I recently went out to dinner with a business friend who owns a midsize manufacturing company with just over 50 employees. As he drank a couple of cocktails, he began to express his frustration with his people to me. He claimed to pay them well, provide a comfortable work environment, and offer a respectable benefits package. Still, he wanted his people to be more dedicated and professional in his attitude. He longed for the old days when he had more pride in the workmanship (and you thought I was the last of the complainers). I have known my friend for a long time and I know his management style; he works well with people, and while he insists on organization and structure, he tends to empower his workers to take responsibility rather than micromanage them to death. Frankly, I know a lot of people who would love to work around him, but he still had this problem with employee attitudes and he asked me for my opinion on it.
I told him that what he was experiencing was a simple matter of moral decay. Regardless of the work environment you provided and your interpersonal relationships with your employees, there are other forces at work, namely our eroding value system. I explained the following to illustrate the point:
* It used to be a person’s word was their bond. If she would commit verbally, she could count on it. Today, lying and deceit are common in almost every corner of our society. Consequently, our expectations of honoring a commitment have been reduced and, what is worse, we have lost faith and trust in others.
* We used to have dedicated workers who cared about their work and tenaciously saw a task through to completion. Now, we no longer associate our reputation with the products of our work. This may be because today we have laws that make it difficult to reprimand or fire someone, regardless of their performance. Also, we now suffer from the “99% complete” syndrome whereby we never seem to get anything done with the excuse that, “We’ll get to work.” In other words, determination and pride have been replaced by indifference that erodes production and opens the door to competition.
* We used to respect our bosses and were loyal to our companies. While he was employed by someone, he would bite his tongue and go out of his way to help the company succeed. For example, I knew a loyal Boeing employee who flatly refused to fly anything but a Boeing plane. Today, concepts like corporate loyalty and respect are a thing of the past, as employees no longer trust management and management no longer trusts its workers, all of which leads to an inordinate amount of backstabbing and political maneuvers. It’s no wonder that today’s employees are considered more like free agents than team players.
For me, morality means giving oneself, putting aside one’s own interests for the common good of all. However, if in reality things like honor, courtesy, pride, respect, sacrifice, courage, dedication, commitment, loyalty, honesty, perseverance, integrity and professionalism are adjectives of the past , then we are witnessing the moral decadence of our society. It’s actually quite remarkable that we’ve come this far as a species, but it makes you wonder how far we’d go if we had the moral fortitude to overcome greed, corruption, and other vices. As Samuel Clemens correctly observed, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
Interestingly, American morality seems to change every time we change president from one political party to another. I can’t think of any single event that marks a change in our culture than the passing of the presidential torch. Consider, for example, the social changes that occurred in the transition from Eisenhower to Kennedy, from Carter to Reagan, and from Bush to Clinton. A change in the presidential party signals a change in social norms and moral priorities.
So what can be done about the deterioration of moral values? You’d think our religious institutions would have an important role to play here. Not necessarily. Some go to church simply to be absolved of their sins of the previous week, not to correct any character flaws. After being “cleaned up”, they return to their indiscretions. No, we need to lead by example, reward achievement and actually penalize violations instead of looking the other way. There will always be those who are morally disadvantaged and persist in trying to undermine our value system, but we owe it to ourselves and our posterity to persevere. Our ability to overcome moral corruption defines who we are as a civilization.
Years ago, Arnold Toynbee put it succinctly: “Civilizations die by suicide, not by murder” which means that our social problems are actually self-inflicted. If we can cause the problems, I would like to believe that we are strong enough to solve them, no matter what price we may have to pay. Getting back to my friend’s problem, what’s needed is a little inspiration, hope, self-confidence, a little brotherhood, and a legal system that doesn’t stifle morality, but promotes it. Regardless of the magnitude of the job, from major to minor, workers must believe that they lead an honorable and worthwhile life. There is nothing wrong with ambition, as long as it does not lead to incessant politics. There’s nothing wrong with personal achievement/recognition as long as teamwork doesn’t suffer. There is nothing wrong with criticism, as long as it is constructive, not destructive. Basically we just need some common sense and respect for the human spirit.
So the question comes down to this; Do we still have the strength to do what is morally right? That is a question for each of us to answer and for our heirs to judge.