2010 - So Now What Are WE Going To Do?
We react to the economic crisis with layoffs, travel restrictions, forced leave, reductions, cutbacks, pointing fingers…(you fill in the blank). Bad strategies? Maybe not. Some of these responses may be warranted in the short run, but if you are concerned with measuring success by long term results, then these solutions alone aren’t enough.
It seems we love to place blame by pointing at events, corporations, and people…sub-prime lending, Enron (remember?), the auto industry, Bernie Madoff, banking executives and their huge bonuses. And we’ll probably sign into more legislations like Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), although signing that in 2002 didn’t keep what happened in 2008-2009 from happening. Why do shareholders (by the way that’s us) demand short-term results and LOVE layoffs and cutbacks? It’s because someone is doing something… Hooray!!!!
We want to live on hope and blame as strategies for recovery. We hope it won’t happen again, we hope we’ve elected the right leaders this time, we hope that “they” will get it right, we hope our IRA’s, savings, 401k’s will rebound, we hope our credit card balances will go down (although I just love my new Jimmy Choo’s), and that our mortgage rates will get lower. And if they don’t, we want stimulus packages and bailouts. After all… if they’d (again you fill in the blank) be different, we’d be fine.
Maybe we’d be better off to legislate integrity, authenticity, transparency, leadership, and relationship. All of which, by the way, lead to long-term financial gains. Let’s require that everyone step up to the leadership challenge…batter up! And guess who’s at the plate? “Dang it, it’s me isn’t it?” After all, it was each one of us, one at a time, that signed for loans we couldn’t afford, overspent, didn’t challenge the decisions of our ‘leaders’, flew below the radar, didn’t say what needed to be said, pretended not to know.
It’s not easy to change. Knowing what’s right and doing what’s right is a tough challenge. The good news is that it can start with our very next conversation, what we choose to say and how we choose to say it; conversations that layer in authenticity, grace, and clarity, with skill and resolve…fierce conversations.
by Tags: accountability, authenticity, Bernie Madoff, economic crisis, Enron, Fierce Conversations, leadership, relationship, Sarbanes Oxley Act, transparency
January 19th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Right on target Chris!
Here’s an interesting article in today’s Harvard Business Review: What Really Motivates Workers? http://bit.ly/4RxYL9
February 17th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Reading this post just now is timely as I saw an phenomenal Frontline episode on PBS last night about the deriviatives market and the econimic downturn. There was one person who dared to have a “Fierce Conversation” about it and was unilaterally ignored: Brooksley Born. A couple things struck me: 1) her courage to continue sound the warning - even in the face of opposition from the power players such as Greenspan et al and 2) the courage of one of her most ardent nay-sayers at the time (Arthur Levitt - SEC Chair ‘93-’01) in openly admitting that he was wrong about her and the mistake he made in not listening. I remember thinking, “Wow - we need more leaders like this. Too bad Greenspan wasn’t quite as forthcoming in his statements to congress.” For more: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/. Very compelling.
September 3rd, 2010 at 8:31 am
Maybe the insurance company simply took advantage of the trust you placed in them. Maybe your claim settlement wasn’t fair at all.