Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Now I see the communist allegation in action

**update**

After thinking about this post more, my ideas reflect how I felt the night of the presidential debate, but I see many inaccuracies and leaps of logic that I would need to research to be confident in.

I'm worried about the state of the economy in the world. I don't see 0 as a person who can solve our problems as you undoubtedly see clearly in my opinions.

The root of the problem in my opinion, is not corruption in the upper echelon of capitalism's management; but in the very fabric of unchecked materialism in our society. We as a whole careened wildly from basic needs into satisfying unrealistic wants.

And what is happening, in my opinion, is a social correction as much as an economic correction. We are adjusting to a more common and realistic lifestyle.

As my friend Derek researched in the belly of the beast in lower-Manhattan. Things are bad now, and they're going to get a lot worse. Along that line, we need the best and the brightest fully engaged to ease the transition to a more fundamental economy.

Rather than beat down the guys at the top, let's leave them alone so that they can do their job.

**end of update**

During the debate tonight, I heard a comment in 0's opening remarks that sent a stream of dominoes falling in my thoughts and helped me understand the poisonous nature of the communist influence in 0's upbringing.

'We have to hold the big CEOs accountable and in my opinion fire them!'

I'll circle back to my reaction to this comment after I relate the statement to my experience in business.

My job is temporarily difficult. Three levels of management are giving mixed messages for the direction of our writing team. My mission is clear, but only internally because of my values, that I am going to produce world-class information for our customers.

Like any good capitalist, I evaluate my resources, identify the challenges, identify the needs of the consumer, roll up my sleeves and get to work.

Things line up easily in my thoughts until I get to the internal challenges. To get permission and support, how do I reconcile the the mixed messages from three levels of management?

Do I stay loyal to my direct manager? Do I cater to my second line? Or shoot for the moon and trust my third line and work to his constraints?

I don't know. Usually I just follow my inner guide and hope for the best, knowing full well that any task cannot satisfy all three people and I'll get pressure. Maybe even a good business-style whooping. And I think about all of this often. What do I do?

Chaos.

But notice. Where is the customer in this?

I'm too busy fighting internal battles to keep the customer in mind.

How efficient is this?

Luckily in my job, my fourth line manager, the CEO, is someone that I trust. He speaks plainly. He sets a clear vision that I relate to directly. I know exactly how to do my part to satisfy the vision.

In fact, last spring, he stood before the corporation and smiled saying, 'I have done this a couple of times before with similar businesses and we're going to grow the business to 2 billion dollars.'

Trust. How refreshing.

The CEO is very likely independently wealthy and in my opinion he earned every penny during his career. He has charisma, establishes trust, and has a proven track record. He's even transparent and it's easy to see how he is growing the business.

But wait, 0 said that we'll have to fire this guy and certainly people in his cohort. He's obviously doing something very, very bad to me, my family, and my community.

Let's go with the idea that my CEO is fired for a minute, Suppose that he's gone and my third-line manager gets promoted to CEO. When the old CEO is fired, I lose my comfort until my third-line finds his feet as a CEO. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he declines the promotion so that he can focus on what he does well.

So we'll go out into the market to find another charismatic CEO with a strong track record. There are plenty of them who are unemployed after 0 fired them all.

Interesting.

None of them want the job. Because if they succeed, they're going to get fired. If they take the job, the physical, emotional, and intellectual sacrifices that they make will not be rewarded financially because 0 took their financial incentive away, too.

I'll never be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I suspect that the CEO's are taking regular people jobs. They're packing boxes in some non-descript warehouse at the level that 0 wants for everyone.

Where does this leave me? Focusing on endless internal battles and skirmishes while the needs of the customer fade away.

From the Merriam Webster online dictionary:
Communism: a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed

With 0 at the helm, do you see, as I do, how everyone is equal when the CEOs are tucked safely away in the warehouse and we all just work in chaos without leadership?

The poisonous communist influence during 0's upbringing is crystal clear to me after I heard him debate McCain tonight.

Dangerous.

I hope that the majority of Americans see what I see.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I think that the comment was meant to say that the people in charge of the corporations, who are in the know about situations such as Enron or our current economic crisis should be the ones fired and held accountable for the actions that the corporation did while they were in power.

This will not take away incentive to be a powerful CEO, however I do think it will make those who want to be CEO's more aware of the companies wrong doings if they are held accountable.

Tim Somero said...

That's a very good point, and I am unsure exactly what 0 was really trying to say. (That is problematic in itself.) His comment simply set a series of thoughts racing through my head which I shared on my blog.

From other work experience, I have seen CEOs healthy fear of the Sarbanes-Oxley act correct much corporate corruption that led to the Enron scandal.

There is nothing like watching an executive wander around a lab, pale-white, because of the deep realization of the effect of questionable inventory accounting.

The root of our current economic crisis, in my opinion, has nothing to do with capitalism but misguided materialism.

Unknown said...

I'm not certain if I completely understood's O's assertion. But I neither can I say that M has said anything that much different.

Outside the debate. I think both M and P have been saying that they will hold CEO's accountable as well. In fact, a WSJ article I read today said that M was having some difficulty raising funds from CEO's because of his campaign's rhetoric against CEO's. They've told him to tone it down.

I don't doubt that your company's CEO is a good guy. I just think that not all CEO's are good guys or gals.

I would agree that the root of the current crisis is greed and perhaps some arrogance. However, without a axe (I'll avoid the hammer for obvious reasons ;-), to enforce rules & regs, CEO's will do whatever they please. I think that's what got us into this mess.