When belief replaces fundamentals in an organization, chaos reigns. We are, therefore, well advised to understand the difference between them.

Fundamentals are essential and reliable building blocks. They apply to any activity. One fundamental, for example, is that everything in the universe (area of activity whether it be a molecule, a marriage, job, company, country, or cosmos) is in a state of motion. Nothing stays the same. We see this fundamental in the observation that a business either expands or it contracts. We see it in the observation that the success index of an individual is based on his tolerance of the motion in his activity, and his ability to control it.

People who are not tolerant of motion or able to control it are susceptible to beliefs that offer the hope of relief from the confusiion they are continually facing. A manager might adopt the belief that “Mistakes cause confusion. Mistakes are bad.” He focuses his attention on finding and stopping mistakes, and inadvertently collapses his activity.

I have known managers who were striving to “keep things at a manageable size.” This belief suggests that size has something to do with manageability, which is of course a lie.

In truth, a large, well-organized activity has less actual motion in it than a small, disorganized one.

Lacking a knowledge of fundamentals, one is guided by his experience and his tolerance – or lack of tolerance – for motion. This is the birthplace of opinion and belief.

We see personnel who are incompetent and act like anchors to the activity, but managers hold on to them because, they believe, “we don’t have anyone to replace them.” So managers continue to swim with these anchors around their necks, and cannot get their heads high enough out of the water to see other solutions to this dilemma.

Have you ever let someone go – one of these anchors – and noticed that without that anchor, everything got better?

The more ideal solution, of course, is effective training programs. The design of these programs is to increase tolerance for the motion of an area and to improve the ability to control it. In other words, training programs enhance the grasp of fundamentals. They turn anchors in to lifeboats.

The salesman is threatened by not making a sale. He is confused about how to repair it. He adopts the belief that he should “just tell the prospect what he wants to hear.” He makes the sale, and this “solution” becomes a belief that this is the way to sell things: just tell the prospect what he wants to hear – even if it’s a lie. This belief brings temporary relief, but eventual collapse.

In this way, we often find “solutions” that cause more trouble than they solve.

Where there are beliefs, there is conflict. Obvious examples are found with religion, politics, racial tensions and so. There is no solution in targeting beliefs as the beliefs, themselves, solved confusions for the believers. To negate or challenge the belief threatens them with the confusion their belief was created to solve. How many wars have been caused by conflicting beliefs? How many failed enterprises?

The fundamentals of motion reveal the reality that conditions in a business change. Other fundamentals concerning the nature of these conditions and how they flow together allow the manager to predictably bring control, expansion and prosperity to his or her activity.

The solution is an education in these fundamentals. Discover which fundamentals are missing and get them applied. Confusions disappear and orderly progress is the result.

The primary issue any consultant has when he enters an area is the presence of beliefs rather than fundamentals. Beliefs are un-inspected and lay as an invisible backdrop to the activity. They are fixed ideas that do not change in the presence of proofs to the contrary. They remain invisible until one grasps the missing fundamental.

The hardest thing to see is something that isn’t there.

Of course, people are free to believe whatever they like, but when these beliefs do not solve the current circumstances, one always suspects absent fundamentals.

People dupe themselves by belief. Fundamentals are the touchstones of actuality and the road to orderly progress.