When SHEEPS become DOGS become TIGERS become LIONS

All through the centuries we can see in our human society history, that leading behaviour and rules have changed. After each cultural revolution, there was a market and business revolution right after. When in the UK in 14th century (Peasants’ Revolt, 1381), Europe's oldest democracy was established after a civil war and revolution, where serfdom was abolished and people started to decide free and open what to do with their lifes, market rules and state taxes became the new drivers for the British culture where inventors could develop, business men could make profits, banks could be founded and raised and until today, a lot of these rules and definitions still affect our every day life. Sure, there were many development steps in between but fundamentally it is like that.

Let's have a closer look on how we treated employees over the centuries, not going too deep into details.

When it comes to employment of other people, I want to compare it with how we treat animals today. In 13th to 17th century, people were treated like we treat sheep today. Serfdom was abolished but was still in the minds of people. Often that was abused and they were forced into hard work with countless numbers of hours just for a minimum wage or even just food and shelter. Slavery is also a result of that transition from serfdom to democracy and human rights. The society has changed as well, because aristocratic power was replaced by monetary power. Successful business man became the rulers of these days. This is why Kings and Queens all over Europe fought wars with the money of business men to raise even more money and conquer land. Cristóbal Colón is a very good example for that business behaviour. In all these centuries you could say, if you were just a "normal guy", you were treated like a sheep..

It took a lot of time until the people created the human rights, declared by Eleanor Roosevelt on December 10th in 1948. This is the moment when sheep became dogs. Through this declaration that was signed by many countries, the first time in human history every human being became the same rights and was protected from fear and terror. This date marks the beginning of the "new world" we are living in today and look back yourself, what and how fast we have developed. Nevertheless, when you look into the relationship between an employee and his employer, you can see that there is still a little leftover from very ancient times. Employers and companies very often try to squeeze out the work force of the people for the sake of the company, means the profit of the owner(s). But because people were treated more or less correct, means better than the generations before, they honoured it with loyalty towards the company. Maybe you remember that in the late 40s, 50s and early 60s it was absolutely natural that people are working for a company for a lifetime. 20 or 30 years of employment were the rule in these days. back to the comparison with the animals, they were like loyal dogs. If you feed them right, you might even treat them bad but they would still be loyal to you. If the bad treatment was overdone, the dog could bite because we had the human right rules.

During the 60s, when a new generation of people entered the markets, there was a change. All of a sudden freedom, peace and harmony was the main driver for the society. The flower-power generation was the generation of dogs that wanted to be treated like animals in their natural environment, looking for self-fulfilment. This generation had nothing in common with their parents regarding loyalty towards a company. There was a more global view on a peaceful world and with sustainable respect to the world. These days mark the beginning of the globalisation. These "dogs" wanted to run around and develop without any dog leash.

But because even the flower power generation needs to eat, live and pay the rent, they sooner or later had to go to work. A few of them founded new companies to make a better world. Steve Jobs or Bill Gates are perfect examples for that. They started in the 70s with "computer". Influenced by the mindset of the "peace" generation, they created new liberal company culture models, where business suits or ties are banned and the focus was on the belief and vision of what they wanted to achieve, not on money. This was revolutionary! ...so another revolution in the history of humans, just without weapons. All of a sudden it became popular to have bean bags in the company, open office space with no doors, break out rooms, table tennis or pool billiard, free organic and healthy food, drinks and many more innovative things. This generation is responsible for the freedom of the internet. Planned as a military software (by Bill Gates), it became through the Universities a global network what we know today as our internet. The whole development was driven by this belief in freedom and human rights, that every person on the planet deserves the same amount of information.

Because these companies became so successful, the leashed dogs jumped in immediately trying to get a share of their filled dog bowls. By buying shares, you could become a millionaire over night. This is what marks the change from dogs to tigers. Tigers are usually egoistic players, hunting and killing for their own sake. Tigers even kill sometimes because they can. The nature of a tiger is very much comparable with the character of a house cat. They simply do what they want. Same was with these people of the "tiger"-age. They have invented stupid things where stock markets could raise and fall prices for fundamental foods, such as rice or weed. They started to play with this power because they could see a profit when a "customer" is suffering and would pay any price just to get food. These were the 80s and 90s and it was the first time in the history of mankind, that money was replacing people. A simple equation: If your focus is money, how much should you care about human rights?

As history shows, whenever the majority is suffering, there will be a revolution. This is a fact since thousands of years. Because today we have the gift of an internet that is more or less free, the new generations (born after 1990) educate themselves through this freedom, make up their own minds and act free as well. The mindset of these new generations (Millennials, Gen-X, Gen-Z) is not comparable with the mindset of the generations before. Meaning has a much higher value than money, belief is what is the driver, responsibility is given by that, self confidence is much higher than before and networking means to them to connect to others to be a group that can change the world into something better. We shouldn't forget that grandma's and grandpa's were the weed smokers of the 60's with that peace mindset.

The (r)evolution that took place over the millennium change was, that these new generations switched from tigers to lions. A lion is known as one of the big five in Africa. Big five because there are only five animals that act like humans, means whenever one of the tribe is attacked, others will jump in to help. So a lion is a group animal, looking after the others, making sure that everyone has food and leading the whole pride to a good life.

Have you noticed that I wrote "leading"? ...imagine I would write "managing". This would never fit.

Exactly this situation we have right now. Mostly old and traditional companies are still running a company culture with the dog or even sheep mindset, some of them with the tiger mindset (here you mostly find banks or any other money driven company). This will never work when you try to hire in lions and train them like sheep or dogs. The clash is programmed.

A modern company culture that fits for today's generations and times is a culture, where lions are leading the pride where there might be tigers, dogs or even sheep in. The fact is, that it must be the lions making the rules for the pack and lead them by example.

Have you ever tried to find out what is the animal in you?