Is Business Feminine or Masculine – Part 1

Everything is energy, and business, as a concept, is also ruled by this law. 

Everything around us is either feminine or masculine or a combination of both. In Ancient Chinese philosophy, the human body is a combination of both energies, and any illness in the body is seen as an energy block, either in the masculine, or in the feminine.

In the macrobiotic diet, food and cooking methods are classified as either feminine or masculine. Fruits for examples, are very feminine; meat on the other hand, is masculine. Uncooked food has feminine energy, cooked food embodies masculine energy. The diet is tailored to the body needs, depending on what energy is lacking.

In summer time (masculine season), the body naturally inclines towards consuming more fresh vegetables, fruits and salads (feminine). Conversely, the body will desire warm soups and hot dishes (masculine) in winter season (feminine season). These are natural desires of the body to balance the Yin and Yang.

Everything is energy, even business

This concept applied to literally anything, including business. Just as the macrobiotic diet emphasises the balance between Yin and Yang to keep the human body healthy and clear from energetic blocks, business needs this same balance to thrive.

In the same way that methods of cooking and types of food complement each other to create a balanced diet, creativity, openness to change and connection, complement risk-taking, courage and discipline to build a thriving business.

Let’s explore what the feminine and masculine each embody.

The masculine is strong. He embodies responsibility, courage, discipline and stability. Risks and obstacles don’t scare the masculine, if anything, they motivate him to grow more strength and gives motivation for more achievements.

The feminine is soft and adaptable. She embodies creativity, nurturing, consistency and change. The feminine is free, she’s flowing, expressing her truth gently and gracefully. She is compassionate and caring. 

The masculine is motivated by responsibilities and achievements whereas the feminine is motivated by connections and bonds.

When either is out of balance (wounded), the results can be damaging; a wounded masculine becomes aggressive and controlling, and a wounded feminine becomes co-dependent and lacks direction.

Both energies are supportive to each other, if one is repressed, the other goes to extremes in an attempt to achieve balance.

Let’s take a closer look at how this energy concept plays out in a real life scenario.

When the wounded masculine leads the way : The story of Nokia

Back in the 90s, Nokia ruled mobile phone market, for 14 years in a row. The company jumped from success to success, leaving peanuts to competitors, selling good products at a low cost, catering products to the consumer needs and eating up more and more parts of the market each day.

Nokia was the incarnation of a strong balanced masculine in his best shape, perfectly uniting with an innovative balanced feminine!

But then, something extraordinary happened! Apple emerged in the market, with its iPhone, a new promising device, that teased curiosity and excitement about a completely new future for the world. It was new, creative, beautiful and most importantly, it gave value for customers. The iPhone was a beautiful and subtle representation of the feminine.

Innovation and change in the market, is simply an invitation to companies to lean more into their feminine energy, to embrace change and to understand that customers are aspiring for something different. Nokia didn’t probably catch this subtle invitation to change their strategy, and to listen more to what the market is trying to communicate.

Nokia was facing a real challenge; the market is shifting, new products are out, customers aspirations have evolved, but the company succeeded so well before, so why change a strategy that was getting the company on the top market?

Ignoring the market call (repressing the feminine), and leading by a confident – and rather ego-blinded – masculine, Nokia decided to keep its strategy : selling affordable good products and work at the same time at copying the new iPhone.

The new Nokia smartphone – Lumia – was received by some success, but far from the success the company was used to. Nokia was clearly losing control over the market, and was struggling to gain its popularity back. Once again, ignoring the market changes and leading by an unbalanced masculine, Nokia decided to take Apple to court, claiming that Apple infringed on ten of its patents!

The repressed feminine ends the story!

After a few lawsuits filed against Apple, Nokia reached an agreement with Apple. The fruit company agreed to a significant financial compensation to resolve the lawsuits once and for all. The unbalanced masculine seeks control and dominance over the feminine, and this is exactly what happened in the Nokia/Apple legal affair!

Nokia was seeking control over the market by attempting to “taking down” competitors. Apple actually surrendered and compensated Nokia financially, but did this action brought back Nokia to the top market?

Following this, Nokia experienced a series of setbacks that ultimately led the company to surrendering to the reality of the market. The end of the Nokia success story is known to everyone; the company sold their mobile phone department to Microsoft and is no longer in the mobile device creation business.

Letting go of its mobile phone unit is a natural expression of the feminine to balance an out of balance masculine. Letting go and surrender is feminine energy.

Now, you might say that these stories are completely normal in the business world, and I agree! What I am trying to demonstrate here is the energetic side of it!

Nokia story is a perfect example of an excessive reliance on one energy and the repression of the other. If Nokia had to do it all over again differently, the company would have leant a little bit more on the feminine energy; it would have used their advanced technologies in creating better products, it would have listened more to what their customers want. It would have accepted the change in the market trends and would have ridden the wave of change. It would have accepted a temporary loss for a long term gain…

To be continued…

Repressing the feminine results only on hurting the masculine. As I described above, the wounded masculine is aggressive, overly competitive and controlling. If you’ll look back to Nokia’s story from a Yin/Yang perspective, it’ll make more sense.

The Yin and Yang fighting with each other or working against each other can only result in destruction and death; death of an idea, a business, a career….In order to build anything sustainable, the masculine and the feminine need to work together!

In the second part of this article, we’ll explore stories from businesses led by the wounded feminine!