General Principles of Pragmatica

1. Transitions. Business progress requires transitions from existing to projected states of affairs. 'Projecting' involves a firm's virtually instantiating itself in the targeted sphere. A firm is ‘projectable’ when there is an actionable probability that the state of affairs will be realized. 

2. Enablement. Projected states of affairs are imagined and sought-for because their realization will enlarge understanding, clarity, capability, independence, flexibility, or have other enabling effects. In the projected sphere the firm will have greater power to achieve the purposes of its existence. 

3. Bounds & Conditions. Any state of affairs can be defined by bounds and conditions which, among other things, account for effective actions within it and limit by quality the types of firms able to abide its dynamics.

4. Ordering. Transitions require the ordering of states of affairs through time. Most of us intuitively understand the concept of ‘making progress’ this way. Progress involves modifying the elements and relations of an existing state of affairs by organizing one’s thoughts, resources, and actions to effect an intention – modifying or transforming an existing state to bring to pass one that is ‘better’, however this is defined in the given case. 

5. Structure. Two dynamics modulate the course of any transition. The transition must involve sufficient structural order to retain stability against disruptive, destabilizing influences, and it must involve sufficient structural change to produce the yield required for growth. Effective transitions intelligently harmonize stability and variation; they modulate order while magnifying yield.  (This is the logic underlying common financial ratios.)  

6. Deontic Relations. Commercial reality has a deontic structure. The most dominant causal relations in commerce are deontic relations – formal and informal relations among individuals or institutions that involve reciprocal rights, obligations, entitlements, commitments, expectations, duties, and so forth. Their function is to arrange and make predictable countless interactions among firms, employees, shareholders, regulators, customers, suppliers, partners, and other members of the environment.

7. Words as Instruments. Deontic relations are created by words. In commercial environments, words are the principal instrumentality for modifying states of affairs. The words of a firm have causal effect when, and only when, they are upheld or sustained by the environment. The extent to which this occurs is a firm's 'commercial jurisdiction'.

8. Transmitting Probabilities. Existing and projected states of affairs are probabilistically related. In general, projected states of affairs have improbabilities of realization, which is what accounts for their value. If a firm has achieved an aspirational state of affairs, some degree of improbability has been overcome. The firm has infused the transition with the order required for the projected sphere to be instantiated in commercial reality. Strong plans transmit probabilities.

9. Transmitting Utilities. Projecting ‘works’ (when it works) because causalities are part of the environment and because firms have the ability, within limits depending on the case, to influence those causalities in a way that alters or modifies the environment. When this occurs, an executed plan has had efficacy. During the transition, the utility of the plan has been conveyed from A to B by its effective execution. Strong plans transmit utilities.