Goodwill is tough to earn, easy to lose
Gene Mage
Today’s column is the fourth in the series, Nine trends that are going to rock your world.
Have you ever fired a high-powered rifle? What an experience. The weight and heft of the stock, the feeling of power as you slap the bolt shut on a fresh cartridge. At that moment you are one bad dude, even if you are only shooting at a bale of straw with a paper target attached.
“Pow!” You feel the rifle’s kick hit your shoulder like a punch from Mike Tyson. Ouch is more the word. You feel the dark side of all that power in the form of an aching blue and purple bruise.
Admit it. Power feels
good not only out on the rifle range or behind the wheel of an expensive car,
but when you are in a position to pull the trigger on corporate power. It can go to your head. You have all those financial resources, eager
staffers, and high-powered lawyers at your every beck and call.
You might even begin to believe that you deserve all that power. You might begin to think that you got that
power because of your superior intellect and political cunning. And when the moment is right, you know you could
use that power overwhelm the obstacles around you.
Communities are strange, sensitive beasts. Towns are built and rebuilt upon waves of boom and bust. People live in towns for different reasons. And when it comes to controversial issues such as development, layoffs, or tax abatement, citizens naturally gravitate to polar points of view. Residents determined to preserve a little peace and quiet protest against perceived over-development. City fathers, looking to maintain the tax base and attract business, seek to make the rules as loose as possible for prospective investors. If a company uses its power to make the community cower in fear, the divisions between pro and anti-development forces grow even more acute.
Similarly, when a company eliminates jobs in the community, the feelings of hurt and betrayal can run deep. How an employer handles a business contraction will create, or destroy, hard-won goodwill. You may have chuckled at the recent news story about the wireless company that announced layoffs by sending employees a text message on their cell phones over lunch. But for individuals who have been escorted from the premises by security guards, locked out of the building, or otherwise humiliated, it is no laughing matter.
While I find left-wing film producer Michael Moore to be an
odious person, his movie “Roger and Me” served as a telling reminder of the
fragile bonds between a business and the community in which it resides. General Motor’s treatment of the workers in
When companies fire off weapons of financial or legal coercion they eventually experience the kick. As with any human relationship with a large power imbalance, the abused will eventually find a way to get back at the abuser. The laws of physics are hard to overcome.
When the power imbalance becomes too large, politicians play to a hostile electorate. Then, when congress passes draconian legislation to remedy what they perceive as gross injustice, we all complain bitterly about government interference. We spend more and more time complying with endless environmental, labor, and accounting regulations. But we reside in a prison built by our own hands, block by block, bar by bar.
When companies violate the social compact with the communities they serve, they get what they deserve. When a football team is struggling the owner fires the coach, not the players. When our elected officials fall short, we replace them with others, rather than fire the whole government. But when managers screw things up through arrogance or negligence, employees and communities suffer the consequences.
Companies, governments, and even not-for-profit organizations are getting awfully top heavy these days. This status quo cannot and will not survive. If opportunistic the free market does not fix the imbalance, creeping socialism will kill the whole darn thing. Let’s hope the free market works.
Syndicated
columnist Gene C. Mage is author of the book Managing for High Performance.
For more information on Nine
trends that will rock your world visit www.makingitwork.com.