The Burden of Business
Business organizations carry a terrible burden.
In effect, business is expected to make right what’s wrong in society, including the breakdown of marriages, families, schools, and governments. Business is expected to make the economy healthy, to be competitive, to ensure quality, to supply relevant training and education to all employees, and to have effective structures, systems, and processes. Business is expected to be a productive, ethical, disciplined, and profitable island in a sea of moral and social chaos.
No one knows how heavy the burden is better than business owners and executives. It’s heavy enough to break some very good men and women-especially those who are still operating in hierarchical and bureaucratic organizations because they face both internal and external opposition to getting quality work done, being competitive on a world-class level, and making profit.
Six Ways to Steal
What adds tremendous weight and worry to the already major burden on the back of business is internal waste and division. Well documented is the fact that a house divided cannot stand. One of the primary causes of business failure is internal sabotage in the form of employee theft. Since there are a million ways to steal from an employer, I will mention only six broad categories:
1. Time and talent. This includes everything from arriving late, leaving early, long lunches and liberal breaks to various forms of wasted time and effort on the job. Perhaps more serious than wasted time is wasted talent and prolonged strikes. Of course, employees are not the only ones to blame; many good people work in bad systems and in jobs that simply don’t require the full range of talent.
2. Customers and clients. When it’s “everybody for himself or herself,” then the common ethic is “whatever piece of the business I can handle on the side or take with me when I leave is legitimately mine.” You get all you can from the company while you work there; and in an atmosphere of low trust and layoffs, you may even hope to leave the organization with a few of its customers and clients, perhaps becoming a competitor.
3. Resources and supplies. The resources and supplies of the company become yours to be used as you wish. The idea that the company will “never miss it” may be true in an isolated case, but when multiplied by many thousands of employees, “minor theft” results in a major drain on company resources.
4. Reputation and image. It’s always hard to put a number on the value of the company’s reputation or public image, but major investments are made in public relations and advertising to create and maintain a certain image in the marketplace and to be known for something good. And yet any one person can significantly damage a corporation’s reputation by going public with dirty laundry, spreading gossip and rumors, committing some sort of fraud or crime, or by some incident in his or her private life, such as drunk driving, drug use or spouse abuse.
5. Money and profits. While petty theft is certainly a problem, it pales in comparison to the dramatic drain on company profits caused by law suits, many of them aggressively handled by hungry attorneys who are happy to believe one side of the story and push for their client’s alleged violated rights, playing every advantage card off the bottom of the deck. The enormous waste of time and money devoted to defending such law suits robs companies and their stakeholders of a fair return on investment.
6. Disciplined work. One big lie perpetrated today is the idea that you can separate your personal life from your professional life and that bad habits or addictions or lack of discipline or concentration in your personal life won’t affect your work. It simply doesn’t wash. When the personal side of your life is messy, it will show up in your work.
Six Ways to Ease the Burden
Each employee can ease the burden of business in many ways.
1. Repay employers for benefits. Rather than see benefits as entitlements, see them as investments that deserve returns. When, for example, you receive job-related training, look for ways to apply what you learn to benefit the company.
2. Seek ways to make the company more profitable. Every person can make constructive suggestions. And everyone can act to implement the cost-saving or profit-enhancing ideas of others.
3. When you find ways to add value, seek more resources to leverage your work. Show how the company is benefiting-and how much more bottom-line benefit is possible. Seek additional resources to leverage the win for the company.
4. Be market savvy. Whatever your job, learn all you can about your own internal and external markets. Market awareness and savvy will serve you well. Also, be financially literate.
5. Lead your own life responsibly. Be a model citizen. Take care of your own personal improvement. Come to work each day prepared to perform well.
6. Go beyond what is required. Seek innovation and improvement in company products and services. Network with others to make good things happen. Often the “high end” of your job description is the end most neglected-and that’s where the greatest potential for major contribution lies.
When everyone shares the burden, the heavy burden of business is bearable; in fact, at times it can even feel light.
Tags: business success, ethics, honesty, Leadership Excellence, Personal Excellence, responsibility, values