A Great Tragedy For A Tragic Figure

The Michael Jackson death is certainly a tragedy for a tragic figure. Back in the 80’s I new Jimmy Osmond, the youngest member of the Osmond’s, who was a concert producer and produced Michael Jackson in his concerts in Japan. Michael had a huge following in Japan. Jimmy told me about how really sad his personal life was. One time, he bought out an entire amusement park, so that he could actually go on some rides because he couldn’t be out in public in any way, and participate with others the way you and I do. So at that time Michael’s constant companion was a monkey. Jimmy said probably the saddest thing was to see Michael sit all alone on these thrill rides in a Japanese amusement park. The price of sane is one of the highest prices anybody must pay and to have it at such a young age as Michael did. The amount of programming and the demands of others and other people telling you what you are and who you should be is just a constant stream of soul deadening pressure. I have nothing but compassion for Michael Jackson and wonder who I might be if I lived under that kind of pressure. He was certainly one of a kind talent and certainly deserves to rest in peace.

Demand Ethical Leadership

Mom passed away early Christmas morning.  Her passing was a peaceful release from the body she was trapped in.  Thank you for the kind expressions of concern you offered over the past weeks regarding my mother and mother-in-law’s death.  At my age it’s strange to feel orphaned, but that’s my unshakeable feeling.

As I am preparing a eulogy for Mom, one of the things I most admire about her was her ability to somehow both forcefully and gently remind the strong men in her life to be virtuous.  Mom was kind and empathetic.  Living through a massive Depression followed by a World War that involved all her four brothers tends to amplify your compassion.  Today we live in times that call each of us in the same way.

So this morning I am watching the news about thousands of layoffs being announced by various companies across many industries.  Most of these layoffs are unethical acts of powerful leaders who think it’s responsible business.  It’s not.  It’s moral cowardice masquerading as a practical business decision.  I’m not just ranting here.  I am stating the most obvious flaw of financial capitalism that has emerged over the past 40 years.  This flaw is that short-term actions can generate short-term financial gains while destroying long-term value.  Business leaders are incented to cut jobs, investment, research, new technology and worse, pollute, mis-state earnings, corrupt lawmakers, and an endless list of shenanigans that hurt us all.  All of this, whether it’s legal, is immoral.  Here’s why.

The core standard of ethics is the mandate to never cause avoidable suffering.  Period. Is it asking too much?  Or does it ask us simply to be morally responsible for the consequences of our decisions?

One way to judge suffering caused by business decisions is something called switching costs.  Ethics requires us to consider how much it costs to the person my decision impacts to switch to another company.  So for investors the switching costs are very low.  For instance, Toyota recently announced two things.  They will likely lose money this next year, and they will continue their no-layoff policy for full-time employees.  (They are doing extra employee training during their manufacturing slowdown.)  So if an investor in Toyota doesn’t like this policy, they can sell their stock or “switch” to another one in 30 seconds online.  Switching costs for investors are very low.  Next to consider are customers.  The cost of switching from one brand of product to another of equal value is also very low.  There are so many substitute products today that consumers’ switching costs are nearly non-existent.

So what about employees?  Consider your own situation.  What if you involuntarily get laid off from a profitable business during an economic downturn?  What are the “costs” of switching to a new job or industry?  Huge.  Gargantuan.  Brutal.  The American Psychological Association reports that the two biggest traumas that are the most difficult to overcome are loss of a spouse (death or divorce) and job loss.  The suffering caused by these two events has severe long-term consequences not only on the individual directly involved but also their families.  The U.S. Department of Labor reports that 40 percent of white-collar workers over 40 laid off in the past fifteen years never achieve their previous level of income. Illness, chronic pain, abuse, divorce, alcoholism, depression, and suicide are markedly higher among laid off workers.  Is this the kind of society we want?  If a company is making money or has ample resources to continue operating, is pleasing Wall Street the highest moral good?

Is this the best business leadership we can imagine?  The much admired Jack Welch championed shareholders over all others also pioneered the mass firing of workers of GE’s profitable businesses to increase earning.  Fortune Magazine honored him as manager of the century. Right.  What’s hard about firing people and demanding everyone else work harder so we can make more money for shareholders who churn stock holdings faster than bank robbers running for their getaway car?

So if we can agree that willfully causing human suffering is immoral then profitable companies who layoff workers are by definition behaving immorally.  Consider this.  We just “donated” $350 billion to America’s banks without any oversight and they just laid off tens of thousands employees.  Meanwhile they continue to hoard our money, choke off lending to other businesses and pay their executives for their outstanding performance.  Is that okay?  Is that just “aw shucks?”  If a business leadership cannot find productive ways to use bright, loyal, hardworking employees, whose fault is that, the employee’s or the leader’s?

So how can we fix this?  Not through laws.  If we pass no-layoff regulation we’ll only succeed in making sure people don’t get hired at all.  One of America’s great advantages is our fluid workforce that allows us to change jobs and careers whenever we choose.  The difference, of course, is that when we have a well-led economy rich with job creation then employees have a playing field where we can bargain with our talent.  When we have a corrupt leadership creating fake economic gains we have mass suffering.

So what’s the best thing we can do?

Make noise.  Buy from ethical companies.  Demand ethical leadership.  A revolution is happening right now.  Employees and consumers worldwide are demanding that Corporate Social Responsibility be more than cosmetic.  We are seeing major strides in the reduction of waste and increasing sustainability.  This is all due to yours and my demands for a better future.

Now is the time to demand that Corporate Social Responsibility begins with responsibility to employees.  If Toyota and Honda can keep their employees when the car business has collapsed then so can nearly every other business if they have a will to.

I once had a large client who was going through a massive financial implosion during the dot-com era.  Their woman President didn’t layoff a soul.  She instead sponsored huge strategy workshops involving every employee in creating either cost saving or income increasing strategies.  The entire process was led by a senior maintenance man.  Yes, crazy, idealistic….well it worked.  Within 12 months the company was minting money and growing faster than ever.  Do you know why this visionary leader did this when her board was encouraging her to slash and burn?  She told me, “Our problems came from bad leadership decisions.  Firing our employees would have been immoral.”

It’s time for a new kind of leadership.

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Love Giants

This past week has been an emotional Tsunami.  My wife and I were on a plane taxing down the terminal when she got a phone call that her mother, Barbara, had suddenly died.  Those are calls we refuse to believe will ever come.  Her mom was 74 and she had wrestled with the diseases of old age, among them diabetes and arthritis and two knee replacements, but her sudden death was unexpected.

In some ways she’d outlived her body.  Nearly five years ago when Barbara was racked with relentless arthritic pain and exhausted by serial illness she seemed to get very close to death.  My wife Debbie wouldn’t stand for it.  She sat on her mother’s bed and told her that she had to stay for her father’s well-being.  For reasons beyond reason her mom rallied and lived in a broken body with her big, zesty personality turned on high until last week.

What happened to Debbie’s dad, AJ, during these past five years was what was remarkable.  AJ was born to work.  He’s 80 today and still operates his business as if his pants were on fire.  But for the past 5 suffering years he also took care of his wife.  He learned to clean, cook and gently help her.  He took her shopping and out to lunch and often just sat and listened.  He learned patience and self-sacrifice in ways he’d never learned for his first 75 years of life.  All Barbara wanted was just to be with him.  Just in the same room.  Not that she was quiet.  We once took her to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and she shrieked so much unrestrained laughter the audience started laughing at her laughing.  Barbara loved life so much she fought for every sacred second of it.  But AJ was transformed by her struggle.  He went from just being a powerful man to a man overpowered by his own love for his wife.

Two days after Barbara passed, my brother Tom called to tell me my mother was slipping away fast.  She is nearly 91.  She’s lived a full and amazing life.  As a girl she ran like wind and could hit the long ball.  She played first base on an all boys team.  She married Dad, moved from Los Angeles to live on a cattle ranch and help build our tree house.  She was also a community leader and the prettiest mother in my school. Four years ago she got full-blown Alzheimer’s.  The tragedy of it was she knew she was losing her mind.  Her memories went from being on mental videotape to a slide show to just an empty slide tray.  She has steadily regressed.  She became a teenager again making silly jokes and pouting when she was limited from climbing the stairs.  Recently she became like a toddler having lost her vocabulary and having to point at what she wanted.  Debbie and I flew back to California and drove 6 hours to Mom’s house.  When I saw her I was shocked.  She has become as an infant.  She simply smiles now and holds my hand and strokes my face.  She’s peaceful.  She’ll probably live a few more months.  My brother Tom rearranged his business firm so he could operate out of Mom’s house for the past 4 years.  He hired a couple of aids to help him and he’s been the primary caregiver.  Tom is 55.  He’s in many ways a typical bachelor.  He has a messy room and loud ideas.  But what’s bigger are his ideals.  What’s happened to him is a transformation.  He is so kind, so loving, so caring to Mom it is nothing short of heroic.  The word selfless doesn’t begin to describe him.  And he says there is nothing he’d rather be doing.  He’s become a very tender man.

When Debbie and I got to the emergency room to see her mother’s lifeless body, I was struck with the realization that everything we think is important isn’t.  Not the daily life stuff, not the job stuff, not the geo-political stuff or the economic stuff.  What’s really important is how much we love.  It was plain to me.  And as for my brother and father-in-law…well, they are love giants.