Do The Right Thing

I was traveling through Nicaragua last month for a week and was blown away by everything that country has to offer. The city of Granada is the oldest town in all of Central and South America. Beautiful colonial architecture, very safe and bustling with tourist friendly activity. The Mombacho volcano shadows the town that sits on Lake Nicaragua, one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world. Great food and friendly people, lots of nice hotels and restaurants make for a great long weekend getaway (4-5 day stay is perfect).

What struck me most about Nicaragua and its people however was the entrepreneurship. It’s not the same version as we see here in the US - entrepreneurship that stems from determination and adventure in a free society (yes, I believe we still have a free society regardless of the doom and gloom you read in the media). Nicaraguans are relentless entrepreneurs out of necessity and survival. It’s a different genesis but still results in the same hard-nosed, do-or-die imperative that makes entrepreneurs so different from the average Joe. 

What is remarkable to me when I travel around the world is the attitude of the people you meet. Some folks in the US are of the view that we need more life 'balance' and should emulate our European cousins more. Others take a more extreme view that we are better off with our own blend of socialism so everyone is taken care of. On the other end of the spectrum there are hardcore believers in minimal government and every man for himself. And in-between you have a whole range of views from conservative to independent to liberal. 

This is all nonsense. We need to wake up and embrace our roots as a country that was built on hard work, values, and defending our individual rights to pursue happiness. All of this under a system of laws that reward doing the right thing.

In Nicaragua I witnessed hard working people who, while limited in skills and quality, put their family, faith and society ahead of anything else. I don't want to paint a rosy picture, there are serious flaws especially with regards to morality and corruption, but if you are a native Nica caught in the system you have two basic choices: make your way or perish. 

As someone who is privileged to be living in the United States I took a lot of lessons from the week I spent there. Hard work, clarity of goals and family are truly the core elements of wealth. I left Nicaragua determined to seek simplicity in every avenue of life back home. It is easy to complicate things through focusing on the wrong things, getting stuck on issues that have no bearing on your happiness, health or purpose. 

I see this every day with the clients I work with. My client asked me the other day why is it so hard to get people to do the right thing. I asked him what does he mean by 'do the right thing'? The challenge in our world today is that the pace of change is faster than it ever has been in the past.  Companies, and especially their employees, don't handle this well. When you propose a change to employees it takes more than arguing that it’s the right thing. Employees are flawed in that their thought process is as follows:

- Is my job safe?

- Is my power reduced?

- And only then do they think, okay, lets do the right thing.

Some say this is human nature, and while this may be true, it doesn't make it anymore right. When proposing change you have to address this flawed thinking on the part of all affected, but the mistake many companies make is to try to build consensus at the individual level. That’s not going to happen when change brings a shift in someone's position, power or job security.

I was faced with this recently when working with the CEO of a manufacturing company. We found an opportunity to run a simple project on their packaging spend where we believe there is significant savings and improvement opportunity with a broader supply base. These guys don't even have contracts in place. We agreed terms with the CEO and sent the agreement for signature at his request. The CEO didn't want to "force" his team to do the project but strongly encouraged them to go with it. What do you think happened? 

The little purchasing guy who has been responsible for this area felt personally at risk. The resistance and confusion he created was awesome. My personal conclusion is that he is either in bed with his current suppliers or at the very least knows he is exposed for not doing his job the past 10 years. Needless to say the project is stalled and we don't expect that to change. This one guy managed to torpedo a change that would have improved the performance of the company. And the CEO is going to let him get away with it - this is criminal in my view.

This kind of situation happens every day in companies, small and large, as well as in everyday life. We saw the most unbelievable example of this at Penn State with the child abuse situation. Cowards take the easy way out. Doing the right thing is what we have to find our way back to.

Jack Welch once said, "When the pace of change outside the company higher than inside the company, the end is near." I think Jack's words go beyond change. When our people choose not to do the right thing more often than doing the right thing then the end is inevitable.