The case study involving Mr. Kürner showed how, even in an extremely competitive environment, jobs can not only be saved, but also created. After all, Kürner hired new employees after successfully turning the business around and, through franchising, passed his strategic experience on to others in neighboring cities. There is another, equally interesting approach that is applicable in almost every job situation and business sector, and the EKS program provides an excellent case study here as well³⁷.  Mewes provided three bits of advice that helped a book-keeper, Mr. Brandes, to resounding success.

Brandes had successfully completed an accounting course, but was unable to land a suitable job. He thought that the problem might lie in his weak job applications, and he paid a visit to Mewes for coaching on how to improve the style and content of the applications.

Mewes compiled a performance profile of this customer using a so-called difference analysis (Fig. 12). The analysis showed that the accountant in fact had little chances of success. In almost every key sector he was inferior to any halfway experienced accountant. On the other hand, the analysis revealed a unique quality that Mewes suggested he “nurture”. Brandes once worked for a company that had erected a new plant on the country’s border . In this particular field, Brandes had acquired exceptional skills and knowledge. In order to promote development in such regions in the various provinces, the German government had enacted numerous laws designed to attract investors. Businesses that settled in such disadvantaged regions were granted numerous advantages on the federal, state and county levels. Those who knew the ropes reaped major benefits and savings. Mewes writes, “In this sector he knew more than most other accountants, but in other sectors he knew less. Developing a special niche, however, only makes sense when a demand exists. We tested the market by placing a job advertisement in which Brandes offered his services as a “specialist for regional subsidies”.

Fig. 12: The performance profile of the balance accountant Mr. Brandes (see text). From W. Mewes 1972-1976, Lesson I.
(Management...management, Führungstechnik...leadership techniques, Betriebsorganisation...business organization, Buchführung...bookkeeping, Bilanzrecht...balance law, Steuerwesen...tax, Finanzierung...financing, Buchführungsorganisation...book keeping organization, Wirtschaftsrecht...business law, Kostenrechnung...cost calculation, Betriebswirtschaftslehre...business management, Zonenrandförderung...regional subsidies, kaufm. Rechnen...business calculation, Verhandlungstechnik...negotiating skills, usw...etc., normales Leistungsprofil eines Buchhalter...normal performance profile in accountants, Leistungsprofil von Brandes...Brandes’ performance profile)
 

No less than 42 offers came pouring in. For Brandes, the situation had taken a dramatic turn. In all his past interviews, personnel managers had unmistakably let Brandes know that “many more applicants were standing in line if Brandes wouldn’t accept the dictated conditions”. And during his interviews, he had difficulty concealing the thought that “all the pain and effort will have again been for naught if this job doesn’t come through.”  Now, however, Brandes encountered an entirely new interview atmosphere. Mewes: “Because a specialist for regional subsidies was a rare bird indeed, prospective employers took a great deal more time in negotiating with him. His imperfect skills as an accountant played virtually no role at all – the emphasis was solely on his special skills.”

At his new job, his task was to find the most advantageous site for a planned branch, to calculate costs at each prospective location, to prepare the necessary negotiations, and to seek optimal tax benefits and other advantages. “Backed up with a few more EKS suggestions, it was a mere two months before he was more versed in this sector than any competitor.”

Although he initially had only a small headstart, his proficiency increased in leaps and bounds. New and vital information seemed to automatically pour in from all sides, he made important business contacts, and his knowledge consolidated until he was the recognized capacity in the field. The deep-seated fear, apathy and isolation associated with his past failures were converted into increasing confidence, optimism and energy. He soon became the office’s acknowledged contact for building and outfitting the new branch. He had the organizational know-how, the best hiring skills, and the negotiating talent to deal with government authorities. When the board of directors sought an administrative director for the new plant, his name logically came up in the list of candidates. Mewes: “The story could have evolved differently, yet once the ball begins to roll, inertia tends to move it in a particular direction”. In this case, Brandes became the administrative director and received a major raise only 18 months after first being hired.

This new position opened many new doors. His reputation and image, along with his confidence, grew. His name became mentioned in high places. His influence and status in the parent company increased.

At the same time, Brandes recognized that he lacked important qualifications for the new task. This once again led him to Mewes, who was entrusted with helping him “gain intellectual ground as rapidly as possible.”

Any other consultant would have jumped at the opportunity. Brandes was “excellent material” for the next career step: all that was necessary was to consolidate and build on his capability. The EKS, however, took a different tack. Mewes reported:  “Why expand into new sectors that others have better mastery of and where the chances of success are slim – especially if you haven’t yet reached the peak in your own field.” After all, “Top-notch ability is better rewarded, and more rewarding, than all-round knowledge.”

Rather than simply dealing with the branch director’s immediate problems, a new and more sophisticated trial balloon was released. Under the bold headline “special consultant for regional subsidies”, the advertisement asked: “Is your site still optimal – Do you need better motivated employees? – Do you want to produce more rationally and cheaper? The subsidies for building a facility in a border region can exceed your construction costs and improve your liquidity. Specialist can help in planning, establishing contacts, site selection and calculation, negotiations, hiring personnel and raising capital… .”

This advertisement elicited more than 80 responses. Queries rolled in not only from potential clients, but also from business consultants, building contractors and business planning offices. Financiers, banks and venture capitalists also came knocking. And every new contact opened the door to a whole series of other potential clients. This prompted Brandes to quit his new, promising job and become an independent consultant – a businessman.

In the following two years he was responsible for completing 18 construction projects in addition to his normal consulting activity. He became a recognized name. Trade organizations, professional associations and other business sectors vied for his attention. Foreign firms and investors sought his advise, along with municipalities, ministries and aid agencies; representatives of underdeveloped regions came knocking at his door. A mere four years ago he was mired in a struggle to land a job as an accountant, and now he was confronted with the problem of rejecting interesting business propositions.

The story doesn’t end here, though. Mewes once again stepped in to fine-tune Brandes’ career. This time the effort basically involved changing two words. One of the EKS guidelines states: “Don’t specialize on a burning, short-term demand, but set your sights on a long-lasting basic need!”  The assumption in the case of the regional subsidies for underdeveloped zones was that this system would remain in place for some time, but this was by no means certain. The solution was to change Brandes’ job description from the highly profitable “Specialist for regional subsidies” to the far more stable and crisis-proof  “Specialist for siting problems”.  In industrial nations, such siting problems exist in every city and at any moment in time. Whenever a new facility is built, the same question arises: “where is the optimal site?” In particular, large corporations must increasingly deal with the issue of which production sectors to shift to developing countries with more favorable wage levels. What advantages can such sites offer? What risks might cancel out these benefits?

This third strategic piece of advice not only freed Brandes from the potential legislative vagaries in his own country, but opened up the international market for him. A mere five years after beginning this career, he and his new staff were busy scouting opportunities for setting up businesses in Berlin, former Yugoslavia, Ireland and Spain. This was followed by Turkey, the Bahamas, North Africa and an ever-expanding range of countries. Brandes and his partners increasingly specialized in making package deals that included project planning, design, funding, construction and furnishing – basically delivering fully operational facilities. The tree was firmly planted and the branches could now begin to grow and bloom.

Mewes’ comment: “Was this success attributable to exceptional intelligence, energy and funding? Or was it merely a better strategy, a more effective application of an entirely normal level of effort?”

Clear parallels can be drawn to the case study involving Kürner. Brandes’ approach clearly did not involve altruistic considerations in the sense of universal mores. His goal had been to gain a decisive advantage over potential competitors. And if he decided to retire early, he could easily license his know-how, his experience, to others. This was laudable because it helped the economy at every level. While Kürner did snap customers away from his competitors in a very narrow sector, he entrusted those very same competitors with former clients whose other cleaning needs he no longer fulfilled. If someone approached him with cleaning job that did not involve curtains and drapes, he referred them to the competition. He therefore actually helped defuse the competitive stress. In Brandes’ case, no one suffered negative repercussions because he created a new job sector from scratch. In fact, Brandes even fostered emulators by serving as a role model – clearly without any intention of “doing a good deed”. New jobs arose “out of the blue”.

This is particularly important from the OBS perspective. The idea is to determine where human progress leads to opportunities to solve budding problems, i.e. those that may not yet have been fully recognized. Predatory business tactics – the psychosplit – complicate this task because predatory instincts are directed at specific prey items. Here, human fantasy creates a new dimension and provides a new impulse that can be promoted by strategic measures.

Mewes writes, “Since 1900, the functions (tasks) in the German economy have specialized at a ratio of about 1 to 10,000, but in job applicants this proportion lags behind at perhaps 1 to 100. The result is that our economy and society have developed an underlying need for countless new professions; these, however, are only recognized once the new professions or capabilities enter the market, i.e. once we register them on our radar screens. Kürner conquered a new business niche by targeting the needs of only a few. Brandes, on the other hand, took a different course to escape the competition, not by identifying a gap in the existing spectrum of occupations, but by focusing on a need that no one had previously exploited commercially. He successfully pursued a new business opportunity off the trodden path.

Neither of these strategies are new. Both have promoted evolution over the last 4000 million years. In countless cases, ever stronger competition gave rise to new species that were more adept at conquering some part of their habitat. Darwin was among the first to show the motor behind this development: more progeny are produced than can survive, and these progeny differ in their features rather than all being the same. Such variations typically reduce the chances of survival, but in some cases improve fitness, either compared with “normal” conspecifics or in new habitats.

If, among the thousands or ten thousands of young that a pair of fishes can produce, one individual develops an elongated, forceps-like mouth rather than the normal mouth shape, then this fish is less efficient in hunting the species’ normal prey. On the other hand, it can do something that its conspecifics cannot – it can use its elongated mouth to capture small animals hidden in narrow spaces, prey which is inaccessible to its siblings. This trait is hereditary and the animal passes it on to its progeny. In successive generations, additional mutations may further reinforce this “deformity”, leading to an even thinner and longer jaw apparatus. This enhances the advantage, ultimately giving rise to a new species capable of utilizing a new source of energy – much like Kürner and his franchising partners in the midst of traditional cleaners.

The path that Brandes chose to escape stifling competition is equally important in evolution. Altered genetic make-ups can also yield capabilities that enable entirely new life strategies. A striking example is the development of multicellular organisms from the unicellular organisms. This involved a minor behavioral change in which the individuals arising from division did not separate but adhered to one another. This led to aggregations that, over the course of evolution, developed a division of labor within the resulting “colonies”. We ourselves represent such a structure. It also led to new structures and behaviors that enabled certain aquatic plants and animals to conquer dry land. This step, taken 400 to 350 million years ago, gave rise to all modern terrestrial organisms. We can cite a much more current example – the very rapid appearance of new, “resistant” bacteria and viruses that no longer respond to medication and therefore successfully conquer “new habitats” – namely the human body.

The very same principle is involved when we introduce innovations that open up new opportunities. Whether this process is driven by chance or intelligence is inconsequential. What counts is success. For Brandes, both these factors played a role: intelligence (that of Mewes) and chance (the fact that Brandes called upon Mewes in his effort to land a better accountant job).

Let’s return to the psychosplit and to the problem of unemployed persons living in regions where there are many needs that are not being met. Why do the available opportunities go unrecognized? Are misguided instinct control mechanisms at fault? Why did Kürner and Brandes need outside help to switch their behavioral strategies?

The simple answer is: because intelligence or fantasy alone, knowledge and “a feel for the business”, were insufficient. But this still isn’t the full story. The semi-predator’s psychology is also at work here: the psychosplit reinforces ineffective, misguided approaches and blocks creative personal initiatives.

The psychosplit, which emphasizes “me” rather than “you”, also sensitizes us for the behavior of our competitors. Who in Kürner’s or Brandes’ position wouldn’t wrack their brain about what the more successful competitors were doing. “How do they do it?” “What am I doing wrong?”

In predatory animals, focusing on the competition is a very useful strategy. This can yield valuable clues as to where the prey is, reducing foraging time. It can also expose enemies in advance, enabling a more rapid escape. This has been termed “social facilitation” in ethology and describes the phenomenon in which a “specific motivation” is more or less rapidly transposed to other individuals. It also applies to humans, as exemplified by panic behavior and mass plundering, for example. In another type of instinct, sexual behavior, the effect of pornographic photographs or films clearly demonstrates how outside behavior can trigger “motivation”, “appetitive behavior”, and instincts in others.

In business, this incitant effect also plays a crucial role. Whenever someone hits paydirt, others are quickly on the spot to get a piece of the action. A classical example is the Gold Rush in California, where hundreds and thousands of people dropped whatever they were doing and committed their hopes to an entirely different, uncertain future. The history of the stock market reveals similar phenomena, with money once again being the overpowering key stimulus. The prospect of obtaining this magic wand in a windfall is electrifying.

I myself have experienced the lightning speed with which instinct mechanisms can reverse a behavior. The occasion was the attack of a great white shark on an isolated reef in the Red Sea. At that time I had spent more than a decade studying how sharks behave toward divers, and I thought pretty much knew it all. The shark species that inhabit tropical shallow-water ecosystems are actually very shy: humans simply don’t fit the “innate prey scheme” that triggers their aggressive behavior.

On this particular day I was involved in a film shoot and had thrown fish cuttings into the water. On a vertical coral wall I had a three-meter-long reef shark in my viewfinder, and it was behaving precisely as expected. The shark had been attracted by the smell of blood and was clearly restless, yet interested only in the source of the scent, not in me. It approached several times and I was able to get some good footage. All of a sudden, I felt a movement and saw the head of a four-meter-long great white shark directly next to me. It had approached from the side without my knowing it. This relatively uncommon species prefers the open sea and apparently attacks anything it encounters in this vast expanse in order to test its suitability as food. Although I have given a detailed account of this encounter elsewhere, let it suffice to say that I was able to push its head aside with my bare hands. I then quickly grabbed the harpoon slung across my shoulder and rammed it against the shark’s head when it returned for a second pass³⁸.  The reason I bring this experience up here is because of the effect it had on the behavior of the first shark. Completely unexpectedly, it also began to attack me from the other side. This was a clear-cut case of food envy! But you can only swing a harpoon from one side to the other in very slow-motion under water, so my only other option was to flee directly up the wall while somehow fending off both sharks at the same time. As luck would have it, the tide had fallen and the water depth over the reef was a mere 50 cm. This provided a refuge for me along with my wife and a colleague who had observed the whole event from the surface. The two sharks swam back and forth along the reef edge in a very agitated manner until they finally calmed down and disappeared into the blue.

Under certain circumstances, humans can equally rapidly reverse their behavior. In panic situations, reasonable thought shuts down entirely. Although the reaction may be somewhat slower in the business environment when avarice is paired with the opportunity to make a big profit, the effect on the decision-making process is all the more long-lasting. Role models can exert a similar effect, as can fashion, advertising, group behavior, warmongering, or simply a mesmerizing and talented speaker. These situations lure people into missing opportunities that they might otherwise have had – much to their detriment. The well-trodden path can also have an “incitant effect”.

One other instinct behavior that can hem personal initiative is worth mentioning here – the so-called “expulsion reaction”. In social animals this is expressed when members that deviate from the norm are attacked, chased off, or even killed. In humans, this innate tendency is considerably amplified by morals, traditions, religion and other firmly held convictions. Those who break away from convention pay the price. At minimum, society looks askance at “outsiders” who don’t fit the norm. The group will turn its back on such persons, isolating them and making them an object of ridicule. Many an inventor or scientist who expanded our horizons suffered this fate. In many cases, those very persons later became famous and were made into role models. For their contemporaries, however, they aroused suspicion and were at best ignored, at worst actively persecuted.

This also tended to dampen our inclination to pursue “new paths” and explains why certain good ideas were nipped in the bud. On the other hand, history is full of people who resisted the “madding crowd” and remained unswayed by the disapproval expressed toward them as “outsiders”. Their creative impulse was stronger than all inhibitions and counter-reactions. In the business sector, this often spurs resounding successes and astonishing careers, the kind that make people shake their heads in disbelief and ask, “Why didn’t I come up with that idea?”

In 1972 a man named Siegfried Eberle in the small German town of Graben near Augsburg inherited a farm from his parents, a business that everyone agreed “had no future”. What quirk of fate prompted Eberle to come up with his unusual idea went unreported, but he decided to plant nothing but strawberries on his land. In every nearby city he advertised on large billboards “come to Strawberry Paradise!” Those who picked their own strawberries paid a mere 37 cents instead of the $1.40 to $1.75 per pound that food stores were charging. Every visitor could pick the plumpest and juiciest strawberries to his or her heart’s content. The success proved the power of ideas in this world. Strawberry Paradise drew customers from as far away as Munich. And they came in droves. Eberle’s next step was to lease 20 properties totaling 1.5 million square meters and transform them into “Europe’s largest Strawberry Paradise”. Three years after the idea was born, he had already earned $1 million.

A second case study: An economist by the name of Förster, who held the general power of attorney for a Dutch paper concern, came to realize that his ideas were falling on deaf ears. Had he acquiesced and simply endorsed the opinions of his higher-ups, he would probably have been elevated into the board-of trustees within a few short years. Instead, he purchased an ancient, mothballed papermaking machine – and quit his job.

The next step was to lease a cheap piece of property next to a branch line of the German Federal Railway. He set his machine up on a field and erected a simple yet functional shed around it. He then hired three trained workers from his former company who knew how to operate his sturdy, low-maintenance machine and rounded off his team with a few unskilled laborers. Förster’s idea was to concentrate on producing only a single type of paper, namely raw paper, for use in manufacturing corrugated board. With his old and trusty machine he did this at such a low price that the customers literally began lining up at his door. He left production up to an experienced master-craftsman and all the administrative duties were assumed by a single, enterprising secretary. He became the one-man sales department: “90% of what a modern paper maker and mechanical engineer needed to know was not only entirely superfluous but also bewildering and disrupting for his production”. The result was a private economic fairy tale. At a time when virtually the entire paper industry was operating at a loss, Förster achieved a profit of $1 million on sales of $3.5 million.

On the other hand, like many other EKS-graduates, he ended up “straying from the path”³⁹. With the capital he made, he built a state-of-the art factory with the five-fold capacity of his original facility. This plunged him into the same cost considerations, the same advantages,  disadvantages and constraints facing all the other paper manufacturers, forcing him to operate on the same level. The golden age had passed. Escaping the tumultuous competition had been the key to his success. By rejoining the fray, the pressure was back on.

Those who know something about Japan, know that personal cleanliness and hygiene are held in higher esteem there than virtually anywhere else in the world. More than 30 years ago I had  filmed military personnel and civilians wearing masks in front of their mouths to block out dirt and bacteria. Some time ago, an enterprising man from the smog-laden skies of Tokyo came upon the idea of selling oxygen-filled cans for 100 yen at specially designed bars. The customers – and there were many – opened the cans and deeply inhaled the precious elixir. So great was the success that competitors soon appeared who also offered canisters filled with oxygen, but this time in 5 liter containers for 700 to 1500 yen.

Such successes serve as case studies for the OBS and for overcoming the psychosplit – but only when the new idea is based on the needs of others. Eberle fulfilled the wish of many people who apparently wanted to pick the best strawberries themselves; Förster delivered the desired quality at an unparalleled price; the Japanese entrepreneur delivered something special that the customers took an instant liking to, regardless of whether it actually helped them or not. While the borderline to the semi-predator may be rather thin here, the key criterion – focusing on the needs and satisfaction of others – remains.

A particularly appealing element of the EKS developed by Mewes is his motto, “Everyone has a chance!” The underprivileged, for example, who come from a poor background, or those whose physical or intellectual capabilities put them at a disadvantage, often lack the confidence or ability to take on job opportunities that are open to them, and in some cases open specifically to them.

Mewes told me the story of how he looked out his office window one day to see a severely handicapped man hobbling toward his doorstep. The immediate thought was, “How on earth can I counsel this man?” The customer turned out to be a correspondent for a shoe wholesaler and had handed in excellent homework as a participant in the EKS-curriculum. Mewes was unable to understand why this man’s career was floundering and had therefore offered to give him a personal appointment. The man had never mentioned anything about his foot problems. “The discussion initially led nowhere. I was so distracted by his handicap that despite my best efforts I was unable to unearth any special talents that could be expanded upon. On the following day, however, it dawned on me that his special strength lay precisely in his handicap.” At that time, the medical consensus was that foot problems were so unique that they could only be corrected by custom-made shoes. With Mewes’ prompting, the man devoted his energies to this problem and soon convinced the manufacturers to tackle this problem with series production. He showed the retailers how to modify their display windows to appeal to this target group. Within one-and-a-half years this side job had become his main job. First his employer showed interest, then the wholesaler association followed suit. “Based on his experience he was able to calculate the progressive market shares and sales which could be expected, how much needed to be invested, what costs would arise, and what profits might be expected.” He became a successful expert on orthopedic shoes.

A doctor who had become disfigured after a car accident was named director of a special clinic for facially disfigured patients. A nurse in Vienna who became blind had the talent for being able to detect breast cancer manually before other more modern procedures showed results. She kept her job and the hospital even hired a second blind nurse for this particular diagnostic routine. A guest worker proved to be the ideal consultant to help solve the problems of other guest workers. A businessman who went broke became a special consultant for bankruptcy procedures and rehabilitation measures. The number of such case studies could be continued indefinitely. Those persons who have mastered some difficult situation in their own lives are often best equipped to help others in similar situations.

Many different forms of business are just waiting to be discovered and utilized. The psychosplit complicates this process because it focuses thoughts on “me” rather than “you” and therefore obscures job opportunities that arise when others have problems. “Social facilitation” and the public reaction to those who deviate from the norm further suppress personal initiative and keep us from leaving the “well-trodden path” of traditional job markets. In an age of ever more rapid technical advances and associated opportunities, we are called upon to optimally match supply and demand.

This is the subject of the next chapter.
 

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