Building a More Human Business

While many business owners want to do business differently, there is no one-size-fits-all checklist for building a business that supports collective liberation.

But there is plenty of shame, guilt, and expectation around how to do business. Yet shame and guilt can actually stifle our growth and perfection is neither a reasonable goal nor expectation.

So how do we build businesses that honor capacity and resources for ourselves and our team, and move us toward a more liberatory practice?

Jeffrey Shiau joins Erica for a conversation about building a liberatory business, what it means to honor your capacity and the humanity of your team, and why we need to reclaim pleasure and care as we work toward liberation.

Listen on your favorite podcast player or keep reading to learn:

• How small business owners’ identity and values are impacted by white supremacist, patriarchal culture

• Why we have to let go of shame and expectations of perfection for ourselves and others

• What it means to honor your capacity and the capacity of your team

• Why we need to re-humanize our business relationships

Sustainable Strategies for Liberatory Businesses

Jeffrey Shiau is a writer and marketing strategist/mentor. They’re the founder of Unconventional Agency. He works with small businesses, helping people design sustainable marketing strategies that feel good to implement—all while dealing with limited time, energy, money, and resources. He is also a curator of knowledge around how we can do business in ways that move us towards our collective liberation.

Business, Values, and Identity

On the Pause on the Play® podcast, Jeffrey Shiau (they/he) says that it’s important to acknowledge the nuances in people’s relationships with their businesses, particularly when it comes to how the size of a business can impact an owner’s sense of identity in their business.

They say, “A lot of solo entrepreneurs or people with small teams, our identities are tied with this organization or entity…and that’s very tricky because then it becomes a reflection of our values and our self, and a reflection of who we are.”

And if the business isn’t aligned with your values as an owner, that can create internal, personal turmoil and conflict.

Erica Courdae (she/her) agrees that there is a lot of nuance in how owners relate to their work and that “there’s no one way that you have to or need to do business other than making sure that it’s not at the expense of someone else.”

She says that adhering to the notion that there is one correct way to do business is “where I think a lot of the problematic ways of being, especially everything that comes from white supremacist culture, white settler colonialism, capitalism–everything that comes from that is really about the one way to do things, and that doesn’t work. And it makes all of us have to feel like we have to shelve our humanity…and to adapt this persona to be in these spaces.”

Jeffrey adds that it also can be tied back to toxic masculinity and the idea that “you need to solve everything intellectually…If you want to succeed in capitalism, everything is a problem to be solved rationally…So I do think we’re really going against our nature and really disconnecting ourselves from what makes us human.”

He says that sometimes the work that needs to be done isn’t finding new solutions or ideas or technology, but is emotional work and reconnecting with people, particularly when working with employees and respecting their humanity and not treating them like numbers on a spreadsheet

“It’s hard to say there’s one checklist, that you need to tick this off to basically have a perfect business that is the business that will take us on the road to liberation, because I don’t think that’s how it works.”

Erica agrees and adds that it’s a process of bringing awareness to what tactics or strategies that you use by default and what actually feels true to you and your values. In her experience, Erica says that has taken the form of questioning the energy she brings to situations and what is a default that feels safe and what really feels like her, and the social expectations and baggage that gets wrapped up in either presentation.

“There’s this place of having to figure out, how is it that I wanna feel? But also the place where the trope of the strong Black woman is toted out to very often be who I’m supposed to be, even if that’s not who I choose to be, that’s how I’m often processed to be. But then me being strong is treated like a liability because I’m not soft. I’m not feminine, I’m not pastel pink, I’m not blonde, I’m not white…How the hell are we supposed to figure that out if there’s this bigass conundrum wrapped in a quandary?”

Shame and Expectations

Jeffrey says that the first thing to do when trying to understand your place within capitalism and the values that the system places onto us, is to consider “the shame and the guilt that you might be placing on yourself, and what you’re policing yourself and others to do and/or not do.”

In the bigger picture, the way we deploy shame is a part of cancel culture or call-out culture, they say, and it also shows up in our day-to-day lives in how we interact with and judge others. They paraphrase adrienne maree brown’s book, Emergent Strategy, saying that “shame makes us freeze up and get small and invisible, whereas pleasure opens us up a bit more. If we pursue pleasure instead of shame, we’re more likely to grow.

Erica says that in her work, even though it’s often dealing with pieces that don’t feel good, it’s “not to make you the problem.” Those pieces are things we can acknowledge and consider,”whether or not we want to leave things as they are or if we want to be an active part in leaving them better than we found them.”

Doing that internal work requires navigating limited resources of time, energy, and effort, as well as tangibles like money, privilege, and platform. 

“When you are trying to heal while doing the things, there is this literal place of trying to be whole and do the thing and give yourself grace and keep that grace in mind for others whenever possible as you’re partnering or intersecting with them along the way, and it can be exhausting.

Jeffrey says that when they discuss doing business differently with people, it’s vital to recognize that there is no perfect business or person and that perfect isn’t a reasonable goal. It’s also important to stop comparing yourself to others, “because some people have had more time to understand themselves and take steps to improve their business, or have the financial resources to do so.”

And that goes for expectations of perfection that we place on others’ businesses as well. 

“Just because a business is on social media or online doesn’t mean that you know that business. But people are so keen on placing expectations, saying, oh, you’re not doing this perfectly, it’s not completely 100% ethical. But you don’t know what the person on the other side is dealing with.

Jeffrey says that we can witness those dynamics of expectation and judgment playing out in large and small-scale environments from global issues like climate change to corporations “woke-washing” while pushing responsibility to the individual.

Erica adds that those dynamics can also be what gets in the way of making real change in corporations that have gotten so far removed from people. Where small businesses can actively and relatively quickly change the way they’re doing business through who they partner with or purchase from, or making strategic changes, “where there’s all of this proverbial red tape…change doesn’t happen the same way. And unfortunately, there are times that it’s weaponized as the reason why no change happens.”

Honoring Your Capacity

Jeffrey says that they have noticed in their business, working with small teams and solo entrepreneurs, that often the most marginalized people will be hardest on themselves and their standards and expectations can get in the way of putting themselves out there and selling. That in turn can make it difficult for them to enact their values in their business, because they need to make money to pay the bills.

One thing that he reminds people of is that financial success in business is never guaranteed, and it’s not entirely up to you. “That’s something that’s hard to tell people…[But] any time I do have the conversation with people, I think it helps people shift their framework and how they approach their business to realize that. I think it’s a bit freeing.”

Erica links the belief that success is in your control and failure is your fault to American exceptionalism. But acknowledging that “this isn’t just about you or your work ethic or how much you know or how hard you work,” can be a helpful framework that allows us to also consider and acknowledge that “you did what you could with the capacity that you had.”

And Erica says that capacity doesn’t get acknowledged enough.

Jeffrey agrees and says that, “my capacity is at the crux of everything I do. Knowing how much time you have, the energy you have, understanding that I think it important and is essential. And it’s not just for business success, I think it’s for our own being able to thrive in our life.”

Doing business differently, they say, requires time and energy above and beyond meeting your needs, which is why they are often in a position of helping their clients figure out how to do less so business owners and their teams don’t burn out.

“Maybe my job isn’t to come in and say, oh, you need to do this and that in marketing. It’s, hey, what about all these things you don’t need to do? Let’s look at how much time and energy and resources you have, your team has, and then go from there. Start as simple as you can and make sure that people have the space to…implement it.”

He says that people frequently underestimate how much time marketing projects can take, but “just because we’re planning to do less of something doesn’t mean that we’re going to accomplish less,” and in the event that things go well and there is extra time, you can always adjust accordingly.

Erica says that honoring your capacity and resources is similar to thinking about money in terms of living at, above, or below our means. 

Jeffrey adds that one of the reasons capacity doesn’t get acknowledged as much as it should is that “it’s a tough sell.”

As a marketer, they were taught to always tie their services to a specific outcome, “but there’s no guarantee. I can’t promise that you’re going to make more money.”

He says good marketing is a process and a habit that requires a willingness to experiment and iterate, and good marketers will take their experience and apply it to your campaigns. “But that’s not something that’s easily digestible, so it’s not easily sold.” 

Shifting the Culture

Jeffrey says that the speed of our society, and the way that it doesn’t give people time to stop and consider and make conscious decisions is reflected in predatory marketing tactics that are designed to circumvent conscious decision-making. Tactics like time scarcity prey on fears and pain points to urge you to make an impulsive choice. Which is part of why they say that choosing to do business differently does play into building a better society.

Honoring capacity also ties into running a business with liberatory values because you have to honor the humanity of your team members. “Traditionally in business, it’s about dehumanizing that connection. I think it is very important to re-humanize a lot of the kind of connections we have in our society where over time we have been taught to forget that.”

That can take the form of not giving your team too much to do and thereby helping them avoid burnout. And it can mean working toward paying your team well if you’re not there already.

“I think that’s the ultimate impact a business can have, is to give people the time and space to be more human.”

If your team members have more money and more time, “they can use that time to reinvest in their relationships within their community, to start to rebuild these structures of interdependence that we need in our communities.”

Erica adds that it “goes back to this whole piece of the goal is not to just survive, the goal is to figure out what does access to thriving actually mean for each of us.”

Jeffrey says that’s important to acknowledge that the conversation is being had more often, “and that’s amazing. We’re shifting the culture one conversation at a time.”

We All Need Care

Jeffrey says that a question that’s been on their mind is “examining how we care for each other,” and that care and relationships are part of being human, and untangling that from patriarchal culture and toxic masculinity.

“I truly do believe that we’re a cooperative species. I think we got human nature all wrong in our society. We tend to under pressure work together to support each other, so how do we do that in a way where we’re thriving too? Not just because we need to because of some crisis.”

He continues, “We need to say it to ourselves, that being cared for is a fact of life on this planet. And there shouldn’t be shame there…You’re not a stronger human being if you do everything yourself. We have been told growing up that needing other people’s care makes us lesser human beings when that’s not true at all. We all need to support each other and care for each other. That’s just a fact. It doesn’t make you lesser.”

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Connect with Jeffrey Shiau:

• Unconventional Agency

• Instagram: @UnconventionalAgency