When Beancounters Rule
Just when you think that corporate stupidity can't get any worse, it does. The recent announcement by retailer Circuit City that they were going to lay off 3,400 higher paid workers so they could replace them with low paid new hires is the quintessential beancounter decision that can ruin companies. Here's a few reasons why:
1. Lack of expertise kills customer service. My past experience with Circuit City was that customer service was poor already, and now they're going to fire their best people. Even worse, they're a technology retailed, where you'd think skill is kind of important. The message to the public and to their employees is that skill and customer service are not important.
2. Employee morale goes in the pits, dragging customer service down even further. The employee is not valued, just a replaceable commodity.
3. The public announcement creates a backlash against the company for being cruel. Why would anyone go there when there's Best Buy, CompUSA, Radio Shack and many other options just down the street?
Watch the bean counters try to pick up sales the only way they know how - by lowering prices. Now with skinny margins and relatively unskilled help they're competing with Wal Mart. What a business plan for a technology company!
In "Science of Getting Rich" Wallace Wattles has a better idea. He says, "Always give more in use value (to your customers) than you take in cash value. Then you are adding to the life of the world with every business transaction. For your employees, you can organize your business so that it will be filled with the possibility of advancement, so that it will be a sort of ladder by which every employee who will take the trouble may climb to riches for themselves. You don't have to beat up anybody in business. And if you are in a business which does beat people up, get out of it at once."
Create an environment of appreciation and value - for both customers and employees. Jack Canfield has commented on a survey which asked "What really motivates employees?" Supervisors said money was #1, employees said "appreciation". Money was actually #5 on the employee's list, while appreciation was #8 on the supervisor's list! As Canfield says, this is a major mismatch. Of sourse, if you're Circuit City, neither money or appreciation are very important.
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The Power of a Vision
One of the most powerful things that we can do to create our success is to have a big dream that really inspires us. If the dream is seemingly impossible, so much the better. But it has to be something that touches us on a deep level, or it'll never happen. Here's an example:
Barrington Irving is a young man who immigrated to Miami from Jamaica at age 6. Growing up in the disadvantaged neighborhoods, he was troubled by the lack of hope that inner city youths had for their future, and he determined to do something about it. As he grew older, he became fascinated with aviation, gained his pilot's license, and got an idea. He decided to inspire his neighborhood kids by showing them what was possible for them by doing the impossible. He decided to become the youngest person, and the first Black, to fly solo around the world!
Of course, he didn't have an airplane and he didn't have the money, but, and here's the key point, he didn't see that as a show-stopper, just something to handle. So he started looking for sponsors. He collected more than 50 rejection letters, but he kept going. (Would you?) When no one would loan or lease him an airplane, he went to companies and asked for parts, then got a local aircraft company to build him the plane out of the parts! (He collected over $300,00 in donated subsystems)
Because he believed in himself and persisted, others began to believe in him, too. The money started to come in. Chevron kicked in aviation fuel for training. And on March 23, he took off on his record making trip. You can get the whole story on his web site
experienceaviation.org
The impossible doesn't happen without persistence. No one persists unless the dream is important enough to them. That's why most people fail in achieving their big goals. There is no real emotional drive behind them and they are quickly abandoned at the first obstacle. So follow your heart instead of your head. Big dreams like Barrington's are usually "crazy and impossible" according to your head, but your heart knows differently. Use your head to plan the strategy and the tasks to get there, but let your heart pick the destination.
Two Thumbs Down
I'm a great fan of films that deal with spiritual issues, expecially those exploring the nature of reality and the power of our minds. I love "What the Bleep?" and "The Secret" and I'm looking forward to seeing "Celestine Prophecy" and "Way of the Peaceful Warrior." So when I had the chance to see "Illusion" I jumped at it.
This movie seemed to have two good things going for it. First, it had Kirk Douglas, in what is billed as his final film appearance. Second, it had a plot that revolved around the power of our decisions to affect our life. However, the end product was quite disappointing.
It wasn't Kirk Douglas' fault. His part was outstanding and his acting was the high point of the film. I was appalled, however, by the message in the script.
Briefly, Douglas plays a rotten SOB movie producer on his death bed, who is visited by a supernatural messenger who shows him movies of his life. The theme is his illegitimate son, who Douglas has refused to acknowledge or have anything to do with. The movies show how the son's life has been on a downhill spiral, with an almost certain tragic ending. Douglas has a change of heart, repents of being an SOB, and causes a last minute intervention that saves the son from his tragic end. Then Douglas dies, happily redeemed.
There are two major problems with this message. First, it says that you can be a rotten SOB for your whole life and then when you're too sick to be rotten anymore you can make a cost free repentence and everything's OK. See, in the movie Douglas never had to do the work that he had been avoiding. He didn't have to get to know his son, spend time with him, get involved in his life, or make amends to him. Somehow in all his rottenness he had earned this visit from the messenger who straightened him out at the last minute, cost free. Now I believe in the grace of God, but is this the message to preach? Be an SOB until the last minute?
But this is not the worst message in the movie.
The way the son was depicted is what really got me riled. The script has the son severely affected by his father's rejection, with serious life purpose and self esteem issues. He drifts from one bad decision to another, steadily downhill and heading for a tragic end. The message of the movie is that the son is powerless to change this path without the father's intervention! They even use this as a promo - "
The only person who could change the story of his life was the father he never knew." He's a victim! He has to be rescued! And that's a pile of crap. This is not "spiritual cinema" this is "anti-spiritual cinema". You can find that same message on Jerry Springer.
A much better movie would have resulted from allowing the son to meet teachers who opened his eyes to his own power over his life. He grows in consiousness, turns his life aound by using the spiritual power he has as a child of God, and determines to meet his father. Meanwhile the father, who is dying, is realizing that he has no one who cares at all for him He is surrounded by paid butt-kissers who are only there for the money. Into this scene walks the son, poised and confident, and forgives the father. Then the father dies. That would be spiritual cinema.
What's our message? Are we victims, or victors? Are we doomed by the effects of other people on us, or are we capable of taking control of our lives? I think you know the way I would vote on that. So don't fall for the illusion in "Illusion." If the writers of this movie had gone back to the original "Illusions", written by Richard Bach, they would have found this quote to give to the son:
"Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them, is up to YOU."
