Kahle Way B2B Sales Blog

The latest unemployment numbers were just released, and they are depressing. National unemployment is over ten percent and my home state of Michigan leads the pack with official unemployment over 15 percent. And, everyone knows that the government numbers reflect the tightest definition of unemployment and that real unemployment is significantly greater than the government’s numbers.

All this in spite of the new administration’s promises to create three million jobs by spending far more than it had, and accumulating government debt that is multiply larger than any previous administration. We may now be the most in-debt country in the history of mankind. 

I see the impact on my clients. In many businesses, sales forces have shrunk from the size they formerly were, personal incomes are down, and principals and executives are afraid to spend money on their future.

Clearly, something isn’t working.

It’s time to take a closer look at the causes of our current malaise, and see if we can’t uncover some lessons that will help us with our personal situation.

Let’s review how we got here. As everyone knows, the direct cause of the recession was the housing bubble and the trillions of dollars of bad debt that developed during the inflation of that bubble. When it all crashed, the debts turned bad, money disappeared. Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs, and countless businesses have contracted.
The most direct, observable cause of the recession was, then, the housing bubble and the bad mortgages that fueled it. 

And that housing bubble was composed of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people who bought houses they couldn’t afford, with mortgages sold to them by commissioned mortgage brokers who were more motivated by the commission than by the solidity of the deal.

But, to focus on that is to look only at the most superficial aspect of the problem – the behavior that caused the problem. It’s like searching for mushrooms in the middle of the forest. The mushroom that you see is just the most superficial expression of the much larger fungus that lives beneath the soil. So, too, the behavior that caused the problem was just the most superficial expression of something far larger that lies beneath the surface. Let’s look underneath the surface, below the behavior, to the emotions, attitudes and beliefs that caused that behavior.

Underlying the bad behavior was an attitude – an attitude that said we were entitled to live beyond our means, to spend more than we had, to accumulate things. The cost of all this? Our integrity. Every mortgage broker who pushed through a spurious deal to make the commission chipped away at our national storehouse of integrity. So did every home buyer who falsified an application and moved into a home he knew he couldn’t afford. So did every congressperson who lobbied the lending agencies to ignore time-tested principles and loan to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back. On and on it goes, with blame enough for countless people, all motivated by the pursuit of things we couldn’t afford.

There’s a word for that: Greed. The Bible has an additional word for it: the spirit of Mammon. That’s the unhealthy pursuit of wealth, power and riches.

Why are we in this recession? Because of a national epidemic of greed. As a nation, we allowed greed to diminish our national store of integrity.

The solution (borrowing trillions of dollars and spending it) is not a solution, but rather, a triple dose of the prescription that got us into this. Instead of just hundreds of thousands of individuals living beyond their means and spending money they don’t have, we’re going to fix that by institutionalizing it. Now, the nation as a whole is living beyond its means and spending more than it has.

No wonder the economy is so sluggish. More of a bad thing doesn’t magically turn into a good thing.

So what does this have to do with you, your job and your business? It’s time we examined our motivations and refocused on those deeper issues that ultimately impact everything we do. Ultimately, our success and prosperity are a function of our character. Character counts. 

If we want to return to a time of prosperity, let’s do it by becoming better people. Let’s work on building integrity into our business dealings and providing real service and value to our customers. 

Let’s live within our means, and not expect the government to transfer the wealth in this nation to our short term benefit. Let’s earn what we get, and not expect anyone to give us anything for nothing.

Integrity trumps the acquisition of more things. Ultimately, the measure of our existence is more deeply impacted by our characters than the things we accumulate. There is nothing wrong with prosperity, as long as it doesn’t come at the cost of our character. 

As individuals, let’s decide to work hard for our employers, to deal with integrity, to be sensitive to the needs of our customers, and to live within our means.

As leaders and business owners, let’s establish a culture of integrity and fair value, and let’s live within our means.

Let’s get back to being people and businesses motivated by a desire to serve, and defined by sound character. When hundreds of thousands of people turn from greed and living beyond their means to focusing on integrity and sound character, we will build a solid foundation for a prosperous economy. ###

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm and is filed under Spirituality in the workplace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.