The World of Grandpa Don

"Corporate Greed"?

We are hearing that term a lot with Enron, Anderson and now WorldCom. But corporate greed starts with personal greed. It is a group of like minded greedy executives acting in agreement to take a shortcut to wealth and power. Some set out to defraud their own corporations and run with the money. They are the "honest" crooks. By that I mean that they are being honest with themselves and know they are acting illegally. Others rationalize that they are doing it for the company, the owners, and stockholders. They may know their actions are illegal or try to feed their greed by finding every loophole in the law or every creative accounting trick in order to achieve their ends. They may be deceiving themselves as well by telling themselves that everybody does it. 

Last week I wrote about a case of  Gross Selfishness. This is how it starts. Not with the rudeness of that man in the doctor's office, the corporate executive is probably very polite, but with the attitude of  "only I am important and I will get anything I can, or do anything I want because I deserve it". It starts with the little things. It starts with "shortcuts". 

One of the reasons I was comfortable at Kelso-Burnett for over forty years was the the overall honesty of the company. In the construction industry many companies have the reputation of squeezing the most profit possible out of every project. This is done by being ruthless with suppliers, cheating on the quality of materials and construction methods, and even being dishonest in dealing with employees. A great deal of our work, however, was repeat business in industrial plants or continuing relationships with general contractors and we felt that it was better to go out of our way to keep satisfied customers rather than be forced to keep finding new ones. We found that by being fair with our suppliers, they were also fair with us and in difficult times they were willing to help us. We also enjoyed having  many loyal workers who would give extra effort when needed. The company flourished and continues to do so. 

Companies and corporations are the people who run them. As with individuals, greed and dishonesty may seem to work for a while but anything built on deceit will collapse. A business venture must operate on the premise that they provide a product or service that is of value to their customers and is mutually beneficial to customers, suppliers, owners and employees. In this way the entity and it's management are good stewards of the resources of this planet, the gifts of God.

Grandpa Don