don’t care about us either.  The work atmosphere sucks.  Loyalty to the company has not dropped, it is gone!  Every time we see those empty offices, we are reminded of the dismissal.  And soon we will have to cope with a corporate head office move to another city … or a host of people will be moved into these half-vacant offices and so we’ll have to get used to a whole host of new people … who in turn, could be fired at any moment.  (So why would I bother getting to know them, only to experience the hurt of losing a whole new set of work-friends?)

But its more than the empty offices that creates the problem isn’t it?  With mirror neurons and our understanding of them, each time we see a group of people let go, we too are let go.  Think about it.  If my mirror neurons fire when I’m in an MRI when I see the picture of a person smiling, then they fire when I see a person smiling.  And if I watch a person walk out of the building for the last time with their box of personal stuff under their arms, then I’ve experienced it too.  With each firing I watch, I’ve been fired by that company too.  I feel exactly as those people did as they walked out of the building.  A part of me might be glad that I’ve dodged the bullet for now, but a part of me has not dodged that bullet at all.

Let’s, for a moment think about our brains.  A smile means a certain part of the brain is being used.  Brain activity is demonstrated by more blood going to that part of the brain than the rest of the brain.  We can see the ‘hot-spots’ of the brain in usage with each kind of experience we have.  Get a mathematical problem, one part of the brain glows.  Get a word problem … another part.  What’s interesting on a side note, is that this tendency is more pronounced with men than with women.  Regardless of the type of activity, a woman’s brain tends to glow more evenly over its entire surface rather than men who seem to use specific areas of the brain for specific tasks.  One speculation here is that the brains work differently because of one significant and different hormone that is present in men and not so present in women: testosterone.

Regardless of a brain’s “sex” we still have mirror neurons which are making us think and feel like the person’ we’re currently observing.  And when a part of the brain is working it is firing and triggering neurons and parts of the brain … this equals a release of specific types of chemicals which make us feel happy, sad, sleepy, energized, etc.  In fact, we can actually see a rise of certain types of chemicals when a person is happy by examining the blood levels. 

So, back to the case of the two companies.  Those empty offices remind us of the firings and the firings make us feel fired, so every day we see the empty offices are we experiencing being fired over and over and over again?  Now I’m using empty offices as an iconic representation.  It could be fewer people it the lunch room, the fact that Jan is no longer available at breaks to play euchre with, or that Bob’s chair has been withdrawn from boardroom meetings.  Whatever the triggers or signals might be, we relive the experience each time we see, hear or feel the triggers.

Now let’s go back to my original story.  I witnessed two companies with the lion’s share of the market where one bought out the other.  Surely all of the things I suggested have happened along the way.  But a further strategy to save money and increase profits has also harmed each and every employee.  Because BALL bought SCC, there is no discernable competition other than the small car companies selling to specialty markets … the remaining five per cent of the business.  I have since noticed a discernable lack of advertising on television.  BALL doesn’t have to advertise because it has no competition.  Advertising ranges from 10-20 percent of the purchase price of any product.  But in cases of a monopoly, this cost need not be factored into the price.

Now, if we’re about human kindness and we buy a company to save money, increase revenue and to lay-off staff, then we’ve probably already decreased the cost to produce not only our own product but that of the new ones as well.  We COULD pass that savings onto our loyal customers.  Did this happen in the case I’m referring to?  No.  In fact, all ranges of products for both companies were left untouched and the prices went up … or sizes went down with no decrease in price!  With no competition to drive the prices down, and even though the company was saving on advertising costs, the company decided to earn even greater profit from their loyal customers by increasing the cost of all the products. 

So in this marketplace the company saved costs due to better, fewer and more modern facilities, fewer employees, better purchasing costs, less advertising dollars and increased retail prices.  Instead of honoring customers by either reducing prices or at least holding them the same, the company opted to make as much money as it can by increasing prices.  Now, as you know, in a free market economy a company can charge what the market will bear.  And this company has done so.  However, think about the message that is saying to customers and to employees.  Think about it in relation to mirror neurons.  If I was working at that company, and I was aware enough of what was happening, I would see that it is okay to do a lot of unkind things:

• It is okay to lay-off redundant staff
• It is okay to shut down entire plants
• It is desirable to make money, decrease quantity and to increase profits.  Fewer employees is viewed as good as it lowers expenses.  As a member of the management group, I don’t have to care about the people, the towns they live in … etc.  I’m here to run a business and to earn a profit.
• If I have to take a hit on company loyalty, that’s what I have to do.
• It is okay to take advantage of buying in bulk for less money but to not pass the savings on to customers: profit is NOT a dirty word!
• Reducing the cost of advertising places more money in the company coffers and that pleases investors.
• Increasing the price of product even in the face of all of these reductions and benefits is smart because we have a monopoly on the market and no one can stop us.

At last we come to the crux of all of this.  Every employee knows that their work environment is worse off than it used to be before.  Everyone knows that one company doesn’t buy out the other in hopes of losing money, but in order to make it.  Therefore to not only reduce retail prices, but to increase them because no there’s no competition to keep prices low is clearly disrespectful of your customers.  We see the evidence put together.  We experience that which we see and we feel inclined to mirror experiences.  Therefore it must be acceptable to be disrespectful to employees, and customers.  Therefore it must be all right to treat others as we see our employers treating us and our customers.

This means that this kind of behavior where we tend to not care about people staff and customers alike is relived and replayed dozens of times daily in the minds of all the surviving staff because even thinking about it, makes us relive it!  The more we think about it, the more we’re likely to mirror it.  Therefore every time we tend to disregard the people around us, or to take advantage of them, everyone who sees that has taken advantage of others.  Everything we do is seen and felt by anyone who sees it or feels it.  And the more we experience it, the easier it is to duplicate it. 

Is it any wonder then, that most people won’t see a problem with what I’ve just written about?  It’s just business.  That’s the way things are.  That’s the way the game is played.  But do we desire to live in a world where that’s the way life is … do we desire to be granted permission to reduce prices, fire employees, and increase retail prices as “fair” compensation towards our ‘valued’ clients?

Mirror neurons means that everyone is watching everyone else and desires to copy them immediately.  Therefore we need to begin to start asking hard questions about how it is we’ve been operating our businesses.  There’s a huge, negative spin we must begin to think about here.   This in no way suggests that we shouldn’t fire bad employees.  They should be fired with the right causes.  However, even then, we fire every single person who sees them leave for the last time … who witnesses their empty office, who sees their left-behind coffee cup in the lunch room.  Our thoughts go into our brains and fire off the exact same chemicals as were fired in the person who was fired at that time!  Therefore much should be considered when we hire people so that we don’t have to fire them (and everyone else along with them) later.

If we take advantage of our customers, people learn that it is all right to do something like this.  And if they mirror it, then they will take advantage of others in different situations.  But that’s all right … isn’t it?  It’s all about caveat emptor … buyer beware, isn’t it? 

In the past I have mentioned that life is a massive fabric and each of us is a thread in it.  Now, with mirror neurons in the picture, our individual threads are even more important.  Everything we do is experienced by everyone else.  Smile and inside others smile.  Frown, and inside others frown.  Reduce costs and increase prices and everyone else is doing that too.  Now I ask you … is THAT the kind of world you desire to live in?

It is  not the kind of world I desire to live in.  Each day I’ll continue to make mistakes, sure, but I’m hoping I plan and “intend” to do more of the right stuff than that which I know is wrong.  That’s where human kindness lies.  That’s where humanity lies.  And that’s what we’re trying to restore to the world by writing in this web blog.

God Bless

Owen